Oh wow. No, it looks great. Oh stop, you look wonderful. And you've been due for a change. We love it. No, seriously. Learn to take a compliment. God. But for reals, it's much better now, SFBG. SFist asked Senior Editor Marke Bieschke to comment on the Guardian's rouge-tinged makeover. "I know it's a little red, but hey, we're commies. At least it's not Hard Candy pink," he tells us.......

You know that movie we're not talking about whose marketing campaign sucks? And the fine folks of SF parodied on 24th Street? That we reported on over a week or so ago? Well, now, in addition to Fametracker and Hollywood Elsewhere, Berkeley is getting in on the act. And in typical fashion, a week later. ...

As local, national, and worldwide print publishing continues to take a brutal, Christ-like thrashing -- take, for example, the San Jose Mercury News' recent layoffs and a 30% drop in the San Francisco Chronicle's daily circulation -- the time-honored watering hole for "crusty but benign" journos, it seems, has also taken a beating. The Market Watch report above tries to brings this point home, reminiscing with Michael McCourt from The Washbag, which closed this......

Well, it's been fun. The trailers, the megawatt celebrity sightings, the lights, the cameras, the not being invited to cast/crew parties -- SFist will miss it all. As most of you know, Gus Van Sant's biopic Milk -- the story of assassinated San Francisco Supervisor and gay rights advocate, Harvey Milk -- started shooting in January. This past Sunday, the production came to an end. Alas. For those of you who weren't able to......

In more pink slip sadness today, San Jose Mercury News (owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group) eliminated 50 jobs. Fifteen newsroom employees and 19 employees from "other parts of the paper" were let go today. Citing a loss of advertising revenue because to the evil Internet, this most recent workforce slashing represents "a cut of about 5 percent" of the over Merc staff. On the flip side, two editors received promotions: Barbara J. Marshman, associate......

We just got word that Gustaf Van Sant needs more extras this Sunday for Milk. You know what that means, don't you? Time to throw on your hippest and tightest '70s duds revealing the most chest hair possible in order to help the poor Palme d'Or winner out. You will help him out this coming Sunday, won't you? Good. According to event organizers: WE ARE INVITING PEOPLE BACK TO BE IN THE MOVIE ONE......

After a local jury found SF Weekly guilty of illegal predatory pricing and awarded the local alt weekly a cool $6.39 million (the verdict subject to "treble damages," which bring the total award to $15.6 million), SFBG Executive Editor Tim Redmond tells the harrowing tale of the five-week trial in his own words: But the verdict sends a clear signal to small businesses, independent newspapers and the alternative press that a locally owned publication......

With regard to the SFBG vs. SF Weekly (VVM) lawsuit -- you know, the one where the Guardian sued the Weekly and its parent company for predatory pricing practices? where the Guardian's Publisher, Bruce Brugmann, claimed that the competition was so unreasonable that it could force the Guardian out of business? -- our sources confirm that: Word just came that Guardian won the lawsuit and were awarded 6.3 million [the Gate is claiming $15M]......

When we first mentioned Nicole Atkins, back in October, we genuinely loved her unique sound calling it "...an incredibly beautiful masterpiece of songwriting and story-telling." Almost six months later, we still agree with our initial reaction - if anything, it's grown on us even more. Our friends over at Noise: SFBG are totally into her as well. "There's always room for more melodrama in my life - just as long as it's strictly of......

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny shielding themselves from your gaze. By Gordon Elgart (based on his Twitter entries) Every year, we spend Saturday at WonderCon in Hall A, watching panels of filmmakers and actors prattle on about upcoming films, and show exclusive clips and trailers. This year, we kept a running diary. Ahem: 11:12 AM – We’re in a gigantic line for WonderCon. In the pre-registration line, which is significantly longer than the pay-at-the-door......

Chauncey Bailey, former editor of the Oakland Post who was murdered last August while investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery and the Muslim splinter group's shady dealings, received the prestigious George Polk Award last week for local journalism. Congrats, Bailey! His alleged killer, Your Black Muslim Bakery handyman Devaughndre Broussard, was also interviewed by 60 Minutes, which aired last night. According to CBS 5: In the interview, Broussard repeated his claim that he was coerced......

The woman who sent KGO radio host Bernie Ward's career and reputation into freefall is thirty-three-year-old mother of three Linda Figueiredo. She also goes by the online moniker "Sexfairy," or more intimately, "Mistress". Ward and Figueiredo developed an online relationship in 2004, which hit a pocket of turbulence after Ward sent his "Mistress" some juicy yet hardly-legal child pornography. Dan Noyes refreshes out memory thusly: ...it’s clear Ward and Figueiredo already had a relationship......

We hate shit like this. 66-year-old Santa Clara ice cream man Santokh Singh Sajan made some dirty comments to underage ice cream patrons the others day. Sounds bad, right? And according to the Merc: Sajan allegedly made sexually inappropriate comments to two teenage girls, police said. He was booked Tuesday on charges of three counts of annoying a child - misdemeanors, according to police. The ice cream vendor, who drives white van that plays......

Have you always wanted to appear on Spike TV? We have. We'd even be on Max-X, which is, aside from Intervention, the best show on TV. But there's a safer way to get on the testosterone -heavy network: the 2008 Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge. This year's SWFMC winners will air on Spike TV, so hop to it. Your movies should be under five minutes, frighteningly original, and make viewers flood their pants with......

As many of you know, Bernie Ward, former Catholic priest and KGO 810 AM host, was fired from his job after the Feds hit him with charges of child pornography. Although he used the Pete Townsend defense that he was merely doing a little kiddie porn research, that doesn't seem to be the case. Dan Noyes, who takes on the difficult task of having to do an investigatory report on a former colleague, says......

Article and photo by Heath Biter/LAist Just moments ago, in a letter to its members, the WGA announced that writers have voted by a 92.5% margin to lift the “restraining order” and officially end the strike. The move comes on Day 100 of the labor dispute. WGA president Patric Verrone is expected to hold a press conference in just a few moments at the WGA Theatre in Beverly Hills, where members voted this afternoon.......

You know that site where you bid on and bought your vintage designer duds? That Thundercats lunchbox? Or those garish home accents your girlfriend has all over her apartment? It seems that they were purchased from a media company. At least according to Simon Dumenco at AdAge: There's actually another company that does something very much like what eBay does -- and, curiously, nobody hesitates to think of it as a media company. Like......

The Chicago Tribune is, in 2008, finally getting around to dealing with the glorious, frustrating, and all-knowing voice of the commenter. This week the Tribune shut down their comment boards on all of their political news stories. What's more, the publication also yanked the Commenter's voice on a recent op-ed piece about Muslims and another story about Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich. Why? Bill Adee, associate managing editor who also oversees the online operations,......

Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, Emile Hirsch as activist Cleve Jones Although the reportedly very considerate Milk production crew requests that you not take pictures, our awesome readers know when to disobey. Harvey would've been so proud. Sniff. Image credit: GayCities Photos......

The Usual Suspects passed us the following note in homeroom recently: Word is that a high-level staffer is departing the Mayor's office. But since none of the Real Media have confirmed anything, we won't name names, because we're too chicken to do so. But stay tuned - we'll post links as soon as some reporters and editors agree it's worth running with... But who, you ask? Well, according to San Francisco Sentinel (An aside:......

Recreating Harvey Milk's campaign poster for SF Supervisor, Penn is downright adorable. And surprisingly endearing. Aside from the obvious anal sex joke lingering above, your thoughts? Image credit: Tinobear......

Seeing as how castroshopper's Ray F. has some choice shots of the Castro's conversion to 1978, we thought we'd thrill you with a few more recent images of the world's most flowery neighborhood. Also, it seems to have gone through a big transformation -- bigger than we thought, in fact -- but many of the stores that are there today seem faithful to the stores' genres of yesteryear, at least according to Van Sant's......

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. After graduating from San Diego State University (dude!) in 1971 with a degree in history, Bushee started his career at The Salinas Californian in 1975 and then over the Marin Independent Journal. Then,......

It was announced today that SF Chronicle's editor, Phil Bronstein, will be "shifting his role from running day-to-day operations in the newsroom to taking on broader strategic responsibilities at the paper and for its owner, Hearst Corporation." Whoa. What's more, you will get to read more of that Bronstein voice: In addition, Bronstein will write for The Chronicle and sfgate.com. "I got into this profession because of my great love for words and how......

Undergoing a procedure to erase 30 years from its face, the Castro neighborhood is going retro, circa 1978, for the filming of Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, which starts shooting this week. Already the Castro Theatre, right, and boutique shop Given, formerly Milk's camera store / campaign headquarters, are being renovated to get that '70s vibe. Rumor has it that Castro Street between 18th and 19th streets (i.e., the staphicenter) will be......

Former Catholic priest and KGO 810 AM host Bernie Ward was finally fired, ending his working relationship with the station. This stems from last year's federal indictment of child pornography charges that befell the (now former) host of "the Bernie Ward Show" and "Godtalk." He was officially let go, it seems, at the end of 2007. According to Dan Noyes at KGO, Ward admitted to "downloading images from the internet and trading them with......

While watching Seinfeld this evening (the awesome, awesome episode involving double-dipping and Teri Hatcher's breasts), we were teased during a news break to tune into a very special episode of the KTVU 10 o'clock newscast. Intrigued, we watched something else instead. So what did we miss? Dennis Richmond announced that he is going to retire. His last broadcast will be May 21, 2008. To say Richmond has been a mainstay would be an understatement. We've......

In addition to unveiling the MacBook Air, le Jobs also premiered a new look. Or not. Seamus over at Rangelife picked up on this minor broadcasting muddle over at KTVU. Dennis Richmond will not be pleased.......

Compelling television's loss is the bargain bin's gain. KRON 4 is up for sale. Again. Amid a "high level of interest," it seems, Young Broadcasting plans on possibly peddling the network to the highest bidder. KRON 4, once the golden child as the Bay Area's NBC affiliate, was sold eight years ago and turned into an independent station. After seeing much of the KRON 4 news team jump ship - like Pete Wilson (RIP),......

Hoodies-N-Heels: Tonight's hip hop for the ivory white comes to you care of DJ VinSol. But he does more than just pump out hip hop staples. His electro, thrash, and slick soul sounds will have you staying to this Mission club just a little bit longer, getting just a little bit more drunk. A win-win, really. Goes from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. at Double Dutch; free. Media Web Meet-Up III: The Producers: Come......