Cole has an explanation for why the Chronicle is not running AP reports as news, but, rather, letting Hearst flackery pose as news:
Hearst’s goal isn’t to just eliminate the pressmen and the mailers — which there’s not much the Teamsters can do to stop; their gripe is officially going to be with Transcontinental — but with the drivers as well. I believe that Hearst is seeking to eliminate most of the driver-covered positions as well.The articles in the Chronicle are unbylined, because Hearst does not (cannot) afford to have one iota of the message slip — and you know how unreliable those reporters are.
Is the Chronicle in jeopardy? Of course it is, but who is the real threat here: Hearst or the Teamsters? The two sides are playing a game of chicken, with Hearst betting that they can maneuver the Teamsters into taking the fall for any closure of the paper and thereby counting on labor-related politicians (and this is the Bay Area—all politicians are labor-related) to stop the Teamsters from driving the paper off that particular cliff.
Just wait until it gets on the 11 o’clock news, where they have to boil it all down to 90 seconds of TV: big, bad Teamsters want to shut down Chronicle, a known money-loser, which Hearst has courageously kept alive for nine years. Transcontinental will be spinning those non-union presses in no time and there will be fewer unionized drivers as well.
Chronicle readers deserve to know these facts, including how Hearst is trying to use the House Speaker’s powers as leverage in negotiations against union members.
Perhaps Bay Area and Washington journalists not under the fact-denying thumbs of Bushee and Chronicle publisher Frank Vega will get out there and tell the people about how, to save its investment, the Hearsts and Bushee have sold their journalistic souls in a crude attempt at manipulation through flackery.
Correction: This article originally identified the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle as Ward Bushee Jr. He is only Ward Bushee, no “Jr.” involved. CJR regrets the error Click here to return to the corrected sentence.
Now being up to covering stories occurring under your feet isn't an argument in favor of the continued publication of the San Francisco Chronicle.
#1 Posted by Robert Holmgren, CJR on Wed 18 Mar 2009 at 12:25 PM
Now -- not, whatever.
#2 Posted by Robert Holmgren, CJR on Wed 18 Mar 2009 at 12:32 PM
Wait, the Chronicle is incapable of meaningfully covering a major, local story that is part of a national trend? Knock me over with a feather.
#3 Posted by Fmr Chron Reader, CJR on Wed 18 Mar 2009 at 01:39 PM
This sounds like censorship. The Chronicle editors are dictating the (lack of) coverage of the paper's financial difficulties and perhaps manipulating it to fit their ultimate goal.
#4 Posted by What's happened to the Chronicle?, CJR on Wed 18 Mar 2009 at 02:15 PM
I was a columnist for the Hearst Examiner for 18 years, and know the players in this drama. I'm sure your union-busting skullduggery explanation for The Chronicle's inability to cover its own threatened status has merit, but a simpler explanation is that The Chronicle has simply lost whatever small capability it had to commit journalism.
You mention the contrast to The Seattle P-I's coverage of its demise as a print publication, but if you go back and look at almost any story in recent years, you'll probably see the P-I do a superior job. Pre-Hearst (that is, pre-2000), The Chronicle, with its JOA-mandated morning monopoly, was fat, lazy, arrogant, and an interesting literary (but not journalistic) read. Hearst brought the old Examiner's journalistic superiority over when it bought The Chron, but incessant layoffs and news budget cutbacks since 2000 have simply made The Chronicle a bad newspaper, period. Even its popular website, sfgate.com, has deteriorated in the last couple of years.
San Francisco, that shining intellectual city on many hills, is now somewhat puzzlingly surrounded by uniformly horrible newspapers, from the once-mighty Mercury-News in the south to the dreary Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune to the east to the absolutely execrable Marin Independent-Journal and Santa Rosa Depressed Democrat to the north. That's why you see lots of blue New York Times bags outside so many homes these mornings.
The Chronicle will be missed, but not today's Chronicle. A Chronicle worth missing already died long ago. Whether Singleton, Hearst, or some new hybrid owns what's left will be of interest to business people, but not to readers. The amazing thing is that in this horrible, crushing climate of greed and corporate duplicity, journalists and photographers are still struggling to do their jobs and get the truth out, backed up by nothing but their dedication. Hats off to them.
#5 Posted by Bill Mandel, CJR on Wed 18 Mar 2009 at 02:30 PM
Bill Mandel makes a good point, that The Chronicle has been badly managed and the much better news coverage of The Examiner did not carry over so well to the paper that once called itself "The Voice of the West."
The paper has long had more than its share of deadwood, as explained at the Hitsville blog on how stories ran promoting events a year after the fact.
Would that reporters like Henry Weinstein, Lowell Bergman and Lynn Ludlow of the old Ex were around, as well as Bill Carlsen (a Wally Turner acolyte).
And for sure some solid journalists try to do their best today.
It is notable that Bruce B. Brugmann ran an editorial this week in his muckraking Bay Guardian newspaper that what the old Ex called The City would be better off with the Chronicle than without it.....
#6 Posted by David Cay Johnston, CJR on Thu 19 Mar 2009 at 12:16 PM
Great comment, Bill Mandel. I miss your voice in the paper. And Mr. Johnston, thanks for the post. The only thing I disagree with is it being notable that Brugmann is rooting for the "Chronicle" to survive. Bruce has been publishing the fat, lazy "alternative" Bay Guardian weekly for decades and it's gotten as bad as the establishment press. At least the latter pays people well while Brugmann has built an empire on unpaid (not even low-paid) intern labor.
#7 Posted by sfmike, CJR on Thu 19 Mar 2009 at 10:14 PM
If you want to find out what is going on at the Chronicle you had better read the Bay Guardian! And as far as the pay goes I wouldn't be surprised if Bruce is paying his employees more than the Hears't. Especially now since it seems to be a race to the bottom line for organized labor!
#8 Posted by Bruce Carlton, CJR on Fri 20 Mar 2009 at 02:37 PM