Results tagged “chronicle”

While news of another batch of layoffs at the Chronicle isn't particularly newsworthy in this economy, the California Media Workers Guild posted the following missive yesterday.

The man who has spent his local political career championing the rights of the Tenderloin poor, the SRO-dwelling, and the owners of property more likely to be made of cardboard than of concrete, Supervisor Chris Daly is facing further scrutiny by the SF Appeal and Chron yet being defended by the Weekly this week -- all relating to the recent revelation of the purchase of not one but two homes in Fairfield, far afield of the district Daly represents. This of course follows on much e-ink already spilt and spread around in the past week on this subject, which is obvious fodder for Daly's detractors and brings forth a flood of eager defenders.

      

For those of you who still read print editions of newspapers, did you happen to see 's latest makeover? To be blunt, it looks downright lovely. The font, the sharper images, the cozier size -- all of it works. Much better than the previous format, we think. You know, if print issues are your thing.

This story may not beat the Napa gal who faked her cancer so that she could collect donations and disability, but it comes close! We find today, via SFGate's Mommy Files, that a Chicago Mommy blogger who went by the name of "B" and claimed to be carrying a terminally ill fetus to term, turns out to be one Becca Beushausen, a social worker from Mokena, Illinois who mostly just wanted to work through the loss of a child a few years ago by composing this fiction and finding readership. Her primary readership appears to have been abortion opponents who thought her willingness to carry out God's will by not aborting a baby that was likely to die within days of being born. And as the Chicago Tribune notes, it was only after Becca's posts got 50+ comments and she saw her traffic spike that she became addicted to the medium and let her lies get out of hand.

Dude.

As everyone is well aware, print news is dying a slow death, and news organizations everywhere -- like our very own Faded Floozy -- are changing hands or closing up shop completely. Fortune reports that while the NYT may be doing better than many other papers in terms of subscribers (over 800,000), the growth of their web presence, and national ad revenue, they've still had a shit year and several folks with a few extra billion dollars lying around have danced around the possibility of buying The Times Co., which is currently controlled by the Sulzberger family. Billionaire gay media mogul David Geffen was allegedly negotiating the purchase of a 19% stake in the paper in the last several months, but those negotiations fell through. Google also considered the purchased, but decided against it for now.

We're almost certain that more esteemed colleagues like Steven T. Jones and Joe Eskenazi didn't come across a request from a Chronicle reporter to unpublish their items on yesterday's involuntary layoffs

While editorial staff gets pruned today, we're hearing from Chronicle guild members that "No one thinks they're gonna go through with any manager layoffs." (Update: Lesley Guth, Chron manager, was laid off this afternoon.) If there's no one to edit, however, what will the many, many layers of management do all day?

It's rumored that 20 newsroom-based Media Workers Guild employees at the San Francisco Chronicle will be involuntarily laid off today. We're told that a union steward sent a message to its members recommending that, if they are indeed called to HR, to bring a guild representative with them to help protect their interests. Yikes.

Let's face it: The Daily Show blows now, and not in a good way. Comedy Central's fake news has turned into The Capitol Steps for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. It's the kind of programming progressives and over-educated ilk claim to find hilarious. That is to say, it's the kind of programming they all agreed en masse to find hilarious. And if you watch the show every night, you know that that's not a reactionary statement.

In today's installment of "No One Cares About This Story, So Shut Up and Do Your Job, Journalists," artisan newspaper publication The New York Times -- which is having its own economic problems -- talks about SF Chronicle's demise. Among other things, it informs the public that the Hearst publication is not a serious newspaper, one that "more closely mirrored the city’s irreverent, politically liberal outlook."

In a relatively affordable act of civic duty and nostalgia, we've just subscribed to the print edition of the , "The Voice of the West."

Warren Hellman, chairman of local private equity investment firm Hellman & Friedman, amateur banjo player and major sponsor of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, has come up with some crackpot scheme to turn the San Francisco Chronicle into a non-profit pit into which Hearst Corp. would continue to dump its money without seeing any return--sort of like a motorboat, or a fixer-upper, or a child who never amounts to anything.

Less vacation time and longer work weeks for the same pay might be in store for SF Chronicle employees after the paper and the California Media Workers Guild reached a tentative deal yesterday. But wait, there's more! In an effort to keep Chron and SFGate running after this month's somewhat shocking news, "employees who are laid off or accept buyouts will receive two weeks of pay per year of service totaling a maximum of one year's salary and health benefits for the length of the severance package," according to reports. While this entire deal could very well have Terry Schiavo written all over it, today must be a relief to the 150-plus employees who were "bracing for about 150 job cuts." Congratulations, guys.

Have you seen page 9 of today's Examiner yet? Well, you should. Chron staff writer Delfin Vigil took out an ad criticizing Hearst in its threat to close down the SF Chronicle. And the ad involves bolding AND underlining. And it's in print. Not online. Yes, we're serious. (We'll have it scanned and posted shortly.) He was also on KNBR this morning talking about it too. You can hear the podcast of Vigil's chat here. While the scribe is understandably upset over the paper's demise, sources tell us Vigil was also peeved at being passed over as editor for 96 Hours, SF Chronicle's Thursday arts & events-ish section. His anger, it seems, has reached a breaking point.

According to a CBS 5/KCBS/AP report, "Union leaders at the San Francisco Chronicle said they were drafting a compromise to a management proposal that offers severe job cuts that officials indicated were imperative to keeping the newspaper open for business." This adds weight to the argument that the Hearst Corporation is strongarming the union via a threat of a shutdown. The cuts, the press release-ish news report, goes on to say that job cuts could "include more than 50 employees." If it takes a mere 50+ job cuts to save a paper, it seems like the choice is clear.

Before we get to what esteemed journalists have to say about SF Chronicle's impending closure -- when discussing "micropayments" and other snake oils with a SFSU journo professor this morning, KTVU's Ross McGowan looked even more crestfallen than usual -- SFGate commenters have much to say about why, exactly, the Chron might have to shut its doors. Their reason? Commie, homo-loving sons-of-guns on the editorial staff.

With yet another cover story on the same subject in 30 days (same story, but no new information), The Chronicle's anti-Internet story "Web 2.0 defamation lawsuits multiply" attempts to show how the promise of Web 2.0 has turned into a nightmare -- psst, it has not -- and why you should stick to buying print editions. Or whatever. (We tend to tune out when an article uses "Web 2.0" in its title.)

Seeing as how the entire American Apparel-on-Valencia brouhaha was traffic gold -- and the Gate/Chron is on no financial position to turn down traffic -- it seemed like writing about the AA store meeting at City Hall was a given for most local pubs. Today, after reading a Tweet asking if the Chronicle planned on covering yesterday's American Apparel planning commission meeting, we asked political scribe Carla Marinucci and editor Audrey Cooper the following.

Seeing as how the American Apparel-on-Valencia Street nonsense has captivated many San Franciscans -- look no further than the hair-pulling going on in SFist's comments to see the popularity of this strange story -- we (along with photog Steve Rhodes) were surprised to see that the Chronicle has yet to cover the story, online or in print. Even though 'Politics Blog' scribe Carla Marinucci said of yesterday's meeting, "This may be it: the recession-era equivalent of the 'dog bites man'' story. And look for the city's planning commission meeting Thursday, where this is on tap, to be a fun one." Wonder why the Chon hasn't covered it? Us too. We'll let you know as soon as they get back to us.

We'd typically leave news that one of Seattle's two daily newspapers, the Seattle P-I, has been put up for sale to our sister site to the north. But a segment in the P-I's own story on the announcement gave us much pause:

In an odd and somewhat unprofessional manner, the Chronicle announced yesterday that, well, it's imploding. (While layoffs at the Chron are no surprise, the dialing down of SFGate as a whole, however, is.) At least according to World Views second to final post.

Hinting at further signs of her own developmental disability, Gov. Sarah Palin criticized ultra liberal SF Chronicle of hiding an interview with Barack Obama in which the President elect (why not?) discussed his platform's energy policy -- a policy that would, allegedly, bankrupt the coal industry.

Even as the Chronicle eliminates 125 positions across its print and web organizations, they're creating new ones -- in upper management, that is. Take, for example, Mark Adkins, who was named President of the San Francisco Chronicle and its online twin, SFGate.com, today.

Boo! After we posted about "Oliver Clothezoff, visiting from New York" at the Outside Lands festival, the Chronicle went and edited it to read, "A visitor from New York..." (Pft, you guys are no fun.) But Brittney Gilbert has the original if you want to check it out.

Imagine our surprise when we finally stopped partying woke up this morning to find ourselves quoted by the legendary Matier & Ross in The Chronicle! And – surprise! – we were made to sound completely irresponsible.

SF Weekly discovered this morning that the Gate was hacked--specifically, this morning's Mark Morford. OMG, oops.

Well, here we go, folks. What was once an abstract thought is now a reality. Behold "Phil Bronstein At Large," featuring the Chron's political scribe, Carla Marinucci. It was just posted fresh for your admiration, disdain, or entertainment.

Former editor of The Arizona Republic, vice president of The Cincinnati Enquirer, and top editor for the Reno Gazette-Journal and the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Bay Area's Ward E. Bushee was just named executive VP and editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.