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Clint Reilly wins a big one against Hearst and Singleton. Fighting to keep one newspaper towns from becoming a one newspaper region.

11.28.06 - 1:04 pm | Bruce Brugmann |
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By Bruce B. Brugmann

On April 26, 2006, the McClatchy newspapers and the Chronicle/Hearst and MediaNews/Singleton publicly announced a complex series of transactions that resulted in Singleton owning three major Bay Area dailies (Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, and the Monterey Herald) that had been previously owned by Knight-Ridder and then McClatchy. Read more »

Repeating: So why won't the New York Times cover Project Censored?

11.22.06 - 9:39 am | Bruce Brugmann |
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This is an important journalistic and public policy question. The Times claims to be the world's pre-eminent newspaper, it publishes the International Herald Tribune, has a major news service, and owns a batch of media properties, including the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the daily "of record" for the project, which is housed at nearby Sonoma State University.

Yet, in the project's 30 year history, the Times has neither published nor written about the Censored Project and its list of serious stories the mainstream media censored or ignored. Read more »

Memo to the city desks of the Chronicle/Hearst and Media News Group/Singleton papers and the Associated Press: the Hearst/Reilly antitrust suit is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow (Wednesday) morning before Federal Judge Susan Illston. Will you cover it?

11.21.06 - 3:57 pm | Bruce Brugmann |
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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Eureka! As you will remember from my earlier blogs, I coined the term Eurekaism to replace the old term Afghanistanism for the bad habit of many daily papers, notably the Hearst and Singleton chains, for reporting on stories in Eureka instead of reporting on the big local scandal or embarrassing story in their own communities. Read more »

Introducing: the Telling Quote (the TQ):"Ross, you never learned to be a prisoner"

11.21.06 - 1:51 pm | Bruce Brugmann |
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I have always had a weakness for one-liners and telling quotes, which I call the Telling Quote (the QD).

For example, Tim Redmond gave me a good one just a few minutes ago. He said that in the movie on Elliot Ness of fighitng gangsters in Prohibiition Chicago, Ness was asked what he would do once Prohibiton was over.
"I'd have a drink," Ness said.

I spotted two quotes I liked in the tomorrow's Guardian. Read more »

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat/New York Times: still no answers on why it once again censored and mangled Project Censored and its stories on Bush and Iraq et al

11.20.06 - 12:39 pm | Bruce Brugmann |
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On Sept. 10, 2003, while the New York Times and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and affiliated papers were running Judith Miller's stories making the case for the Iraq War and then seeking to justify it, the Guardian published the annual Project Censored list of censored stories.

Our front page had a caricature of Bush, standing astride the globe holding a U.S. Read more »

Send mail to Josh. Josh's mother reacts to the bad news that her son may be in federal prison through Thanksgiving and Christmas and until next July for the crime of committing journalism under the Bush administration

11.17.06 - 2:19 pm | Bruce Brugmann |
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From: Liz Wolf-Spada
Subject: 9th Circuit Will Not Rehear Josh's Case

Bad news, the 9th Circuit has decided not to rehear Josh's case enbanc. Evidently no judge called for a vote. How depressing is that? Anyway, depressed is how I feel. I am steeling myself, and have been, for him being in jail until July, but I keep hoping against hope that something will change and he will be free again and out of jail. Read more »

STOP THE PRESSES: And now the word from Montreal is that "Transcontinental signs l5-year deal to print Hearst Corporation's San Francisco Chronicle." Does this mean ever more branch office journalism?

11.17.06 - 12:58 pm | Bruce Brugmann |
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Is this the wave of the future? Will our big local news come via Montreal and New York? And will the Hearst and Singleton papers become even more branch offices of corporate headquarters in Montreal, New York, and Denver? Is Hearst so contemptuous of its San Francisco paper that it releases major Hearst stories in New York and Montreal before it appears in the Hearst paper or on its website in San Francisco? Read more »

SF Chronicle to Outsource All of Its Printing, reports Editor and Publisher Magazine. Will those "competitive" Hearst and Singleton papers cover the monopoly story and its impact on San Francisco and the Bay Area?

11.17.06 - 10:29 am | Bruce Brugmann |
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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Well, after checking page the Daily Digest on page 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle business section (where I sometimes find a spot of Hearst/Singleton news), I found the monopoly story of the day in an online Editor and Publisher story out of New York, sent via Chain Links, the online publication of the Newspaper Guild.

It was another jolly tip of the iceberg of what is happening to the chains that dominate the newspaper business. The head: "SF Chronicle to OUtsource All of its Printing." The lead: "NEW YORK: Hearst Corp. Read more »

George Bush doesn't read the Guardian. Often.

11.17.06 - 10:09 am | Bruce Brugmann |
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Alas. Alas. (B3, disheartened by the news)

Posted Tuesday, Nov. l7th, on the website of the Guardian of London

From Guardian Unlimited: News blog 12:15pm

Here at the Guardian we have long suspected it. But today comes official confirmation: George Bush doesn't read the Guardian often. Read more »

The new media offensive for the Iraq War. Why the Santa Rosa Press Democrat/New York Times ought to stop "censoring" and mangling Project Censored and its annual list of censored stories on Iraq and Bush et al

11.16.06 - 11:57 am | Bruce Brugmann |
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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Norman Solomon, a syndicated columnist who appears on the Guardian website, wrote a chilling column this week
on how the "American media establishment has launched a major offensive against the option of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq."

He noted that the "heaviest firepower is now coming from the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA--the front page of the New York Times. Read more »