When I first lived in New York, I read the New York Times nearly every day. Then, as the paper changed hands and the political climate continued to shift, I watched the coverage in the Times become more and more conservative. There was also less hard news and more soft news.
Ideally newspapers are supposed to be objective and cover all sides of the story, but that simply is not happening. My frustration with this reality actually eventually forced me to stop consuming mainstream news. I turned to alternative publications for my news.
Then, particularly through my work as a harm reduction outreach worker with the St. James Infirmary, I have come in contact with parts of daily city life that rarely get covered in the mainstream media: people living and working in the streets and SRO’s. Countless observations of interactions with the police, in which rights weren’t being read, or people were being needlessly harassed, as well as being in touch of the harmful affects of police sweeps on this population motivated me to start this blog.
These things do not get reported in the news.
But then, of course, I found myself somewhat regularly reading the Chronicle, mostly because I was following C.W. Nevius’s problematic column, which largely took the side of homeowners who don’t find it to be their job to deal with the social problems that affect the place where they can afford to buy a home.
He focused on the poop on the sidewalks, and the incidents of violence coming from the homeless populations. These are all real problems, and yes something needs to be done.
However, he has failed to cover the more complicated side which would involve exploring the issues behind why people may be resistant to services, or the social issues which lead up to homelessness.
Nevius tends to take the easy way out on that one, claiming that there is a very strong advocacy group for the homeless, but there is an entire population without a voice….those poor homeowners.
In today’s column, ( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/04/BASLTNJRG.DTL ) he congratulates himself for the effect of his columns in sparking a debate, and examines the effect of his columns.
Unfortunately, the Chronicle tends to represent the views of only a certain population. Many community organizers, including the folks from the Coalition on Homelessness are fed up with the inadequate coverage in the Chronicle and don’t read the paper. Many people, who disagree with the Chronicle’s coverage do not wish to support the newspaper by engaging in its online forums.
Therefore, the more complicated debate is actually happening in many arenas, and is no way contained in the online comments section of sfgate.
Who reads and supports the Chronicle? This is an important question to ask when looking at the validity of its coverage. Amongst many of the people who I know, the Chronicle is not the preferred periodical. Unfortunately, this means that many voices and views on an issue, in this case the homeless debate, are not present.
A lot of us who work on the issue of homelessness would really like for there to be serious debate in the Chronicle. Unfortunately, it’s all but impossible to get a legitimate hearing. Nevius, certainly, has no interest in providing balanced coverage: he has his own perspective (which, to be fair, as a columnist, he’s meant to), & that’s all we really get. When various of us in the community have been interviewed, we’ve been misrepresented. There’s really no point in engaging in a debate where those who control the medium set themselves up as your opponent, & choose which of your words get heard & which don’t.
But beyond this, the Chronicle simply can’t be taken seriously as a newspaper with journalistic integrity or competence. We didn’t hear about the oil spill until days after it happened. More than once they’ve covered major local stories days late, & then only after picking them up from the AP. & they hardly cover any news about real politics or policy, focusing more on squabbling and personalities. (To blame this on the politicians, as many local conservatives do, is to run defense for the Chronicle—while politicians may be reproachable for getting involved in fracases, these are no indication that real political issues are in any way hidden in San Francisco, & are certainly no excuse for lazy pseudo-journalism.)
Thanks so much for your comment, Bob. Its so helpful, aside from my ranting and claims, to have others chime in and agree. In yesterday’s column he said that people from the Coalition on Homelessness did not comment. And, well, I can imagine for good reason. He has repeatedly failed to represent the side that Coalition is fighting to have heard, and has made it pretty clear that he is not sympathetic. That’s putting it nicely…
In attempting to keep somewhat abreast of the coverage in the Chronicle of the homeless debate I have seen some other voices represented. I have seen a some representation of other sides of the story from Heather Knight.
But the main thing is that Nevius’s articles is selling the newspaper at a time when newspapers are struggling. In addition the amount of comments he has received online for his column are unprecedented. I did actually write an article on this, but for various reasons, I have hesitated to publish it on this blog (if you have any recommendations as to where I can publish it, I welcome them).
So yeah, controversy sells. In the meantime, there are many people DO read the chronicle who are maybe buying into the sensationalism of the issue and the arguments of Nevius, and this is doing a tremendous amount of harm.
If you’re looking to publish on-line, you might try either the Street Sheet blog (http://www.cohsf.org/streetsheet/) or Beyond Chron (http://www.beyondchron.org). POOR Magazine (http://www.poormagazine.org) is right awesome, but I don’t know if they publish stuff by folks who haven’t been thru their workshops. You could check, tho. (Of course, if you’re already part of the POOR community, then there’s no problem.) Hope that’s some help!