January 11, 2007

“No Matter How Much You Hate Bush…” (What’s Up With the San Francisco Chronicle?)

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Generally, I have a pretty low regard of the San Francisco Chronicle. I want to support my local paper but…I just can’t. It’s the flabby writing, the columnists who don’t pick up the phone, the mindless cheerleading of the wine and food industry, the substitution of PC bell ringing for real reporting on race or poverty, the subordination of the Chronicle‘s home page to the (also bad, and shamelessly clunky) SFGate entertainment portal…in sum, it tends to reinforce every stereotype of yuppie Bay Area solipsism. All of which I would forgive, really, if it just had some damn edge. Of any kind.

(Following exceptions noted: The Balco stuff, that was good. Ok, and the homeless series ; I’d take issue with pieces of it, even premises of it, but they pulled out some stops.)

But I digress. What the hell does this have to do with Bush?

Well, I’ll tell you. I was about to talk up a great piece by the Chron‘s D.C. Bureau Chief that was funny, to the point, analytical…but in the minutes that it has taken me to write this post, that story has fallen off the SFGate/Chron homepage. I dove into the architecture for more than 10 minutes…but I still can’t find it. So piece by DC Bureau Chief, on a decision by our fair leader to send more troops into Iraq, written for a city with strong feelings on the matter…can’t find it.

And that, in a nutshell, is the San Francisco Chronicle.

In my search for the missing Bush analysis piece, I did find following story, however: “New Year’s nightmare for visiting Yale singers“. Which is actually quite juicy, if you’re into local politics: Matt Gonzalez meets “Fajitagate” meets PacHeights scion deploying his peeps to beat up Yalies.

Though, on that last point, these paragraphs— “But witnesses said one of the uninvited guests — who happens to be the son of a prominent Pacific Heights family — pulled out his cell phone and said, “I’m 20 deep. My boys are coming. According to Rapagnani and others, the Yale kids barely made it around the corner when they were intercepted by a van full of young men.”—make me wonder why this “son of prominent Pacific Heights family” was not named.

And also, what’s up with Pac Heights boys rolling up on Yalies? They’ll all work for McKinsey one day…

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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