Comments on: Point Reyes Light: Appalling hubris of a young editor (OR Take this internship and shove it right up your ass)

By: Dave Mitchell

Dave Mitchell — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 06:35:33 +0000

Point Reyes Light publisher Robert Israel Plotkin this past week told Marin Judge Jack Sutro that competition from the online Bodega Bay Navigator is “damaging or destroying” the newspaper Plotkin bought in November.

Particularly upsetting Plotkin is the fact that I, former Light publisher David Vokes Mitchell, and former Light cartoonist Kathryn LeMieux have been contributing to The Navigator website.

The judge on Friday, Aug. 13, barred me from posting my long-time column, Sparsely Sage and Timely, on the website or further helping its owner Joel Hack in any way until a preliminary injunction hearing in October.

Making his ruling in chambers, the judge rejected arguments that the federal and state constitutions ban prior restraints on publishing, indicating that he was more concerned with protecting Plotkin’s $500,000 investment in The Light.

Plotkin’s court papers claim that Hack “has caused — and will continue to cause unless enjoined — material injuries to [the] plaintiffs [Plotkin and The Light] in damaging or destroying the newspaper.”

In selling The Light to Plotkin for $500,000 and various other forms of compensation, I agreed I would not work for another Marin County newspaper. Plotkin in his court papers claimed that since the Navigator website has started covering more West Marin news, I was violating the non-competition agreement.

Judge Sutro in chambers indicated that the court will need a full hearing to determine if a Sonoma County website can be considered the same as a Marin County newspaper.

The judge’s order also temporarily bars me from further revealing to Navigator owner Hack what Plotkin in his court papers called the “trade secrets” of covering the West Marin sheriff’s log. Ironically, I had noted in a Nov. 6, 2003, column that The Light’s style of Sheriff’s Calls had been copied from The Evergreen (Colorado) Canyon Courier.

The Navigator this summer converted from being a weekly newspaper based in the town of Bodega Bay, Sonoma County, to an Internet website, and it is now planning to print only five special editions a year. For eight years, Navigator Publisher Hack and his wife, attorney Kathie Simmons, have covered the Sonoma County sheriff’s log, and it would seem to me that Joel and Kathie don’t need my coaching to cover a sheriff’s log.

The Navigator’s traditional style of covering the sheriff’s log is slightly different from my traditional style, but so is The Light’s current style. The Light’s Sheriff’s Calls are now being written by Plotkin’s wife Lys, who in a declaration to the court acknowledged she started out using my style but “which I have subsequently altered in practice slightly.”

In his motion for an injunction, Plotkin says that last November, i imparted to him a “very valuable trade secret based on a special relationship with the Point Reyes Station Sheriff’s Office and a particular and complicated methodology for deciphering the Sheriff’s Calls, logs, and records, and transcribing them into the format of the newspaper feature.”

Lys Plotkin, who was also coached by me, further explained, “He showed me how to navigate the complicated abbreviations and penal code citations in the briefing log of the sheriff’s station. The briefing log consists of condensed incident reports using abbreviations, and occasionally require the assistance of a deputy or lieutenant to clarify.”

Responding to their written comments, I told the press after the hearing, “I can’t fathom how I’m imparting trade secrets when I advise reporters to ask deputies when they have questions or when I tell them numbers of various sections of the state penal code.”

Of course, I’m disappointed in Judge Sutro’s issuing a temporary restraining order against the online Navigator, its owner Hack, and me. However, I expect all of us will ultimately prevail in the upcoming hearings.

By: josh

josh — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 02:24:02 +0000

In fact, as I’ve just learned by email, two students from the journalism went to see him about internships. In my defense, in the original post I only said students clamored for a boycott, not that they actually achieved one.

In view of the rather large number of students who were still hungering for internships by that point, I think the defection of only one or two students still makes a statement.

Not as good a statement, though.

By: eric

eric — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 18:44:36 +0000

for the record, josh, at least one student at berkeley’s j-school did, in fact, meet with robert plotkin upon his visit to the j-school. i will not name her, but it should be noted that she even continued corresponding with him via phone following her meeting, as she debated taking the internship. so, as for your claim regarding a boycott of plotkin by the school, just not true.

By: Joel Hack

Joel Hack — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 02:02:26 +0000

Plotkin is the very kind of guy that a corporate predator would hire to take over a prosperous paper like the PRL and turn it into a corporate profit center.
Plotkin attempted to buy my newspaper with a no-compete clause and nearly no money. In difficult financial straits, I considered his offer. I chose inside to develop an online version of the 20 year old local community newspaper that humbly delivers small-town news. Plotkin is trumpeting that he is expanding to Bodega Bay. Amazing, a local paper is part of its community from fundraising for victims of local tragedies to building support for community-wide projects. Local papers also build community discussions on local issues.
Plotkin only takes from the community and adds only Columbia educated interns. The interns return to the Upper West Side at the end of their stint. This guy is one-way in the same way that Wal-Mart is one way.
And he claims to have studied the ethics of journalism. If he did such a study, he is now assidiously avoiding using those same ethics.

By: Ch-infamous » Blog Archive » Not the only ungrateful punk out there

Ch-infamous » Blog Archive » Not the only ungrateful punk out there — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 19:45:10 +0000

[...] Kamenetz’s column is better researched, and probably more thoughtful, than the rant I posted on the same topic a month ago. Curiously, her headline–”Take this Internship and Shove It”–is the same as mine was, minus only the “Right Up Your Ass.” The implication is the same, of course. An “eye for eye” sodomy revenge fantasy that I suppose is as inevitable as it is juvenile. [...]

By: K. LeMieux

K. LeMieux — Tue, 02 May 2006 14:27:55 +0000

Please note that prior to Plotkin’s ownership, The Light traditionally paid interns $125 (and more recently $135) per week if they worked at the paper at least three days a week. In addition, The Light paid for the gasoline they used while driving around on the job. The “famously insolvent” Point Reyes Light throughout in the last half of Cathy’s and Dave’s ownership was in the black; it was in the black all through the 1990s; lost $30,000 in 2004; was operating in the black and was in the black for the year when Robert bought it in November 2005.

By: Susan Hugo

Susan Hugo — Tue, 02 May 2006 13:27:20 +0000

A requirement for buying an independent newspaper is money and ego. It has, and always has been that way. Many years ago, in my naïve beginnings in publishing, I too was wooed into a sense of bravado when asked by a former owner of the Point Reyes Light (not Mitchell) if I was interested in purchasing the paper. I took all the financial information to an established accountant and investment consultant in SF. His response, “take your money and go to Reno, you’ll have better odds.” Employing him was the best investment I ever made. My wallet was obviously not big enough, or maybe my ego wasn’t big enough to ignore that fact.

Having said that, as a former employee of the Point Reyes Light, I can attest to its clout on a resume. So even if Plotkin is an absolute lunatic, which he is proving on a weekly basis, a temporary unpaid position may be worth more than one might think. I, personally, would not work for the man, but I am old enough and have paid my dues enough not to have to. Thank God.