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Turmoil At The Sentinel
You know, we never got that string of silver anti-Daly beads from Pat Murphy....
Pat Murphy, as you guys probably know, edits the local political blog San Francisco Sentinel, the publication that showed us how Chris Daly rolls, and which provided us with some stiff competition for our prestigious Pubbies award (it was of course an honor to be considered among such an august group). The combination of Murphy's elliptical Variety-style gossipy prose and the lush photography of the Sentinel's co-editor Luke Thomas always made for a fun Internet browse for local political junkies.
So everyone was a little confused earlier this week when the Sentinel suddenly disappeared from its homepage with a cheerful bright-blue message: "Site under construction -- check back later!"
What happened? Where will we get our little anti-Chris Daly screeds now? What about our daily dose of attractive pictures of Newsom supporters? Well, turns out Pat and Luke had kind of a bad breakup. Luke's side of the story after the jump -- and you can check out the new, less lushly-photographed Sentinel here. (and confidential to Pat: isn't there any better way to set this site up other than with frames? Just some friendly Pubby-award-winning advice from your friends at SFist!)
Thanks to our tipsters for sending us the word! Still no silver beads, though. Picture is from the now-discontinued CafePress mousepad of Pat Murphy and SF/Unscripted's Art Bruzzone.
(you can find the original here, at Able Dart's SFWall blog.)
The truth of the matter:Pat Murphy engineered a hostile takeover of the Sentinel when I didn't agree to transmute the Sentinel into a pro-business publication.
Murphy's proposal included his elevation to CEO and my demotion from Editor-in-Chief to Director of Photography with no provision of ownership.
The proposal was hatched following a meeting that occurred between Murphy and Nathan Nayman of Committee on Jobs to discuss a new pro-business publication, a meeting I was un-invited to.
According to Pat, Nayman agreed to shop the Sentinel around for funding. Nayman has since claimed he has no further interest in the Sentinel after discovering, "there's no there there".
After I cried foul for holding discussions about the future direction of the Sentinel with a Sentinel advertiser, without my consent, approval, agreement, or attendance, I chose to opt-out with a buyout of my 50% equal ownership interest in the Sentinel, a partnership we entered into on April 14, 2005 with the following announcement published on the Sentinel's About Us page:
"Thomas and Murphy will make Sentinel decisions collaboratively, through equal ownership."
Pat responded to my disapproval of his proposal in an email saying, "I never promised you equal ownership forever," and then began the hostile takeover, changing all the passwords to the publishing accounts and our shared bank account.
Until Murphy and I have agreed to a mutually agreed buyout of my interest in the Sentinel with dissolution terms, I am still the Editor-in-Chief of the SanFrancsicoSentinel.com, but with all publishing powers stripped.
In closing, I think I can safely say that San Franciscans have come to understand that Pat Murphy and I are two very different people, with differing sensibilities and values. Rather than support and celebrate diversity, Pat has chosen to stifle it. Perhaps the political risks are just too high for someone like me to come along who doesn't have a political or personal agenda.
I also think when Pat started realizing that the Sentinel was about much more than just Pat Murphy, his ego got the better of him. His obsessed hatred of Chris Daly has been most certainly been unhelpful to the Sentinel's credibility as a news organization.
But Pat has so many good qualities and I do wish him well as he moves away from objective news reporting into sponsor-supported journalism.
For my part, I will continue to service San Francisco and beyond with the type of journalism and news reporting that San Franciscans have echoed loudly they appreciate, through a rich combination of multimedia story telling, with objectivity, fairness, and balance at its core.
Luke Thomas
Editor-in-Chief
SanFranciscoSentinel.com
Luke Thomas | 09.14.06 - 3:23 pm
So does anyone know what Luke's doing next? We already miss those amber-toned pictures.