'Fish out of water' publisher sells the Point Reyes Light in rural Marin County, California

A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper purchased by the self-annointed "Che Guevara of literary revolutionary journalism," has been sold. The Point Reyes Light in rural Marin County, Calif., has been sold to a group of journalists, educators and community leaders by former Monterey County prosecutor Robert Plotkin, reports Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle. Plotkin, who purchased the newspaper in 2005, sold the paper for considerably less than the $500,000 he paid for it, according to several sources involved in the negotiations. Fimrite reports that the sale was financed by $350,000 in donations from 75 people, including San Francisco media financier Warren Hellman and descendents of the family that once owned The San Francisco Chronicle.

The Rural Blog reported on the newspaper during Plotkin's tenure to illustrate how important community journalism can be and how it can go wrong. Plotkin had several public disagreements with David Mitchell, who owned the paper from 1975 to 2005. Early in Plotkin's ownership, he decided to stop running all the letters submitted to the editor, unlike Mitchell. In Plotkin's parting comments, he said of his potential readership, "They wanted a newspaper that would record their births, celebrate their accomplishments and habitually congratulate them on living here."

The current ownership is a "low-profit limited liability company," known as an L3C. It will be operated like a business, with much of the revenue coming from advertising, but the profits will be invested in what Mark Dowie, chairman of the editorial advisory committee for the ownership group, Marin Media Institute, called "village journalism." (Read more)