By Bruce B. Brugmann
Last Tuesday June 5, a mysterious column popped up in the ll Singleton/Media News dailies that ring the bay. It was the debut of Clint Reilly and the first of l56 weekly columns that he will write for the Singleton papers, according to the terms of the Reilly/Hearst/Singleton antitrust settlement.
A “paid advertising” line adorns the top of the column, but Reilly says he will get no bills and won’t pay them if he does. At the bottom of the column is an identification that Reilly wrote himself: “Clint Reilly is a San Francisco businessman and commentator on public affairs. The views expressed in this column are Clint’s alone and do not represent the views of MediaNews or any MediaNews paper.”
Riley writes about how Bill Honig 25 years ago this June won election as state superintendent of public instruction, against incumbent Wilson Riles, a popular superintendent, because of the power of newspaper endorsements.
Riley managed Honig’s campaign. He writes that “newspaper endorsements cut through the confusing array of promises and attacks and offer a seemingly objective evaluation based on the public interest.”
Why didn’t he point out that the newspaper landscape has changed, as his suit charged, and that voters today would be faced with a conservative Singleton dailies and the Chronicle/Hearst? Why didn’t he write about his suit? Or explain why his picture and column were mysteriously appearing simultaneously on Tuesday in ll regional dailies?
“I have l55 columns to go,” Riley told me. B3
Click here to read Reilly’s editorial.