Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Gavin Newsom to Phil Bronstein: Go F**k Yourself.
City workers banned from official travel to Arizona
Yes, Phil, we know, it's unfairly discriminating against the poor Arizona hospitality industry who won't get to host SF city employees. Cry us a river.
Yes, Phil, we know, it's unfairly discriminating against the poor Arizona hospitality industry who won't get to host SF city employees. Cry us a river.
Monday, April 26, 2010
We know the answer!
Phil asks: Should San Francisco boycott Arizona?
We KNOW the answer: it's not clear cut, it's complicated, it's an issue that requires nuance.
And Phil, of course, delivers nuance.
How would we have felt if Texas had boycotted California when Arnold signed the stem-cell research bill in 2004? How could all those Hollywood cowboys have lived without their imported Lucchese boots, or Lone Star oil for those Lamborghinis?
In our great rush to protest potential discrimination, we should be careful that we don't discriminate ourselves. Since Arizona is about 58 percent white, could we be guilty of reverse discrimination if our boycott affects some of those people who may not support their new law? Or how about the 30 percent of Arizonans who are Hispanic? It seems likely that banning SF-to-Arizona business and the reverse could end up hurting not Gov. Brewer - the evil signatory - but, instead, innocent folks just trying to get by.
At a minimum, let's do some kind of human environmental impact report before we rush to indict.
See. A Republican governor is doing something evil, but let's not rush to condemn. It might make us look intransigent to stand up to evil. We might even discriminate! It might hurt innocent folks in AZ if city employee don't go get themselves detained in Phoenix for looking Hispanic.
So suck it up, city employees. Go get yourself to Arizona and if you end up roughed up in jail because you left your passport in a hotel room, you'll have protected innocent folks just trying to get by. So it's all worth it. Don't be sissies.
Sigh.
We KNOW the answer: it's not clear cut, it's complicated, it's an issue that requires nuance.
And Phil, of course, delivers nuance.
How would we have felt if Texas had boycotted California when Arnold signed the stem-cell research bill in 2004? How could all those Hollywood cowboys have lived without their imported Lucchese boots, or Lone Star oil for those Lamborghinis?
In our great rush to protest potential discrimination, we should be careful that we don't discriminate ourselves. Since Arizona is about 58 percent white, could we be guilty of reverse discrimination if our boycott affects some of those people who may not support their new law? Or how about the 30 percent of Arizonans who are Hispanic? It seems likely that banning SF-to-Arizona business and the reverse could end up hurting not Gov. Brewer - the evil signatory - but, instead, innocent folks just trying to get by.
At a minimum, let's do some kind of human environmental impact report before we rush to indict.
See. A Republican governor is doing something evil, but let's not rush to condemn. It might make us look intransigent to stand up to evil. We might even discriminate! It might hurt innocent folks in AZ if city employee don't go get themselves detained in Phoenix for looking Hispanic.
So suck it up, city employees. Go get yourself to Arizona and if you end up roughed up in jail because you left your passport in a hotel room, you'll have protected innocent folks just trying to get by. So it's all worth it. Don't be sissies.
Sigh.
Phil's anti-Obama crusade continues.
A comment at SFgate about the piece below nails it:
Wow, now even a newspaper man finds prevaricating acceptable. It is more important to tell a good story. This column clarifies our society's values. Just as we're all socialists now, we're firstly storytellers; truth be damned.
Well, except it's not "our society's values," it's Phil's and the Chron's values.
Wow, now even a newspaper man finds prevaricating acceptable. It is more important to tell a good story. This column clarifies our society's values. Just as we're all socialists now, we're firstly storytellers; truth be damned.
Well, except it's not "our society's values," it's Phil's and the Chron's values.
Phil's anti-Obama crusade continues.
Phil accuses Barak Obama of making up part of his biography.
The crime? So if people at the top of society, like the president and Oprah, are going to fabricate some things in service to the larger sense of history and purpose, maybe we should loosen our standards for facts.
In Obama's case, a new biography by David Remnick fleshes out some presidential autobiographical fudging about details related to Barack's grandfather, his father and his mother, who he makes sound naive and simple but who was a smart and sophisticated scholar. Nothing major, like Frey. But "Obama darkens the early part (of his) story and lightens the concluding sections," historian Garry Wills writes in a review of the Remnick book.
I don't exactly see the contradiction here between being both naive and a scholar, or simple and smart. But what I see is that it sure looks like a) Phil Bronstein has not read Remnick's book, and is just quoting from the review; b) Phil Bronstein has not read Obama's book either. If he did, it does not inform his piece in any way.
But reading the piece, what is Bronstein advocating: we should loosen our standards for facts. And later in the piece: Besides, post-modernist writers have always been more interested in what's true than in what's real. Clarence Barron, co-founder of the Wall Street Journal, said, "Facts aren't the truth. They just indicate where the truth may lie."
This does explain a lot, ABOUT PHIL. There's no truth in facts, facts are something that must be adapted to the situations, a standard that one can loose or tighten up as needed. Phil is, in essence, the perfect journalist to pander to the Republicans, where facts are a malleable thing to spin any way. We make up our own reality, said the Bush administration. And Phil claps along: you darn right.
Nuance alert: there is no Bronstein piece without a mention to the complexity of the world surrounding us. Phil's job is not to bring light by shining the facts and truth onto the paper's pages. Phil's job is to make everything shadowy and murky and "complex" and "nuanced." The quote:
Real life is always more complicated and harder for the audience to follow.
Especially if you read about it in Phil's columns.
The crime? So if people at the top of society, like the president and Oprah, are going to fabricate some things in service to the larger sense of history and purpose, maybe we should loosen our standards for facts.
In Obama's case, a new biography by David Remnick fleshes out some presidential autobiographical fudging about details related to Barack's grandfather, his father and his mother, who he makes sound naive and simple but who was a smart and sophisticated scholar. Nothing major, like Frey. But "Obama darkens the early part (of his) story and lightens the concluding sections," historian Garry Wills writes in a review of the Remnick book.
I don't exactly see the contradiction here between being both naive and a scholar, or simple and smart. But what I see is that it sure looks like a) Phil Bronstein has not read Remnick's book, and is just quoting from the review; b) Phil Bronstein has not read Obama's book either. If he did, it does not inform his piece in any way.
But reading the piece, what is Bronstein advocating: we should loosen our standards for facts. And later in the piece: Besides, post-modernist writers have always been more interested in what's true than in what's real. Clarence Barron, co-founder of the Wall Street Journal, said, "Facts aren't the truth. They just indicate where the truth may lie."
This does explain a lot, ABOUT PHIL. There's no truth in facts, facts are something that must be adapted to the situations, a standard that one can loose or tighten up as needed. Phil is, in essence, the perfect journalist to pander to the Republicans, where facts are a malleable thing to spin any way. We make up our own reality, said the Bush administration. And Phil claps along: you darn right.
Nuance alert: there is no Bronstein piece without a mention to the complexity of the world surrounding us. Phil's job is not to bring light by shining the facts and truth onto the paper's pages. Phil's job is to make everything shadowy and murky and "complex" and "nuanced." The quote:
Real life is always more complicated and harder for the audience to follow.
Especially if you read about it in Phil's columns.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
We know how you feel, Bill.
In an interview with Phil Bronstein, Bill Gates talks about today's journalism.
Phil: It seems to me that technology might provide an answer it hasn't provided yet. Is there a way to narrow Twitter to verifiable information useful to journalists? Is there a technological fix for verifying information?
Bill: The trusting is hard. Just look at coverage of vaccination even by mainstream media in U.S. and their willingness to give a voice to the anti-vaccine crowd, it is hard. Trust has always been hard. The sense of 'Oh it has to get out right away' really is a problem. What is really going on? Are we being thoughtful about this? There will be voices that emerge... We need more reporters and editors to say, 'we're going to put global health on our front page today,' to elevate something up and create that broader awareness, not just [focus on] something that's interesting and got a lot of traffic.
We know how you feel, Bill, and how we're irritated by the supposedly mainstream media giving equal platform to the two opposing sides of the debate, no matter what their respective relevance is. Anti-vaccine lunatics; global warming deniers; intelligent design proponents; people fear-mongering about death panels; Sarah Palin; and Republicans now saying that an anti-bailout law is actually pro-bailout. It does not matter if an opinion is too outrageous, too ridiculous, too ludicrous, it is taken seriously at face value if it "balances" another statement.
That journalism can die, and no one will miss it. And Phil, to reply to your question: technology won't save it!
Phil: It seems to me that technology might provide an answer it hasn't provided yet. Is there a way to narrow Twitter to verifiable information useful to journalists? Is there a technological fix for verifying information?
Bill: The trusting is hard. Just look at coverage of vaccination even by mainstream media in U.S. and their willingness to give a voice to the anti-vaccine crowd, it is hard. Trust has always been hard. The sense of 'Oh it has to get out right away' really is a problem. What is really going on? Are we being thoughtful about this? There will be voices that emerge... We need more reporters and editors to say, 'we're going to put global health on our front page today,' to elevate something up and create that broader awareness, not just [focus on] something that's interesting and got a lot of traffic.
We know how you feel, Bill, and how we're irritated by the supposedly mainstream media giving equal platform to the two opposing sides of the debate, no matter what their respective relevance is. Anti-vaccine lunatics; global warming deniers; intelligent design proponents; people fear-mongering about death panels; Sarah Palin; and Republicans now saying that an anti-bailout law is actually pro-bailout. It does not matter if an opinion is too outrageous, too ridiculous, too ludicrous, it is taken seriously at face value if it "balances" another statement.
That journalism can die, and no one will miss it. And Phil, to reply to your question: technology won't save it!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Just curious: what is the Chron for?
This is a genuine question, triggered by a Joe Garofoli blog post at the Chron, in an interview with Republican former-NY governor George Pataki:
"San Francisco should be able to do anything it wants [about health care legislation]," Pataki said. "But I don't want Speaker Pelosi and partisan majorities in Congress to impose their views of health care -- government run health care -- on every single person in every corner of this country.
(Quick point: FactCheck.org and other nonpartisan truth-squaders point out that the law is NOT government-run health care.)
So the Chron is NOT a non-partisan truth-squader, or at least it does not think of itself as such.
And it's true: the Chron has no standing anymore, and no interest either, in telling the truth. Mostly the Chron repeats whatever they saw on Fox, and it delegates the truth seeking to FactCheck.org.
Remind me: what is the Chron's business again?
"San Francisco should be able to do anything it wants [about health care legislation]," Pataki said. "But I don't want Speaker Pelosi and partisan majorities in Congress to impose their views of health care -- government run health care -- on every single person in every corner of this country.
(Quick point: FactCheck.org and other nonpartisan truth-squaders point out that the law is NOT government-run health care.)
So the Chron is NOT a non-partisan truth-squader, or at least it does not think of itself as such.
And it's true: the Chron has no standing anymore, and no interest either, in telling the truth. Mostly the Chron repeats whatever they saw on Fox, and it delegates the truth seeking to FactCheck.org.
Remind me: what is the Chron's business again?
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Phil Bronstein's Descent
Phil was peeved that the NY Times of all places broke a story about the Tenderloin. So he did was any bitter old man would do: heap snark and cynicism at it.
But we won't have to comment on it, Beyond Chron does it for us.
It starts with: Phil Bronstein’s once bright career path, where he rose from intrepid journalist in the Philippines to Executive Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, continues its descent with his vicious attack on the Uptown Tenderloin in response to the Times story. And goes down from there.
We agree with much everything in there (but we don't feel the mention of Sharon Stone is necessary, let's leave the family out of this, 'kay?)
But we won't have to comment on it, Beyond Chron does it for us.
It starts with: Phil Bronstein’s once bright career path, where he rose from intrepid journalist in the Philippines to Executive Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, continues its descent with his vicious attack on the Uptown Tenderloin in response to the Times story. And goes down from there.
We agree with much everything in there (but we don't feel the mention of Sharon Stone is necessary, let's leave the family out of this, 'kay?)
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Phil, Master of the Inconsequential
When Phil tackles heady subjects, he punts. It's nuanced, it's complex, I won't take any side because its all oh so confusing for me.
But the alternative is this:
Pope Benedict could learn some media manners from Meg Whitman
Basically, Bronstein congratulates Meg Whitman for her strategy of avoiding the media.
"There's no good reason ... to avoid meaningful dialogue" with the press, said the state Republican vice chair, Jon Fleischman.
Oh, yeah? A week later, Whitman had taken a huge lead over her primary rival and had even edged ahead of the wily, mature Jerry Brown.
The message: Don't fight the press. Just ignore us.
Phil is an admirer of the Sarah Palinization of politics; it pays off not to engage into a public policy debate.
That's how we got Schwarzenegger, who announced his candidacy on Jay Leno and avoided debate on substance. "We'll blow up the boxes" was his policy statement.
We might get Whitman, and we won't know who she is. Not that it bothers Phil. Au contraire.
But the alternative is this:
Pope Benedict could learn some media manners from Meg Whitman
Basically, Bronstein congratulates Meg Whitman for her strategy of avoiding the media.
"There's no good reason ... to avoid meaningful dialogue" with the press, said the state Republican vice chair, Jon Fleischman.
Oh, yeah? A week later, Whitman had taken a huge lead over her primary rival and had even edged ahead of the wily, mature Jerry Brown.
The message: Don't fight the press. Just ignore us.
Phil is an admirer of the Sarah Palinization of politics; it pays off not to engage into a public policy debate.
That's how we got Schwarzenegger, who announced his candidacy on Jay Leno and avoided debate on substance. "We'll blow up the boxes" was his policy statement.
We might get Whitman, and we won't know who she is. Not that it bothers Phil. Au contraire.
Phil Bronstein Parodies Himself.
Grandpa was once a war reporter. He keeps telling us, you know.
I ran back to my hotel room, the smell of blood, fear and rebellion still fresh in my head.
Oh, you tell such nice fireplace stories, pops. And what experience did Phil bring back from war coverage? It depends It's complicated, it's nuanced. Yawn.
So was any of the killing justified? War is a dizzying, murky, hyper-adrenalized maze. In the field of battle, there are facts to be had and truths to be revealed. But even with the magic of digital revelations sling-shot across all bandwidths, the answer has to be: depends. Depends on some things even second-by-second video can't uncover.
Phil, artist of moral relativism! Phil: depends is the answer to leaks, not to wikileaks. At least, we know what's on your mind, grandpa. Don't forget to pick up a pack at walgreens. Oh, and killings: justified? No. See, that's easy.
Soldiers snickering while shooting journalists and kids looks bad, no question.
No shit, Sherlock.
My favorite quote of the week was from the refreshingly blunt General Stanley McChrystal about civilian deaths in Afghanistan: "We have shot an amazing number of people, but...none has ever proven to be a threat."
Except you take the quote totally out of context, you misleading journalist you. McChrystal is talking about a specific type of civilian deaths of cars approaching road checks.
So what's the truth of this event? Investigations will follow. Still capitated heads may roll. Truth will be elusive, as always.
Of course. Truth has to be elusive, since one should not ever question the awesome war in Iraq that Phil enabled; recall that Phil diminished the anti-war demonstrations in the Chron; recall that Phil fired a tech columnist for having anti-war opinions. Phil will make sure that no judgment is passed, don't worry.
We'll reprint a commenter who puts it better than we can:
'Depends'? 'Truth will be elusive, as always'? 'sorting things out is near impossible'? BUT 'transparency is the victor here'??? What a GUTLESS writer you are. Everything's murky, huh? How politically safe of you to fail to see and/or report anything clearly. If everything is just one big hodgepodge to you, I strongly suggest you do the world of information-seekers a huge favor by getting out of Dodge and finding another line of work.
I ran back to my hotel room, the smell of blood, fear and rebellion still fresh in my head.
Oh, you tell such nice fireplace stories, pops. And what experience did Phil bring back from war coverage? It depends It's complicated, it's nuanced. Yawn.
So was any of the killing justified? War is a dizzying, murky, hyper-adrenalized maze. In the field of battle, there are facts to be had and truths to be revealed. But even with the magic of digital revelations sling-shot across all bandwidths, the answer has to be: depends. Depends on some things even second-by-second video can't uncover.
Phil, artist of moral relativism! Phil: depends is the answer to leaks, not to wikileaks. At least, we know what's on your mind, grandpa. Don't forget to pick up a pack at walgreens. Oh, and killings: justified? No. See, that's easy.
Soldiers snickering while shooting journalists and kids looks bad, no question.
No shit, Sherlock.
My favorite quote of the week was from the refreshingly blunt General Stanley McChrystal about civilian deaths in Afghanistan: "We have shot an amazing number of people, but...none has ever proven to be a threat."
Except you take the quote totally out of context, you misleading journalist you. McChrystal is talking about a specific type of civilian deaths of cars approaching road checks.
So what's the truth of this event? Investigations will follow. Still capitated heads may roll. Truth will be elusive, as always.
Of course. Truth has to be elusive, since one should not ever question the awesome war in Iraq that Phil enabled; recall that Phil diminished the anti-war demonstrations in the Chron; recall that Phil fired a tech columnist for having anti-war opinions. Phil will make sure that no judgment is passed, don't worry.
We'll reprint a commenter who puts it better than we can:
'Depends'? 'Truth will be elusive, as always'? 'sorting things out is near impossible'? BUT 'transparency is the victor here'??? What a GUTLESS writer you are. Everything's murky, huh? How politically safe of you to fail to see and/or report anything clearly. If everything is just one big hodgepodge to you, I strongly suggest you do the world of information-seekers a huge favor by getting out of Dodge and finding another line of work.
