SF Weekly ordered to give 50% of revenues to rival

Winning a lawsuit is one thing, collecting the money from the loser is another.

Two years ago, a lawyer for Bruce Brugmann's Bay Guardian convinced a San Francisco jury that the SF Weekly and its parent company were selling ads at below the cost of production in order to gain market share and run Brugmann out of business. A jury on March 5, 2008, awarded Brugmann $6.39 million. A judge added $9.2 million in penalties. Since then more than $5 million in interest has accrued, bringing the total to $21 million.

For the past several months, Brugmann has been attempting to collect his money. In January, he got a court order seizing two of the SF Weekly's delivery vans and he is allowed to collect rent from the SF Weekly's subtenants.

But that was nothing compared to the bombshell of an order Superior Court Commissioner Everett Hewlett issued on Tuesday that requires the SF Weekly and all of its advertisers to immediately begin remitting advertising revenues to the Bay Guardian.

The Assignment Order also requires SF Weekly’s credit card processing company to remit 100% of the credit card payments directly to Bay Guardian rather than to SF Weekly, according to the Guardian.

From now on, the Guardian will get to keep 50% of the Weekly's revenue.

Additionally, SF Weekly must turn over to the Bay Guardian a list of all its advertisers and the amounts that they currently owe to SF Weekly.

"The Village Voice folks first claimed that we would never collect anything, then they claimed that we would never collect more than a few thousand dollars, but the amount that we will now be collecting is certainly very significant," Brugmann said.

At a Feb. 11 hearing, the Weekly's parent company, Village Voice Media Holdings, argued that seizure of the ad revenue would violate the rights of Village Voice Media's main creditor, the Bank of Montreal, which has lent the chain $80 million, according to a Chronicle report.

Andy Van De Voorde, executive associate editor of Village Voice Media Holdings and the reporter who covered the 2008 Guardian-v-SF Weekly trial, denied this week that the ruling will force the chain of alternative papers into bankruptcy. He told a sister publication, Westword in Denver, that the company is optimistic about its chances in an appeals court, even though no hearing date has been set. He notes that the Guardian's lawsuit named the SF Weekly and New Times Media as defendants, but not the current holding company, Village Voice Media Holdings.

Van De Voorde also told Westword: "The Guardian is trying to drum up headlines and damage our business by creating the entirely inaccurate perception that we're going to start selling off papers in order to meet this judgment. And that's not going to happen."

Below is the text of a Van De Voorde memo sent to all Village Voice Media employees:

March 10, 2010

To: All Employees

From: Andy Van De Voorde

By now you may have seen news reports about the fact that a San Francisco court commissioner yesterday issued an order giving the Bay Guardian rights to 50% of SF Weekly's revenues.

We have known for weeks that such an order might be issued, and we have a plan in place to deal with it. We also will be appealing the order to the California Court of Appeal.

Despite uninformed speculation in certain publications, SF Weekly is not going out of business. Its day-to-day operations will remain unaffected...

With regard to yesterday's ruling, this latest legal gambit by the Guardian is just another example of that company's flawed and increasingly desperate strategy: to try and collect whatever monies it can before the California Court of Appeal has even had a chance to rule on the underlying merits of the lawsuit.

The near-manic intensity with which the Guardian is attempting to scrape together cash reflects the true nature of this case: That it is the Guardian, not the Weekly, that is struggling to stay in business, and which views these legal proceedings as its last hope.

We fully expect to win the case on appeal, and we are heartened by the fact that the Court of Appeal has already advised us that it has read all of the briefs, is familiar with the facts of the case, has conferenced the case, and is ready to set oral arguments.

The appeal briefs filed in this case make it clear that the Weekly is on the side of consumers -- in this case, local advertisers. The Guardian, on the other hand, is openly and unashamedly advocating against the interests of these consumers, fighting instead for its right to raise prices during one of the worst recessions this country has ever seen.

That is a fight we are happy to wage, and we intend to win it.

Women in Media discuss 'What’s Next?'

“What's Next? Women and the Changing Media Landscape” is the title of a panel discussion at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont on March 31 at 7 p.m.

The panel includes:

• Ysabel Duron, weekend news anchor at KRON TV;
• Rosy Chu, host of “Bay Area People”;
• Renee Batti, news editor, The Almanac, a weekly in Menlo Park;
• Staci Slaughter, VP of Communication, San Francisco Giants.

The event is free. For more information, call (650) 740-4824.

Eggers, Bronstein, Villalon, Wilson discuss SF Panorama tonight

Author Dave Eggers, Chronicle editor-at-large Phil Bronstein and Oscar Villalon, former Chronicle book editor, will talk about the SF Panorama newspaper at 8:30 tonight (Tuesday, March 9, 2010) at SF State's McKenna Theater. The talk will be moderated by Yumi Wilson, a former Chronicle and AP writer who teaches writing and reporting at SF State. The flyer for the event says Eggers will explain why newspapers as a print medium still have a strong future.

In her blog, Wilson discusses something that is frequently overlooked in the coverage of the changing news media — the people who have given their all in order to get the news.

Merc business staff wins 3 top awards

The Mercury News' business staff has taken three top professional awards, including one for overall excellence, in a contest sponsored by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

The awards recognize the best publications and Web sites and the best business news reporting for 2009. The Mercury News was the only Bay Area newspaper honored this year.

Brandon Bailey and Elise Ackerman won top honors in the breaking news category for their coverage of Carol Bartz's appointment as CEO of Yahoo.

Chris O'Brien won in the business columnist category for work ranging from a column on the behind-the-scenes players in Silicon Valley who make the region a center of innovation to a piece on the Silicon Valley executives who were the best "bargains" -- based on their pay -- for the value they delivered to shareholders.

The Merc won in the overall excellence category for papers of its size, an award that recognizes the work of the entire staff and is judged based on the submission of a number of editions from throughout the year.

Also honored for overall excellence in this category were The Des Moines Register and The Detroit News.

The awards will be officially presented at a SABEW meeting March 20 in Phoenix.

"It's gratifying to see the efforts of the Merc's excellent business reporting staff get this national recognition yet again," said Dave Butler, editor of the Mercury News and vice president for news for MediaNews Group. "Excellent business and tech coverage have been and continue to be one of the newspaper's primary ways to serve Silicon Valley readers."

Rick Quan creates a second career

Dave Newhouse of the Oakland Tribune reports that former KPIX sportscaster Rick Quan is thriving in his new career as a producer of corporate videos, biographies and short documentaries. Quan, 53, was in broadcast news for 30 years and was at Channel 5 for 21 years when the station let him go two years ago. In addition to his video production work, Channel 7 hired him last fall as a fill-in sportscaster and he's anchored a half-dozen times since. (Photo credit: Kristopher Skinner, Bay Area News Group)

UC-Berkeley student journalist arrested

The Daily Californian, the student paper at UC-Berkeley, reports that one of its reporters, freshman Cameron Burns, was arrested Thursday while recording video of a student protest over cuts to higher education. He was among those arrested on Interstate 980. Daily Cal reporter Stephanie M. Lee wrote:

Standing on the freeway on-ramp, Cameron Burns realized he had forgotten his press pass. What he had on his hands instead was a video camera and a protest that was about to unfold. ...

"They're running onto the freeway," Burns said over the phone to Joanna Brockhouse, the multimedia coordinator for the student newspaper's Web site. "Should I follow them?"

Brockhouse's last words, according to Burns, were: "Go get the story-go get it!"

So he did.

For the intended business administration major from Carlsbad, Calif., what began as a filming of the long-anticipated protests against education cuts culminated in a stint in [jail].

Burns was released Friday from a jail in Dublin. He is charged with obstructing a public place and unlawful assembly, the same charges as 150 others arrested on 980 face.

Adam Goldstein, attorney advocate for the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., told the Daily Cal that student and professional reporters alike are frequently confused for demonstrators -- with or without their press passes.

"The best thing a journalist can do, professional or student, to avoid getting arrested is to make sure every officer they interact with is aware they're a journalist," he said.

The Daily Cal says Burns' parents were surprised by his arrest but will "absolutely" allow him to continue working for the newspaper.  (Photo credit: Daily Californian)

KTVU, KPIX crowing after Winter Olympics

The February 2010 sweeps were supposed to be won by NBC, which paid $820 million for the broadcast rights (but managed to lose $250 million on the deal). Instead, KTVU and KPIX came out of the sweeps period smiling. Each station issued a press release touting how well they did in February. Here's KPIX's statement:

In the face of Olympic competition, CBS 5 Eyewitness News ratings soar and are up in the Adult 25-54 demo (Monday-Friday) year to year in four out of six newscasts: 5 a.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. ...

“This further validates a trend seen in the last several months and it is even more encouraging considering the challenging environment in February” said Ron Longinotti, president and general manager of CBS 5/The CW 44 Cable 12.

Additionally, the Eyewitness News at Noon with anchors Juliette Goodrich and weather anchor Tracy Humphrey is number one in household ratings for the sweep period.[KPIX 1.7, KTVU 1.6]

A25-54 ratings Monday-Friday percentage increase year to year:

5 a.m. — up 67%
5 p.m. — up 43%
6 p.m. — up 29%
11 p.m. — up 7%

In a 14-page press release, KTVU reported that it continued to hold on to the first-place position in the late news race despite NBC11's Olympic surge. Here is one of the pages KTVU put out regarding its February ratings:

Here's how KTVU said the stations' newscasts fared overall in Feburary among adults 25-54:

Channel 2 reports it had double the audience of its competitors in the morning. Of course channels 5, 7 and 11 are handicapped by the fact that they must carry their network's morning show from 7 to 9, which is three hours old and produced in New York.

KTUV is also crowing about its Internet/Mobile ratings in February. It reports its Web site had 5.4 million page views in February, and that its top story of the month (the East Palo Alto plane crash) had 84,000 page views. KTVU.com's Chinese New Year slide show drew 43,000 page views. The five-day forecast attraced 463,000 page views during the month.

The Press Club is well aware that stations dice and slice the ratings to make themselves look good. So if other stations have announcements about how they did in February, please forward them to us.

Date set for high school journalism awards

The Press Club is working to promote journalism at the high school level. Each fall we hold a boot camp with how-to seminars for student journalists. In the spring, the club holds a contest to recognize the best work at high school newspapers and Web sites. The Press Club will present this year's awards on April 21 from 4 to 6 p.m., at Ralston Hall, Notre Dame de Namur University, 1500 Ralston Ave., Belmont.

Thuy Vu wins Gracie Award

KPIX's Thuy Vu has won the “Outstanding Reporter/Correspondent” Gracie Award from the American Women in Radio and Television (AWRT). Vu won for her composite of three stories:

• Mendota, a Central Valley town with the state's highest unemployment rate, nearly 42%;
• Khmer Rouge survivors telling their stories publicly for the first time;
• Re-opening of Angel Island.

The Gracies each year recognize "exemplary programming created for women, by women and about women in all facets of media and entertainment, as well as individuals who have made contributions to the industry."

In 2009, CBS 5 received two Gracie Awards for "Assignment Africa," the series of stories reported from Ghana by Dana King and Craig Franklin.

This year's awards will be presented at the AWRT's annual dinner on May 25th at the Beverly Hilton in LA.

Judge approves MediaNews bankruptcy plan

The AP is reporting that a federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware today approved the bankruptcy plan of the parent company of the Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, San Mateo County Times and other MediaNews Group papers.

The confirmation of the reorganization plan in Delaware puts Affiliated Media, the holding company for MediaNews Group Inc., on track to emerge from bankruptcy protection by April 1 and possibly as early as March 18, company spokesman Seth Faison said.

The company filed for Chapter 11 protection on Jan. 22. ...

The quick approval produced a big payday for Affiliated's president, Joseph Lodovic IV (left). He qualified for a $250,000 bonus by getting the plan confirmed before April. That comes on top of a $250,000 award he already got for putting together a plan that was approved by Affiliated's lenders before the bankruptcy filing.

Under the plan, privately held Affiliated will dump most of its $930 million debt in exchange for relinquishing ownership to dozens of lenders. The lenders, which had been led by Bank of America, will hold 89 percent of Affiliated's common stock, with the remaining stake going to Lodovic and the company's CEO, William Dean Singleton (right). Singleton, who is also chairman of The Associated Press, will retain control of the company's board.

Heading into the bankruptcy filing, Singleton held a roughly 30 percent stake in Affiliated. Richard Scudder, who co-founded MediaNews with Singleton in 1985, surrendered his holdings as part of the reorganization.

Another publisher, Hearst Corp., will give up half of the 30 percent stake that it acquired in Affiliated's newspapers outside the Bay Area as part of a complex $317 million deal in 2006.[More]

The Fitz & Jen column on the E&P site notes:

Under the plan in the prepackaged bankruptcy, secured lenders holding about $950 million in debt will exchange it for about 89% of equity in the post-bankruptcy company. 

In court filings, the company said lenders will recover from 29% to 36% of their claims. Subordinated noteholders, no surprise, didn’t make out nearly as well. Their $326 million in claims gets than an 8.25% equity stake, a recovery of about 2%.

Dean Singleton ... stays in control of MediaNews as well. Singleton has already picked his four people on the seven-seat board of directors: Singleton himself; his President Jody Lodovic; Affiliated’s general counsel, Howell Begle; and the founder of a chemical business, John Huntsman.

The court’s okay turned Thursday into payday for Lodovic, who gets a $500,000 bonus because the plan was approved before the end of March.

Before today's approval, the company filed a declaration by CFO Ronald Mayo in which he said that "Any delay in emergence from Chapter 11 will damage the debtor's business, to the detriment of all parties of interest," according to a report in the Denver Business Journal.

And here's a blast from the past — A MediaNews press release nine months ago in which it flatly denied a report was going to file for bankruptcy.

A media report on Wednesday, citing rumors from unnamed sources, reports that MediaNews Group has proposed a refinancing plan to its bank lenders that would cause a change in control of the company and possibly involve a bankruptcy filing.

The story is inaccurate in almost all respects. As previously reported, MNG is in discussions with its bank lenders to restructure its balance sheet, including an exchange of some of its bank debt for equity in the company.

Proposals to the company's lenders do not include a change in control of the company, nor do they include proposals for any bankruptcy filings, as the rumors suggest.

MediaNews Group remains in compliance with its bank agreements while refinancing discussions continue.

Shandobil leaving KTVU at year's end

KTVU political editor Randy Shandobil, who has been at Channel 2 for 31 years, plans to leave the station after the November elections, media blogger Rich Lieberman reports. The images here are from You Tube -- 1984 and 2009. The 1984 image is from a live shot Shandobil did from a fire.

'New' SM County Times becomes more local

Ever since Dean Singleton bought the San Mateo County Times from its local owners in 1996, the paper has run a lot of copy and ads from the East Bay, where his chain has other papers, such as the Oakland Tribune. Longtime Times columnist John Horgan announced Monday that after 14 years, the paper's content has been shifted from the East Bay to the Peninsula.

On its face, that may not seem like a big deal. But it is. The move, effective this week, gives San Mateo County's daily newspaper a decidedly West Bay flavor once again.

Some history is in order. The Times, whose origins stretch all the way back to 1889, had been a strictly Peninsula operation, controlled for decades by the heirs of Horace Amphlett.

However, because of unrelenting financial pressures on the ownership, the three surviving adult children of the late J. Hart Clinton, it was sold to Dean Singleton's far-flung media empire in early 1996. It was then integrated into what once was the Alameda Newspaper Group, based in Oakland and Pleasanton.

There were some problems with the new setup, the most obvious of which was content. Because of the East Bay connection, the Times contained a good deal of — some would say too much of — news and advertising devoted to unfamiliar communities, issues, people and businesses across the Bay.

The culture clash created a unhappiness among subscribers, and readership declined. There has been a nagging concern that the situation could not be remedied in tough economic times for newspapers across the country. Still, Denver-based Singleton and his associates understood the issues on the Peninsula.

Something had to be done. Now, it has. ...

Today, the "new" Times is prepared to flourish under this fresh and, hopefully, reinvigorating arrangement. Coverage of local news will increase. So will local advertising, the lifeblood of any journalistic enterprise.

The Internet, of course, remains to the future of the Times, the Mercury News and the rest of the newspaper industry. Gaining significant revenues from the online world, however, remains a challenge.

Some things will stay the same. The Times' office is still in downtown San Mateo at the intersection of Ninth Avenue and South Claremont Street. Telephone numbers and e-mail addresses won't change.

We're told the paper's copy desk will remain in Walnut Creek, where other MediaNews Group papers in the Bay Area are edited.

Objections filed in MediaNews bankruptcy

When MediaNews Group, owner of the Mercury News and other Bay Area dailies, announced on Jan. 22 that it was filing a "prepackaged" Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, it said in a news release:

... [the] prepackaged plan won approval from its lenders, which means that the plan can bypass any need for negotiation or debate in court, and instead can win approval with a minimum of delay.

Chief executive Dean Singleton went on to say, "We already have the support and approval of our lenders, so we expect our plan to proceed through this process swiftly and smoothly."

According to the Denver Business Journal and the Denver Daily News, three creditors have filed objections in U.S. District Bankrupty Court to Singleton's bankruptcy plan that would pay creditors 18 cents on the dollar but give his management group 20% of the new company that will emerge from the bankruptcy proceedings. More objections could come before Thursday's deadline.

According to the two Denver publications (which are following it closely because MediaNews is based there), the objections have been filed by:

• Greenco Inc., a subsidiary of the Tribune Co., which claims it is owed $8.4 million and intends to sue MediaNews for that amount of money. It still wants to be able to sue for the money after the bankruptcy.

• Bank of New York Mellon Trust Co., which says it is currently in negotiations with MediaNews in an attempt to be repaid for money it loaned. The amount due wasn't given. It was apparently filing an objection to protect its rights to the money.

• Warner Gateway Properties, landlord of the Los Angeles Daily News, which said it doesn’t want the newspaper company to assume its own lease without proof it can pay.

According to the Business Journal:

The Los Angeles Daily News occupies about one-quarter of the Warner Gateway project in Woodland Hills. MediaNews Group holds a 15-year, $27.6 million lease that expires in 2022, according to the filing. 

The filing says representatives of the debtor began discussing a possible lease modification in January, but never made an offer, and provided information showing that the Daily News had lost $5 million over the past two years. 

In February, the landlord received a document indicating that MediaNews planned to ask the bankruptcy judge to take its name off the master lease and assign responsibility to Los Angeles Daily News Publishing Co. (LADN). 

Warner Gateway says it never agreed to this. 

“The only evidence of the assignee’s financial health is two years of consistent multi-million-dollar losses, totaling in excess of $5 million,” Warner Gateway said in its objection. “The debtor has refused to provide any other financial information about LADN, its assignee.” 

Only $2.1 million has been paid so far on the $27.6 million lease, Warner Gateway officials said. No security deposit was made. Before the Daily News moved in, the landlord invested about $3.9 million for improvements designed specifically for the newspaper, according to the filing. 

Warner Gateway is asking the judge to do one of three things: either force Affiliated Media to provide financial statements proving that LADN is capable of paying the lease; require Affiliated Media to accept its responsibility for the lease; or require Affiliated to provide a stand-by letter of credit for at least one year’s rent.

The Denver Daily News says that if Singleton's bankruptcy plan is rejected by the court, his No. 2, Jody Lodovic, would feel the pain. Documents filed previously in the bankruptcy case indicate that Lodovic will get a $500,000 bonus if the bankruptcy petition is approved. Documents also show that Lodovic could get as much as $2.25 million this year while chief executive Singleton is in line to get $1.49 million.

Oscar Villalon, McSweeney's publisher, exits

Joe Eskenazi of the SF Weekly is reporting that Oscar Villalon, the longtime former Chronicle book editor who accepted a buyout and then went to work as McSweeney's publisher has abruptly exited that position. Villalon, who started at McSweeney's last September, was responsible for shepherding the Panorama newspaper project into circulation. The SF Weekly says it's unclear whether Villalon jumped or was pushed.

ABC News to close San Francisco bureau

The LA Times (and others) are reporting that ABC News plans to eventually close all of its physical bureaus around the country except Washington and halve the number of its domestic correspondents.

That would include the network's San Francisco bureau, led by Laura Marquez (formerly of KGO-TV). The Times says the bureaus will be replaced by 20 to 25 digital journalists, who will shoot and edit their own stories.

Matea Gold of the LA Times says the mood was grim at the ABC News bureau in Los Angeles, the largest outside of Washington.

The 40-plus staffers were told that only a few producers will remain and only two correspondents will be assigned to cover the West, down from a total of six who work out of Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Many functions that had been done out of the bureau will be handled by a "logistics desk" in New York.

Demoralized employees, who did not want to be quoted by name for fear of losing their jobs, said the severity of the cuts will make it nearly impossible to swarm major stories such as the perennial wildfires in Southern California.

[ABC News President David] Westin said that the network would cope with the reduced manpower on breaking news stories by hiring freelance crews and relying on its expanded team of digital journalists, staffers who will be able to handle multiple tasks.

"I'm sure we will learn more as we go forward, but we have enough experience to be quite confident that we can not only maintain but in some cases enhance our editorial quality," he said.

NY Times reports on Palo Alto newspapers

New York Times reporter Miguel Helft writes in Sunday's edition:

People in Palo Alto frequently call Dave Price a contrarian. While they typically mean it as a slam, Mr. Price, the co-founder and editor of the Palo Alto Daily Post, considers it a badge of honor.

“We are contrarian, but there are good reasons to be that way,” said Mr. Price, whose newspaper opposes just about everything that the city government does.

Mr. Price’s contrarian streak extends to his take on the newspaper business. He started The Daily Post in 2008, as the recession forced further cutbacks and closings at many of the nation’s already suffering newspapers. And in a time when most newspaper publishers spend much effort figuring out how to profit from the Web, The Daily Post is proudly print-only.

“Giving away news online is a dumb way to do business,” according to its Web site, which does not post any news.

Yet Mr. Price said the Daily Post broke even within a year. “Every month, revenue goes up,” he said.

Mr. Price is not the only one defying conventional journalism wisdom. Palo Alto, a highly wired Silicon Valley community, is, too.

At a time when many cities struggle to support one newspaper, Palo Alto has three: The Daily Post, The Daily News, which began publishing in 1995, and The Palo Alto Weekly, which has a daily online edition and has been around since 1979. ...



This month, in the days after the crash of a small plane caused a 10-hour blackout in Palo Alto and killed three employees of Tesla Motors, the three papers, combined, published some 30 articles examining everything from the city’s response to the power grid’s connection with the city-run electric utility.

And in a city where laptops, iPhones and Kindles are standard issue, many residents still walk a block or two to pick up one of the city’s newspapers, all of which are free.

“It is phenomenal to go into a coffee shop in the morning and see people reading local newspapers,” said Ted Glasser, a professor of communications at Stanford. “These are manageable newspapers. You can read them in 15 or 20 minutes.” ... [More]

Photos: Top, The Daily Post's Dave Price. Middle, Jay Thorwaldson, editor of Palo Alto Weekly, talking with Tyler Hanley, the online editor; Bottom, Daily News executive edtior Mario Dianda. All photos by Ramin Rahimian for the New York Times.

KCBS takes over No. 1 spot in ratings

The decision by CBS Radio to acquire an FM channel for All News 740 KCBS seems to be paying off. KCBS AM-FM was first in the January Arbitron ratings for listeners 6+ with a 6.4 rating compared to 5.8 for perennial leader KGO-AM.

A year ago, KCBS (which had just started its FM service) had a 5.6 compared to KGO's 5.8. In one year, KCBS has grown its listenership by 14%.

Here's the usual disclaimer: Advertisers don't use these numbers when buying air time. They use ratings for particular demographics.

                   PPM 6+
          San Francisco Radio Metro
         Monday-Sunday 6am-Midnight
       
               Jan 09   Dec 09   Jan 10
1.  KCBS-AM/FM   5.6      5.8      6.4
2.  KGO-AM       5.5      5.8      5.8
3.  KOIT-FM      4.8      5.4      5.7
4.  KQED-FM      5.3      4.8      4.5
5.  WILD-FM      3.4      3.8      4.0
6.  KBLX-FM               4.0      3.9
7.  Star 103.1   3.6      4.1      3.9
8.  KNBR-AM               3.6      3.5
9.  KSOL                  3.4      3.5
10. MOViN 99.7            2.8      3.5
11. KDFC-FM               3.4      3.2
12. KRZZ                  3.2      3.2
13. KMEL-FM      3.7      2.6      2.9
14. KSFO-AM      3.3      3.1      2.7
15. KISS-FM               2.5      2.5
16. KFOG-FM               2.4      2.4
17. KSAN-FM               2.0      2.3
18. KBAY-FM               2.7      2.0
19. The Band              1.9      2.2
20. Alice                 2.4      2.1
    

Chauncey Bailey Project reporters win McGill Medal

The University of Georgia has announced that four reporters associated with the Chauncey Bailey Project -- Thomas Peele, Josh Richman, Mary Fricker and Bob Butler -- will receive the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage. A news release says:

“Peele, Richman, Fricker and Butler’s reporting was truly courageous,” wrote Oakland Tribune editor Martin G. Reynolds in his nomination. “A reporter was killed and they continued and expanded his work despite obvious dangers.”

The reporter was Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post, who was murdered in 2007 while investigating black Muslims and their Your Black Muslim Bakery, headquartered in Oakland, Calif. The man charged with Bailey’s killing told a court he was ordered by the group’s leader to murder Bailey “to stop this story.”

The four reporters wrote more than 100 stories about the group, the murder, and the police investigation. Reynolds wrote, “Their reportage forced the indictment of the group’s leader on murder changes for ordering the assassination.”

Peele and Richman are reporters for The Oakland Tribune/Bay Area News Group. Peele is an investigative reporter whose work focuses on government malfeasance and corruption. A 25-year veteran of newspapers on both coasts, Peele has won four national reporting awards. Richman covers state and federal politics. He reported for the Express-Times in Easton, Pa. for five years before joining the Oakland Tribune in 1997.

Fricker and Butler are independent reporters. Fricker retired in 2006 from the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif., where she covered business. She is the author of the New York Times best-selling book, "Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans."

Butler’s career in broadcast journalism began in 1981 when he was hired by KCBS in San Francisco. He has reported about economics, politics and disasters throughout the U.S. and from Brazil, Europe, Namibia, Tanzania and Senegal.

The medal will be presented to the four on March 24, at the University's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

BA News Project uses Twitter to announce CTO

Chris Rauber of the San Francisco Business Times reports that the Bay Area News Project announced the name of its chief technology officer via its Twitter feed. The new CTO is Brian Kelley, former co-founder of Reputation Defender in Redwood City, and prior to that similar posts at The Academic Approach and TicketRESERVE, according to his online bio.

MediaBistro pulls plug on Baynewser

BayNewser, a blog with two paid writers covering the Bay Area media scene, is shutting down after nine months in business.

The blog was created by New York-based MediaBistro, which also owns local blogs such as FishbowlLA, FishbowlNY and TVNewser.

BayNewser's co-editors, E.B. (Liza) Boyd and Jason Turbow, said they were paid a flat rate per post. Their compensation wasn't based on pageviews, so they weren't compelled to write outrageous things just to draw traffic.

BayNewser started out covering TV, print and online news operations, but shifted in the past few months to reporting on Facebook, Twitter and Google.

MediaBistro, in a statement on the BayNewser site, said that its acquisition of SocialTimes.com and AllFacebook.com were duplicating much of what BayNewser was covering.

Chron to outsource some sports reporting

Bleacher Report, which was started a year ago by four “obsessed sports fans from the Bay Area," has landed a deal with Hearst Corp. to provide sports coverage to the Chronicle and other Hearst papers, the Sacramento Business Journal reports.

Bleacher Report was founded by Dave Finocchio, Zander Freund, Bryan Goldberg and Dave Nemetz. They call their site “the world’s largest publisher of exclusively fan-generated sports reporting.”

Our community of fan-experts creates hundreds of original stories each day, and we publish their work to the millions of people who visit Bleacher Report on a monthly basis. In addition, content created by the Bleacher Report community is used by several major partners, including CBS Sports and Fox Sports.

How does Bleacher Report accomplish all this?

Simply stated, we provide our community of talented writers with the best possible experience. Our publishing platform enables them to create first-rate content, and our wide reach delivers their work to countless sports fanatics across the globe. Thus, for many writers, contributing to Bleacher Report is a superior experience than operating an independent blog.

According to Bleacher Report, the special local sections of the newspapers will have original articles written by Bleacher contributors, and also “aggregated content from across the Web.”

Paulo Pereira, Jamie Casini depart Daily News

Paulo Pereira started at the Palo Alto Daily News in 1999 as a receptionist and by 2005 was in charge of an advertising department with 25 employees in four cities. Monday, however, was his last day. Publisher Justin Wilcox told his staff in an e-mail:

I wanted to let everyone know that effective today Paulo Pereira is no longer with the Daily News. I want to thank Paulo for his years of service and dedication to the company and wish him great success with his future endeavors.

Any duties or activities that Paulo was participating in can be directed to me moving forward and I thank everyone in advance for your assistance during this transition.

Last month, Managing Editor Jamie Casini (top right) left the Daily News after five years for a new hyper-local Internet news service called Patch, an AOL-funded venture that plans to roll out hundreds of local news blogs by the end of the year. Before the Daily News, Casini was city editor at the San Francisco Examiner from June 2002 to October 2005. She is also a past president of the Press Club.

Clear Channel sacks 2 program directors

John Scott, program director at progressive Green 960 (KKGN) and KNEW 910, and Stacy Cunningham, PD of KMEL, have been shown the door by Clear Channel, according to Friday Morning Quarterback and AllAccess. Clear Channel cluster operations manager Don Parker will add PD duties at KMEL. KISS FM assistant PD and music director Ricci Filiar will become PD of KISS, KKGN and KNEW.

Rodgers fired moments after show ended

Lee Rodgers has written a letter to listeners to clear the air about his sudden departure from KSFO 560 on Thursday: "It was forced upon me with no notice," he says.

While KSFO & KGO were and are profitable, Citadel Broadcasting, the parent company that owns ABC Radio is in bankruptcy.

The top management of Citadel, led by a CEO named Farid Suleiman -- widely regarded as the most incompetent executive in broadcasting -- decided that I was making too much money after 25 years with ABC and fifteen as morning host on KSFO, taking no note of the fact that I've generated large sums of money for the company.

I was seriously considering retirement at the end of my contract in early July, and I certainly wouldn't have left without saying goodbye. Instead, within one minute of the conclusion of last Thursday's show, I got the word that it HAD been my last one; cut with no notice, in violation of my contract.

This is typical Citadel tactics; they've carried out massacres at many of our sister stations. At the Chicago station, WLS, a highly respected newscaster was pulled from the studio in mid-show, during a commercial break, and fired! There's a certain justice in that outcome: the two management people who carried it out were themselves fired a week later.

Understand, please, that this course was not chosen by the local management of KSFO. Mickey Luckoff and Jack Swanson have been helpful throughout my long run in San Francisco.

I WILL tell you, in all candor, that thanks to Mr. Suleiman's Citadel management, I could no longer proudly say that the company had never told me what to say or what not to say. There was an obvious cave-in to some ultra-left and pro-Muslim groups, making it unlikely that I would have ever renewed my contract with the company, anyway.

Rodgers told Joe Garofoli of the Chronicle and SFGate that Citadel is trying to get out of paying him for the last 4 1/2 months of his contract, and AFTRA is going to bat for him.

Garofoli also reports:

Jack Swanson, vice president for programming for KSFO and KGO -- and a friend of Rodgers for 30 years who has hired him twice -- told us that the station "spent several months trying to negotiate a new contract" but it didn't happen. Our goal was to retain Lee."

Lee's response to The Chronicle: "I was offered an insultingly low salary to extend my contract, which I rejected."

"I harbor no hostility toward the local management of KSFO/KGO; they were simply doing as ordered," Rodgers said. "They built the stations up; Citadel is tearing them down."

Rodgers, who has been doing his program from Arizona for the past seven years, says it is unlikely he will return to broadcasting after more than 50 years in the business. (Photo credit: Chronicle file, Kim Komenich)

San Jose editor moves on to Connecticut

Norman Bell, former editor of the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, has been named the top editor at the Hartford Business Journal.

He has been the top editor at daily newspapers in Tacoma, Wash., Oakland and Trenton, N.J. Bell also has held managing editor or senior editor roles at daily newspapers in Detroit, Columbus, Ohio, Albuquerque, N.M., and Riverside.