January 11, 2003
His Honor Mayor Willie Brown
City Hall, Room 200
Van Ness & McAllister
San Francisco, California 94102

Dear Mayor Brown:

Under the aegis of the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, a committee has been formed to develop a news museum chronicling the history of Northern California journalism. We believe the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society may be a logical partner in this enterprise and that the Old Mint would be an excellent place for it. A history museum would be the best of the plans suggested for that public-owned site.

Our museum, like SPJ, will include newspapers, radio, television, online and any other way news has been collected, published and distributed. This area has produced lively journalism (the gold rush to the first Chinese newspaper to Silicon Valley) and nationally known journalists (Mark Twain to William Randolph Hearst to Herb Caen ) and innovators with worldwide impact, such as Milo Farnsworth, inventor of television, and Sandy Close, who created New California Media. This area has produced media springing up from every race, ethnicity, age and gender. We have a rich well from which to draw.

For seven years, I was editor and program director of The Freedom Forum Pacific Coast Center. One of my happiest assignments while working for the Freedom Forum, a news foundation, was to join the crew creating the Newseum in Arlington, Virginia. The museum on the past, present and future of news, which opened in 1997, was so successful with classrooms and the general public that a new Newseum, three times the size of the original one, is now being designed for Washington, D.C.

I can't speak for the committee here, but certainly I have no hesitation in borrowing some of the Newseum's best ideas.

The committee is in the process now of developing a museum plan and fund-raising. We already have pledges of major artifacts, such as presses. We are looking at such possibilities as:

  • Interactive exhibits, so visitors can test their news judgment against the professionals.


  • News and ethics computer programs.


  • Changing displays of actual newspapers, radio and TV broadcasts produced by regional journalists of major events.


  • Changing exhibitions by photojournalists.


  • Displays of award-winning journalism with interviews of those who did the work.


  • Stories about journalists who made a difference.


  • Archives and research facilities.


  • Programs keyed to news events and journalism issues.


  • Artifacts, artifacts, artifacts. People come to museums to see things that are a part of history.


    • The Northern California chapter of SPJ is the organization to do it. We have three times in recent years won the national award for best SPJ chapter. Our growing membership includes journalists and journalism educators from all over the region, with a high energy level and deep commitment to the ideals of journalism.

    This may be an aligning of the stars so the city, the historical society and the region's journalists may see their worthy goals accomplished.

    I hope you agree and support the choice of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society for the Old Mint.

    Sincerely yours,

    Beverly Kees
    President
    Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists