“I still don’t think she’s using it, by the way.” — Elizabeth Emken, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from the East Bay telling the Daily Caller she thinks Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s staff is tweeting for her. (Emken does her own tweeting, she said.)
(Source: bitememary)
Faux grassroots groups, colloqually known as AstroTurf, are typically funded by right-wing nuts within the Republican Party. In the East Bay, the group “Stand for Oakland” is funded by business and pro-police interests.
The scene reported Monday by Indy Bay Media did not put pro-Hosni Muburak supporters in Egypt to shame—not by a long shot. Before long, there were met with considerable opposition by Occupy Oakland supporter at Frank Ogawa Plaza who ended the charade.
The article, though, does a service in revealing some of the names lending their support for “Stand for Oakland.” According the story, Oakland developer Phil “Shotgun” Tagami, Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council member Jill Broadhurst and Oakland chamber president Paul Junge.
Angela Haller and Nancy Sidebotham, Councilmember Desley Brooks was present in the crowd against Occupy Oakland, as well as Bruce Stoffmacher from the office of Councilwoman Libby Schaaf, and rich man Greg McConnel who fought against Oakland’s Just Cause eviction protections was there, including wealthy developer Phil Tagami who also joined in on the orchestrated attack against Occupy Oakland, by the police support groups.
In an editorial that sounds vaguely like a 55-year-old sophomore wrote it, the student newspaper at Cal State East Bay in Hayward called on the Occupy Oakland movement to “recapture its common goal,” but not before criticizing its recent actions.
The editors of The Pioneer also called the movement “frankly an embarrassment to the rest of the nation.”
You don’t have to go far to find the paternalistic and pro-law enforcement angle to the column.
Ordered by police to cease the march on the convention center, over 2,000 demonstrators refused to do so, which eventually resulted in dozens of protesters vandalizing city hall and torching an American flag on the steps in front of the building.
Escalating further, confrontations with Oakland police officers and movement supporters has lead to police usage of tear gas and beanbag bullets which were aimed into the crowd of protesters.
In all reality, this situation has completely gotten out of hand and is frankly an embarrassment to the rest of the nation.
I sounds like the Communication Department at CSUEB is ready to begin churning out mainstream media television reporters and Bay Area News Group reporters.
Last month, the late Oakland City Hall gadfly Sanjiv Handa was posthumously handed an insult when the council surprisingly rejected naming its press room after the editor of the East Bay News Service.
Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, long a bitter rival of Handa, voted against the proposal saying it would have rendered him a “hypocrite.” Councilwoman Nancy Nadel also criticized her colleagues who favored re-opening the press room and naming it after Handa, who unexpectedly died last Dec. 27.
Luckily, Board President Larry Reid and Councilwoman Desley Brooks have a Plan B to honor the man who pestered public officials to behave as righteous public servants while acquiring their friendship for over 20 years.
Tonight, the board will discuss renaming the city’s existing sunshine ordinance in honor of Handa. “The Sanjiv Handa Oakland Sunshine Ordinance” could become effective immediately tonight if six or more councilmembers approve the name change or, after seven days with a simple majority.
Shoshana Walters of the Bay Citizen is an excellent crime reporter, but when if you send her to cover issues combining Oakland PD and Occupy Oakland, you get articles like this one: “Occupy Oakland Provides a Lens into the Deep Dysfunction at OPD,” or, also known as “These hippie kids playing around downtown and stopping the police from doing their jobs.”
Forget the Associated Press, the biggest provider of hometown news content is your local police department. If you piss off the cops, your steady stream of titillating crime tales and opportunities to scare old ladies and suburban mothers is gone.
Some Web sites, notably, various incarnations of the Patch don’t even bother rewriting press releases from the police department. It’s not uncommon to read a posting that was merely copied and pasted to the site.
Covering Occupy is a whole other thatch of thorny issues, though, since it is both a political movement and a demonstration against decades of police brutality in Oakland and sometimes one in the same. The two issues, among many, are so embedded that not even two reporters of Walters and Aaron Glantz’s ilk can sufficiently unpack them without appearing to be a vehicle for the city and police to convey demonstrators as the “outside agitators” they have already employed several times in the past.
Until Occupy Oakland and other community groups start writing useless press releases on a daily basis, the police will always have first dibs on how and how much of the story represents their side.
Chalk drawings at occupy oakland
(Source: stupidhippiejenn)
A marriage between the Bay Citizen and the Center for Investigative Reporting is in the works, according to a report this week.
If a deal is struck for the twin non-profit sites of which nobody in the Bay Area actually reads, yet knows about, it would put editor/playboy Phil Bronstein at the helm.
Of course, I’ll never agree with people who say journalism is dying because it’s not. Rich businessmen owning billion media companies who publish newspapers are dying. Ultimately, mega-corporations running community papers really only served themselves and their rich buddies.
The Bay Citizen’s attempt at filling a void that may or may not exist is laudable. It does good work, but as with all things in life when academics and so-ca.lled experts get involved, the end result is a boring product.
When new media consultants enter the building, you’re screwed. It all literally bullshit. People want good stories. They want presented clearly and they want it quickly. If you do all of those things and remember to not be boring, then readers will flock to you.
Ultimately none of these ideas will work. The road to the golden age of journalism is not to replicate the old model of newspapers. Instead, the model they should use is cable television. The newspaper needs to be chopped up into its own sites. None one person should own more than section and there really won’t be a need since the entertainment sections can be sliced a thousands ways as can the sports section.
Folks, niche journalism like the East Bay Citizen is the future. I can cover politics in this area infinitely better than the newspaper and be more cost-effective in my coverage. Four interviews last week with candidates for the 18th assembly district would constitute a single article in the mainstream press. For the East Bay Citizen those chats will culled in the same way the American Indians utilized every piece of the buffalo. They will become the basis for one freelance article in the East Bay Express and, at minimum, eight separate articles for the East Bay Citizen along with countless informational tweets.
The level of information on that race on my site will make the Oakland Tribune and these other non-profits look like the Penny Saver. If the mission is to inform readers, then they cannot and should not survive.
Rep. Jerry McNerney is looking for a new home in San Joaquin County to suit his redrawn congressional district. McNerney like local Reps. Pete Stark and John Garamendi are facing criticism because they do not actually live in the district’s they represent.
The Miami Herald has a good look at the issue that is an election season oldie, but goodie.
Members of Congress are not legally obliged to live in their district. For western lawmakers, the trek and time away from their family often necessitates living in, say, Washington, D.C. or nearby in Maryland or Northern Virginia. When question about Stark’s residency creep in the East Bay, it makes you wonder if people have any idea where the nation’s capitol is located?
Oakland AllStars by Thomas Hawk on Flickr.
#wholefoods #oakland (Taken with instagram)
Is Ro Khanna running for Rep. Pete Stark’s seat this year or 2014? He adamently says no, at least, until he knows the 80-year-old is officially hanging them up.
Don’t believe him?
According to campaign fundraising reports due today, Stark’s campaign is a benefactor of Khanna’s support.
The former Obama commerce depeartment official gave Stark $1,000 in campaign fundraising last October. Of course, that was before he broke the bank by raising $1.2 million in just a few months on the backs of Indo-American Silicon Valley interests.
But, again, he’s not running. Sure.
San Diegoans are still miffed over an odd short-term name change for Qualcomm Stadium, the home of the San Diego Chargers.
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders personally approved the change to Snapdragon Stadium for only two bowl games and a Chargers game last month.
The group attempted to make a citizens arrest on Sanders charging embezzlement.
Occupy San Diego and other locals think the name change cost tax payers over $100,000 in promotional value given to Qualcomm for promoting its new product at the publicly-supported stadium.
Might Occupy Oakland create a similar scenario for doing the same to Mayor Jean Quan? There’s probably more flexibility for the group in Oakland coupled with the monetary stakes being far higher as the City pays exorbitant costs in overtime to a cadre of already well-paid police officers.