As we were working away on our 40th anniversary issue, we got a new lead from an unusual venue on a 40-year-old Guardian story: Hearst was once again blacking out major stories to protect its corporate interests. Read more »

I'm off to Mexico City where democracy is being tested on an almost daily basis. I am attending as a delegate the 62nd annual assemble of the Inter American Press Association. IAPA is an effective organization in promoting and defending press freedom in the Americas from Canada to Argentina and points in between. It has been for decades a key player in promoting democracy in the Americas. Read more »

On the eve of Josh Wolf going to jail, and on the eve of Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada facing yet another federal decision moving them ever closer to jail, I was honored to be the lead speaker at the fundraiser and going-back-to-jail party for Josh last night at Crash, a club on Mason Street in San Francisco.

I made two major points: first, that this was the only city in the country to my knowledge that had three reporters who were in jail or heading to jail, on orders from Washington, for failing to produce sources and material in federal cases. Read more »

Repeating once again for even more emphasis: “Investment management excellence, world class service and guidance” (Positioning line at the top of the T. Rowe Price website)

By Bruce B. Brugmann (B3)

Five days after putting my pointed questions to a voice mail at the T. Rowe Price headquarters in Baltimore as to why the company was calling my wife an excessive trader of mutual funds, I got a call back from Ben Scherer, from the risk management team of T. Read more »

Repeating the positioning line at the top of the T. Rowe Price website:

“Investment management excellence, world class service and guidance”

As you will recall from my Part l blog on T. Rowe Price, I put in a call and left a message last Friday with the official at T. Rowe Price mutual fund family who could explain the mysterious restrictions and penalties placed without notice on my wife’s IRA account by Price for selling a volatile Price fund in some sort of violation of Price redemption policy.
Price also mysteriously applied the restrictions and penalties to my IRA account. Read more »

Some documents to be kept under wraps in suit claiming purchase of Times, Mercury News creates local monopoly

To the good: this is not a Bruce Blog head. This is the head and subhead on a surprisingly good story by George Avalos in today’s Contra Costa Times that gives some indication that the old Knight-Ridder fighting spirit on public access and accountability is still in play despite the new ownership of MediaNews Group/Dean Singleton. Read more »

“Investment management excellence, world-class service and guidance.” Positioning line at the top of the T. Rowe Price website.

This morning, my wife and I had an unusual message on our answering machine at home from a customer representative at Charles Schwab. It said that Schwab was notifying us formally that the T. Rowe Price fund family had notified Schwab that “they are restricting your account from any further purchases into Price funds. Read more »

And now this: Are the Conglomerati going to buy the Santa Cruz Sentinel?

The timing was exquisite. This morning, in preparing to appear on the Will and Willie show on 960 the Quake, I checked the Chronicle/Hearst to see if there were any timely new developments on the biggest censored media story of the year—how the Conglomerati are censoring and trivializing their coverage of their move to regional monopoly. (See my blogs and the Guardian’s Project Censored package in last week’s edition). Read more »

Why didn’t the Conglomerati Media cover this major local news story?

Peter Phillips, director of Project Censored, will make a rare mainstream media appearance at 8:05 a.m. Wednesday morning (Sept. l3) to discuss the l0 big stories the nation’s major news media refused to cover last year, as the Bay Guardian put it in its cover story of the last issue.

Peter will explain lay out the stories and explain why the media
censored the following top l0 stories (in descending order):

l. The Feds and the Media Muddy the Debate over Internet Freedom.

2. Read more »