Creating a New Town Square

McCarthy explains what is not working well with the local newspaper in her small town south of San Francisco and why a citizen journalist Web publication, Coastsider, serves as "a locus for the kind of civic trust and independence on which the idea of journalism, indeed democracy, is based. She points out that most small newspapers are driven by bottomline profit and their version of truth is constantly rebutted for its misrepresentations and insinuations.