Point Reyes Light - August 16, 2001
Light dazzles in judging of state’s small weeklies
During a ceremony in Monterey Saturday, The Point Reyes Light received seven awards in the annual judging of the state’s newspapers by the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
No other small weekly in California received more than three awards. In competition with other small weeklies (under 4,300 circulation), The Light won:
• First place in spot news reporting for its account of five murders that a year ago took the lives of Selina Bishop of Woodacre, her mother Jenny Villarin, one of her mother’s friends, and an elderly couple in Concord. The article by news editor Gregory Foley also covered the arrest of three suspects.
• First place in spot news photography for Foley’s picture of a crew scrambling to get themselves and their gear off a salmon trawler after it wrecked at Limantour, badly damaging the hull. The Park Service ultimately decided to have the 46-foot-long boat broken up and hauled away in pieces.
• First place in editorial comment for a column by editor and publisher Dave Mitchell. Headlined Liberating the hell out of West Marin, the column credited the Park Service with preserving nature but criticized it for devastating West Marin’s cultural heritage by destroying some historic buildings while turning others into Disneyland-like facades for institutions. This is helping to convert once self-sufficient small towns into cute stops for tourists, the column argued.
• First in editorial pages for its columns by Mitchell, historian Dewey Livingston, personal essayist Elisabeth Ptak, and Spanish-language columnist Víctor Reyes.
• First place in feature photography for a Point Reyes Family Album photo by Art Rogers. The photo was a portrait of Hicks Valley rancher Bill Barboni and his dog sitting under a tree. Behind them is a buggy hitched to a team of horses.
• First place in classified advertising (for attractive design and easy-to-understand organization). Earning the award were ad director Renée Shannon, classified ad manager Missy Patterson, classified-page designer Sandy Duveen, and production manager Kathleen O’Neill. Last year, the same four earned second place.
• Second place in photo essays for last year’s zucchini-contest portraits of youngsters and their zucchinis. Taking the pictures were Stephen Barrett, Don Schinske, Foley, and Mitchell. First place went to The Twin City Times in Caruthers, Fresno County.
While no other small weekly received half as many awards as The Light., the 49,000-circulation Palo Alto Weekly owned by Embarcadero Publishing Company likewise received seven awards. However, it competed against papers with more than 25,000 circulation.
The only weekly in California to receive eight awards was The Pinnacle in Hollister, San Benito County, which competed in the 11,001-to-25,000-circulation division.
The Pinnacle received nationwide news coverage last year after Hollister City Councilman Joe Felice created an anonymous website to attack publisher Tracie Cone and general manager Ana Marie Dos Remedios for being lesbians. A link on the anonymous site took readers to a lesbian pornographic website when they clicked on Cone’s name. In addition, the anonymous site falsely accused Pinnacle columnist Bob Valenzuela of child molesting. The anonymous website was traced to Felice, who was allegedly upset with the paper’s anti-development philosophy. After being caught, Felice issued an apology and paid $10,000 to settle a lawsuit filed against him. The plaintiffs gave the money to charity.
Other Marin County newspapers receiving awards in the statewide judging were:
The Pacific Sun: 2nd in columns, commentary & criticism; 1st in arts & entertainment coverage; 2nd in lifestyle coverage; 1st in environmental reporting; 2nd in page layout and design. The Sun has a circulation of 46,000 and competed in the 25,001-and-up division.
The Marin Independent Journal: 2nd in non-local spot news; 1st in illustrations & graphics; 2nd in editorial cartooning. With a circulation of 41,000, The IJ competed against other dailies in the 25,001-to-75,000 division.
The Ark in Tiburon: 1st in display advertising. The Ark has a circulation of 3,400 and competed in the small-weekly division.
Since the mid-1970s, The Light, which currently goes to 4,100 households, has often done well when the state’s newspapers were judged. Once before (in 1986), The Light won seven plaques. Several times it won five or six plaques, and in 1985 it won eight.