The Chronicle's looneyBy Tim Redmond
The San Francisco Chronicle apparently thinks a retired Wall Street Journal reporter who now lives in Berkeley and who wrote a remarkably homophobic piece on San Francisco politics way back in 1995 is the perfect persion to comment on the current Board of Supervisors. His piece, on SFGate, has the headline "Clown Show: The Board of Supervisors SF deserves? His point, it appears, is that the large queer community in San Francisco and the looney liberals here have elected a bunch of crazies to the board.
I would ignore this shit, except that it comes in the wake of all the Chris Daly bashing (much of which is factually inaccurate -- Daly never accused the mayor of doing cocaine) and will, no doubt, fuel a new attack on district elections.
So let's be real here: This district-elected board is hardly a crew of wackos. The board has done exceptional work over the past few years, passing landmark legislation that has put San Francisco in the forefront of American cities on progressive policy.
Just a few examples:
This board gave us the living-wage law. This board gave us a universal health-insurance program. This board gave us community-choice aggregation. This board gave us balanced budgets that avoided huge cuts in social services. This board has consistently led the way in policy-making while the mayor has been off galavanting around with the swells and ignoring his job.
Be serious. I've been watching SF politics since 1981. I've seen an awful lot of bizarre behavior. I've seen astonishing levels of sleaze and corruption. I've seen sellouts, crooks and bag men. And I have to say, this district-elected board is the most professional and productive group I've ever witnessed in this city.
I emailed Zachary and asked him to call me to discuss this; he emailed back and said he was busy, and that his article stands on its own. Fine. But it's silly, inaccurate and surprisingly inappropriate (the "fruits and nuts" and blaming queer people for wacky politics thing really doesn't belong in San Francisco in 2007). Why did the Chron even run this?
(If Andrew S. Ross, the editor on the piece, calls me back I'll let you kow what he says.)
UPDATE: Ross got back to me to say he had addressed the "fruits and nuts" question in his comments on SFGate. Here's what he said:
As to the "fruits and nuts" reference, which has drawn some criticism, that was an editing suggestion on my part. It was supposed to be ironic -- recalling a phrase that was thrown around quite liberally (pardon the pun) in the not-so-distant past. Hence the use of the word "spawn" and the quote marks around the phrase itself. No offense intended. Apologies if any was taken.
I don't think he's a bad guy and I don't think he meant any offense, but it was a bit clueless.
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Comments (3)
Who reads the Cron anymore? Tell Andrew Ross to suck the shit out of my ass!
Posted by john | June 27, 2007 02:32 PM
Tim, Thanks for commenting on this. I read it on line this morning, grimaced, and turned off my computer. I suspect I am not the only one that happened to. The Chronicle is so up and down in their coverage of Lgbt, particularly T issues. Sometimes they pull it off, but more often than not, we are the butt of jokes, again, particularly us crossdressing/transsexual types who are really the biggest fruits and nuts.
I guess the Chronicle figures they have such a large readership that they can turn off entire communities and make sure that people are at minumum irritated, at maximum, pissed off. Why should they care if they turn off readers? Their business is doing so well, right?
Unbelievable, even from just a business perspective, let alone a socially conscious perspective....
Posted by Robert Haaland | June 27, 2007 11:18 PM
The Chronicle only has some 90,000 subscribed circulation in SF and the success of their endorsements at the ballot box tends to reflect this declining market penetration.
I guess the "nuts and flakes" is the nonhomophobic way of saying what he wanted to say.
But this demonizing of the "Board of Stupidvisors" in "silly hall" is nothing new to the district elected progressive BofS, as this has been going on since I've lived here.
The swells detest democracy and are willing to spend lavishly to denigrate our representatives. The good thing is that they are overplaying their hand. At WSOMA last night, an organized group of property owners came to our first Town Hall Meeting to ambush Daly, who was not there.
Many of us ended up talking, and as one guy said "I read in the Chronicle that..." I just looked up at him and said "the HEARST Chronicle, right?" and he gave me a sheepish look and we talked about the subtleties and complexities.
In a minute, he got that cutting the never-filled 4th academy class was cutting budget fat not attacking public safety.
So, yeah, the Chronicle's coverage of local politics is tantamount to the Rob Black #1 and #2 reasons to vote against Daly door hanger--appalling--once the surface is barely scratched with even San Franciscans hostile to the progressive electoral project.
-marc
Posted by marc | June 28, 2007 11:16 AM