EDITORIAL The last time real estate investor Clint Reilly took the local newspapers to court in 2000, the trial was a sensation. Among other things, Tim White, who was at the time the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, admitted that he had offered to give then-mayor Willie Brown more favorable editorial coverage if Brown would help squelch a Justice Department investigation into an Examiner-Chronicle financial deal.
The so-called “horse-trading” testimony brought to light one of the giant lies of the daily newspaper business in San Francisco and proved that the out-of-town owners of these papers care more about profits than honest journalism.
Back then, the deal involved Hearst Corp., which owned the Examiner, wanting to buy the Chronicle. The idea was to shut down the Ex, eliminate a 35-year-long joint operating agreement, and create a daily paper monopoly. The Justice Department hemmed and hawed a bit, then (thanks to Brown and Sen. Dianne Feinstein) agreed to a backroom deal: Hearst would give the Ex to the Fang family (along with a juicy three-year, $66 million subsidy), and the federal regulators would get out of the way.
Reilly’s suit was a tremendous public service, shining light on parts of the newspaper business that the big publishers always try to keep secret. In the end the suit went down, dismissed by a conservative federal judge, Vaughn Walker, who nevertheless called the whole Hearst-Fang-Chronicle deal “malodorous.”
Now there’s another, much bigger newspaper deal in the Bay Area, one that would create a far bigger and more powerful news monopoly — and once again, while the government regulators dither and duck, Reilly is taking the matter to court.
The unholy arrangement in question would give Denver media baron Dean Singleton and his Media News Group (in partnership with Gannett and Stephens Media) control over virtually every daily newspaper in the Bay Area [see “Singleton’s Monopoly,” 5/6/06]. Singleton, who already owns the Marin Independent Journal and the Oakland Tribune (among others), is buying the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Monterey Herald, and some 30 other small dailies.
That would leave the Chronicle as the only real competitor, but Hearst, which now owns the Chron, is in the deal too, helping finance some of Singleton’s out-of-state purchases in exchange for a stake in the business.
Reilly, represented by antitrust lawyer Joseph Alioto, argues that the whole thing violates the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts and would lead to an illegal consolidation of market power for one newspaper owner. It would also, of course, lead to an unprecedented consolidation of local political power for a conservative Denver billionaire. Reilly wants an immediate injunction to put the merger on hold while the courts can determine how bad its impacts will be.
Three cheers for Reilly: Somebody had to question this massive media scandal — and so far, there’s no sign that the government is going to. The US Justice Department is doing nothing to aggressively fight (or even delay) the deal, and we’ve heard nothing out of the office of Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
The damage that this newspaper consolidation could do is long lasting and irreparable: Once the papers are all fully integrated under the Singleton umbrella, there will be no way to unscramble the egg. That’s why the court should quickly approve Reilly’s request for a temporary restraining order so the whole thing can be examined in detail, in public, before a judge.
Meanwhile, the political questions keep flowing: Where is Lockyer? Where is Oakland mayor Jerry Brown, who wants to be the next state attorney general? And where is the supposedly competitive Chronicle, which has said nary a word against the deal?
PS: The news coverage of Reilly’s suit reflects how poorly the daily papers cover themselves: Just tiny press-release-style reports, with no outside sources, no indication of how crucial the issues are, and no aggressive reporting. It reminds us of how the papers covered Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s resolution opposing the deal: Guardian editor and publisher Bruce B. Brugmann hand-carried a copy of the resolution to the Chronicle reporters in the press room. The paper never ran a story. SFBG
To see a copy of the Reilly lawsuit, go to www.sfbg.com. For all the inside details on the deal, check out knightridderwatch.org.
Jerry Brown
The case against the media grab
Put Oak to Ninth on hold
EDITORIAL The Oakland City Council is moving toward final approval of a plan to build 3,100 housing units along the Oakland Estuary near Lake Merritt, and while the project sponsors have come a long way toward offering community benefits, there’s a big hitch: The entire project was devised backward. City planners never sat down and decided what Oakland needed on the site; the developer, Signature Properties of Pleasanton, came forward with its own vision, and the people who actually live in the area have had to respond to it.
The result is the Oak to Ninth Project, a plan with too much market-rate housing, not enough affordable units, and a hefty price tag for the city. If the council signs off on it July 18, a gigantic project that never had proper scrutiny will be underway.
It will also be finalized just a few months before mayor-elect Ron Dellums — who has serious problems with the project — takes office.
The voters of Oakland made clear in June that they didn’t like the way the current mayor (and Oak to Ninth backer), Jerry Brown, was running the city. Brown’s candidate (and another big Oak to Ninth backer), Ignacio De La Fuente, was handily defeated, receiving only about 33 percent of the vote. The other two candidates, Dellums and Councilmember Nancy Nadel, both had strong reservations about Oak to Ninth, and together they got some two-thirds of the votes.
In fact, the pro-Dellums vote was pretty clear in Oakland: His former aide Sandré Swanson won the Democratic primary (and thus effectively the election) for assembly over City Attorney John Russo. The odds are pretty good that Dellums will be able to change the direction of Oakland politics — and possibly shift the balance of power on the council — fairly soon after officially taking office.
When that happens, he needs to come back to the developer and demand some changes in the project. In San Francisco, political leaders like Sup. Chris Daly have managed to force developers to build fairly significant amounts of affordable housing — without bankrupting any projects. Signature Properties could probably sell at least 15 percent, and maybe 25 percent, of the units at below-market rates and still make a profit, and the new mayor ought to demand to see the company’s financial statements for the project as a basis for negotiating.
But all of that will be after the fact. Signature Properties will have a deal in place, plans will be in the works, architects and engineers will be well into their final drawings — and if Dellums demands and wins changes, all of that will have to be scrapped (and the developer will fight, scream, and threaten legal action to prevent that from happening).
There’s a simple, logical solution here: The council ought to delay any final action on Oak to Ninth until Dellums is in office and can put his own imprint on the project. It’s been in the works for years and will take as much as a decade to complete; a few more months at this point won’t hurt anyone. And Oakland could wind up with a much better project. SFBG
Swanson beats Russo
By G.W. Schulz
With all districts reporting, Sandré Swanson has overcome Oakland city attorney John Russo by 7 percentage points in his primary bid for the 16th Assembly District, which Wilma Chan has held since 2000 and is out due to term limits. District 16 otherwise looks to be uncontested in the general election.
Russo served on the Oakland City Council during the 90s before becoming that Oakland’s first elected city attorney after Jerry Brown’s strong-mayor initiative put the office out for a vote. He made a name for himself in part by filing a nuisance action against Caltrans to force the transportation agency to clean up trash and debris along its properties and by taking on “problem liquor stores.”
Progressive power in Oakland
By G.W. Schulz
All of Alameda County’s precincts have now reported, but absentee and provisional ballots are still not counted. The Alameda County Registrar of Voters couldn’t confirm for us how many such ballots remained.
So we won’t know for a week or two whether or not there will be a runoff between former congressman Ron Dellums and Oakland city council president Ignacio De la Fuente for the mayor’s office. But the race hardly feels tight at this point. Nancy Nadel’s 13 percentage points would likely go to Dellums in the event of a runoff, and Dellums remains 17 points beyond De La Fuente with all precincts reporting.
Mayor Jerry Brown, who’s now on his way to a November election battle with unrivaled Republican primary winner Chuck Poochigian for the state attorney general’s office, rarely shied away from corporate developers in Oakland. Entire neighborhoods have been transformed in just a few years with swanky artist loft spaces and corporate box stores sprouting up everywhere.
De La Fuente was viewed as the candidate who would continue that trend. Dellums offers a very different vision.
endorsements
For those of you who are still trying to vote, I’m really sorry that our endorsements haven’t been available, but here they are:
The Clean Slate
Our endorsements for the June 6 election. Tear off and take to the polls
National races
Senate
(D) No endorsement
(G) Senate
Todd Chretien
Congress, District 6
(D) Lynn Woolsey
Congress, District 7
(D) George Miller
Congress, District 8
(D) No endorsement
Congress, District 8
(G) Krissy Keefer
Congress, District 9
(D) Barbara Lee
Congress, District 11
(R) Pete McCloskey
Congress, District 12
(D) No endorsement
Congress, District 13
(D) Pete Stark
State races and propositions
Governor
(D) Phil Angelides
Lieutenant governor
(D) Jackie Speier
Secretary of state
(D) Debra Bowen
Controller
(D) Joe Dunn
Treasurer
(D) Bill Lockyer
Attorney general
(D) Jerry Brown
Insurance commissioner
(D) Cruz Bustamante
Board of Equalization, District 1
(D) Betty Yee
Superintendent of public instruction
(nonpartisan) Jack O’Connell
Senate, District 12
(D) Leland Yee
Assembly, District 12
(D) Janet Reilly
Assembly, District 12
(G) Barry Hermanson
Assembly, District 13
(D) Mark Leno
Assembly, District 14
(D) Loni Hancock
Assembly, District 16
(D) Sandré Swanson
Proposition 81
YES
Proposition 82
YES
San Francisco races and propositions
Superior Court, Judicial Seat 8
Eric Safire
San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee:
District 12
Susan Hall, Trevor McNeill, Jane Morrison, Melanie Nutter, Connie O’Connor, Roy Recio, Arlo H. Smith, David Wong
District 13
Bill Barnes, David Campos, Gerry Crowley, Rick Galbreath, Michael Goldstein, Robert Haaland, Joseph Julian, Rafael Mandelman, Tim Paulson, Laura Spanjian, Holli Thier, Scott Wiener
Proposition A
YES
Proposition B
YES
Proposition C
NO
Proposition D
NO
Alameda County races and measures
Assessor
Roy Thomsen
Auditor-controller
Patrick O’Connell
District attorney
No endorsement
Sheriff
Gregory J. Ahern
Superintendent of public instruction
Sheila Jordan
Superior Court, Judicial Seat 22
Fred Remer
Measure A
YES
Measure B
NO
Oakland races
Mayor
Ron Dellums
Auditor
Courtney Ruby
City Council, District 2
Aimee Allison
City Council, District 4
Jean Quan
City Council, District 6
Desley Brooks
School board, District 2
David Kakishiba
School board, District 4
Gary Yee
School board, District 6
Chris Dobbins
Live election night coverage at www.sfbg.com
For detailed explanations of our endorsements and a printable version of this slate card, go to www.sfbg.com.
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› tredmond@sfbg.com
I was sitting peacefully at home, watching the final episode of The West Wing, which my partner describes as "liberal porn," when Steve Westly drew first blood in the governor’s race.
We all knew there’d be some negative ads before this was over, and frankly, all the hand-wringing about the evil of negative campaigning has never really appealed to me: Politicians have been launching vicious, often slanderous attacks on their opponents since the dawn of democracy. But this one made me furious.
The simple story is that Westly — borrowing a chapter from the Book of Rove — is assailing Phil Angelides for wanting to tax the rich. And he’s doing it in the most misleading, unprincipled, and utterly disgraceful way.
The ad features what seems like a crushing list of new taxes that Angelides wants to impose — $10 billion worth, Westly’s hit squad claims. Then it winds up with a smarmy tagline: "With high gas prices, housing and health care costs, can working families afford Phil Angelides’s tax plan?"
Of course, Westly had pledged some time ago not to be the first candidate to attack the other by name, but what the hell: The election’s coming up, the race seems to be narrowing, and this guy will do whatever’s necessary to win.
But more than that, with this ad Westly is promoting the exact mentality that has damaged public education, health care, environmental protection, infrastructure needs, and so much else of what used to be the California dream. Republicans love to hit Democrats on taxes, and we’ll see plenty of that in the fall, no matter who’s the nominee. And for Westly to start the "no new taxes" cry just leaves the Democrats politically crippled.
For the record, Angelides is right: The state needs more tax revenue. And under his proposal, most of it would come not from "working families" who are worried about their gas bills but from people like, well, Steve Westly and Phil Angelides — millionaires. His proposed income tax increase only affects households with more than $500,000 in income. Sorry: You’re in that range, you can afford it.
So Mr. Westly: Stop with the antitax lies. This shit makes me sick.
On to the good news.
I get the feeling, from over here in San Francisco, that there’s a real change afoot in East Bay politics. For the past few years, a not-so-loose cadre made up of state senator Don Perata, Mayor Jerry Brown, and Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente has been consolidating power in Oakland, calling the political shots and giving developers a blank check. Two of the three have real, ahem, ethical issues, and one’s itching to leave town for Sacramento, but so far, nobody’s been able to truly challenge them.
Until Ron Dellums.
Now, I know that Dellums has been out of Oakland for years, that he’s a DC lobbyist, and I’ve heard the rap that he’s long on rhetoric and short on urban policy ideas. But we met him last week, and I can tell you that, at 71, he’s still one of the most energetic and inspirational speakers around, and if he’s elected mayor, he will, by force of personality and national stature, instantly become a center of power that’s distinct from (and will often be in opposition to) the Perata–<\d>De La Fuente bloc. SFBG
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› tredmond@sfbg.com
I was sitting peacefully at home, watching the final episode of The West Wing, which my partner describes as "liberal porn," when Steve Westly drew first blood in the governor’s race.
We all knew there’d be some negative ads before this was over, and frankly, all the hand-wringing about the evil of negative campaigning has never really appealed to me: Politicians have been launching vicious, often slanderous attacks on their opponents since the dawn of democracy. But this one made me furious.
The simple story is that Westly — borrowing a chapter from the Book of Rove — is assailing Phil Angelides for wanting to tax the rich. And he’s doing it in the most misleading, unprincipled, and utterly disgraceful way.
The ad features what seems like a crushing list of new taxes that Angelides wants to impose — $10 billion worth, Westly’s hit squad claims. Then it winds up with a smarmy tagline: "With high gas prices, housing and health care costs, can working families afford Phil Angelides’s tax plan?"
Of course, Westly had pledged some time ago not to be the first candidate to attack the other by name, but what the hell: The election’s coming up, the race seems to be narrowing, and this guy will do whatever’s necessary to win.
But more than that, with this ad Westly is promoting the exact mentality that has damaged public education, health care, environmental protection, infrastructure needs, and so much else of what used to be the California dream. Republicans love to hit Democrats on taxes, and we’ll see plenty of that in the fall, no matter who’s the nominee. And for Westly to start the "no new taxes" cry just leaves the Democrats politically crippled.
For the record, Angelides is right: The state needs more tax revenue. And under his proposal, most of it would come not from "working families" who are worried about their gas bills but from people like, well, Steve Westly and Phil Angelides — millionaires. His proposed income tax increase only affects households with more than $500,000 in income. Sorry: You’re in that range, you can afford it.
So Mr. Westly: Stop with the antitax lies. This shit makes me sick.
On to the good news.
I get the feeling, from over here in San Francisco, that there’s a real change afoot in East Bay politics. For the past few years, a not-so-loose cadre made up of state senator Don Perata, Mayor Jerry Brown, and Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente has been consolidating power in Oakland, calling the political shots and giving developers a blank check. Two of the three have real, ahem, ethical issues, and one’s itching to leave town for Sacramento, but so far, nobody’s been able to truly challenge them.
Until Ron Dellums.
Now, I know that Dellums has been out of Oakland for years, that he’s a DC lobbyist, and I’ve heard the rap that he’s long on rhetoric and short on urban policy ideas. But we met him last week, and I can tell you that, at 71, he’s still one of the most energetic and inspirational speakers around, and if he’s elected mayor, he will, by force of personality and national stature, instantly become a center of power that’s distinct from (and will often be in opposition to) the Perata–De La Fuente bloc. SFBG
How to fight Singleton’s monopoly
EDITORIAL Six members of Congress wrote to the Bush administration last week urging a full Justice Department review of the pending deal that will give one company — the Denver-based MediaNews Group — control over virtually every daily newspaper in the Bay Area. The letter is a signal that federal regulators may be unable to simply duck this merger — but it will take a lot more pressure to block it.
As we reported last week, MediaNews, run by Dean Singleton, is planning to take over the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, the Monterey Herald, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. That would mean every big central Bay Area daily except the San Francisco Chronicle would be owned by one company. And to make it worse, Hearst — the New York City–based owner of the Chron — has signed on with MediaNews as part of the deal: Hearst will buy the Monterey and St. Paul papers, then immediately trade them to MediaNews in exchange for stock in some other MediaNews ventures.
The implications are staggering. The deal sets the scene for an unprecedented level of local media consolidation — and could lead to a scenario in which all the business, advertising, and even editorial functions of almost every Bay Area daily would be run out of one central office.
Reps. Zoe Lofgren, George Miller, Anna Eshoo, Ellen Tauscher, Barbara Lee, and Mike Honda wrote: "We are concerned that this transfer could diminish the quality and depth of news coverage in a Bay Area of more than 9 million people." That’s a good concern: Singleton, known as "lean Dean," is known for ruthless cost-cutting and is likely to reduce news staffing at all of the papers to save money. He’s also likely to take advantage of a virtual monopoly on daily print to jack up advertising rates, hurting businesses and consumers.
The letter quotes Reps. Mark Kennedy and Jim Oberstar of Minnesota as noting: "A monopoly in the newspaper industry is certainly no less dangerous, and is perhaps more so, than in any other American industry." Which is exactly the point: When control of something as essential as civic information is in the hands of too few people, it’s a direct threat to democracy.
It’s clear that the Internet has made daily newspapers less powerful and less essential. But in the Bay Area (and in most of the country) there’s simply no Web alternative that can do the work of a daily paper. Real watchdog journalism requires a staff — reporters to go to meetings, to challenge politicians, to stay on top of City Hall — and so far, nobody’s found a financial model that allows that to happen purely online.
So the threat of one single entity controlling news and information to such a huge extent ought to be a major issue across the state, particularly in the area where MediaNews has most of its holdings. We’re glad that some members of Congress are pressuring the White House, but we don’t really expect Bush’s Justice Department to mount a full-court press on this one. That effort is going to have to come from the state and from local government.
We’ve asked both Democratic candidates for governor about the issue, and both at least showed some interest. Phil Angelides didn’t seem to know much about it until we clued him in, but he said he was "concerned." He needs to do better: A strong statement opposing the deal would be a good start. Steve Westly is friendly with the Newspaper Guild folks in San Jose and has supported their efforts, but he has also stopped short of a blanket statement that the merger must be derailed. And neither the current attorney general, Bill Lockyer, nor either of the major contenders for the job (Jerry Brown and Rocky Delgadillo) has said much of anything.
However, state senator Carole Migden expressed some interest in holding hearings in Sacramento, and that ought to happen immediately. Lockyer should be asked to explain what he’s doing to stop the deal — and the publishers should be asked to reveal the details of the merger and their future plans (see "A Few Questions for the Publishers," page 7).
Every city in the Bay Area should take this on too, starting with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which should hold hearings and pass a resolution demanding that Lockyer block the deal.
Only serious grassroots opposition can prevent this monster of a media monopoly. There’s no time to waste. SFBG
PS Where were Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Tom Lantos on the congressional letter? We’ve left word with their offices, but haven’t heard back as to why they didn’t sign it.
Single town?
Like Clear Channel radio stations, many smaller papers would have little or no staff, nobody to answer the phone, nobody to take local tips and cover local news … they would be nothing but shells of once-thriving community newspapers.
This map, prepared by the San Jose Newspaper Guild, shows all of the newspapers that will soon be owned by Dean Singleton’s MediaNews Group. MediaNews started out with 11 papers, and the addition of 33 Knight-Ridder papers will give the Denver-based outfit a total of 44 daily and community papers in the Bay Area.
Most of the daily newspaper coverage of the deal (including the coverage by Knight-Ridder and MediaNews papers) has focused on the four biggest papers involved and ignored the smaller papers altogether — a sign, perhaps, that neither chain cares that much about community publications.
Currently owned by MediaNews: (1) Alameda Times Star; (2) Fremont Argus; (3) Hayward Daily Review; (4) Marin Independent Journal; (5) Milpitas Post; (6) Oakland Tribune; (7) Pacifica Tribune; (8) San Mateo County Times; (9) Tri-Valley Herald; (10) Reporter (Vacaville); (11) Vallejo Times-Herald.
Currently owned by Knight-Ridder, soon to be taken over by MediaNews: (1) Alameda Journal; (2) Almaden Resident; (3) Berkeley Voice; (4) Brentwood News; (5) Burlingame Daily News; (6) Campbell Reporter; (7) Concord Transcript; (8–11) Contra Costa Newspapers (Contra Costa Times, West County Times, Valley Times, San Ramon Times); (12) Contra Costa Sun; (13) Cupertino Courier; (14) East Bay Daily News; (15) El Cerrito Journal; (16) Antioch Ledger-Dispatch; (17) Los Gatos Daily News; (18) Los Gatos Weekly-Times; (19) Montclarion; (20) Monterey County Herald (not shown); (21) Palo Alto Daily News; (22) Pleasant Hill/Martinez Record; (23) Piedmonter; (24) Redwood City Daily News; (25) Rose Garden Resident; (26) San Jose Mercury News; (27) San Mateo Daily News; (28) Saratoga News; (29) Sunnyvale Sun; (30) Salinas Valley Advisor (not shown); (31) Walnut Creek Journal; (32) West County Weekly; (33) Willow Glen Resident. MediaNews owns 29 other California publications.
Stop Singleton’s media grab!
EDITORIAL At first glance, it looks like one of the oddest deals in recent newspaper history: McClatchy, the Sacramento-based newspaper chain, buys the much bigger Knight-Ridder chain, then sells two of the Knight-Ridder papers to MediaNews Group, run by Dean Singleton out of Denver, and two to the New York City–based Hearst Corp., which owns the San Francisco Chronicle. Then Hearst immediately sells its two papers to Singleton’s shop, in exchange for an equity share in MediaNews operations outside of the Bay Area.
The upshot: MediaNews will take over the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times, along with some 33 small-market dailies and weeklies, which, combined with the 11 Bay Area papers the chain already owns, will give Singleton control of every major daily newspaper in the Bay Area except the Chronicle.
It creates the potential for a newspaper monopoly of stunning proportions — and threatens the quality of journalism in one of the most populous, educated, and liberal regions in the nation. Singleton, known as "lean Dean" for his cost-cutting moves, is likely to slash staffing at papers like the Times and the Merc, consolidate news gathering, and offer readers less local news.
In fact, in its most recent annual report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, MediaNews outlined its strategy for profitability. "One of our key acquisition strategies is to acquire newspapers in markets contiguous to our own," the report states. This so-called clustering strategy allows the company to consolidate advertising and business functions as well as news gathering. "We seek to increase operating cash flows at acquired newspapers by reducing labor costs," the report notes.
In other words, a smaller number of reporters will be doing fewer stories, which will run in more papers. This, Luther Jackson, executive officer of the San Jose Newspaper Guild, argues, "means cookie-cutter coverage and fewer voices contributing to important public policy debates."
There are deeper concerns with this deal — including the possibility that Hearst and Singleton could be forming an unholy alliance that would nearly wipe out daily competition in the Bay Area.
The whole mess has its roots in the decision by the Knight-Ridder board several months ago to put the company up for sale. It was the kind of decision that demonstrates the problems with treating newspapers like baseball cards, to trade on the open market: Knight-Ridder was quite profitable, ran some of the better newspapers in the nation, and had a reputation (by chain standards, anyway) of being willing to spend money on the editorial product. But the stock price wasn’t quite high enough, and a few big shareholders (who weren’t satisfied with 20 percent profits) were complaining, so the entire company went on the block.
McClatchy, a well-managed company that has the Sacramento Bee as its flagship, wanted some of the Knight-Ridder papers — but only the ones in fast-growing markets. So after submitting a winning bid, the McClatchy folks starting looking for ways to dump the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, the Monterey Herald, the St. Paul Pioneer-Dispatch, and some 20 smaller community papers in the Bay Area.
But why, exactly, is Hearst getting involved? Well, Peter Scheer, a former antitrust lawyer who runs the California First Amendment Coalition, has some theories. The first possible reason? Hearst has plenty of cash on hand, and the deal would allow MediaNews to avoid having to seek as much financing from bankers.
More likely: Hearst — through the Chronicle — would have been Singleton’s only local competitor, and is the only significant political player in California that could have pressured regulators to oppose the deal. The arrangement, Scheer says, turns Hearst from a potential foe into a partner. Already the two companies have announced they may seek to share distribution systems. And there may be other plans in the works.
In fact, one of the most interesting ideas about the deal comes from a former Chronicle assistant managing editor, Alan Mutter, who writes a blog called Reflections of a Newsosaur (newsosaur.blogspot.com). Mutter suggests that the deal might lead to the end of real newspaper competition in the Bay Area, for once and for all. "Hearst," he speculates, "hopes at some point to work with MediaNews to extricate itself from the costly problem posed by the San Francisco Chronicle, which is widely believed to be losing about $1 million per week."
The idea: Down the road, Hearst merges the Chron with MediaNews — or, if the Justice Department won’t allow that, the two companies enter into a joint operating agreement. A JOA works like this: The two companies share all printing, business, sales, and distribution operations, run two theoretically separate newsrooms, and at the end of the day split the profits. The Chron and the Examiner were run for years under a JOA, and it was terrible for readers: With no economic incentive to compete, both papers stagnated. But it can be the equivalent of a license to print money.
"Unlike some publishers who shun JOA relationships," Mutter notes, "Dean Singleton has embraced them — and seems to be making them work — in places like Denver and Detroit. Is the San Francisco Chronicle next on his list?"
Imagine what a near-complete monopoly of Bay Area dailies in the hands of a notorious cost-cutter would mean. For starters, we can count on more standardized, conservative politics (at least the Knight-Ridder papers opposed the war). Perhaps all reporting and editing would be consolidated into one newsroom, in San Francisco or San Jose. Like Clear Channel radio stations, many smaller papers might wind up with little or no staff, nobody to answer the phone, nobody to take local tips and cover local news … they’d be nothing but shells of once-thriving community newspapers. They would have abandoned the crucial local-watchdog role of a daily newspaper (and made life more difficult for the few remaining independents).
The fact that this is a possible, even likely, scenario is alarming. In short order, one company could control every major daily in the Bay Area (except the Examiner and the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat) — fixing prices, sharing markets, pooling profits, and keeping ad rates artificially high and the quality of journalism abysmally low.
Have there been discussions around this? What is Hearst’s real interest here, and how does it jibe with Singleton’s dream of a massive regional "cluster"? Until we know the answers, the MediaNews-McClatchy deal should never go forward.
It’s almost too much to ask that the Bush administration, which loves big-business mergers, give it a thorough review. But the California attorney general has grounds to challenge it too.
AG Bill Lockyer completely ducked on the deal that merged the two largest chains in the alternative press, Village Voice Media and New Times. He can’t be allowed to duck this one: There must be a detailed, public investigation, and the newspaper chains must come clean and release the details of the deal. The two leading Democratic candidates for attorney general, Jerry Brown and Rocky Delgadillo, need to make this a top issue in the campaign. It should be an issue in the governor’s race, and every city and town that’s affected, including San Francisco, should pass a resolution against the merger. SFBG
PS Local arts and community organizations on the Peninsula are alarmed about the deal for another reason: Knight-Ridder contributes millions of dollars a year to those groups. Will Singleton continue that tradition?
Bay Area Congressional letter to DOJ re. KR sale antitrust concerns
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So let’s get this straight:
The lieutenant governor is running for insurance commissioner. The insurance commissioner is running for lieutenant governor. The former governor is running for attorney general. The attorney general is running for treasurer.
Round and round and round we spin. Talk about a clusterfuck.
There was a time, and it wasn’t all that long ago, when every single constitutional office in California was held by a Democrat. And it’s entirely possible that this fall — with the Republican president and Republican governor in political free fall — the Democrats will actually lose some top jobs in Sacramento.
Let me humbly suggest one reason why: We have a bunch of people running for office who really ought to find something else to do with their lives.
I’m not the only one who thinks this. If you talk to people who think about the future of the California Democratic Party — people who might actually play a role in it, say, 10 years from now — what you hear is this: Why are the same old names bouncing around like petrified Ping-Pong balls?
John Garamendi has been running for some office or other (including unsuccessfully for governor) for the past 20 years. He’s been insurance commissioner twice. Now, since he clearly can’t get the top job, he’s angling for number two.
Cruz Bustamante has virtually disappeared since he dared run in the recall election that brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to power. Perhaps he can slip into Garamendi’s post for a while, while he figures out what else to do. Bill Lockyer thought about running for governor but realized he wasn’t going to win, and although he’s not a terrible attorney general, he’s decided to run for treasurer, which makes no sense unless he’s waiting around to try another office at some point.
Jerry Brown was governor once, and after a period of self-imposed exile, he decided to run for president (of the United States), then mayor of Oakland. By the way, he’s a lawyer, so now he wants to be attorney general.
None of these people is evil, and the state could do worse — way worse — than electing any of them. But is anyone else getting the distinct feeling that we’re the party of, well, yesterday?
Just thought I’d ask.
One of my favorite political movies is Robocop, the 1987 Paul Verhoeven sci-fi film that is not generally considered a great social statement about anything. But when you pay attention (and watch it with the right, um, mind-set), Robocop is actually a story about privatization: Detroit has turned over its police force to the Omni Consumer Products Corporation, which decides to save money (for the company’s bottom line) by cutting staff and squeezing pay — to the point where there’s inadequate backup when our hero gets into a firefight with the bad guys and almost gets shot to bits. They revive him as a cyborg, and he tries to be an honest cop — but deep in his electronic DNA is a rule that he can’t arrest or harm any officer of the Omni Consumer Products Corporation.
I thought about that when I heard that the patrol specials — a crew of private armed civilians who wear uniforms and badges and walk the streets under a 19th-century tradition — was asking for expanded authority in San Francisco (see page 5). The message that the group recently sent to the Police Commission: Privatization is the wave of the future in urban law enforcement.
Yikes. *