The Sonoma Index-Tribune is a community newspaper published twice a week in Sonoma, California . The newspaper was published by four generations of the same family for 128 years, but is now owned by a group of local media investors.
9-524: The Sonoma Index was founded in 1879 by Benjamin Frank. The newspaper changed ownership about a dozen times in its first five years. It was purchased in 1884 by Harry Granice, who gave the paper its current name and brought stability. Granice published and edited the newspaper until his death in 1915. His eldest daughter, Celeste Granice Murphy, then took control of the paper, purchasing it with her husband Walter Murphy from her father's estate. Celeste Granice
18-709: Is in turn mostly owned by MediaNews Group . The Independent Journal was formed from the merger of the Marin Journal and the San Rafael Daily Independent in 1948. The weekly Journal, one of the state's oldest newspapers, had been established in 1861 as the Marin County Journal. The Journal was published in San Rafael on Saturdays by Jerome A. Barney. The Independent had been started by Harry Granice in 1900 as
27-880: Is now a member of the Hall of Fame of the California Press Foundation. Robert Lynch was born in San Francisco in 1920 and had served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He built the newspaper to 65 employees and expanded the circulation from 2000 to 12,000. He served as president of both the California Newspaper Publishers Association and the California Press Association, and died in 2003. Lynch's sons Bill Lynch and Jim Lynch operated as co-publishers until they retired in 2012 and sold
36-595: Is now owned and operated by a company made up of investment bankers. In 2002, former President George H. W. Bush described "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh as "some misguided Marin County hot-tubber." His comment prompted criticism among readers of the Marin Independent Journal , until Bush sent the paper a letter of apology: Call off the dogs, please. I surrender...I apologize. I am chastened and will never use 'hot tub' and 'Marin county' in
45-469: The annual California News Publishers Association contest awarded 11 awards to The Independent Journal with a second-place award for general excellence. Of these awards, The Independent Journal won second place in the breaking news category for a report of a mudslide in Sausalito in 2019. It won a third-place award for an editorial by Brad Breithaupt and a news photo by Alan Dep. Dep was also awarded
54-625: The newspaper to outside investors. Four generations of the family had operated the Sonoma Index-Tribune for 128 years. The newspaper is now owned by Sonoma Media Investments, LLC. Emily Charrier is the editor and publisher. Official website Marin Independent Journal The Marin Independent Journal is the main newspaper of Marin County, California . The paper is owned by California Newspapers Partnership , which
63-438: The same sentence again. The publisher and president of the Marin Independent Journal is Rob Devincenzi. Previous to this position, Devincenzi was named editor and publisher of several South Bay weekly newspapers. The Independent Journal won two first-place awards, three second-place awards and six "honorable mention" awards in the annual California News Publishers Association Better Newspapers Contest for 2016. In 2020,
72-546: The weekly San Rafael Independent, which became a daily by 1903 under the management of his daughter, Celeste Granice Murphy. The merged paper was originally called the San Rafael Independent-Journal . Gannett acquired the paper from the Brown family in 1980. MediaNews Group acquired the paper from Gannett in 2000. Gannett turned over the newspaper to a partnership headed by Dean Singleton and it
81-559: Was already an experienced newspaper editor, who had built the San Rafael Daily Independent from a weekly to a daily paper. After a merger, that paper became the Marin Independent Journal in 1948, which is still published. The couple ran the Sonoma newspaper with Celeste serving as editor and Walter as business manager until 1949, when they sold it to Celeste's nephew Robert M. Lynch, and retired. Celeste Granice Murphy
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