July 24, 2007
The Bay Guardian 'Does It Right'?!
We've been talking so much about the Chronicle and the SF Weekly lately that perhaps one of our best-known local pubs is feeling a bit ignored. Well, no longer.
First, there was reporter G.W. Schulz's award from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for his "Scumlords" series. Now Mr. Bruce Brugmann's San Francisco Bay Guardian has been named to Editor & Publisher Magazine's "10 That Do It Right" list for this year. E&P selects a new list every summer from the nation's daily and weekly newspapers. E&P says it's not a "Top 10" list, but rather "a hat tip to a variety of publications which have, through excellence or innovation, shown the way in one area or another, such as news coverage, circulation, design, diversity or online."
The piece points to the Guardian's position as one of the few "crusading 'progressive' alt-papers left standing" as the reason for making this years' list. It's an interesting read, as are some of the other ones (The Onion made the list this year as well). It doesn't dig too deeply, but seems like a decent encapsulation of the pub's history -- if you're unfamiliar with the history of the SFBG, this story gives it to you in a neat little package.
If nothing else, here's a classic quote from Brugmann on blogging:
"Every good newspaper man ought to be controversial," the paper's leader declares. Why don't other publishers blog? "Because while they say they want to be close to their readers, they really don't."
Hmm. Wonder who he's calling out there. Any guesses?
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The Guardian underpays their writers and thumbs their nose up at any criticism of their paper.
To boot, they're didactic, boring, and they use sex to sell ads.
IF that's being progressive, sign me up for the John Birch Society.
The writers they pay they underpay. The also have a bunch of unpaid "interns" (many of whom are not current/recent/near future students) working for them. This ensures that the news room is filled with those who can afford to live in San Francisco without a salary.
Their Tour de France coverage is spotty at best, non-existant at worst.
Does that feckless dreck Tally Woodward still write for them?
Let's be honest - there's not one decent publication in this city. I can't fathom why such a well-heeled, artsy, liberal, and well-educated market doesn't drive these garbage rags out of business.
Minneapolis and St. Paul have 4 papers that are better than anything in San Francisco. Granted, West Coast papers are pretty bad across the board; but given the huge number of transplants here it doesn't make sense that we don't have something better.
Indeed, we've neglected in-depth professional cycling coverage in exchange for the costly pull-out of global cricket scores we run each week. That's part of our ongoing effort to compete directly with the BBC. Our investors are a little anxious about the strategy, but they'll probably be pleased in the end. It's that or layoffs. Tally (or Tali, as it's spelled, but no need to split hairs) left for the East Coast quite a long time ago. When I first showed up here for a Guardian internship from Lawrence, Kan. (just after graduation with hardly a dime) I worked full time at a natural-foods store that was eventually shut down (we'll call it the "incident at Noe Valley"). Things weren't easy, but there's not a lot of money in this biz generally (no infinite budget for coke, scarves and comically large sunglasses, that's for sure). There's still some fun to be had, however, even if the industry seems to sometimes be committing ritualistic suicide.
-G.W. Schulz