“You get what you pay for,” was the opinion of one reader looking at the first edition of the “new” San Francisco Examiner. The first few editions of the newspaper had so many mistakes that a message on the website www.mediagossip.com called it the “joke of the journalism profession.” The errors and other problems could have been overlooked if this were the Fang family’s first publishing venture. But the Fangs are experienced newspaper publishers who have printed the San Francisco Independent three times a week for a decade, and the award-winning Asian Week for about the same period. Continue reading FANG’S EXAMINER. by Harrison Chastang.→
Media coverage of the recent victory of the Grant Building Tenants Association (GBTA) once again shows how the media can diminish the role of grassroots activism in shaping the world.
Located at the corner of Seventh and Market Streets in San Francisco, the Grant Building has long provided affordable office space to writers, artists, and a diversity of small businesses. This mix once typified the mid-Market area, but rising rents in recent years have forced many nonprofit and cultural groups to move to less costly neighborhoods. When the new owner of the Grant Building sought to impose steep rent increases last October, the tenants did more than just complain loudly in the media while quietly moving out: they stayed and resisted. Continue reading TENANT ACTIVISTS WIN MARKET STREET BUILDING, MEDIA YAWNS. by Randy Shaw.→
