Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Phil Bronstein, Hypocrite.
Phil Bronstein writes about Gavin Newsom and the press.
First, Phil Bronstein should be disqualified from writing on the topic. This is a guy who, since Gavin entered the Gov race, has been spewing venom at the mayor (calling him a cheap phony Vuitton knock-off) and fomenting made up controversies (looking in Gavin's trash bin to see if the mayor does compost; calling Gavin responsible (and at odds with his pro-environment stance) for leaky sprinklers in Golden Gate. Yes, no straw was too ridiculous for Phil to grasp on.
Today's outrage is:
A friend of mine connected to KTVU tells me Gavin had wanted to go on Channel 2 this morning to talk about MUNI, but only on the condition he not be asked about anything else. Even George Bush subjected himself to Helen Thomas' pounding once in a while as part of the often contentious press-politician compact.
What Phil does not say: that Gavin had just been ambushed, and burned, by an interview on CBS5 where the subject was supposed to be the city budget, and where the interviewer focused solely on Gavin's trip to Hawaii.
Second, Phil praises Bush (of course) and conveniently forgets that George Bush had Jeff Gannon, a male hooker accredited as a journalist just to send him softball question; and that Bush demoted Helen Thomas from her front row seat to the back of the press room (he also snubbed her in the final presser). In other words: unlike what Phil hints, Gavin is a choir boy at avoiding the press compared to Bush.
Third, a friend of Phil knows someone at KTVU. Phil says: "a friend of mine connected to KTVU," not "working at KTVU". So he is building his post on twice removed hearsay. He heard it from someone who heard it from someone else. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but it's definitely uncorroborated at this point. And this is linked from the front page at SFgate.com! Maybe what Phil says is true; or maybe someone from the city hall press office wanted to schedule something with KTVU but wanted to avoid another embarrassment to his boss (I conduct interviews quite regularly, and I never ever set it up directly with the personality, it's always through press and PR reps.) Or maybe the story just got embellished in between the different "friend" intermediaries. The point is: Phil never says there might be no story there whatsoever. This is striking to me since Phil used to edit the Chron, so knows all about policies regarding cross checking sources, and hearsay. Or he knows nothing about them, and what this guy was doing editing the newspaper is anyone's guess.
Fourth, this made me cringe on so many levels:
But let's take Willie Brown's Chronicle column last Sunday where he essentially called Gavin a wuss. Willie said to a whining Gavin that he had gotten much more guff from journalists in his day. And we did hammer the former Mayor far harder than we have the current one. That's the way it goes, and should go in the natural, adversarial relationship between the press and public officials.
Here's Phil quoting Willie's column, whereas Phil did not want Willie to write a column for the Chron (he opposed it, but his successor made it happen). Then, the relationship should be adversarial for a reason, not just out of spite. Phil's paper was not adversarial with public officials in the Bush administration, for some reason. And if there's an adversarial relationship, it should be an honest fight, not the dirty fight that Phil is illustrating by posting what is basically a poorly sourced rumor right now. But Phil is praising his own work as some ethical journalism! Right in a piece sourced on hearsay! Talk about confused.
First, Phil Bronstein should be disqualified from writing on the topic. This is a guy who, since Gavin entered the Gov race, has been spewing venom at the mayor (calling him a cheap phony Vuitton knock-off) and fomenting made up controversies (looking in Gavin's trash bin to see if the mayor does compost; calling Gavin responsible (and at odds with his pro-environment stance) for leaky sprinklers in Golden Gate. Yes, no straw was too ridiculous for Phil to grasp on.
Today's outrage is:
A friend of mine connected to KTVU tells me Gavin had wanted to go on Channel 2 this morning to talk about MUNI, but only on the condition he not be asked about anything else. Even George Bush subjected himself to Helen Thomas' pounding once in a while as part of the often contentious press-politician compact.
What Phil does not say: that Gavin had just been ambushed, and burned, by an interview on CBS5 where the subject was supposed to be the city budget, and where the interviewer focused solely on Gavin's trip to Hawaii.
Second, Phil praises Bush (of course) and conveniently forgets that George Bush had Jeff Gannon, a male hooker accredited as a journalist just to send him softball question; and that Bush demoted Helen Thomas from her front row seat to the back of the press room (he also snubbed her in the final presser). In other words: unlike what Phil hints, Gavin is a choir boy at avoiding the press compared to Bush.
Third, a friend of Phil knows someone at KTVU. Phil says: "a friend of mine connected to KTVU," not "working at KTVU". So he is building his post on twice removed hearsay. He heard it from someone who heard it from someone else. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but it's definitely uncorroborated at this point. And this is linked from the front page at SFgate.com! Maybe what Phil says is true; or maybe someone from the city hall press office wanted to schedule something with KTVU but wanted to avoid another embarrassment to his boss (I conduct interviews quite regularly, and I never ever set it up directly with the personality, it's always through press and PR reps.) Or maybe the story just got embellished in between the different "friend" intermediaries. The point is: Phil never says there might be no story there whatsoever. This is striking to me since Phil used to edit the Chron, so knows all about policies regarding cross checking sources, and hearsay. Or he knows nothing about them, and what this guy was doing editing the newspaper is anyone's guess.
Fourth, this made me cringe on so many levels:
But let's take Willie Brown's Chronicle column last Sunday where he essentially called Gavin a wuss. Willie said to a whining Gavin that he had gotten much more guff from journalists in his day. And we did hammer the former Mayor far harder than we have the current one. That's the way it goes, and should go in the natural, adversarial relationship between the press and public officials.
Here's Phil quoting Willie's column, whereas Phil did not want Willie to write a column for the Chron (he opposed it, but his successor made it happen). Then, the relationship should be adversarial for a reason, not just out of spite. Phil's paper was not adversarial with public officials in the Bush administration, for some reason. And if there's an adversarial relationship, it should be an honest fight, not the dirty fight that Phil is illustrating by posting what is basically a poorly sourced rumor right now. But Phil is praising his own work as some ethical journalism! Right in a piece sourced on hearsay! Talk about confused.
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