By Sarah Phelan
A memorial will be held for Sue Bierman on Sunday, Sept. 3, 2-4pm at Delancey St, 600 Embarcadero.
News that former San Francisco Sup. Sue Bierman died on the afternoon of Monday August 7 after her car crashed into a dumpster in the Cole Valley, got the current supervisors sharing memories of her at the August 8 Board of Supes meeting.
Sup. Gerardo Sandoval said “volumes could be written about the accomplishments” of this woman, who was “probably a grandmother/sister figure to many of us.”
Sup. Aaron Peskin called her “an incredible person, an FDR-type Democrat,” who was behind the demolition of the old Embarcadero freeway.”Said Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, “she was a hero in so many battles in San Francisco..most recently, when we were trying to bring attention to excessive, disproportionate closure of schools, Sue Bierman and her daughter were on the front line. She was very disarming, but very strong. I will miss her dearly.”
Sup. Sean Elsbernd acknowledged that “should she and I have served on the board together, we would have had a few disagreements. I’ll miss her look.”
Sup. Tom Ammiano recalled how,”When Carole Migden put on lipstick, Sue would follow, You knew something was going to happen, as if a secret handhske was involved…I don’t know if there’s a highway to heaven, but thanks to Sue it ain’t a freeway.”
Sup. Dufty remembered how she had a lot of influence over Mayor Willie Brown. “If you heard him cussing at Sue, you knew she’d won one over him.”
Sup. Alioto-Pier, noting how she and Bierman often did not agree when they were both on the Port Commission said, “She very eloquently told you, she was very forceful, she was always the first person to call, it was dismaying to hear her voice on the machine, saying, “michela,” in a shaky voice.
Sup. Daly said she was the champion of young adults–and renters.
‘She understood what made San Francisco great.”
And Gloria Young, clerk of the board, recalled trying to get Bierman, who served on the board from 1992-2000, to vacate her office at noon on the day she was termed out, so to tidy up before the new supe [Peskin] arrived.
“Absolutely not,” bierman is said to have said. “I’ll be working until the end of the day, It’s immportant to acknowledge thew constituents who put us in office.”
“And she left me with a big stack of books,” added Peskin. “They’re still on the shelf.”
San Francisco
Sue Bierman memorial, Sept. 3
The Race is On: Candidates for local Nov. 7 races
By Sarah Phelan
Sixty-six took out papers. Forty-one filed, meaning that over one-third of the potential candidates in local races in the Nov. 7 election, bailed before the train even left the station.
So who’s in the running?
On the Board of Supes front, there are five races.
District 2 incumbent Michela Alioto-Pier, who has not accepted the voluntary expenditure ceiling and does not intend to participate in the public financing program, faces one lone challenger: business management consultant Vilma Guinto Peoro, who has accepted a voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in the pubic financing program.
In District 4, seven candidates are vying to fill the vacancy Sup. Fiona Ma created as Democratic nominee for Assembly District 12, (where she is running against the Green’s Barry Hermanson.) Mayor Gavin Newsom has endorsed Doug Chan, who lent his name to PG&E’s anti-Prop. D campaign, has not accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and does not intend to participate in public financing campaign. Chan, who also got Ma’s endorsement and has served on the San Francisco Police Commission, Board of Permit Appeals, the Rent Board and the Assessment Appeals Board, has promised to return SFPD to its legally-required numbers (it currently operates 15 percent below voter-mandated leval), and upgrade policies, practices and technology, and would likely become the establishment conservative on the Board,
Other contenders are business consultant Ron Dudum, who lost against Ma in 2002 and against then Sup. Leland Yee in 2000, anti-tax advocate Edmund Jew, who would also be popular with the district’s conservative base, and San Francisco Immigrant Rights Commissioner and Fiona Ma-supporter Houston Zheng, David Ferguson, Patrick Maguire and Jaynry Mak, though Neither Maguire nor Mak, who has already raised $100,000, had filed papers as of Aug. 11, perhaps because District 4 has a Aug. 16 filing extension, thanks to departing incumbent Ma.
District 6 incumbent Chris Daly, who has accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in public financing campaign, appears to face the biggest fight—at least in terms of numbers, with seven challengers hoping to fill his shoes. Of these Mayor Gavin Newsom has portrayed former Michela Alioto-Pier aide Rob Black, who has accepted voluntary expenditure ceiling and intends to participate in public financing campaign, as “the best contender to lessen divisiveness in the district.”
Fellow challengers are Mathew Drake, Viliam Dugoviv, Manuel Jimenez , Davy Jones, Robert Jordan and George Dias.
District 8 incumbent Bevan Dufty faces stiff opposition from local resident and Oakland deputy city attorney Alix Rosenthal, who was instrumental in turning around the city’s Elections Department, has worked on turning the former Okaland Army Base over to the Redevelopment Agency and has helped rebuild the National Women’s Political Caucus. Rosenthal, who is running on a platform of affordable housing, sustainability and violence prevention, also wants to keep SF weird.
In District 10, Incumbent Sophie Maxwell, who says a November ballot measure opposing the Bayview Redvelopment Plan is based on fear and unfairness, has five challengers: Rodney Hampton Jr., Marie Harrison, Espanola Jackson. Dwayne Jusino, and former Willie Brown crony Charlie Walker. Of these, the most serious are Harrison, helped shut down the Hunter’s Point PG&E plant and has worked for decades to fight all the pollution that’s being dumped on southeast residents, and Espanola Jackson, who has fought for welfare rights, affordable housing, seniors and the Muwekma Ohlone.
In other races, Phil Ting runs unopposed as Assessor-Recorder.
18 challengers are fighting over three seats on the Board of Education, one of which is occupied by incumbent Dan Kelly, and six candidates are vying for three seats on the Community College Board, one of which is occupied by incumbent John Rizzo.
A brighter Sunday at the Chronicle
Things improved at the Chronicle with yesterday’s weekend edition, compared to some of the fluff that graced its pages last week.
Congrats to cops-and-crime reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken for snagging the story on an out-of-control snitch named Marvin Jeffery Jr. that the San Francisco Police Department used to arrest a suspect in the 2004 shooting death of Officer Isaac Espinoza. An identity-theft master, Jeffery was repeatedly released from jail in exchange for information he’d provided to the department. And each time, he went right back to formulating fraudulent monetary schemes making somewhere around $3 million in the process. Now the department is not sure where he is.
Why people get mad at the media, part 6, “Grungy” or “not grungy,” the Guardian presents some candid photos of its offices and building
Well, to continue this “grungy” saga, Mary Kuntz, an assistant managing editor at Business Week/McGraw Hill, called me from the splendorous McGraw Hill building in midtown Manhattan.
She was, it turned out, the designated editor and stonewaller to deal with my complaints that a cover story in the Aug. l4 edition of Business Week had made three major errors in the first three lines of the lead story. The first errors: the article referred to the “grungy offices offices of the SF Weekly,” our chain competitor, when the offices were those of the Guardian. The second error: our offices are not “grungy,” as you can see by the candid photos below.
She repeated what others down the masthead had told me before: that the magazine had indeed corrected what she called “the factual error” (the one misidentifying our offices as the offices of our competitor). But she said the magazine would not correct or remove the word “grungy” because the use of that adjective was a matter of opinion.
How, I asked again (see my earlier blog items), could she and BW/MH say that our offices were “grungy” when the reporters on the article never came into our offices and could not specify what was “grungy” about the Guardian, our offices, or our building, which we own? Did BW/MH just intentionally want to annoy me further and make the situation worse? She was adamant, as if she were upholding some major journalistic principle and the institutional honor and structural integrity of BW/MH. If so, what in the world was the principle she was fighting for over the use of one word: “grungy?” She wouldn’t say. More: she would not send or fax me the company’s retraction and corrections or reader response policy. She kept saying, we only correct factual mistakes, write us a letter, this is our corrections policy. And so the “grungy offices” phrase remains in the print and online versions of the article for the duration and my simple request to get a full correction ended up only making an “atrocious” mistake even more “atrocious,” to use the phrase of the reporter in confessing her original “factual” mistake to me.
I realize all of this might get tedious but there is a serious point here: this incident illustrates the kind of corporate arrogance and stonewalling that make people mad at the media. All BW/MH had to do was to say in effect, sorry, we made a mistake, we will correct it, we regret the error. And not jack me around for l0 days over a phony charge that they could not back up or explain. (Summary report coming on the company’s stonewalling policy on corrections.)
Note the pictures below, taken by Guardian co-founder and co-publisher Jean Dibble. From top left: the side of our three story building, known as the Guardian Building, at l35 Mississippi St., at the bottom of Potrero Hill in San Francisco; the front of our building; our lobby; our reception desk; our conference room; the stairs in the middle of our advertising offices on the first floor; Jean Dibble’s office, and the alternative view of San Francisco from Potrero Hill from our rooftop.
Grungy or not grungy? That is the pressing issue of the day. I’m ready for a Potrero Hill martini. B3
Where are Hearst and the Chronicle? The conglomerate cometh
Yet another signal on what is happening to daily newspaper competition in San Francisco and the Bay Area:
The Contra Costa Times, now a MediaNews/Singleton paper, ran some minimalist stories Friday by George Avalos on the new developments in the new conglomerate that is poised to destroy local newspaper competition, according to a Singleton filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission inWashington.
Among other things, the story disclosed that Hearst made a $299 million equity investment in MediaNews and that MediaNews had “obtained a financing package from a syndicate of lenders that enables the newspaper company to borrow up to $597 million to help finance its acquisitions…The syndicate of lenders includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, General Electric Capital Corp and several financial and other organizations.” Not a word in the Friday Chronicle. And only skimpy details in the CCTimes and Oakland Tribune coverage. Why? The conglomerate cometh.
More troubling signals:
+Serious newsroom cuts are coming: In an accompanying article, Avalos reported “some pain looms.” He quoted Kevin Keane, the new vice president/new for the new partnership north, as saying that “Some tough choices are going to have to be made.”
+And there are the stock ludicrous statements about “competition.” “We want to take it to the Chronicle,” says Chris Lopez, editor of the Contra Costa Times. “This puts us on a path to attack them in areas where they have strength.” Then he writes without gulping that “MediaNews officials say they believe the combined resources of the papers, along with a readership clout that surpasses the Chronicle, will help in the newspaper wars.” And then he quotes John Armstrong, who heads MediaNews operations in the East Bay, as saying, “We are winning the battle against the Chronicle. This will hasten the inevitable.” Did he or anybody else on any of the conglomerate papers ever call an outside expert, a journalism or law school professor, for some independent comment on this market allocation scheme? Or are they already under the shackles?
I suggest all staffers on all the McClatchy/Singleton/Hearst/Gannett/Stephens conglomerate papers take a look at the complete Clint Reilly/Joe Alioto antitrust filings in federal court and the SEC filings. And I hope they follow the story along as it develops. The emerging one newspaper company for the Bay Area is there for all to see. B3
Cop measure headed for full board
By Sarah Phelan
The San Francisco Board of Supes Rules Committee voted 2-1 to send a resolution opposing federal meddling in local police investigations and calling for support of California’s reporter’s shield law, as well as support of similar bills at the federal level that are currently working their way through Congress.
The best things in life aren’t free
By Cheryl Eddy
Maxing out my inbox’s credit line today: a press release heralding the Westfield San Francisco Centre‘s September 28 grand opening. The $460 mil project is sandwiched between Walgreens and the mall that’s already down by Fifth St and Market (you know, the one with the spiral escalator — across the street from that “Jesus Loves You” guy). It’s freakin’ huge — 1.5 million square feet, to be exact.
From the curiously punctuated PR missive:
Farewell, Sue Bierman
By Sarah Phelan
News that former San Francisco Sup. Sue Bierman died Monday afternoon after her car crashed into a dumpster in the Cole Valley, got the current supervisors sharing memories of her at the August 8 Board of Supes meeting.
Sup. Gerardo Sandoval said “volumes could be written about the accomplishments” of this woman, who was “probably a grandmother/sister figure to many of us.”
Sup. Aaron Peskin called her “an incredible person, an FDR-type Democrat,” who was behind the demolition of the old Embarcadero freeway.”Said Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, “she was a hero in so many battles in San Francisco..most recently, when we were trying to bring attention to excessive, disproportionate closure of schools, Sue Bierman and her daughter were on the front line. She was very disarming, but very strong. I will miss her dearly.”
Sup. Sean Elsbernd acknowledged that “should she and I have served on the board together, we would have had a few disagreements. I’ll miss her look.”
Sup. Tom Ammiano recalled how,”When Carole Migden put on lipstick, Sue would follow, You knew something was going to happen, as if a secret handhske was involved…I don’t know if there’s a highway to heaven, but thanks to Sue it ain’t a freeway.”
Sup. Dufty remembered how she had a lot of influence over Mayor Willie Brown. “If you heard him cussing at Sue, you knew she’d won one over him.”
Sup. Alioto-Pier, noting how she and Bierman often did not agree when they were both on the Port Commission said, “She very eloquently told you, she was very forceful, she was always the first person to call, it was dismaying to hear her voice on the machine, saying, “michela,” in a shaky voice.
Sup. Daly said she was the champion of young adults–and renters.
‘She understood what made San Francisco great.”
And Gloria Young, clerk of the board, recalled trying to get Bierman, who served on the board from 1992-2000, to vacate her office at noon on the day she was termed out, so to tidy up before the new supe [Peskin] arrived.
“Absolutely not,” bierman is said to have said. “I’ll be working until the end of the day, It’s immportant to acknowledge thew constituents who put us in office.”
“And she left me with a big stack of books,” added Peskin. “They’re still on the shelf.”
Farewell, Sue Bierman
I never had the honor of meeting Sue Bierman, but news that the former San Francisco supervisor died Monday afternoon after her car crashed into a dumpster in the Cole Valley, got the current supes sharing memories of her at the August 8 Board meeting. leaving me with the impression of a much loved, sometimes feared, outspoken and universally respected 82-year old.
Here’s just a sampling of some of the many tributes made:
“Volumes could be written about the accomplishments of this woman,” said Sup. Gerardo Sandoval said. “She was probably a grandmother/sister figure to many of us.”
Sup. Aaron Peskin called her “an incredible person, an FDR-type Democrat,” and the woman responsible for stopping the expansion of the freeway into the panhandle.
Said Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, “she was a hero in so many battles in San Francisco..most recently, when we were trying to bring attention to excessive, disproportionate closure of schools, Sue Bierman and her daughter were on the front line. She was very disarming, but very strong. I will miss her dearly.”
Sup. Sean Elsbernd acknowledged that “should she and I have served on the board together, we would have had a few disagreements. I’ll miss her look.”
Sup. Tom Ammiano recalled how,”When Carole Migden put on lipstick, Sue would follow. You knew something was going to happen, as if a secret handshake was involved…I don’t know if there’s a highway to heaven, but thanks to Sue it ain’t a freeway.”
Sup. Bevan Dufty remembered how Bierman had a lot of influence over Mayor Willie Brown. “If you heard him cussing at Sue, you knew she’d won one over him.”
Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier noted how she and Bierman often did not agree when they were both on the Port Commission.
“She very eloquently told you, she was very forceful, she was always the first person to call, it was dismaying to hear her voice on the machine, saying, ‘Michela,’ in a shaky voice,” Alioto-Pier recalled.
Sup. Chris Daly said bBerman was the champion of young adults–and renters.
‘She understood what made San Francisco great.”
And Gloria Young, clerk of the board, recalled trying to get Bierman, who served on the Board from 1992 until she was termed out in 2000, vacate her office at noon on the last day , so to tidy up before the new supe [Peskin] arrived.
“Absolutely not,” Bierman is said to have said. “I’ll be working until the end of the day, It’s important to acknowledge the constituents who put us in office.”
“And she left me with a big stack of books,” added Peskin. “They’re still on the shelf.”
Do you support the Olympic Games?
Olympic Question
BY Sarah Phelan
“Do you support the Olympic Games?”
That ‘s the question that Sup. Gerardo Sandoval believes Mayor Gavin Newsom should, but is afraid, to ask.
“”I love sports and I’d love nothing more than to have the Olympics come to San Francisco,” said Sandoval at the Aug. 8 Board of Supes meeting. “But as a supervisor I want to ask the voters whether it should be SF’s policy to host the 2016 Olymoics, given the costs and benefits.Why is the Mayor’s Office afraid to do so?” said Sandoval, noting that academic studies show only a “very modest gain,” whereas Chambers of Commerce-related reports cite “huge gains” for cities that are Olympic hosts.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to ask,” said Sandoval, criticizing the mayor’s “behind doors conversations,” on matters such as the financing of the 49ers stadium–a stadium, which as Sandoval noted, is to be included as an venue in the mayor’s vision for the 2016 Olympics.
“I’m happy the mayor has acknowledged that we need to ask the voters,” said Sandoval, adding that Newsom believes it’s “premature to ask right now”.
“Premature implies maturity,” said Sandoval, suggesting that the Olympic question will be asked some time in the future, as he tabled his own motion “to ask voters” for now. But feel free, SF, to tell us what you think about the plan . We’re not afraid to hear it. Heck, it might even reveal what people do and don’t know.
Do you support the Olympic Games?
Olympic Question
BY Sarah Phelan
“Do you support the Olympic Games?”
That ‘s the question that Sup. Gerardo Sandoval believes Mayor Gavin Newsom should, but is afraid, to ask.
“”I love sports and I’d love nothing more than to have the Olympics come to San Francisco,” said Sandoval at the Aug. 8 Board of Supes meeting. “But as a supervisor I want to ask the voters whether it should be SF’s policy to host the 2016 Olymoics, given the costs and benefits.Why is the Mayor’s Office afraid to do so?” said Sandoval, noting that academic studies show only a “very modest gain,” whereas Chambers of Commerce-related reports cite “huge gains” for cities that are Olympic hosts.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to ask,” said Sandoval, criticizing the mayor’s “behind doors conversations,” on matters such as the financing of the 49ers stadium–a stadium, which as Sandoval noted, is to be included as an venue in the mayor’s vision for the 2016 Olympics.
“I’m happy the mayor has acknowledged that we need to ask the voters,” said Sandoval, adding that Newsom believes it’s “premature to ask right now”.
“Premature implies maturity,” said Sandoval, suggesting that the Olympic question will be asked some time in the future, as he tabled his own motion “to ask voters” for now. But feel free, SF, to tell us what you think about the plan . We’re not afraid to hear it. Heck, it might even reveal what people do and don’t know.
Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places
By G.W. Schulz
I cracked open the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday genuinely excited to read it. I like going to the local section first, even if local sections across the country are seeing fewer and fewer available column inches; the Bay Area, and indeed, California, happen to be places that produce interesting local news.
What I found was hardly fulfilling.
Help, BizWeek, Help!!! Why the public gets mad at the media, part 2
Below is a letter I have just emailed to the only email address I could find in the Aug. l4th Business Week of Business Week, formally asking for a correction and explanation for three factual errors the magazine made about the Guardian in the first paragraph of the lead story (note my previous blog). Follow along and see how a major communications company (McGraw-Hill) handles reader complaints about factual errors in their stories.
To the good people at
Business Week:
Can you get the questions in my first blog item below (the ones outlining three factual errors in the first three lines in the first paragraph of the lead story with the head: “How this kid made $60 million in l8 months.”) Could you get this message to editor in chief Stephen J. Adler and President William P. Kupper jr and Glenn S. Goldberg, president, information @ media, McGraw-Hill Companies? Or to anyone else locally or in the New York headquaters at Business Week that can help me (a) get an appropriate correction; (b) tell me how such egregious factual errors happened, (c) give me a copy of your retraction and corrections policy on factual errors, and (d) give me the whereabouts and contact information and credits of the two writers of the piece (Sarah Lacy and Jessi Hempel).
I looked extensively through the issue but I couldn’t find any information on how to contact the writers and editors and staff of Business Week, either by phone or by email. How does a reader (or in my case, a reader with a serious complaint) do this? I would appreciate any immediate help that you can give me.
Thanks very much. Bruce B. Brugmann, editor and publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, proud landlord for Digg.Com, but a landlord wrongly identified in your piece (you named our chain competitor) and wrongly characterized as having “grungy offices” that weren’t up to the standard of Business Week. My phone is 4l5-255-3l00, email at Bruce@sfbg.com, Bruce blog at sfbg.com.
P.S. No word back from either the San Francisco or San Mateo offices today on my calls for help on last Friday. I will start in again on the phone, but I’m already beginning to wear out. B3
For more info:
http://www.wordyard.com/2006/08/04/businessweek-on-digg/
http://www.valleywag.com/tech/digg/ripping-on-the-valley-boys-story-part-1-the-cover-192209.php
http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/dont_believe_businessweeks_bubblemath.php
Why people get mad at the media, part l
We have a tenant on the third floor of our Guardian building at l35 Mississippi St, at the bottom of Potrero Hill in San Francisco, called Digg.com, a new and bustling and highly publicized Dot.com operation.
It is getting lots of publicity these days and so I was highly interested to find that the company founder was displayed in full color on the front page of the Aug. l4th edition of Business Week magazine. He was a good looking young guy of 29, obviously full of Mexican jumping beans, wearing a T-shirt and some sort of earphones beneath a cap turned backwards. He was doing a jaunty thumbs up and between his thumbs in the middle of his T-shirt was the headline: “How this kid Made $60 million in l8 months, Digg.com’s Kevin Rose leads a new brat pack of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.”
I opened the magazine and read the lead: “It was June 26, 4:45 a.m. and Digg Founder Kevin Rose was slugging back tea and trying to keep his eyes open as he drove his Volkswagen Golf to Digg’s headquarters above the grungy offices of the SF Weekly in Potrero Hill.”
I was astounded. The article had three major factual errors in the first three lines of the opening paragraph. First: Digg.com, we are happy to report, is a good tenant on the third floor of the Guardian building. Second: the SF Weekly is our chain competitor, the Village Voice/New Times conglomerate based in Phoenix, Arizona, with offices on the other side of Mission Bay near the Giants ballpark. We are suing the VVM/NT for predatory pricing. Third: we don’t have “grungy offices.” Did this pattern of factual errors, I wondered, continue throughout the piece?
Well, to be objective and fair, I am known to have a grungy desk and many people have commented on it through the years and it has even attracted a bit of publicity. In fact, there is a photo of me, sitting amidst a mountain of papers and books, grinding away on my trusty Royal typewriter (which I call fondly my l876 Royal), in the l988 edition of the book titled “A Day in the Life of California.” There is a similar photo of me at my grungy desk, back in the early l970s, in an old National Geographic magazine, with the cutline: If a writer in San Francisco was going to write like Mark Twain, he would be writing for the Bay Guardian. Reporter Sarah Phelan, hearing me mutter the word “grungy,” immediately pointed out that “grungy” is cool. She may be right. I am not going to argue the point.
However, I was curious to know how a major national business publication, an ornament of McGraw-Hill publishing, could make three such major embarrassing factual mistakes in its lead story. I also wanted to know what McGraw-Hill was going to do about it and what its policy was on corrections and retractions. I was also curious to know the whereabouts and the credits of the two writers, Sarah Lacy and Jessi Hempel, so I could ask them directly how this happened. Perhaps I could orient them over a Potrero Hill martini at the
Connecticut Yankee.
So I went to the phone book and found a Business Week office at 160 Spear St., in San Francisco, phone number 260-5390. I called and gave my questions to the young lady who answered the phone. Oh, she said, you will have to call Elizabeth Moses, an editorial assistant, at our editorial offices in San Mateo at 650-372-3980. I promptly called the number and got one of those deadly you’ll-not-get-in-here-if-we-can-help-it computer answering systems. After some fumbling and bumbling, I did get through to a voice mail with a name that I could not quite distinguish who told me she was unavailable right now but directed me to leave my phone number and email so that she could contact me. I did so. And I am now waiting patiently for an answer.
I will file my next bulletin as soon as I get the word back from Business Week/McGraw-Hill. Good luck and good night, or was it good night and good luck, B3
P.S. l: Wow! “$60 million in l8 months?” I must be in the wrong line of work.
P.S. 2: You will note that I say Giants ballpark. After the name changed from PacBell park (bad enough), to SBC park (terrible) to AT@T park (godawful), I will never again use any formal corporate name of any kind for the ball park. In this blog, it will always be the Giants ballpark in San Francisco. I hope you understand. B3
Here is what happened to Lani Silver, a Bay Guardian reader and occasional Bay Guardian contributor in an e-mail she sent to me:
I am still waiting for a call back from the San Francisco 49ers. Six weeks ago I saw a headline in the S.F. Chronicle that announced the campaign to build a new stadium, for $600-800 million. The sub-headline, said that if anything fell through, the team reserves the right to move to Santa Clara.
As a native San Franciscan, I called John York’s office to suggest that they not make an announcement and threaten a population in the same breathe. After being transferred a half dozen times, I left a message on a voice-mail system meant for community feed-back. I wanted to tell York and others, but wound up telling a machine that it’s rude to launch a campaign and threaten a city in the same moment. I thought my comment to the 49ers would be a valuable p.r. tip for the company.
This is what happens with big companies. You can never reach the top managers. You’ll get transferred many times and then you’ll have to leave a message on a machine that will never get to the people for whom they were intended.
I left my message, something nicely put about jamming a stadium down a community’s throat, when there is a perfectly fine stadium already, and how a corporation should not say that if they don’t get what they want, a billion dollar stadium that they will move. I am still waiting for a call.
Halloween not a Friendly Ghost
Fear not, ghouls and goblins. You’re still welcome in the Castro, at least one day a year. That’s right: Halloween’s back on. We got the word Wednesday night while we were celebrating all that is the Best of the Bay. Check out our Guardian’s San Francisco blog-all-about-it, and the Examiner ran a bit on it today as well. Sharpen your fangs, only three months away!
Sunshine magnified
By Steven T. Jones
It was good to see the Sentinel today amplifying our story about how the mayor’s office gave us seven contested e-mails that Sup. Chris Daly has been trying to get for months. But Pat Murphy is a bit off mark to imply that Daly got snubbed or that our obtaining the documents was anything more than solid reporting work by reporter Amanda Witherell (who confronted the mayor on a Saturday with facts that supported the release of the documents, an action that he then ordered). The mayor’s office told us Daly would also be receiving the e-mails. For his part, Daly was happy about our successful efforts to pry loose the docs, calling it “a great victory for sunshine in San Francisco.” He also told me, “It was always unclear to me, unless the administration was trying to cover something up, why they were unwilling to release the e-mail, whether or not they were compelled to do so under the Sunshine Ordinance.” And it turns out the e-mails do show an effort by the Mayor’s Office of Communications to bury news of Newsom’s veto of an eviction notification measure, who was so popular that voters approved it as Prop. B in June.
Whew! What a Best of Party last night!
What a splendid Best of Party last night at Club Six down in the inner Mission in San Francisco. Almost all of this year’s Best of winners were there, more than 300 of them, to pick up their Best of certificate, and to pose in a group photo that will stand as one of the year’s most eclectic gatherings in San Francisco and certainly the Best San Francisco photograph of 2006. (We will publish the photo in next week’s Guardian).
There was Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry from the Rock Bottom Remainders, Chris Middlestadt of the Fruit Guys, the best beer-soaked bingo brigade, local heroes Tony Kelly of thick Description Theater, Barry Hermanson and the Greenaction Gang of closing-down-the-Hunters-Point-power-plant fame, (Marie Harrison and Bradley Angel), the best drag queen who plays the accordion, Breda Courtney of the Best Bloomin’ Thespians, Robin and Joe Talmadge and Cinder Ernst from World Gym, the Primitive Screwheads (best goofy gore), Press Secretary Peter Ragone and other reps from the mayor’s office (yes, Mayor Gavin Newsom did win an award, the best mayor we love to hate), best neighborhood newspaper publisher (Ruth Passen of the Potrero View), and scores more of the city’s best and brightest and most diverse.
The Keeping it Real with Will and Willie gang were there from the Quake (Comedian Will Durst, Ex-Mayor Willie Brown, producer Paul Wells) to accept their award as the “Best Herb Caen column on the radio.”
They exemplified the spirit of Caen by being “visible” at the party (a key Caen quality in his man about town role at the old Chronicle) and by talking genially to everyone who came in range in the massed crowd, including some who have tilted politically with Willie through the years. Caen had to do that, whether he liked it or not, because he was a target and a celebrity wherever he went. One key difference is that Will and Willie, out on the town regularly, can comment and do their reviews the next morning. Caen’s nocturnal adventures were always in his column a day later in the morning Chronicle. Caen also had l,000 word columns. Will and Willie have three hours every week day morning, from 7 to l0 a.m. in prime time, and can handle lots of live interviews in the studio or on the phone. Most important, Caen could only hint at his political proclivities, but Will and Willie announce they are Democrats and go after Bush and the war and local sacred cows with great glee.
This morning, Will and Willie led off their show on 960 the Quake with a report on the event, which they obviously enjoyed. My journalistic point: There will most likely never be another Herb Caen in San Francisco, or probably on any other daily paper, because he was a creature of another era, the hell-for-leather competitive newspaper wars in San Francisco, which were some of the most colorful in the country. Once the old Hearst Examiner and the old Chronicle formed a JOA in l965, they had no more real use for Caen but the Chronicle kept him on because of his ability and reputation. The Chronicle family owners were always nervous and often agitated about Caen and his enormous influence but they really couldn’t do much about him. Now, with the new Hearst Chronicle as the dominant daily here, with the coming of Singletonland in the Bay Area, no publisher has any use for a powerful independent talent such as Caen, particularly a strong union voice. Al’as.
The Caen formula lives
Will and Willie demonstrated the point again in this morning’s show with a snapshot of Caen’s San Francisco with a nostalgic interview of Mort Sahl, who Caen helped make a celebrated fixture at Enrique Banducci’s Hungry I. They were making the most of the fact that Sahl was reemerging in San Francisco and opening tonight at the Empire Plush Room (Willie said he would in the front row). And Sahl responded with some good political jokes: The Democrats are proving they can defeat Democats, he said of the Lieberman race. But can they defeat Republicans? Jerry Brown is putting Oakland “up for adoption.” On the Mel Gibson incident, Sahl said there was talk in Hollywood that he would now be boycotted. But Sahl quoted Jack Warner of Warner Brothers about an earlier star: “He’ll never work in this town again– until we need him.” And Sahl mused at one point, “Just how many wars are we fighting today.”
Sahl also had some news. Banducci was alive and well in Hayward, sharp as ever. Sahl lived in San Francisco and Sausalito for many years and is now living in LA and working regularly. The I in Hungri I stood for Intellectual. ON and on, making the point on the show that Sahl is back. Hurray!
Back on the monopoly journalism front
Just in: story from the Mercury News by Pete Carey with the arresting head: “Area’s new media king is having fun, industry leader started with one small paper at age 20.”
He quoted Singleton as telling a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Seattle in April, on a podium he shared with McClatchy’s Gary Pruitt,
“We do a lot of things because they’re fun.” Impertinent questions: who else is having fun as Singletonland comes to town? Is there no way that any of the reporters covering Singleton on any of his papers can utter a discouraging or realistic word about his form of discount journalism, or find someone who can do? (Carey, incidentally, a veteran reporter, has done the best job of covering the sale of Knight-Ridder and subsequent developments).
The newspaper unions have been quiet and have not even commented on what happened to their offer to buy the Merc and the other McClatchy castoffs. And the few statements they have issued took the line of the Hearst unions in San Francisco in dealing with its monopolizing issues: lay low and wait till negotiations on the next contract (when, from my point of view, it may be too late.) The Merc employees are working without union contracts. The crunch will come when Singleton starts “consolidating” and making the deep cuts in production and newsrooms and quality that he must do, sooner or later, probably sooner, with his mountains of debt, his unmanageable forest of papers and presses, and his “lean Dean” cost-cutting modus operandi. Stay tuned. B3
Wage slaves
By Steven T. Jones
Just when San Francisco starts setting an example on justice for workers, the evil corporate bastards in DC or Sacto find ways to knock us back a few notches. Have you caught the debate over the legislation to increase the federal minimum wage? This thing is a poison pill mess that will do more harm than good. Well, as the Examiner discovered the other day, it also has particularly heinous impacts on San Francisco and other states and cities that have their own minimum wage standards, striking them down in favor of the paltry fed minimum (which, for tipped employees would actually drop to the downright criminal level of just a couple bucks an hour). I was over at the Young Workers United office yesterday (they rent space for the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union Local 2), which was all abuzz with concern about this. And they say even the usually greedy and anti-worker Golden Gate Restaurant Association is opposed to this. Yes, it’s just that bad.
mark pickerel aug 8
>
>CHICAGO, IL: From Seattle Grunge to spooky Country: EX-SCREAMING TREES
>MARK PICKEREL (Nirvana, Neko Case) embarks on SOLO CD RELEASE TOUR of West
>Coast in support of debut Bloodshot Records release, “Snake in the Radio”,
>beginning Saturday, August 8, 2006 in Portland, OR.
>
>INTERVIEW REQUESTS RE: Mark Pickerel at Town Lounge (Portland OR.) 8-5-06:
>angie@bloodshotrecords.com
>
>Seattle staple MARK PICKEREL, former SCREAMING TREES drummer/NIRVANA
>session man who has most recently collaborated with MARK LANEGHAN, BRANDI
>CARLILE, and NEKO CASE, sets out on his first ever solo CD Release Tour
>immediately following his debut performance at the “ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES”
>festival in the UK.
>
>Mark’s full band (billed as Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands) will
>accompany him on the last date of his summer CD Release Tour at Seattle’s
>BUMBERSHOOT festival on September 2, 2006. Mark is also scheduled to
>headline BLOODSHOT RECORDS CMJ PARTY in New York City on Saturday, November
>4, 2006.
>
>”Snake in the Radio” reunites Mark with longtime ally and legendary
>producer STEVE FRISK (Nirvana, Low, Posies, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees).
>The result: quirky phrasing, charming lyrics, and an uncanny record not
>unlike the works of the Magnetic Fields. According to NO DEPRESSION, Mark
>Pickerel’s new release “is music as perfectly suited for those late-night
>hours as a classic cult film.”
>
>Mark Pickerel has moved from behind the kit and, with his band The Praying
>Hands, he’s ready to start the next chapter in his musical life.
>
>****MARK PICKEREL LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO:****
>
>ANNIE’S SOCIAL CLUB
>Tuesday August 8, 2006:
>Mark Pickerel Bloodshot CD Release show, solo-acoustic!
>9:00pm
>http://www.anniessocialclub.com/august06.html
>
>MARK PICKEREL BLOODSHOT CD RELEASE (solo acoustic):
>
>Sat 8-5-06 Portland, OR Towne Lounge w/ Johnny Dowd
>Tue 8-8-06 San Francisco, CA Annie’s Social Club
>Wed 8-9-06 Sacramento, CA Marilyn’s
>Thu 8-10-06 Los Angeles, CA Hotel Cafe
>Fri 8-11-06 Tuscon, AZ Hotel Congress
>Sat 8-12-06 Albuquerque, NM Burt’s Tiki Lounge
>Mon 8-14-06 Houston, TX Rudyard’s British Pub
>Tue 8-15-06 New Orleans, LA One Eyed Jacks
>Wed 8-16-06 New Orleans, LA House of Blues
>Sun 8-20-06 Austin, TX Longbranch Inn
>Thu 8-24-06 Albuquerque, NM Atomic Cantina
>Sat 8-26-06 San Francisco, CA Hotel Utah
>Mon 8-28-06 San Francisco, CA Makeout Room
>Sat 9-2-06 Seattle, WA Bumbershoot Festival w/ Shooter Jennings,
>Alejandro Escovedo, Laura Veirs
>
>
> >For more information, email angie@bloodshotrecords.com
> >Mark Pickerel promo pics, bio, MP3’s, and tour dates here:
> >http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/artists/markpickerel/
>
>
More on the Case of the Uncovered Bay Area Newspaper Monopoly
1. It was good to see today’s Chronicle run a big front page, above the fold story on a 24-year-old freelance cameraman (Josh Wolfe) upholding journalistic principle and going to jail rather than disclosing unaired tapes of a 2005 anarchist demonstrations in which protestors clashed with police. This once again shows the power a daily paper can wield in punching up a serious Freedom of Information/First Amendment issue. Wolfe’s courageous decision as an individual contrasts nicely with the institutional moves by the nation’s biggest newspaper chains to impose quietly on the Bay Area a Singleton/Hearst regional monopoly conglomerate, with McClatchy, Gannett and Stephens aiding and abetting, no competition allowed, for the duration. (See Bay Guardian editorials and my previous blogs).
Since these publishers have mangled and blacked out the coverage of this story, let me lay out the documents below in the Clint Reilly court filings for you to judge for yourself. Pay particular attention to the Alioto filings, which detail the real monopolizing strategy of the publishers:
Read the Alioto Legal Documents:
Complaint.pdf
Gannett-Stephens_Opp_to_ TRO.pdf
MediaNews-Calif_Newspaper_Partnership_Opp_to_TRO.pdf
Plaintiff’s_Reply_to_Mtn_for_TRO.pdf
2. Just in: A breathless editorial in today’s Contra Costa Times (“Times’ bright future”), welcoming Dean Singleton and his brand of journalism, by some folks who want to keep their jobs. Click here. Their line is presented without blushing: “…the joining of these suburban newspapers under the Media/News flag creates a Bay Area publishing constellation that makes each paper stronger by giving it access to the best that the others have to offer. This is another chapter in a classic American success story: how MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton grew his enterprise from a single, small daily newspaper in New Jersey to the fourth largest publishing company in the country.” The rousing conclusion: “As we said, it has been a difficult eight months for everyone at the Times, but all of that is about to be behind us which allows us to turn our attention fully to the job at hand. Creating informative, entertaining and compelling content for the Times dailies, our weeklies and Contra Costa Times.”
Impertinent question: we always thought the CCT was a damn good community newspaper, so recognized by the California Newspaper Publishers Association with its 2002 and 2003 General Excellence awards. Does anyone over there really think the paper will get better under Singleton? Which Bay Area paper has Singleton made better after he took it over? Let me say for the record: I like Dean Singleton personally and have had some dealings with him and I would like to hope for the best but…Keep me posted on developments in Singletonland.
3. The nation’s journalism and mass communications professors are communing this week at the Marriott Hotel under the banner of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). Will any of the professors or panels take up the issue of accelerating media concentration, perhaps the most serious problem in the newspaper business, and in particular the issue of the emerging Hearst/Singleton conglomerate right here in San Francisco? This is a tough one for journalism/mass com departments who depend on newspaper and broadcast companies for money and jobs. B3
The press censors the press
Well, well. Today’s Chronicle/Hearst had some big stories on its front page, including a story by its City Hall reporter headed “SF Residents asked to volunteer for a day.” The lead: “Mayor Gavin Newsom today will call on all San Francisco residents to take time out and give a day to their city.” And there were at the top of the page some teaser heads, “After 25 years-still want your MTV? C. W. Nevius on Mel Gibson’s tirade. Bruce Jenkins on baseball’s busy day.” And a big across- the- front – page story, framed in yellow with a white sun, saying, “If you thought last week was hot…More heat, rising ocean, loss of snowpack forecast by the state for 2l00.” Nifty. All legitimate stories.
But way inside on the business page was the hottest local story for San Francisco, the region, and the newspaper business. It was Hearst’s joyful policy announcement story headlined “Bay Area papers cleared for sale to MediaNews, Federal agency’s antitrust review ends with approval.” Our earlier two blogs pointing out the lousy Hearst coverage (and lousy coverage by the other papers involved in the deal) must have done a bit of good. I emailed the obvious questions in my blog to Hearst, but Hearst didn’t reply and Hearst and the other participating papers didn’t answer the questions in their stories, but they did do a bit better with the DOJ story. At least, after I chided them for leaving out a key point in their minimalist stories reporting how a federal judge refused to grant a temporary restraining order in the Clint Reilly/Joe Alioto suit, they asked Alioto if he and Reilly were going to press on with their suit. They are, as I reported exclusively on my blogs. Finally, Hearst et al did publish this fact in their stories. The Mercury-News put it as the last paragraph to its story.
However, the stories by Hearst and the other participant papers read as if nobody ever bothered to check the court documents in the case or at least the Alioto reply memorandum in support of his motion for a temporary restraining order.
What Alioto argued is that Hearst and MediaNews (Singleton), and the other billionaire partners (Gannett and Stephens), have no use for facts nor principles in their move to regional monopoly. Case in point: Back in 2000, when Reilly tried to block Hearst from buying the family-owned Chronicle and shutting down its own Examiner and establish a morning monopoly, Hearst argued that there was no reason to fear a newspaper monopoly in San Francisco because competitors from other Bay Area cities, such as the San Jose Mercury-News and Contra Costa Times, would provide serious competition.
“Specifically,” Alioto stated, “Hearst argued that all of the Bay Area newspapers compete with each other in the Greater Bay Area, and that this competition, both actual and potential, has a tempering effect on the behavior of the competing papers.”
Now, of course, Hearst is arguing the opposite-that these outlying papers are not competitors with the Chronicle and never will be. Alioto pointed out that Federal Judge Vaughn Walker, in ruling against Reilly and for Hearst in that case, agreed with Hearst’s argument and quoted extensively from Walker’s decision. Alioto continued that, “at the very least, this court ought to hold a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction, if not a trial, to find out why Hearst and the other defendants are now ignoring and running away from the position taken by Hearst in the prior lawsuit.”
Alioto also pointed out why the contention of Hearst et al that there will be no allocation of markets and anti-competitive behavior is “ludicrous on its face.” Let me give you the precise quote that ought to have been in every honest story on this case:
“Although defendants disclaim the existence of their agreement to allocate markets, and Hearst professes that it will have no role in the combination’s subsequent stewardship of Bay Area newspapers, the claim is ludicrous on it face. Hearst cannot expect this court or anyone else to believe that it is shelling out $263,200,000 simply to buy and deliver the Monterey Herald to its Bay Area competitors to gain an interest in its competitors’ markets outside the Bay Area, without receiving any assurance or reaching any understanding that it will be protected against future competition in the Bay Area from its new partners. Such a claim strains credibility to say the least. Indeed, the role of Hearst in this combination, coming to the aid of its competitor MediaNews, can be explained most logically and cogently only by Hearst’s participation in the combination alleged in the complaint. Otherwise, Hearst’s motivation is truly mystyifying and Byzantine. If ever Occam’s razor ought to be applied, it is here.”
Let’s have a show of hands. Has anyone seen this quote and point, or a summary thereof, in any Chronicle, Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, Monterey Herald or Associated Press story, or any other Hearst/Singleton/Gannett/Stephens/McClatchy paper anywhere in the country? The larger question: will you ever see this quote as the suit plays out and the messy facts begin to emerge about one of the sorriest chapters in American journalism?
Today, John Simerman of the Contra Costa Times reported breathlessly, in a story headlined “MediaNews looks to set standard for papers online,” that Media News “hopes to harness its newfound Bay Area newspaper dominance on the internet into a regional website that aims to be a model for how old guard newspapers can work and make money online.” He also reported that MediaNews was in “very preliminary” talks with Hearst “about a joint Internet venture that could be run under the BayArea.com name.”
I suggest they first learn to cover local news.
Repeating: one city monopoly is now becoming regional monopoly and the monopolizing powers are now censoring the news toward that end. Alas, that is a terrible harbinger for Bay Area communities, for journalism, and for the free press provisions of the First Amendment. Let us all hoist a Potrero Hill martini for Clint Reilly and Attorneys Joe Alioto and Daniel Shulman.
Check the story yourself and in particular the Alioto/Shulman filings. Click here. B3
Bomb the dailies
By G.W. Schulz
If top-promoted San Francisco Examiner columnist Ken Garcia was a graffiti artist, his moniker might be “Myopia,” or perhaps, “Screed.”
He often serves as a bullhorn for the city’s conservative and wealthy elite. I should state for the record that there are times when I feel he’s genuinely insightful and informative. He can occasionally present a complex issue in a way that’s relatively easy to digest; a challenge every reporter struggles with.
But when he becomes rhetorical and stretches a theme or idea in order to attack the city’s “wacky” Board of Supervisors, I grow uncomfortable. In a July 25 piece, he managed to connect the phrase “social crusade” to the board amid a disjointed analysis of a settlement the city had arranged with a particularly aggressive 20-year-old graffiti artist named Carlos Romero.
Stop the presses
July 31, 2006
Here are the developments following my “monopolies are forever” blog of last Friday:
1. Today, Monday, July 31, The Department of Justice decided, “to close its investigation” into the Singleton/Hearst monopoly deal. It said, in a terse two-page press release, “the Antitrust Division determined that the transaction is not likely to reduce competition substantially.” How in the world could the DOJ—even the DOJ of Bush and Gonzales— make such a finding on a transaction that in effect destroys daily competition in the Bay Area and establishes a Denver billionaire as the Baron on the Crag for the duration? It is obvious to anyone who knows anything about the history of local journalism just how bad this deal will be for the public, readers, advertisers, and the free press provision of the First Amendment.
2. Hearst has in effect thrown in the towel and says it doesn’t want to compete with Singleton—by announcing it is facilitating the deal by investing undisclosed millions of dollars in Singleton properties outside the Bay Area. Singleton is widely known as hating competition and doing everything he can to eliminate or coopt it. Justice did not even address this crucial point but did state: “The division’s investigation did not address the effects of potential future transactions involving MediaNews (Singleton) and Hearst. The Division is aware that Hearst has announced plans to invest in MediaNews—ostensibly limited to its non-California newspapers—and may be considering other collaborative arrangements with MediaNews involving San Francisco area newspapers. If and when any such arrangements is proposed, the Division will investigate whether it would adversely affect competition.” This crucial statement, wimpy as it is, was omitted from the Hearst coverage in its minimalist story on SF Gate on Monday—and omitted from the Contra Costa Times story.
3. The DOJ said that it did a “careful investigation” and interviewed more than 80 people, “including newspaper advertisers, subscribers, labor leaders, and industry experts.” Guess what? They didn’t interview anybody from the Bay Guardian or anybody from any other competitive papers to my knowledge. If anybody was interviewed, or knows of anybody who was interviewed, please let me know.
4. As you will remember, I sent my story of last Friday and a batch of obvious unanswered questions to the Hearst executives and staff, asking for answers or a statement or asking that they be answered in subsequent stories. They weren’t. Saturday’s Chronicle story, reporting that a federal judge denied a temporary restraining order in the Clint Reilly antitrust case, was again buried, this time on page 3 in the Bay Area section. There was nothing in the Sunday Chronicle. And, on Monday, when DOJ made its announcement, the story on SF Gate was again minimalist and didn’t even get in the key public interest points from the DOJ statement.
5. To make my point crystal clear: the Chronicle didn’t even report the critical point: were Reilly and his attorney Joe Alioto going to continue on with the case? Or was it all over, as their coverage tried to show. Reilly and Alioto plan to continue on with their case, as Alioto told us this afternoon.
6. Meanwhile, the Guardian has demanded that Justice, since it has closed its investigation, open its investigative files to the Guardian and the public. We are asking the publishers, who often bellow loudly for government to release documents, to support this proposal publicly. Alioto says he, too, has asked for the files and that he plans to start a website and perform the ultimate journalistic and public service: make everything public that he comes up with through the suit as quickly as possible. The Guardian will do so as well on this site at sfbg.com. Stay tuned. B3
Newsom’s loser
By Tim Redmond
Gavin Newsom is endorsing Rob Black, a former aide to Michela Alioto-Pier, for supervisor in District Six. That’s an obvious — and entirely predictable — slap at the incumbent, Chris Daly. But I’m with Randy Shaw on this one; he points out in Beyond Chron that Daly is still immensely popular in the district and that almost nobody in the South of Market area has ever heard of Rob Black.
The San Francisco Sentinel reported somethat effusively on Black’s press conference with the mayor. There’s also an interesting (again, effusive) story about Black and a response from Daly’s office that makes it look like Black shot off his mouth without checking his facts.