In August, after 50 uninterrupted years as a thrice-weekly publication, the Bolinas Hearsay News paused the presses. A notice to readers said its editors needed a vacation—and to reassess the way they operated.
The Hearsay, long the unvarnished voice of Bolinas, had devolved in recent months into a battleground for a bitter feud between residents divided over the Israel-Hamas war. For the publishers, the acrimony had turned fundamental publishing tenets topsy-turvy.
When the paper…