Buried by the bay

Our picks for local stories the mainstream media ignored.

By Cassi Feldman

WHEN THE SAN Francisco Chronicle and the Hearst Corp.-owned San Francisco Examiner merged two years ago, the city was promised a new world-class newspaper. Yet somehow, the increase in staff has done little to boost the quantity or quality of hard-hitting investigative stories in the Chronicle's pages. (If anything, the much smaller Examiner does a better job of staying on top of local news). The Chron's poor performance has national implications as well, since the Associated Press and other wire services rely on the paper for Bay Area news.

Neither of our mainstream daily papers – or our increasingly consolidated TV and radio outlets – has cracked the surface of these major Bay Area stories, most of which have been going on for years:

Antiwar activism

Long before Rep. Barbara Lee's historic September vote, the Bay Area was considered a haven for those who dare to challenge U.S. foreign policy. As the rest of the country has walked in lockstep with the president and his posse, local students and activists have consistently called for a preservation of civil rights in the United States and for nonviolence in the Middle East. But you wouldn't know it from our mainstream media. Protests that attracted thousands of participants were barely covered, and major civil rights violations (such as Federal Bureau of Investigation visits to local dissidents and the arrest of students at San Francisco State University) have gone almost unnoticed.

Public power and the Raker Act scandal

This November voters will have a monumental – and historic – choice: take control of the city's power supply (and energy future) or continue to suffer under an illegal monopoly that's lasted for 88 years (see "Power Struggle," 2/14/01). If passed, Proposition D would enable the city to build its own power plants and take over Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s existing grid. For consumers, that could mean lower utility rates, more reliable service, and a cleaner environment (see "PG&E's Poison Power," 10/24/01 and "Public Power OK'd for November Vote," 7/24/02). A similar plan on the ballot last fall lost by only about 500 votes.

But the Chronicle and the Examiner have largely ignored the two campaigns for public power – and have almost entirely blacked out the real story, the history of the Raker Act of 1913 and the fact that federal law requires San Francisco to operate a public power system. We ran a search on the Chron's Web site (www.sfgate.com) and found exactly seven stories that mentioned the Raker Act in 2001 and 2002. Four of those were about repairs to the city's water system – and they completely missed the point that the Raker Act required a power dam, not just a water dam, at Hetch Hetchy. Of the other three stories, one focused on city finances, one was a decent column by Rob Morse (2/7/01), and the last was a report on power policy plans by Chuck Finnie and Susan Sward that hinted at the Raker Act "controversy" in the 16th and 17th paragraphs.

Finnie told us a big public power story has been scheduled for publication. We'll believe it when we see it.

Clear Channel and the consolidation of media control

Clear Channel Communications is more than just a media company; it's a burgeoning empire that controls 1,200 U.S. radio stations and 19 TV stations. Here in San Francisco, Clear Channel owns 7 radio stations, a major concert business, and half of the city's billboards. As if that weren't bad enough, it will soon control the distribution of local newspapers as well (see "Clear and Present Danger," 4/24/02). Adshel, a subsidiary of Clear Channel, recently won an exclusive 20-year contract to place and maintain giant, multibox racks called "pedmounts" in parts of the city where freestanding news racks have been banned. The media giant can sell its own ads on the backs of those racks – and will, in effect, have control over which publications can enter the market and how effectively they can get their messages out to the public.

The Bay Guardian and the Examiner encouraged the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to limit Adshel's influence, but the Chronicle, SF Weekly, and others were content to watch quietly while the contract won easy approval from the board.

Cops and mental illness

It's a sad state of affairs when the only way police know how to calm a mentally ill man in crisis is to kill him. But that's exactly what happened to Idriss Stelley at the Sony Metreon June 13, 2001 (see "The Tragedy of Idriss Stelley," 1/23/02). Although Stelley's girlfriend made it clear in her 911 call that her knife-wielding boyfriend was in need of psychiatric help, San Francisco police officers shot to kill. Sadly, this wasn't an isolated incident. In May 2001, BART cop David Betancourt killed Bruce Seward, who was naked and upset when he grabbed the officer's nightstick (see "Gun Crazy," 10/17/01). There's a deadly pattern here of cops who lack the training and experience to handle mentally ill people – but the major media haven't noticed it.

The Earth First! trial

After 11 years of conspiracy theories and legal wrangling, the Earth First! bombing trial came to an explosive finale this June. A federal jury awarded $4.4 million to Earth First! activist Darryl Cherney and the estate of his deceased cohort, Judi Bari, for civil rights abuses committed by the FBI and the Oakland Police Department. The story was popular for a week or two, but most reporters missed the key findings in the case: the police and FBI hadn't just botched the case, they had also actually lied, as well as fabricated evidence, to frame the activists. Scary stuff – but not scary enough to make headlines (See "The Judi Bari Bombshell," 5/29/02).

The real homeless stories

Homelessness as a concept has certainly made the news lately. The Examiner did a seemingly endless series of "Mess on Market" stories that relied heavily on their reporters gazing out of their office windows at the drug-addicted riffraff below. Sup. Gavin Newsom's harsh Care Not Cash initiative gets almost exclusively flattering press (see "Tough Love or Tough Luck," 1/9/02).

The mainstream media rarely delve beneath the surface to explain how homelessness was created by Reagan-era politics and how it could be alleviated through housing and drug treatment. As Ben Bagdikian, former dean of UC Berkeley's journalism school, explained in his 2001 keynote address to the North American Street Newspaper Association, "The homeless people are under the feet of news executives who decide what is newsworthy and who decide which problems demand priority solutions by government."

UC privatization

College campuses are among the few places on the planet devoted entirely to the business of learning. But nowadays they're increasingly devoted to the business of, well, business. The University of California is a perfect example. Between 1995 and 2001, its private industry-sponsored research grew by 77 percent, and its corporate grants and gifts doubled. The result: tainted experiments, secret findings, and a new kind of academic pressure that has nothing to do with grades (see "The Selling of the UC System," 3/21/01).

What the experts think

We asked a range of Bay Area activists and media observers for their suggestions on underreported local stories. Here's a selection:

Andrea Buffa, peace organizer, Global Exchange

"San Francisco companies that got that big tax cut from the Board of Supervisors – what happened and why?

"Bay Area companies that are doing the same things Enron and WorldCom did – from their accounting practices to their overseas tax shelters."

Tim Kingston, former editor of San Francisco Frontiers

"My stories about counterfeit drugs affecting people with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses. The fact that this illustrated a huge hole in the medical care system. The fact that the high price of drugs is encouraging counterfeiting."

Eyad Kishawi, board member, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

"There's a very large Iraqi population here in the Bay Area, and not a single time has the media approached the population and asked them to comment [on the ongoing U.S. bombing of Iraq] or speak on behalf of their own people."

Dick Meister, freelance columnist, former labor editor of the Chronicle and reporter for KQED TV

"One of the things that's absolutely not being covered at all are the continuing job safety problems of American workers. Also the big boycott against Taco Bell [on behalf of Florida tomato harvesters]. There are a lot of Taco Bells in the Bay area, and not a word."

Jeff Perlstein, executive director, Media Alliance

"There should have been a lot more coverage on the firing of Davey D from KMEL, specifically his case but also a consistent trend of firing journalists who were willing to go outside the mainstream perspective."

Mary Ratcliff, editor San Francisco Bay View

"Police brutality. What happened to the kids on the hill on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Especially when you recognize that the cop who was leading the charge said to the parents, 'As long as you're here, well keep doing this.' "

Phil Ting, executive director, Asian Law Caucus

"In general you just don't see many issues that impact the Asian American community in the mainstream media: hate crimes, immigration, sweatshop labor. One of the big issues was the Wen Ho Lee case. That case was really covered from one perspective, which was the government's perspective, but not from Dr. Lee or the community's perspective."

Youth Radio interns and students

"The Berkeley Unified School District budget crisis and teachers union hearings should get more attention. Because while the baseball players are about to go on strike demanding millions more a year to hit a ball with a wooden stick, these teachers are struggling to get a living wage and job security in a district run into the ground by incompetent superintendents."

– Nora Harrington, 16 years old

"The San Francisco Unified School District closed McAteer High School. Many high schools are already overcrowded, so packed with students that people can't get through the hallways. Closing a high school displaces hundreds of students and increases the problem."

– Darlene Ng, 16 years old

"From my point of view, anything that has to do with adults and kids doing community service or other good things for their community and for their earth is left unsaid."

– Jacquelyn "Jax" Sexson, 14 years old

E-mail Cassi Feldman at cassi@sfbg.com.