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More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com I happened to run upon an article in today's edition of "Editor and Publisher" which reported that the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper ( SFGate.com is the Chronicle website) was planning more layoffs after Labor Day. It may not happen, let's pray not, but staff reductions could come as soon as next week. Apparently, even after the last round of job cuts about two months ago or so, the newspaper is still losing $1 million a week or about $4 million a month, or a whopping $48 million-a-year loss. That's really, really sad news as a paper is nothing without the personalities who made it, but I think there's something that can be done to at least save some jobs and stem the tide of revenue losses. There are as of this writing 2,780,000 pages that make up SFGate.com. My idea is simple: add a donate button to each one of them. The button would ...

Is the Oakland Tribune not far behind the SF Chronicle in lifespan ?  If this report by Editor and Publisher is to be believed:  Moody's Investors Service, the big credit rating agency, on Tuesday launched a new database and quarterly report of companies in the most serious danger of default -- and four newspaper companies are among those on the "Bottom Rung." Each of the four -- Freedom Communications, GateHouse Media Inc. MediaNews Group Inc. and Morris Publishing Group Inc. -- has a "probability of default" ratings that indicate they are at "substantial risk" of missing repayments if a so-called default event is triggered. On average there's about a 25% chance a company given those ratings will default within a year, going into bankruptcy or some other remedy. That means there's a one-quarter chance the Oakland Tribune could stop printing in the near future.  

According to Real Clear Politics , The San Francisco Chronicle is one of ten newspapers in trouble.  The total list in order from "still alive" to "almost passed on" is: 10. NY Daily News 9. LA Times 8. St. Paul Pioneer Press 7. Chicago Sun-Times 6. Detroit News 5. San Francisco Chronicle 4. Miami Herald 3. Philadelphia Daily News 2. Rocky Mountain News 1. Seattle Post-Intelligencer The San Francisco Chronicle, at number five, may cease to exist if management and union can't get together on an adjustment to the collective bargaining agreement.  (UPDATE: Seattle P-I reported close to closure ).  That did happen on Monday, with Thursday of this week set as the day for a large meeting for the Chronicle Guild to ratify the agreement.  As of the making of the video, no place was secured but that was to happen today, Tuesday.  It did according to Mediaworkers.org. The day and time of the meeting is Thursday, March 12,  5-8 p.m respectively an...

This story below reminds me -- in a remote way -- of a small but disturbing matter that happened at Cafe Van Kleef and to me. I was talking to a couple of fellow Cal grad friends who were both white and female when I made a motion that accidentally bumped into this person as he walked by. No big deal, to me. But this guy said "That was intentional" and after I said it wasn't and he was reacting weirdly, then said "It's reverse discrimination in Oakland" -- he was White. I told him to go away as that was sick. This matter r eported in the Sf Chronicle is worse: (02-01) 18:40 PST -- Brandon Manning says he never saw it coming. One minute he was hanging out with seven seemingly friendly guys in a park, the next he said he was on the ground, the blows coming from all sides, a fist or foot landing hard enough to fracture six bones in his face. But it was the words accompanying the blows that made Manning, 24, think he was about to die. ...

BART Board Director James Fang Calls Eleanor Mason Ramsey "Incompetent" - SFGate This is from today's "Matier and Ross": “BART barking: Quite a tempest at BART headquarters the other day, as a dozen African American and Chinese American contractors led by Hunters Point activist and trucker Charlie Walker confronted the board over what they view as a lack of transit jobs going to minorities. Walker and his pals lit into the board, complaining that they were losing out on contracts while BART hemmed and hawed over completing the necessary "disparity study" to prove that, in fact, minority contractors aren't getting enough work. Unless things changed pronto, Walker warned, he would make sure President-elect Barack Obama (whom he claims to know personally) halted all federal contracts with the financially strapped transit agency. Having had enough of the rant, board member James Fang of San Francisco tried to duck out of the meeting, only to be corrall...

In the ongoing drama that is Oaklsnd City Hall, we have the old news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is now taking a look -- a deep look -- at charges of nepotism and favoritism at Oakland City Hall. If you want to see the supoena sent to City Attorney John Russo, click here. But I'm not surprised because about two months ago or so the Chronicle's Chip Johnson himself said to me that he thought the FBI should be involved in this matter. That was a long time before his article came out , but the FBI seems to follow the path set by Johnson, who was not quiet or secretive of his dislike for now-Former Oakland City Administrator Edgerly's approach. That I now state publicly has bothered me because it came to a point where I could not tell if Chip's work was personal or professional. I suppose the best columnists do their most outstanding work angry, but there were times I belived it was a little much. Still, the end result -- a total analysis of w...

Some other SF Bay Area columnists who are friends of mine and just enjoyed an evening out with -- without talking about Oakland politics -- are still way wrong regarding Deborah Edgerly and the Edgerly Family. Specifically, my friend Chip Johnson , who presents a picture of an Oakland that was transformed by Deborah Edgerly into a sea of people who are related to her. If you believe that, you're a totally big fool. You're also all the more foolish if you think favoritism started with her. Hell, one major reason I accused former Mayor Jerry Brown of racism in 2000 was that I believed he picked those he was most comfortable with -- young white professionals -- over equals like myself who are Black. In my view, what Jerry Brown would do is relegate all of the young Black employees who should be in his office to then-City Manager Robert Bobb's office and, pointing at a young African American woman in his office, say -- as he did to me during our dispute over my treatment...

According to today's NY Times , the newspaper industry is in trouble, as papers suffer from competition from the Internet. The SF Chron has been losing $1 million a week since last year. As Tim O'Reily wrote last year, he reads the online version of the SF Chron 95 percent of the time, and the "offline" version about 5 percent of the time. That's probably true for me, as well, but Tim and I are both in the Internet business. What can be done? Well, my answer is "nothing" -- the offline news people have to adjust to this New Media world, as do institutions and PR people who have been oriented toward using offline newspapers to get the news out. This also includes sports leagues like the NFL, which has a long standing relationship with such organizations as The Associated Press, but not the Huffington Post , which draws 14 million visitors a month. The SF Chron seems to be trying to find its way on The Internet, where it gets about 5 million visitors...