Mother may I? While the
Chronicle’s knight errant, executive editor Phil Bronstein,
was off battling dragons last week, his paper was busily expanding
its empire here at home. The paper has apparently gobbled up the
venerable Newsday: the June 8
piece about Department Defense appointments quoted in this week’s
Cybervoices was reprinted June 9 in the Chron. It’s not
unusual for papers to run one another’s material, but this article
appears on the web
with not one but two copyright notices reading ©2001 San Francisco
Chronicle. Apparently, too, Newsday veteran reporter Patrick
Sloyan has moved from Washington to a city west of the Rockies.
If you click on his name on the Chron website, you’re served up
with an email form addressed to chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com.
Gloria Sandler, who doles out permissions
at Newsday to reprint articles and photographs, says no, sorry, that’s
not a customary practice among newspapers.
Who’s watching the watchers? The
ad that appears to the left here ran recently in at least one San
Francisco neighborhood paper, announcing the advent of a new
political website. Fronted by Usual Suspects webhost Alex
Clemens, comedian Will Durst, and SF Politics host Arthur
Bruzzione, sfvoterwatch.com
was — the site says — “developed by some of San Francisco’s
most experienced Board watchers and supported by community and
business organizations” to allow ordinary folks to track the way
their supervisor votes.
Funny, I thought Pat Murphy’s San
Francisco Sentinel was already doing that. Guess it all
depends on who’s footing the bill. sfvotewatch is brought to you
courtesy of the Committee on Jobs, Golden Gate Restaurant
Association, San Francisco Association of Realtors, and a host of
other business-oriented organizations. You’ll notice, on its
extensive links page, that neither the Sentinel nor the Call is
listed.
Standing
room only. Somebody sure works in
mysterious ways when it comes to our city government. Gavin
Newsom, who has long expressed in Single Room Occupancy hotels,
chairs the supes Audit, Labor, & Government Efficiency
Committee. Chris Daly, who represents prime SRO territory in
District 6, is vice chair. The two called a special hearing for last
Tuesday, to be held at the Seneca Hotel on 6th Street, to
discuss visitor policies in these hotels, the need for sprinkler
systems, and other related issues. But the Independent, the paper
assigned to announce such events, dropped the ball.
Under the Sunshine Ordinance, no announcement, no
hearing. But through the miracle of cyberspace, the guests had all
been invited. So the supes went anyway and spent several hours
listening to a parade of unhappy SOMA residents. The Examiner
gratuitously announced recently that many of the Seneca’s
residents are parolees and — by implication — involved with
drugs and prison disputes, but the people who spoke there on Tuesday
were more concerned about the possibility that another SRO, the
Mission Hotel on South Van Ness, was about to lose its funding and
would soon be forced to close.
Under Sunshine restrictions, two supervisors are
not supposed to hold court together in an unannounced meeting. These
two ostensibly ignored each other’s presence, alternately sitting
at the table in front and wandering about the room, although Newsom
found time to stroll outside with an enterprising TV reporter.
An official, properly announced meeting of the
Audit, Labor, & Government Efficiency Committee was scheduled
for 9:30 on Monday, June 18, to discuss the same issues. The same
folks are bound to turn out, but you can bet it won’t be half as
much fun.
B.C.
