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Mea Culpa, Bay Guardian
Well, hello there! Some of you may remember a different post, written by a different SFist writer, at this location. So to refresh your memory, SFist MattyMatt and commenter Jameson were wondering why the door hangers and election mailer cards with the Guardian's logo on them say that Chris Daly, Alix Rosenthal, and Emily Drennan (the BART board) paid for them. Were the Guardian's endorsements for sale?
Well, the post went up, and we were promptly contacted by the Guardian themselves, who (rather forcefully) clarified that the candidates paid for the mailers, not for the endorsements. The Guardian endorses in an independent process, and then allows candidates to promote that endorsement by printing up mailers and door hangers. The Guardian does not accept money for its endorsements.
SFist, through its editorial staff, apologizes profusely for the mixup, wants to reassure everyone that this was a bona fide misunderstanding of the situation on our part, and is running this corrected post as a result.
However, because the coverup is always worse than the crime, and because now everyone's morbid curiosity has probably been piqued about the original post, we've included SFist MattyMatt's original post after the jump (in strikethrough, so there's no mixup about the intent), and left all the comments as they were before.
Okay, something cheerful after all that! Hey, did you vote yet?
Oh Jamison! Always vigilant, that kid. This time he's tipped us off to a creepy disclaimer on the Clean Slate Endorsements flier that SF Bay Guardian used to spam the city's doorknobs last night. Asterisks on endorsements are never a good sign, and the Guardian's asterisks are doozies: "Appearance on this mailer authorized and paid for by each candidate ... designated by an asterisk." WHAAAAA?!?!
Apparantly, appearing on a Guardian mailer isn't free -- according the the asterisks on the flier, candidates like Alix Rosenthal and Chris Daly shelled out some cash in exchange for ... um, what, exactly? An endorsement? Or just post-endorsement printing of the flier? It's unclear, though kind of funny, because the Guardian would surely have fellated those candidates free of charge. Maybe they've taken to role-playing a hooker/client relationship in order to add an erotic thrizzle to the whole tawdry affair?
We were even more shocked to see that the payola even extends to Bart Board of Directors (District 8) candidate Emily Drennen -- IS NOTHING IN THIS RACE SACRED?
But wait there's more: Making this all even more awkward: "Our Clean Slate is prepared by nobody but us and paid for by nobody but us," reads a disclaimer on the Guardian website. Oops. To be fair, they never say who "us" is. Maybe the SF Bay Guardian Clean Slate (in the paper and on the site) is different from the SF Bay Guardian Clean Slate (the flier). That sure would be a perfectly simple explanation.
[UPDATE/CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: The Guardian got in touch with us after this post went up, and clarified that the candidates produce and pay for the mailer, but the endorsements themselves are solely those of the Guardian staff. See comment below as well. --SFist.]