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When you drive into Point Reyes Station California, the first thing you do is you come down the Main Street. Matter of fact, the only main street. As you drive into town, the first thing you see on the main street, this nice looking blue building. The nice looking

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blue building behind me houses the Point Reyes Light weekly newspaper. You say big deal, You don't say big deal after today. The Point Reyes Light was a beehive of activity. For its owners, David and Catherine Mitchell, it was like a dream. Photographers and reporters from all

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the major Bay Area newspapers flocked to their weekly newspaper. There were calls from NBC, the Washington Post, and many others wanting interviews. The Point Reyes Light comes out once a week and since January of 1977 there have been articles in the paper on the operations of

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Synanon, which is headquartered in Point Reyes. On the investigation into Synanon operations is what the Pulitzer is being awarded. When the paper comes out again this Wednesday, there will be another story about Synanon. David and Catherine Mitchell say there is more

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to report. You know, this is you have a weekly, you got both of you working full time, you have one full time person to take on Synanon. That's that's pretty heavy. It was an exhausting ordeal. Still is because the story is still going on. We're

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much too small to do the story in reality. That we're both trying to not only do the editorial side of the paper, but also the business side and the advertising side and all that. And I'm sure that other stories that we should have covered better suffered

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because it's been so much effort required to keep working on the Synanon story. I think it had to be done. I thought it was a very significant story once we got into it. But I'm sure some of our other news coverage has suffered.

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It's just we're so small that we couldn't, it's not like a large paper where you can assign one person to it. We'd have to do that along with everything else. And it didn't make it any easier. Isn't it rewarding to know that a paper

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the size of yours, a weekly, can win an award like this? One of our readers compared the Synanon story to an onion where you keep peeling away layers and keep finding new things and that's still the way it is. That there's more to happen.

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My hope if anything comes out of this, is that any attention we get is going to have to end up focusing attention on Synanon and problems at Synanon, and hopefully government agencies that have been a little slow to act may feel a little more

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pressure to get out and start doing their job. We said editorial that that a lot of government agencies have not been doing their job on enforcing existing laws in terms of Synanon. And hopefully this will do something about that. I imagine you've had a lot of threats

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on your life. Synanon has gone out of its way to treat us like gnats. We're only 2700 circulation and Synanon will not return our phone calls. Other news media are being sued for their coverage. We don't even receive demands for retractions. They try to

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ignore us as much as possible. In other words, they think that you're just so small, it doesn't even matter. Won't that change now. I hope not, but it probably will. So far we have been so small it hasn't mattered. But it mattered in the fact

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that newspapers, television stations, radio stations are in essence following you. They pick up your paper to read and find out because you've uncovered the majority of these things. That's true. A lot of news media do read us. In many cases there are very good reporters,

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very capable of doing good stories and having a hard time convincing management that it's worth all the trouble to investigate Synanon. When you decide to investigate Synanon, you're agreeing to take on an awful lot of harassment. And there's a fair number of newspapers that

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just aren't willing to do that. If we had any sense, we wouldn't do it either. What are some of the things you've uncovered just namely with the story. Probably the beating of Thomas Cardineau, an ex member. We broke the Phil Ritter beating in Berkeley.

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We broke the story of attorney Howard Garfield who was at the top of the corporation, quitting and disillusionment. We broke the story of Synanon's overseas bank accounts. So it's been quite a range of stories. Synanon giving away money to members through lotteries, that

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sort of thing. I guess you know that the Point Reyes Light won the Pulitzer prize. I just heard from my daughter's friend, I'm not a resident of California. I asked her what you were doing there and she told me why you were photographing

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that building. Lights won the Pulitzer, what do you think about that? Won the what? The Pulitzer Prize. Oh yeah, it's pretty good. What do you think it does for the town and the newspaper? It's gonna bring a lot of publicity I guess. Think it's good? Yeah. For businesses and

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things would be pretty good. I guess some of the people you know like to keep it small. I don't know. Maybe get real big but I don't think it'll get too big. I guess you know your newspaper... I guess you must be pretty proud to be living in a

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town with a local paper that won a Pulitzer Prize. We certainly are proud to be in a town that won such a prestigious award. It's kind of nice to be having around. You don't know that much about it but it's kind of surprised really not knowing

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that much about it. Nice to know that people all over the country are recognizing that in this small community like this, you have a a newspaper of that statue. Yeah, it's kind of in some ways it's nice in other ways it's not because it's gonna bring

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a lot of tourists probably in here and it's gonna make our hard job during the summertime. I guess you know that your newspaper, your town wanting your newspaper winning such a big award. That must be pretty proud. Huh? Yeah, it's neat. It's a little town

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and everything. You've got a lot of, you know. Yes, it is. I say it's just a signal achievement to be, when you get an award that is given to you on a judgment by your peers. I think you've sort of succeeded. That's about as much as

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I could say really. The top journalism for the for the best stories and it was mainly about Synanon and stuff. I didn't even know about it. I heard about it last night. When you guys kept saying they won the they won the. For everybody that ever owned the Bay Wood Press

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including the founder. I mean the Point Reyes Light used to be the Bay Wood Press. So I don't know whether I'm important in this story or not, but it's true. What do you think of winning this award? Prize? Your newspaper here must be pretty proud.

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Huh? Yeah. It's really nice. It's amazing and small one like that in a small community gets national recognition. It's very good. I mean, of course everybody knows it for Synanon, but a lot of people are telling me that it's very, you know, the community here really

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depends on, not depends on the paper, but they get all of their information from it. I mean it's really read. Yeah, I think about everybody in the vicinity takes it. For the town folk, the 2700 subscribers of the point Reyes Light. Well, they feel that the

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rest of the world is just finding out what they've known for a long time. They got a mighty fine paper. As far as the Pulitzer Prize, the whole town's talking. The village of Point Reyes Station, like many other rural communities has changed in recent years. Some

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say for the worse. Young people from the so-called counterculture have come here and their relations with older, more conservative townspeople aren't always harmonious. That's the kind of story a local newspaper is obliged to cover. The biggest controversy is a conflict of lifestyles and you see

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aspects of it in several things. For example, a couple of weeks ago we ran a story on squatters down at White House pool. It's a wide spot in a creek a couple of about a mile and a half out of town, and we got a tremendous

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reaction. People thought it was it was terrible. The squatters were there. Other people felt that it was the poor squatters were again, one more case of the poor being abused by the establishment. And the police or the Sheriff's office actually came in and asked them to

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leave. Throughout rural America in villages like Point Reyes, the small newspaper is a dying breed, the victim of increased competition for the advertising dollar. And with each closure, something important is lost. The community loses its main public forum and the most vital voice in chronicling the

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daily doings of the townspeople is silenced. For Dave and Kathy Mitchell, The next few months will bring the biggest challenge of their lives. Six weeks ago, they quit their jobs at a Sonoma County newspaper, sold their home, and, scraping together all their money, they bought the

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weekly newspaper at Point Reyes. The Point Reyes Light. Dave and Kathy Mitchell think they can make a go of the newspaper despite their modest budget. To save money they've set up their living quarters in a back room at the newspaper and they managed to get the

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paper out with the help of only a handful of young part time employees. Gay-Ann Lathrop heads the one woman classified department in addition to handling the reception desk. Okay, thank you, Ed. Where are you calling from? Okay, let me just add you to the list.

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Is that okay? Yeah, we still have to get the paper out. That's the problem. We're past deadline already. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. I'll pass that on, Ed. Thank you. Bye. Celeste Wu is a part-time typist, part-time post office employee who sells T-shirts

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on the side. She's operating a computerized typewriter that's taking the place of the old Linotype machine. The vintage Linotype's cumbersome and cranky machines are giving way to modern technology, even at small newspapers like the Point Reyes Light. Within hours, Celeste can turn out all the

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copy for the 12 page newspaper, which is sent to Sonoma for printing. Marianne Hull is a part time reporter covering events in nearby Bolinas. Her regular beats include the utility district, schools, planning groups, as well as some feature writing. They put up with a lot on

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this one. Oh, that's very nice. I've been on newspapers all over so we, they should have more than... Hi, this is Cathy Mitchell. Could I talk to you? Uh huh. It's true. I hadn't heard that

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they said that. Well, let me see what's happening And I just got, it looks like on that line and you very much again. Hang on. Okay. What? This is Dave Mitchell. Alright. Hello. I almost cut you off. Are you there? Yeah. Mick Heller covers high

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school sports, checks on fires, delivers papers. This in addition to his main job of pulling weeds as a part time gardener. When you run a weekly newspaper that has a circulation of only 8000, you find that you personally know most of your readers and many of

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them turn out to be your best news sources. That's wonderful. Hey, well here since you played such a major role in this, what is the name of your son? Son in law. And for a column, was it? Another controversy generated by conflicting lifestyles concerns nude sunbathing at

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Bolinas beach. The newspaper is seeking to be a voice of moderation. We have, for example, on the question of a nude beach in Bolinas, we've tried to suggest a common ground that they could, that both sides could meet on and possibly both sides could feel they're

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being less and less threatened by by the other. In that case, we haven't suggest that if the county goes ahead with what it's talking about now, designating one beach as acceptable for nude sunbathing, they go ahead and do it and have some private enterprise such

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as a responsible nudist organization patrol the thing and get it out of the hands of having police having to march up and down the beach keeping order. But there's more to running a newspaper than just covering controversy more to it than reporting on what the board

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of supervisors or a zoning commission did or didn't do. A paper, especially a small town weekly needs to cover more than the hard news about weekend traffic problems, upcoming local elections, and whose place just got burglarized. There has to be a place for the so called

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soft news: items that can be a personal benefit to readers. Kathy, for example, has a gourmet column which is not what the chef of the leading hotels might be doing. But what are recipes that are particular to this area? One of the important things about small town

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journalism is that every one of your readers should have his name in the paper sometime in the year and so you have to spend time and that's where the lifestyle comes in. Various people's recipes or, birthday parties isn't a good example, but other the light news

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of what people are doing. You have to have that in the paper. It can't all be sewers. It's too early to speculate on what the future holds for the Point Reyes Light. Too soon to know if the paper can survive the financial uncertainties posed by

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an unstable economy. But for Dave Mitchell, the paper's owner, publisher, editor, columnist, photographer, chief reporter, and newspaper delivery boy, even a modest income should keep the paper going. He has no illusions about monetary rewards for him. The main reward is the work itself. Phil Wilson for

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News Watch Special Report. What I'm calling about is tomorrow. ABC National News is gonna come with us to get the paper printed and take pictures of it coming off the trip.