SFist Goes To City Hall -- What's Up With SFPD Press Passes?

Since our agenda item wasn't up when we arrived, we headed went and took some pictures of the weddings on hand (don't worry, America, all of them involved a man and a woman) and then dropped in on the regularly scheduled Film Commission meeting. Stefanie Coyote from the Mayor's office was in fine form, and the film commission president was actually relatively funny and engaging. We think we may become regulars. An interesting note was that there were 44 full shooting days in The City last month. One of the filmmakers on the commission felt that one of the prohibitive costs for local productions was the over $1,000 it costs per officer for the required police supervision on a 14-hour shooting day. Interesting.

By the time we got back to room 263, they were just rapping up a review of patient admissions policies at Laguna Honda, which is actually a very important story that we promise to pay more attention to in the future. One nice thing about these public meetings is that they are seriously public. Really. Want to come down and talk to Aaron Peskin? Just drop on in!

Item number four on the agenda was introduced, and San Francisco Police Sergeant Neville Gittens was asked to present the department's policy regarding press passes. He pointed out that in 2002 there were 1800 press pass holders. He compared that number to the approximately 100 on issue at the time in San Jose. Through his efforts, that number was reduced to the current 700, 122 of which are held by the staff of the Chronicle. Later it was noted that the CHP was no longer issuing passes, which you think would mean that there would be a rise in local numbers as state accredited journos reapplied with The City. He also noted that press parking permits were down to 250, a quarter of which were also held by the Chronicle. He also told anecdotes of people applying for press passes to get into the Opera or even the Super Bowl for free, but never backed up his anecdotes with the numbers of or organization names used by non-'legit' press pass holders.

Supervisor Mirkarimi pressed Sergeant Gittens as to whether a change to Section 939 was required to reduce the numbers, and Gittens replied "It required that the SFPD resume following guidelines." Supervisor Peskin then asked what the renewal cycle for the passses was, and Gittens said that previously it had been every three years, and was now annual. Peskin also asked what fees are involved -- Gittens responded that press passes were free and the press parking permits cost $50. Gittens put the number of recently denied applications at around 120. Gittens said he's also talked to Chief Heather Fong, who he said was "amenable to other city agencies offering press passes."

Supervisor Peskin pointed out that not all 122 Chronicle pass holders are covering just crime and fire scenes, and pointed out that the cultural value of a press pass is much more broad than the strict definition presented by the SFPD. He was also "worried that the reduction in numbers is too broad in its application." Mirkarimi asked Sergeant Gittens if there were "Any changes you can think of that might alleviate the problem." Gittens replied, "Issuing a separate press pass would be something we'd be interested in looking into." When asked if the list of accredited press was publicly available, Gittens said that he could provide it. What was really interesting was when Supervisor Mirkarimi asked specifically about bloggers:

Mirkarimi: What's your feeling about the explosion of bloggers who claim that they are press?...There's obviously not going to be hard and fast answers, I mean, we obviously haven't caught up to this new world, and I think there's a lot of unanswered questions, so we're just going back and forth and thinking through possibly how to forecast an inevitability. What comes to mind about the world of bloggers and how they are press?

Gittens: As has been mentioned here, two types of press passes is something that's important and should be looked at. Because there's so many people out there...when the Laci Peterson case was going to happen in Redwood City, we got calls from New York city, from different magazines and newspapers...there were so many potential journalists that want a press pass. If somehow there's a way to figure out who's a member of the press and what their function is...in terms of gathering breaking news. I think that's one of the answers to the issues here. Maybe a press ID card and another ID card for breaking news. I don't know if I answered your question, but there's just so many people out there that are in the news gathering industry...be it magazines, televsion, radio, online publications. I think that's something that needs to be addressed...The problem is I'm not to sure how you do backgrounds or verify that these people are bona fide members of the press.

Mirkarimi: The way the Bush Administration should have done a background on Jeff Gannon and Talon News, possibly? [Audience laughs] Is that the kind of background your talking about?

Gittens: Well I am concerned with the individuals that would receive press passes...and I do have security concerns with those press passes because they are very valuable, and as I stated earlier, if an individual wanted a press pass to the Super Bowl because he could get on the field, I do have some serious concerns about issuing those passes.

Mirkarimi: Are there any other cities you know who do backgrounds?

Gittens: I believe LA does backgrounds.

When Peskin opened up the meeting for public comment, a host of journalists from different organizations stepped up to lobby and complain. Anthony Faber, Pat Murphy of the SF Sentinel, Betsy Culp and Sue Cauthen of the SF Call, Tim Redmond of the Bay Guardian, Lee Romney of the LA Times, freelance journalist Richard Knee, Herb Sample from the Sacramento Bee and even Mark Calvey from the Newhouse-owned Business Times appeared, who joked that "At first we thought San Francisco was so anti-business, we can't get a press pass." H Brown of the SF Bulldog pointed out that the problem was that this was yet another example of the police being responsible for policing their own policies, without public input. Adriel Hampton of the Examiner and a San Francisco Chronicle reporter were also on hand, but did not choose to speak.

Complaints ranged from long-time reporters who were denied based on the fact that they don't cover "breaking news," reporters from extra-local publications who were denied because they weren't working for locally accredited news agencies, to alternative media publishers, both online and off, who feel that they are best suited for on-the-ground reporting and the role of community watchdog. SFist presented some facts about blogs and bloggers, including pointing out that it was local blogs like Daily Kos that lead the way on reporting the Jeff Gannon story.

Most journalists were ambivalent to the parking permits, and were generally opposed to there being a tiered system of passes for crime and non-crime work. As Supervisor Peskin noted, "It's surprising for me to see the Sac Bee and the LA Times on the same side as H Brown." It shouldn't have been much of a surprise considering that all three had been denied press passes this year, and all three are fairly well known journalists on the local beat.

After the public comment period was called to a close, Supervisor Mirkarimi continued questioning Sergeant Gittens. He asked, for instance, why having 1,800 accredited reporters was a problem. That's when a bomb threat was announced and the building evacuated. We walked out with Adriel Hampton and traded notes, and he expressed concern over someone like H Brown, who said he wanted to "stay at home, drink bourbon, smoke pot and cover you guys down here at City Hall." SFist was demure with Adriel, but thats pretty much our idea of a good time. We kind of love guys like Brown and wish that we could all get press passes. One commenter pointed out that he'd never heard of a single security incident involving an accredited journalist.

When the hearing resumed after the interruption, SFist was already at home working on this piece (we wanted it to be "breaking news" after all). But thanks to SFGTV, we can report that Mirkarimi resumed his questioning of Sergeant Gittens regarding the perceived problem with 1,800 accredited press. Gittens responded that the problems were mostly with administration and management with limited resources, assuring everyone that "we're trying to get press passes to everyone we can." Sean Elsbernd seemed to take the opportunity to catch up on some reading, as he only briefly engaged Sergeant Gittens near the end regarding the ratio of accredited reporters to police public affairs staff in other California cities. Ross Mirkarimi felt that maybe a nominal fee for the passes could help defer costs, and Aaron Peskin thanked Mirkarimi for bringing the topic to the committee's attention and hoped that he would continue working on the issue.

SFist will stay on the story, and hope that a solution can be achieved that nets both old press pass holders a return to accredited status, and nets new self-publishers and smaller, online publications (like SFist, duh) new opportunities to join the ranks pass-wielding journalists. We hope that any revisions to the code make it mandatory to wear your pass in the hat-band of a fedora, but that's just us.

Thanks again to Betsy Culp of the SF Call for the original tip and some fact-checking!