Scary Times

The news wasn’t really that much of a surprise. The Chronicle has been losing millions for quite some time now. What was a bit of a shock was to hear that the paper might actually disappear. Like almost every paper in the country, The Chronicle has reached a breaking point. It’s do or die time. Figure out how to survive or call it a day.

It wasn’t that long ago that the paper was doing quite well. When I worked at the Chronicle in 2000, the Hearst Corporation was in the process of buying the Chronicle and unloading the Examiner. Back then, The Chronicle was turning such a good profit that Hearst basically gave the Examiner away to the Fang family with an added bonus of $66 million as a thank you gift. I guess $66 million paled in comparison to what they would be making with the acquisition of the Chron.
For a while after the sale, it seemed as if their purchase was a wise one. Staffers were traveling and the Christmas party in 2000 was huge. It was held at the Museum of Modern Art. They had fortune tellers, live music, endless amounts of food and drink. Sharon Stone was even there with her now ex-husband Phil Bronstein. It was a real good time.
Then, along came Craigslist, killing ad revenue, and the internet with its free content and the downward slide began.

I can’t imagine San Francisco, a city with a population of over 750,000, without a daily newspaper. Sadly, this could be a reality. It breaks my heart that people don’t see a value in what goes into a newspaper and how important newspapers are to our democracy. Without papers, who will be the watchdogs to make sure government serves in the best interest of the citizens? Who will uncover things like the BALCO steroids scandal? What will we start fires and wrap fish with?

All kidding aside, I think there are a lot of people out there that don’t understand where this type of in depth reporting comes from. Well, if you don’t know, newspaper reporters come up with these stories. TV stations do some, but for the most part it is a recycled story from a newspaper. Same goes with radio. Listen to KCBS on any given day and a good percentage of their stories are right out of the morning paper.
The news about the Chronicle hits close to home for me. Well, it actually hits my home. My girlfriend is the Director of Photography at the paper and with yesterday’s news came the realization that she and many of my friends could be unemployed very soon. It is, in a word, frightening. Even though we have been thinking and talking about what would happen if one of us lost our job, it still is a rude awakening when the possibility becomes closer to reality. A flood of fear hits your body as you think about mortgages, car payments, food and utilities.

I hope the Chronicle can fight their way through this. People need their jobs and San Francisco needs a newspaper.