David V. Mitchell
Encyclopedia
David V. Mitchell is a retired editor and publisher of an American small-town newspaper, The Point Reyes Light
. In 1979, while he and his former wife Cathy Casto Mitchell together published The Light, the paper became one of the few weekly newspapers to ever win a Pulitzer Prize
.
, to Herbert Houston Mitchell (1902–1984) and Edith Vokes Mitchell (1906–1975). Herbert Mitchell was vice president and a minority partner in the San Francisco printing company Kennedy-ten Bosch. Mitchell’s mother, whose maiden name was Edith Alfred Vokes, was an immigrant from Canada
. Both his parents were Christian scientists, and his mother for several years sold advertising for The Christian Science Monitor
.
When Mitchell, an only child, was three, the family moved to Berkeley
, where he attended Berkeley High School
. He spent his last three semesters in St. Louis, where he graduated in 1961 from Principia Upper School.
In 1965, Mitchell earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford University
where his father had graduated in 1924. While still an undergraduate, Mitchell married Linda Foor in 1965, but the marriage lasted only a year. In 1967, Mitchell received a master’s degree in Communications from Stanford.
After teaching a semester at Marvel Academy in Rye, New York, Mitchell left in December 1967 to marry Catherine “Cathy” Casto, whom he had met in graduate school. The couple relocated to Leesburg, Florida
, where he taught Speech and Literature at Leesburg. Leesburg in the spring of 1968 was still segregated, and Mitchell joined efforts to register black voters.
From September 1968 to June 1970, Mitchell taught English, world literature, and journalism at Upper Iowa College in Fayette, Iowa
. He also was the faculty advisor to the student newspaper, The Collegian, and the black student union, The Brotherhood.
From June to December 1970, Mitchell was the city hall reporter for the daily newspaper in Council Bluffs, Iowa
, The Nonpareil. From 1971 to 1973, Mitchell covered Tuolumne County government for the daily newspaper in Sonora, California
, The Union Democrat. From 1973 to 1975, Mitchell edited the weekly Sebastopol Times in Sonoma County, California
, and his wife Cathy was the paper’s feature editor.
, which was headquartered in the nearby town of Marshall, in early 1978 as violent incidents involving its followers began coming to the newspaper’s attention. At the height of its violence, Synanon members on October 10, 1978, tried to kill Los Angeles attorney Paul Morantz by planting a rattlesnake in his mailbox. Morantz survived being bitten, and in an October 19, 1978, article, Mitchell revealed that Synanon founder Charles Dederich had been calling for an attack on Morantz, who three weeks earlier had won a $300,000 judgment against the cult. Dederich and followers Lance Kenton and Joe Musico were arrested and in July 1980 pled no contest to charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
An unnamed member of the Pulitzer board told Los Angeles Times reporter David Shaw, “The job that couple [the Mitchells] did was damn good, but the guts they showed with Synanon just a few miles down the road… That’s what the Pulitzers are all about, that’s what won the award.”
Working with his wife and University of California at Berkeley sociologist Richard Ofshe
(an unpaid consultant for the Synanon investigation), Mitchell subsequently wrote The Light on Synanon: How a Country Weekly Exposed a Corporate Cult and won the Pulitzer Prize
. The book was published in 1980 by Seaview Books, then a wholly owned division of Playboy, and was made into a two-hour movie for CBS, Attack on Fear.
Lawyers for Synanon responded to the exposé by filing six libel suits against the Mitchells. The Mitchells received a pro bono defense from Heller Ehrman White and McAuliffe, which in representing them won a significant victory for the state’s press. In its 1984 decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that reporters could often keep confidential sources secret in libel and other civil cases without forfeiting their defense.
The cult settled the litigation it had instigated by paying the Mitchells $100,000, and Mitchell published a photo of the check on The Light’s front page.
David Mitchell spent two years reporting for the then-Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner. In 1982, The Examiner sent Mitchell to Central America for three months as part of a news team reporting on upheaval in the region. Mitchell was assigned to the insurrections in El Salvador
and Guatemala
.
In 1983, Mitchell, working as a freelancer for The Examiner, returned to Central America during his vacation with his fiancée Cynthia Clark serving as his translator. In El Salvador, Mitchell and Clark observed cooperation between government phone workers and guerrillas, and they were caught in a firefight between guerrillas and government forces.
On December 31, 1983, Mitchell reacquired The Point Reyes Light through a default action against Rosalie Laird. He and Clark were married in June 1984. Mitchell and Clark separated in 1995 and subsequently divorced.
During Mitchell’s 27 years of publishing The Point Reyes Light, the small paper won 108 state, regional, and national journalism awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize. In a July 4, 1989, report on the US First Amendment
, Germany’s ARD network reported, “America’s small newspapers top the list of things US citizens can take pride in, and among America’s best small papers is The Point Reyes Light.”
In November 2005, Mitchell sold the weekly to Robert Israel Plotkin of Bolinas, California
.
In January 2008, the two men announced they had reached an out-of-court settlement to all their litigation. Both said they were happy with the agreement but had agreed to keep details private.
Mitchell, 65, is retired and lives in Point Reyes Station, a rural town of 750 people 40 miles north of San Francisco. He spends much of his time on wildlife photography and on commentaries about the small towns of his area, which he publishes on his blog.
The Point Reyes Light
The Point Reyes Light is a weekly newspaper published since 1948 in western Marin County, California. The Light gained national attention in 1979 due to its reporting on a cult, Synanon, and the Pulitzer Prize awarded to the paper for this coverage...
. In 1979, while he and his former wife Cathy Casto Mitchell together published The Light, the paper became one of the few weekly newspapers to ever win a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
.
Life
Mitchell was born in San Francisco, CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, to Herbert Houston Mitchell (1902–1984) and Edith Vokes Mitchell (1906–1975). Herbert Mitchell was vice president and a minority partner in the San Francisco printing company Kennedy-ten Bosch. Mitchell’s mother, whose maiden name was Edith Alfred Vokes, was an immigrant from Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Both his parents were Christian scientists, and his mother for several years sold advertising for The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor
The Christian Science Monitor is an international newspaper published daily online, Monday to Friday, and weekly in print. It was started in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. As of 2009, the print circulation was 67,703.The CSM is a newspaper that covers...
.
When Mitchell, an only child, was three, the family moved to Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, where he attended Berkeley High School
Berkeley High School
Berkeley High School refers to the following high schools:* Berkeley High School * Berkeley High School * Berkeley High School...
. He spent his last three semesters in St. Louis, where he graduated in 1961 from Principia Upper School.
In 1965, Mitchell earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
where his father had graduated in 1924. While still an undergraduate, Mitchell married Linda Foor in 1965, but the marriage lasted only a year. In 1967, Mitchell received a master’s degree in Communications from Stanford.
After teaching a semester at Marvel Academy in Rye, New York, Mitchell left in December 1967 to marry Catherine “Cathy” Casto, whom he had met in graduate school. The couple relocated to Leesburg, Florida
Leesburg, Florida
Leesburg is a city in Lake County, Florida, United States. The population was 15,956 at the 2000 census. As of 2005, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 19,086.. Leesburg is located in central Florida, between Lake Harris and Lake Griffin, at the head of the Oklawaha River system....
, where he taught Speech and Literature at Leesburg. Leesburg in the spring of 1968 was still segregated, and Mitchell joined efforts to register black voters.
From September 1968 to June 1970, Mitchell taught English, world literature, and journalism at Upper Iowa College in Fayette, Iowa
Fayette, Iowa
Fayette is a city in Fayette County, Iowa, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 1,300. It was named after the Marquis de la Fayette, French hero of the American Revolutionary War. Fayette is the home of Upper Iowa University, a small private college...
. He also was the faculty advisor to the student newspaper, The Collegian, and the black student union, The Brotherhood.
From June to December 1970, Mitchell was the city hall reporter for the daily newspaper in Council Bluffs, Iowa
Council Bluffs, Iowa
Council Bluffs, known until 1852 as Kanesville, Iowathe historic starting point of the Mormon Trail and eventual northernmost anchor town of the other emigrant trailsis a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States and is on the east bank of the Missouri River across...
, The Nonpareil. From 1971 to 1973, Mitchell covered Tuolumne County government for the daily newspaper in Sonora, California
Sonora, California
Sonora is the county seat of Tuolumne County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 4,903, up from 4,423 at the 2000 census. Sonora is the only incorporated community in Tuolumne County.-Geography:...
, The Union Democrat. From 1973 to 1975, Mitchell edited the weekly Sebastopol Times in Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County, located on the northern coast of the U.S. state of California, is the largest and northernmost of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. Its population at the 2010 census was 483,878. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa....
, and his wife Cathy was the paper’s feature editor.
The Point Reyes Light
The couple bought The Point Reyes Light in August 1975 and together owned it for six years. In 1979, The Light won the Meritorious Public Service gold medal for an exposé of Synanon Incorporated, a onetime drug-rehabilitation program that changed its name to the Church of Synanon and evolved into a violent cult. The Light began reporting on SynanonSynanon
The Synanon organization, initially a drug rehabilitation program, was founded by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich, Sr., in 1958, in Santa Monica, California, United States...
, which was headquartered in the nearby town of Marshall, in early 1978 as violent incidents involving its followers began coming to the newspaper’s attention. At the height of its violence, Synanon members on October 10, 1978, tried to kill Los Angeles attorney Paul Morantz by planting a rattlesnake in his mailbox. Morantz survived being bitten, and in an October 19, 1978, article, Mitchell revealed that Synanon founder Charles Dederich had been calling for an attack on Morantz, who three weeks earlier had won a $300,000 judgment against the cult. Dederich and followers Lance Kenton and Joe Musico were arrested and in July 1980 pled no contest to charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
An unnamed member of the Pulitzer board told Los Angeles Times reporter David Shaw, “The job that couple [the Mitchells] did was damn good, but the guts they showed with Synanon just a few miles down the road… That’s what the Pulitzers are all about, that’s what won the award.”
Working with his wife and University of California at Berkeley sociologist Richard Ofshe
Richard Ofshe
Richard Ofshe is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the advisory board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation advocacy organization, and is known for his expert testimony relating to coercion in small groups, confessions, and...
(an unpaid consultant for the Synanon investigation), Mitchell subsequently wrote The Light on Synanon: How a Country Weekly Exposed a Corporate Cult and won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
. The book was published in 1980 by Seaview Books, then a wholly owned division of Playboy, and was made into a two-hour movie for CBS, Attack on Fear.
Lawyers for Synanon responded to the exposé by filing six libel suits against the Mitchells. The Mitchells received a pro bono defense from Heller Ehrman White and McAuliffe, which in representing them won a significant victory for the state’s press. In its 1984 decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that reporters could often keep confidential sources secret in libel and other civil cases without forfeiting their defense.
The cult settled the litigation it had instigated by paying the Mitchells $100,000, and Mitchell published a photo of the check on The Light’s front page.
Post-Pulitzer Prize
David and Cathy Mitchell divorced in 1981, selling The Light to Rosalie Laird and her short-term partner Ace Ramos.David Mitchell spent two years reporting for the then-Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner. In 1982, The Examiner sent Mitchell to Central America for three months as part of a news team reporting on upheaval in the region. Mitchell was assigned to the insurrections in El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
and Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
.
In 1983, Mitchell, working as a freelancer for The Examiner, returned to Central America during his vacation with his fiancée Cynthia Clark serving as his translator. In El Salvador, Mitchell and Clark observed cooperation between government phone workers and guerrillas, and they were caught in a firefight between guerrillas and government forces.
On December 31, 1983, Mitchell reacquired The Point Reyes Light through a default action against Rosalie Laird. He and Clark were married in June 1984. Mitchell and Clark separated in 1995 and subsequently divorced.
During Mitchell’s 27 years of publishing The Point Reyes Light, the small paper won 108 state, regional, and national journalism awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize. In a July 4, 1989, report on the US First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
, Germany’s ARD network reported, “America’s small newspapers top the list of things US citizens can take pride in, and among America’s best small papers is The Point Reyes Light.”
In November 2005, Mitchell sold the weekly to Robert Israel Plotkin of Bolinas, California
Bolinas, California
Bolinas formerly Juggville is a coastal unincorporated community in Marin County, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bolinas is located west-southwest of San Rafael, at an elevation of 36 feet...
.
Post sale of The Light
After the sale, Mitchell initially worked as a consultant to The Light, but he and Plotkin soon got into litigation with each other over a variety of issues. The dispute began with Plotkin in February 2006 accusing Mitchell of attacking him in front of The Light’s office. Mitchell was not charged with any wrongdoing and on his blog cited statements the witnesses had made to Marin County sheriff’s deputies. All said that neither man had been violent but had merely shouted at each other. In court filings Mitchell claimed that what was at issue was that Plotkin was trying to break the consulting contract.In January 2008, the two men announced they had reached an out-of-court settlement to all their litigation. Both said they were happy with the agreement but had agreed to keep details private.
Mitchell, 65, is retired and lives in Point Reyes Station, a rural town of 750 people 40 miles north of San Francisco. He spends much of his time on wildlife photography and on commentaries about the small towns of his area, which he publishes on his blog.
Books
- The Light on Synanon: How a Country Weekly Exposed a Corporate Cult and Won the Pulitzer Prize Seaview Books, 1980. ISBN 0872237613
- Pulitzer’s Gold: Behind the Prize for Public Service Journalism University of Missouri PressUniversity of Missouri PressThe University of Missouri Press is a university press founded in 1958 at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.-External links:*...
, 2007. ISBN 0826217680