By Steven T. Jones
Why is the Chronicle having such a hard time understanding this Critical Mass incident? In my televised discussion with four Chron reporters last night (City Desk NewsHour, Comcast Ch. 11, replaying tonight at 8:30 and Saturday and Sunday nights as well…sorry, not Internet availability) and in today’s Chron story, they just can’t seem to grasp the meaning of one key fact or smell-test their original version of the story. Here’s the key fact, from today’s story: “After finding herself in the middle of the ride, she said, she nervously made her way through the bicyclists, carefully watching them.” Translation: she used her SUV to nudge her way through a group of bikes. That’s not legal, it’s not safe, and it’s why the bicyclists became upset. Hell, she even admits that her car made contact with a bike, and still she kept driving.
2nd Anniversary flyer illustration by Jim Swanson
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Politics Blog
Final word
Free Josh Wolf from the Media spin
by Sarah Phelan
“What will everyone do now?” asked a fellow Guardian-ista, when freelance videojournalist and blogger Josh Wolf was released. She was referring to those who fought to get Wolf freed after the feds locked him up last summer. Don’t worry, I thought, the war over why Josh Wolf has been freed is about to begin.
Sure enough, war broke out that afternoon.
With Wolf set to speak on the steps of San Francisco City Hall on April 3, after 226 days inside, everyone was asking “So, what’s changed?” Had Wolf, tiring of prison food, thrown in the towel and told the feds everything they always wanted to know about anarchists? Or had the feds, weary of the fired US Attorney General scandal, decided it was time to score Brownie points in Nancy Pelosi’s home town by letting Wolf go, no questions asked?
Sup. Tom Ammiano, fresh from Giants opening game told the crowd, “Josh Wolf did what the Giants failed to do today: he hit a home run!”
Feinstein Resigns
by Amanda Witherell
Looks like Senator Dianne Feinstein has stepped down from her seat on the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, where she’s spent the last six years as chairperson and ranking member.
While serving on that committee, which is tasked with reviewing and supervising federal military contracts, her hubby Richard Blum was making millions of dollars on the same deals his wife was overseeing.
No statement or press release yet from Feinstein on why she quit, and the right-wing bloggers are going nutty for an investigation, perhaps to vindicate their champ, Dick Cheney, who made a pretty penny with Halliburton. What can we say: greed is a universal human ailment and war profiteering is certainly a non-partisan sport.
Demonizing bicyclists
By Steven T. Jones
Despite finally getting the bicyclists’ perspective into today’s story, the Chronicle continues its misleading and irresponsible effort to demonize Critical Mass and bicyclists in general. And the result has been dozens of angry and menacing online posts by overentitled car drivers who threaten the lives of those opting for a more environmentally friendly transportation option.
Unlike the more reasonable Examiner account, the Chronicle seems to have lost all sense of proportion, with its reporters trying to push Mayor Gavin Newsom (who was also fairly measured in his reaction) into cracking down on Critical Mass. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I sought a reaction from the Chron’s Andy Ross, which I’ve now received and am posting below followed by more discussion.
Leno and Ma Scrutinize Alcatraz
by Amanda Witherell
Did poo get washed into the bay or not? Mark Leno and Fiona Ma really want to know. They’ve written another letter to the National Park Service’s Superintendent, Brian O’Neill, calling for an independent investigation, and essentially telling him his excuses and explanations hold no water.
Back in January, the two California State assembly members asked O’Neill to look into allegations that a sewage holding tank on Alcatraz Island overflowed and was hosed into the bay rather than wiped up properly.
O’Neill wrote back that an internal investigation had been done and all claims were false — except according to our elected officials, his evidence doesn’t support his claims. In addition, one of the whistleblowers who saw the spill, a National Parks Conservancy employer named Dan Cooke, has been fired, apparently for speaking up.
Did Critical Mass really go crazy?
By Steven T. Jones
The Chronicle’s Matier & Ross would have us believe that Critical Mass riders went nuts on Friday and started attacking a poor innocent family. I was on the ride and know how ridiculous that story was so I wrote Andy Ross (a colleague of mine on the City Desk NewsHour cable television program) the following e-mail. I’ll let you know how he responds.
Compromising position
By Steven T. Jones
With the Healthy Saturdays measure headed for an April 9 hearing by the Board of Supervisors’ Land Use and Economic Development Committee, Mayor Gavin Newsom has decided to step in and try to broker a compromise. Mediating between the two sides will be his chief of staff and former labor negotiator Phil Ginsburg, who has asked Sup. Jake McGoldrick to delay the committee vote by a week to accommodate his planned vacation. McGoldrick agreed. Newsom had signaled his plans to veto the measure, which would close some Golden Gate Park roads to cars on Saturdays as well as Sundays, but swing vote Sup. Bevan Dufty might be willing to override the veto this year. Advocates on both sides had called for Newsom to get involved to avoid another fight at the ballot box — where whoever loses was likely to try to take it. Some fear this is just a last minute stall tactic by a mayor who expects consensus on an inherently polarizing proposal. But press secretary Nathan Ballard said that’s not the case, telling the Guardian: “The Mayor has asked Phil Ginsburg to try to broker a compromise in this matter. He has already had productive meetings with both sides. We’ve asked
Supervisor McGoldrick to delay the final committee vote until the negotiations are complete. The Mayor is cautiously optimistic that the parties will be able to reach a good result.”
SPANKING THE PRESS: Matt Taibbi and turd-tossing apes at the New York Post
By G.W. Schulz
The absolute best (and darkest) moments in Rolling Stone contributor Matt Taibbi’s book on the 2004 presidential election are not when he attacks the contemptible political antics of the candidates themselves, but when he savagely launches mortar shells at the national press corps trailing along on the campaign planes.
His most memorable direct hit is leveled at the New York Post and its election coverage under the weighty tutelage of media mogul Rupert Murdoch in a single, brilliant paragraph:
“It’s always a little surprising to remember that the New York Post has a ‘Washington bureau chief’ filing ostensibly factual stories from the Hill about the movements of the president and other real, breathing government officials. The effect of reading these touchingly earnest impersonations of credible journalism is a little like watching Koko the gorilla play with a kitten or punch the ‘buttons’ on a toy telephone. My God, you think. It’s so human! But sooner or later Koko plugs her ears with her own turds again, and she’s back to being just another loveable ape.”
Our illustrious executive editor, Tim Redmond, may actually dislike our praise of Taibbi’s ferocious Post critique. Long-time Guardian readers familiar with the paper’s old design know Tim adores the Post’s screaming banner headlines and splashed them similarly across the Guardian’s former front-page template for years without shame.
Healthy Saturdays gaining ground
By Steven T. Jones
Environmentalists and alternative transportation activists are winning some key endorsements in the run up to next month’s second annual Healthy Saturdays showdown. Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Golden Gate Park road closure to cars last year and doesn’t seem interested is pushing for a compromise on a measure he criticizes as too polarizing (ironically, his detachment from the issue is precisely what’s feeding the polarization). But last year’s swing vote on overrriding the veto, Sup. Bevan Dufty, has indicated an openness to supporting it this year. And that became all the more likely last night when the San Francisco Democratic Party County Central Committee (DCCC) endorsed the measure. They join other key Dufty allies in endorsing the measure, including the Harvey Milk Democratic Club and Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, as well as the Young Democrats club and both Senate contenders: Mark Leno and Carole Migden. The first committee hearing on the measure is April 9.
MediaNews exec bails
By G.W. Schulz
Just caught up with the scoop that young MediaNews executive Eric J. Grilly has resigned from the company to take over online operations for Philadelphia’s two largest newspapers. The papers were purchased by a group of investors calling themselves Philadelphia Media Holdings last year for well over half-a-billion dollars from the Sacramento-based McClatchy Company.
Grilly made good money at MediaNews and it’s difficult to imagine that his $350,000 annual salary could be topped to run some Web sites, but maybe he was simply looking for fresh air and, you know, esteem. As far as journalistic reputation goes, the Philadelphia Inquirer, included in last year’s purchases, had a stellar reputation for tough investigations under Knight-Ridder, though it did suffer layoffs and bleeding.
Grilly became a MediaNews exec first in 2000 and only just last year ascended to the post of MediaNews senior vice president. His dad retired from a MediaNews corner office around the same time.
Canadians politely begin invasion of Bay Area
By G.W. Schulz
Word arrived today that Transcontinental, the Canadian company hired by the San Francisco Chronicle to build a shiny, new billion-dollar press, has been scouting locations in the East Bay city of Fremont for the facility. The Chronicle signed a 15-year outsourcing contract with Transcontinental, which also publishes La Presse, the Globe and Mail and the New York Times in Canada, last November.
Fremont development manager Lori Taylor confirmed they’d received calls from the company, but they haven’t heard from Transcontinental since last month. She said Newark was also a rumored location for the plant.
The Chronicle‘s deal with Transcontinental served a crushing blow to the Web Pressmen and Prepress Workers’ Union Local 4, one of the nation’s oldest such unions. Local 4’s current contract with the Chronicle, reluctantly signed by the rank-and-file last year, expires in three years and there are no assurances Transcontinental will hire any of the union’s over 200 workers meaning a possible end to its tumultuous relationship with the Chronicle and its parent, the Hearst Corp.
The weakly sunblock
By Tim Redmond
Yeah, so the SF Weekly is taking a swipe at Kimo Crossman (and, naturally, at us) this week. Will Harper’s item isn’t terribly insightful or funny, and just plays into the Phoenix-based paper’s general distaste for unconventional activists.
But Harper (and a lof ot the others who think it’s fun and easy to whack away at the likes of Crossman and his over-the-top battles for open government) forget where all of this came from. Kimo Crossman got obsessed with government secrecy because he had such a bad experience trying to get public records. He wanted to find out about the Newsom wi-fi deal (which, true to form, the Weekly also loves). And he kept running into brick walls.
I understand. I find the same thing at City Hall, all the time. Under City Attorney Dennis Herrera (and his excellent and principled press aide, Matt Dorsey), it’s gotten a lot better, but overall, most city departments still make it far too difficult for the average citizen to get basic information about what’s going on.
If anyone is to blame for Crossman’s somewhat unwieldy campaign, it’s Mayor Newsom, who insisted that Google and Earthlink had the right to keep their wi-fi proposals mostly secret.
There has always been an easy solution to people like Crossman: Just give them the damn records. Nothing bad will happen. Really.
PS: Someday soon, when metadata is regularly released as part of public-records requests, Will Harper or someone else at the Weekly will use that info to write a really good story about City Hall. You suppose they’ll thank that crazy Kimo Crossman?
Bush at Jesus Camp
By Tim Redmond
Now THIS is really scary.
Newsom’s internal dialogue
By Steven T. Jones
Nobody seems to be buying Gavin Newsom’s line that the taxpayer-funded campaign events that he calls town hall meetings are actually a “substantive dialogue” with the community. And it’s downright funny to suggest that these ridiculous events are comparable to the policy discussions that voters asked Newsom to engage in with the Board of Supervisors, something he’s refused to do. But it appears that the Newsom campaign plan is to just keep their heads down, plow forward, and hope they can convince half the city’s voters they’re honestly and effectively doing the city’s business.
The plan might just work, but there’s a huge downside that I don’t think he’s taken into account.
There’s Something About Monica
By Sarah Phelan
“Congress could try to force Monica Lewinsk–or Monica Goodling, rather–to testify….” NBC’s Pete Williams tagging the Alberto Gonzales interview.
(You can’t make this shit up.)
666 days until Bush is history
By Sarah Phelan
When a friend gave me a Bush countdown clock, it was registering 1,111 days until Bush will be gone.
At first, I was excited. (You can see the seconds hand ticking away.)
The next day, I was pissed off. (There were still 1,110 days of Bush and Cheney to go.)
434 days later, and a Justice Department official has just taken the Fifth in the firing of the US Attorneys scandal.
The House has set a date for withdrawal from Iraq.
The Senate is debating the same.
Climate change is no longer in doubt, but it’s clear that the Bush admin worked hard to cloud the issue.
It’s also clear that Cheney had a hand in the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name and the falsification of prewar intelligence that led the US to invade Iraq, kill thousands, maim thousands more and spend billions.
666 days is a spooky length of time for this nation to continue to be misled, misinformed–and mistrusted.
Impeach Bush and Cheney now.
Political priorities
By Tim Redmond
I know, I know: everyone is obsessed with Elizabeth Edwards’s cancer. But should that really be the lead of the Chronicle’s story about a presidential candidate’s visit to the Bay Area — or might John Edwards actually have some policy positions to talk about?
Video shows why caging Wolf sucks
By Sarah Phelan
Josh Wolf wasn’t the only person to film the July 8, 2005 G-8 protest. Nor was he the only person to be interviewed by the FBI. But he is the only person to be incarcerated for refusing to give up his video outtakes of the protest. This latter reality lends weight to Wolf’s suspicion that the reason the federal government jumped on the case is connected to the Bush administration’s obsession with anarchists. The truth is that there is no footage of the attack om the police officer on Wolf’s tapes, but there is footage of Black Bloc anarchists talking into his camera.
Transgender videographer Dina Boyer, who works for AccesSF Channel 29 and is not an anarchist told the Guardian that about three weeks after she filmed the July 8, 2005 protest—and posted outtakes of it online under an assumed alias—FBI officials showed up at her home.
Housing poor people one press release at a time
By G.W. Schulz
The mayor has threatened a few times now to do something about the city’s aging public housing stock, mostly via press release. He’s at it again, via press release, of course.
We wrote two weeks ago that due to federal funding cuts, public housing residents are already experiencing increased security risks like robbery and assault at some of the developments around town. At this point, much has been said about the otherwise deplorable living conditions public housing residents already face here, from mildew to perpetually broken appliances, without having to worry about robbers armed with hammers and knives.
Plaza East development before 2001 reconstruction
Candlelight vigil for murdered Nicaraguan immigrant
By G.W. Schulz
Friday vigil for Ruby Ordenana, aka Ruby Rodriguez
Supporters of the strangulated Nicaraguan immigrant and transgendered sex worker Ruby Ordenana held a candlelight vigil for her on Friday at Indiana and Cesar Chavez streets in Potrero Hill where her body was found stripped of clothing March 16.
Police were finally able to identify her last Thursday and are still trying to figure out what happened. Another transgendered sex worker was found beaten and raped in the same area last summer, so people are reasonably enough a little freaked out. Just 27 years old, Ordenana faced all manner of obstacles already, even in San Francisco, without having to face the threat of a violent assault.
We haven’t found any updates on the investigation so far, but good sam bloggers should keep posting the SFPD’s homicide division phone number for witnesses to call with information: 415-553-1145.
Some clown called into the Chronicle complaining about the paper’s respect for Ordenana’s MTF gender identity. What’s it to you, pal? Your crime blotter has to be politically sterilized, too? He even suggested such reporting was to blame for the Chron’s declining circulation. Uh, yeah. And by extension, perhaps, the city’s homicide rate could somehow be directly linked to the Chron‘s declining circulation. That probably has more to do with industry factors and the Chron‘s dorky lifestyle coverage, e.g. the lackluster sex column. Just my guess, goober.
WHERE ARE THE DPT CARTS WHEN IT MATTERS?
By G.W. Schulz
Thanks to Guardian friend Lauren De Vine for catching this utterly hilarious photo of a cop van parked illegally in front of a hydrant near Atlas coffehouse in the Mission on Friday afternoon. No emergency, she told us. They were just gettin’ some coffee, and perhaps a pastry or two. We considered calling John Hanley, president of the San Francisco Firefighters Union, to see if we could stoke the still-flaming embers from last November’s District 6 board race when the union enraged the San Francisco Police Officers Association by endorsing Chris Daly. Maybe next time.
TURKEY LEGS AND MATCHING SWEATSHIRTS: Hearst and MediaNews plan future after sordid tryst
By G.W. Schulz
So what’s going on with the Bay Area’s favorite media love affair these days? You know the one. Hearst and MediaNews met first in Houston two decades ago and engaged in a nefarious entanglement that made one of the nation’s largest cities a single-daily town.
Since then, Hearst and MediaNews just can’t keep their hands off each other. They’re like that nerdy couple at the mall, both looking hopelessly vanilla in matching Banana Republic sweatshirts as they tear into one of those wax paper-wrapped turkey legs, grease dripping from their third chins.
David Lazarus v. the blogosphere
By Tim Redmond
I didn’t say anything when David Lazarus first created a modest stir by suggesting that newspapers should charge money for online content. I figured the world of bloggers would have a field day with this, and I didn’t want to pile on. They did; I can’t fit links to all of them, but Lazarus quotes the most savage in his column today. Even Jon Carroll weighed in, suggesting that journalism schools begin teaching porn reporting because that’s where the money is.
But I think all of them are missing the point.
Another one bites the dust
By Steven T. Jones
Charlie Goodyear, a veteran political reporter for the Chronicle and my colleague on the City Desk NewsHour, has resigned from his journalism jobs to work for high powered flack Sam Singer, whose clients include Lennar Corp., the 49ers, and former Newsom consorts Alex and Ruby Tourk. I like Charlie and have respected his work, so it’s sad to see yet another experienced journalist leave the business. Like most who have done so, Charlie was pushed out by the increasingly unhappy environment at the Chronicle, which is pursuing yet another round of staff reductions, and pulled by the lure of big money offered by the public relations industry.