Responding to requests can be time consuming, expensive and legally risky, said award-winning journalist Miranda Spivack, author of the forthcoming book, “Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back.”

And, she added, sometimes the people with the information simply don’t know what the law requires them to disclose.

Spivack shared her thoughts in a recent interview with Lila LaHood, executive director of the San Francisco Public Press, at an event where they discussed government transparency. This excerpt from their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In this episode of “Civic Presnts,” hear LaHood’s full interview with Miranda Spivack at a July 11 event that featured a question-and-answer session with the audience.

You have said that there is evidence that points to secrecy in state and local government being on the rise. How do we know this, and what explains this increase?

Starting with 9/11 (the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.), there was a big retrenchment in government transparency at the local level. 

From that time on, there is a lot of evidence that governments are just not living up to state public records laws. It’s inconvenient. It’s costly. It’s everything from they don’t know where the information is, to they haven’t digitized their records. 

When a state or local agency says it doesn’t have or doesn’t want to give up information, what are the most common reasons you hear?

There are a couple I think are occurring with greater frequency. One of them is the use of the “trade secrets exemption,” which is all over the country. It’s in the federal FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) law, too, and allows private contractors to say “that’s a proprietary piece of information,” that our competitors are going to be tipped off on. 

There are sometimes security and privacy issues. The “investigative exemption” is used a lot, where a government agency will say, “this is still under investigation.” But, of course, investigations do not go on for five years, and documents that are older should be available. But they want to charge you a lot of money for this stuff. And that’s a big deterrent.

Watch the full interview and audience questions.

Can you point to any places where the system for getting access to public records works really well? Conversely, where have you run into the most obstacles? 

It’s very erratic, even within a state. You can have government employees who really do want to be helpful. I think places that have digitized their documents have a better chance of putting the information up online. You shouldn’t have to file a public records request just to find out who the contractors are in San Francisco to cross check them with public finance and campaign finance reports.

How does our government’s ability to keep and record large quantities of information affect its willingness to provide access to that information? 

Around the country, and probably within California, smaller governments are not well funded. Legislatures don’t necessarily fund their own state agencies very well. So, you know, there is a bona fide issue that I have to acknowledge, which is that this is not an inexpensive process — although it should be, given that we have all this technology. 

I’ll tell you that the email searches are very hard. They don’t know who’s got the emails. They don’t know where it is. Is it on the main server? Is it on somebody’s laptop? Those are really hard issues.

Should governments retain all their digital files forever? Or might it make sense to clear certain things out after a certain period of time?

Probably five years is a good measure for most records. I think law enforcement records have to be kept much longer. A lot of it has to do with who has the server. Does the city own the server? Is it outsourced to some private contractor? What are they charging for it? I think those are all real considerations. 

What do you think motivates people to withhold information? 

So, there is a fellow I know in Washington, Tom Susman, who actually helped write the amendments to the Freedom of Information Act in the 1970s. He says the mindset is, “when in doubt, don’t give it out.”

In some states, you can be sued as a government employee if you give out information that you shouldn’t give out. There’s a big fear factor.

If you look at police agencies, the culture is, “We’re a paramilitary organization, and that means you cannot have the insight into what we’re doing.”

Your book is about people who were trying to improve their communities and, in the process, took on governments that were withholding public information. How did you decide which stories to include in the book?

The book has five profiles of different people from around the country whom I’m calling accidental activists. They don’t get into this because they want to. They really get into this because they have to. 

These stories just spoke to me. As a journalist, it’s hard to do this work, and so I was very interested to see how novices would go about doing this. Their success and failures were really instructive, because I think state and local government is really where people’s lives are most clearly affected.

One of the stories is about poisoned drinking water. Another is toxic chemicals in firefighter gear. There’s a story about dangerous roads. 

Can you explain in a nutshell why government agencies wouldn’t want people to know which roads were the most dangerous?

Well, you’re being logical. Congress passed a law a couple of decades ago in response to state governments who were worried that they would get sued if they had a list of the top 10 worst roads in their state that they wanted to apply for federal funds for. So, they know where the problems are, but they’re not fixing them and they were very worried that they would get sued for negligence. 

Can you talk a little bit about why civic engagement matters on the local level, especially in this era of hyperpolarization? 

One of the biggest problems is that people don’t trust the government. They think the government is hiding stuff. Governments, I think state and local in particular, can do a lot to be more open about what their process is, what they’re doing, who they’re working with, who the mayor is meeting with. What’s the harm in that? 

And yet, there’s this sort of a defensive crouch. I think in a lot of governments, there’s a lot of fear. There are issues that I think are legitimate where politicians really feel that they are being hounded unnecessarily. I think the press has to be careful about what you go after and what you make a big issue about. But there’s really a nexus between transparency and government and civic engagement, and keeping our democratic system “small d” democratic.

Wondering which state governments are the most responsive to records requests? Check out this interactive tool by MuckRock, a news site focused on government transparency and accountability.

This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.

The post Why Do Governments Keep Information From the Public? A Veteran Journalist Weighs In appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Friday, July 15, 2022 — (San Francisco, CA) – Nonprofit community radio stations KXSF-LP and KSFP-LP are broadcasting again on 102.5 FM from the second level of Sutro Tower in San Francisco. San Francisco Community Radio and the San Francisco Public Press each broadcast 12 hours a day on their shared frequency, which can be heard throughout the city. 

The sister low-power FM stations were temporarily off the air after their transmitter failed on June 5. Broadcasts were restored on July 14 at 10:37 a.m. after extensive repairs. 

“The transmitter is in an outdoor enclosure,” said engineer Bill Ruck, who oversees the transmitter and related equipment on Sutro Tower on behalf of both stations. “When it failed, we recognized that there was corrosion on the power amplifier that was beyond our ability to repair, so we sent the transmitter back to the manufacturer, Nautel. They reported damage to two circuit boards that required complete replacement.” 

KSFP Program Director Mel Baker said he was pleased the stations could relaunch their broadcasts.

“Our two stations provide a service to the community not offered by the large public media outlets that focus on the entire region,” he said. “We give air-time to programs made for and by San Franciscans.” 

Carolyn Keddy, who is a KXSF DJ and chairperson of the San Francisco Community Radio Board of Directors, agreed. 

“San Francisco has so many voices needing to be heard that are excluded from the homogenized commercial radio stations,” she said. “KXSF and KSFP give space to local people who have something to say and something to share.”

Baker said that the stations’ complementary programming serves the community well.

“Our two stations provide a good mix, with KSFP focusing on news and information programs during the morning and evening, while our partners at KXSF offer a wide and varied mix of music, community affairs and entertainment programs by local creators throughout the day and nighttime hours,” he said. 

KXSF and KSFP both stream their own programming around the clock, but share the 102.5 FM signal, handing it off every six hours. KXSF broadcasts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., and KSFP airs from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.

KSFP: A Project of the San Francisco Public Press

KSFP launched in August 2019. It offers a mix of local news, public affairs and storytelling programs, including the flagship weekly news and public affairs show “Civic.” 

KSFP is the home station for “Out in the Bay,” which serves the LGBTQ community; “News in Context,” which examines media bias; and “Voices of the Community,” which explores how Bay Area nonprofits fulfill their charitable missions. KSFP’s “Open Studio” airs locally produced podcasts, such as “Radio Teco” from El Tecolote newspaper. The station also served as the launchpad for two radio play series created by theater companies Word for Word and the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which produced audio versions of their shows during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

San Francisco Community Radio’s KXSF

KXSF launched online in January 2011 and began broadcasting on 102.5 FM in September 2018. KXSF consists of a 100% local volunteer production staff offering a wide variety of programming including shows in multiple languages, LGBTQ+ focused and community affairs programs, and shows featuring an eclectic mix of musical styles. 

KXSF’s mission is to amplify the diverse voices of our world by providing musically creative and socially aware San Francisco style radio.

Some of KXSF’s eclectic programming includes “The Turkish Cultural Programming,” Saturdays at 2 p.m.; “Friday Morning Frequencies,” Fridays at 10 a.m.; “Ad Lib,” Thursdays at 2 p.m.; “Queerly Drinking,” Wednesdays at 2 p.m.; “Barn Dance,” Wednesdays at 10 p.m.; “The Pastor Tom Show,” Saturdays at 1:30 p.m.; “Francofun,” Saturdays at 1 p.m.; plus many more.

Low-Power FM 

The Federal Communications Commission designated low-power radio stations as a distinct category in 2000. Low Power FM stations are authorized to broadcast over limited areas underserved by public or commercial stations. The FCC grants licenses to nonprofit organizations that agree to use the signal for the public good and to abide by federal regulations.  

The 102.5 FM signal can be heard in most of San Francisco, except where obstructed by geography. KXSF and KSFP also operate online audio streams 24 hours a day. 

Low Power FM stations have opened the airwaves to smaller organizations that would otherwise be locked out of the public and commercial airwaves, where even small stations can cost millions of dollars. IHeart Media, Cumulus, Audacy and several other giant consolidators own all but a small fraction of commercial radio stations in the U.S. Deregulation has allowed these stations to eliminate their local studios, meaning that in many cases none of their programming is produced in the communities they are licensed to serve. 

KXSF and KSFP are committed to serving San Francisco with locally relevant programming created by people from the local community.

–30–

The post San Francisco’s 102.5 FM Is Back on the Air appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

With the proliferation of social media channels, misinformation and disinformation now spread as fast as the click of a trackpad. Even for a trusted outlet like PBS — nationally recognized for its family friendly programming and sober, nonpartisan news coverage — this era has brought a flood of digital rumors to quell.

As the public editor at PBS, Ricardo Sandoval-Palos fields complaints for the organization and uses community feedback to cultivate conversations between viewers and PBS’s creative teams.

“If you have a problem with Elmo, right? You call me. But you’d be surprised how many people have a problem with Elmo,” said Sandoval-Palos, an award-winning investigative journalist and editor. He also serves on the board of the San Francisco Public Press.

Sandoval-Palos recalled that his first column as public editor for PBS was about a cartoon and how local stations’ decisions about airing it varied dramatically from market to market.

“The first thing I had to write about as PBS’s public editor was about ‘Arthur’ and the last 10 seconds of one episode in which there’s a same-sex marriage,” he said.

Stations in several states declined to run the show. And PBS received a barrage of complaints from viewers who questioned why PBS was referring to same-sex marriage in programming for kids.

“I realized that I had to write about this and understand what viewers were complaining about, but also to reach out to the creatives who were responsible for ‘Arthur,’” he said.

In digging into why certain stations decided not to air it, Sandoval-Palos said producers told him they did not pull the show over concerns about how viewers might respond — rather, they were concerned about jeopardizing station funding at a moment when state legislators were considering budgets for public media.

In a more humorous controversy, Sandoval-Palos found himself fielding complaints about a popular children’s show in which — viewers said — a character used a swear word.

“One of the popular characters on ‘Sesame Street’ — Grover — apparently dropped an f-bomb,” he said. “It went viral.”

Sandoval-Palos described it as a perfect example of confirmation bias. He replayed the segment, listening for the offensive word — and he heard it. When he reviewed the original script and listened again, he heard the innocuous, child-friendly dialogue drafted by the show’s writers.

He tried the experiment with several other people, first asking them to listen for the swear word, then presenting the actual script before playing it again. They all had the same experience.

Sandoval-Palos said he spoke with a linguist who confirmed this phenomenon — that our minds confirm things we expect.

“What does that tell me? That tells me that as humans we’re inclined to pay attention to and we’re hopeful — we’re hoping to hear what we expect to hear.”

Politicians and advertisers, among others, appeal to this human tendency to draw in supporters and customers.

“The lesson is that we as humans are ready to hear you,” he said. “And if you tell us something that we want to hear, we’re going to follow you. Which, I think, is why we’re seeing this explosion of misinformation. As the communications channels increase around us, we see this also increasing.”

While complaints about children’s programming often draw more attention, they don’t make up the bulk of comments that land on the public editor’s desk.

“The majority of the complaints that come to me are about news coverage — about the ‘News Hour’ and news programs like ‘Frontline,’” he said. “And the majority of the complaints, unfortunately — I believe, unfortunately — are ideologically based.”

Sandoval-Palos said he focuses on increasing transparency and explaining to viewers how decisions are made at PBS.

“What I try to do as the public editor is take from that stream of complaints — we’re talking about hundreds of emails a day — and find streams of thought, find lines of discussion, that I can then amplify, perhaps, and look for common ground to carry out a conversation between our viewers and our creatives at PBS.”

One challenge is that viewers often see PBS as a monolith, when in fact local stations have a great deal of autonomy in deciding what programming viewers see in their market.

“PBS controls, say, the primetime programming from 7 to 10, but the rest of the clock belongs to the local station,” he said.

That local connection is important, and local news organizations, he said, can play an important role in helping people avoid being misled by misinformation and disinformation.

“I think you can overcome it on a local basis with trusted sources,” he said. “Go into the communities themselves and find people in the communities that you serve, and have them speak on behalf of the truth in your stories. So don’t wait for the CDC to come out and say something. There’s experts here who can tell you all about vaccines. And in a bunch of different communities. So, it can be customized to a community, and it can be customized to a language and a culture.”

The post PBS Public Editor Says Complaints Can Spark Community Conversations appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Voters who feel confused or misled by the bombardment of political advertising that comes with every election season might seek out a neutral, straightforward explanation of a ballot measure or campaign. For many voters, that search leads to Ballotpedia. Though the site is exhaustive and may seem formulaic, its content is not automatically generated. Professional writers and editors carefully curate the material that lands in this elections encyclopedia, which covers everything from ballot measures to judges to redistricting. 

Amée LaTour is a writer on the Ballotpedia Marquee team, which covers elections that require detailed explanations or background, either because they’re expected to be competitive or because the outcome of the election could change the balance of power within a governing body. LaTour’s career in writing about politics was sparked by an interest in philosophy. 

“Since I was an older teenager, I was really interested in ethics, and questions like how we find meaning and what we consider to be good,” she said. “To me there’s a natural connection between those ethical questions, and politics. Politics — my idea of it — is the concrete application of ethical ideas. That’s where people act on how they think the world should be.” 

But her writing for Ballotpedia includes no expression of how she personally thinks the world should be. Writers are fastidious about maintaining neutrality.  

“Everything is very, very thoroughly cited,” LaTour said. “If we’re including some things and excluding some things, we try to make it very clear to readers why.” 

That includes writing about things like poll results.  

“If we are covering polls in a race, and we include some of the polls, and not others, we will tell readers exactly how we make those choices so that they can better understand that and know that we’re not just cherry-picking the data.”  

It also means being conscientious of giving equal attention to the various sides of a contest. 

“When we’re covering candidates, we’re always very conscious of the depth of coverage we’re giving to candidates, and whether that’s unequal,” LaTour said.  

Writers also choose their words very carefully. 

“If there are terms that are primarily used by people who support a certain policy position, or who oppose a certain policy position, we don’t use those terms, because we don’t want to give readers the impression that we have a side on an issue,” LaTour said. 

Ballotpedia writers are not journalists, however. LaTour said she wouldn’t consider herself one mostly because she is not connected to the 24-hour news cycle the way a reporter might be. Her focus is on producing material that will still be available when someone looks up a ballot measure 10 years down the line.  

Much of the coverage comes directly from campaigns, she said.   

“We don’t really publish our own articles assessing the validity of different things,” she said. “If one candidate is saying something, and the other candidate says it’s untrue — and candidate A responds to candidate B saying it’s untrue — we might feature that back and forth.” 

Material that appears on Ballotpedia is edited. The process includes a review of the language and terms used to make sure they’re clear and easy to understand. And once material is published, readers can give feedback too, by email or through an error submission form on the website. Every single email and feedback message is read, she said. 

“We invite it,” LaTour said. “If someone sees something they think is either factually wrong or biased in some way, we absolutely want people to let us know.” 

A segment from our radio show and podcast, “Civic.” Listen at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 102.5 FM in San Francisco, or online at ksfp.fm, and subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify or Stitcher. 

The post Ballotpedia Strives to Earn Voters’ Trust With Comprehensive Elections Guide appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

“No Straight Lines” screens at the Frameline film festival, digitally June 17–27 and in-person at the Castro Theater on Sunday, June 27.

A segment from our radio show and podcast, “Civic.” Listen at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 102.5 FM in San Francisco, or online at ksfp.fm, and subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify or Stitcher. 

The post In ‘No Straight Lines,’ We Meet Groundbreaking Queer Comic Artists appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Freedom of information advocates and journalists have criticized a number of instances in which law enforcement officers arrested, detained or even injured reporters at work covering protests in California. In response, state Sen. Mike McGuire authored SB 98, which aims to codify journalists’ right to access demonstrations. As the proposal makes its way through the Legislature, David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, discusses the context for the bill and some of the ways in which current protections for journalists fall short.

A segment from our radio show and podcast, “Civic.” Listen at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 102.5 FM in San Francisco, or online at ksfp.fm, and subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify or Stitcher. 

The post After Journalist Arrests, State Legislation Aims to Protect Reporter Access to Protests appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Editor Cynthia Laird told “Civic” that type of coverage began surprisingly early. “While it kind of started out as a gossip rag, it quickly pivoted to covering gay news,” she said. “We ran a cover — I think it was our fifth issue — of people picketing in front of the federal building, holding signs like Gay Rights Now.”

Publisher Michael Yamashita said that over time, the newspaper developed a greater commitment to journalism. “There was a concerted effort to professionalize the reporting to hire people who actually had journalism backgrounds and degrees and experience in media.”

The newspaper went on to chronicle the rise of lesbian and gay political activism in the 1970s. The era would see the successful statewide battle to defeat the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned lesbian and gay teachers from the classroom, and the election of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, followed by his and Mayor George Moscone’s assassination by former Supervisor Dan White. 

The early 1980s brought the AIDS crisis, when the paper became a source for information on the growing pandemic. Yamashita said the newspaper would publish free obituaries: “We almost always insisted that the obituaries were turned in with a picture. Because a lot of times you would recognize people in the community or in the bars, but not necessarily know their names. We would run several pages of obituaries, which today seems very shocking, but it seemed to be a normal thing: three pages of obituaries at the height of it.”

The Reporter ran a famous headline “No Obits” on Aug. 13, 1998, that marked a turning point in the pandemic when the famous drug cocktail started to reverse the decline of many HIV patients, Laird said.

“I just remember Mike Salinas, the editor at the time, just constantly going downstairs to see if any obituaries had come in,” he said. “We were very careful to point out that it certainly didn’t mean nobody died that week. It just meant that no one had turned in an obituary. And it did give a lot of people hope. It’s probably our most famous headline.”

In the first decade of this century same-sex marriage dominated the paper’s headlines. “We had the state cases and then we had Proposition 8, which we covered extensively in 2008.  That was kind of a bittersweet election, because Barack Obama won the presidency, but gays lost the right to get married in California. It was a very strange election night. But then, you know, of course, that case went through the courts. And ultimately, the Supreme Court restored the same-sex marriage rights for Californians in 2013. And then, two years later, the Supreme Court legalized it nationwide.”

Many of today’s headlines are about expanding the spectrum of issues of concern to those of gender nonconforming individuals and the fight for transgender equality. 

The Reporter began during a time when the movement used the term gay to mean both gay men and lesbians, and now uses the acronym LGBTQ to include a broader understanding of gender expressions and emotional attraction. It has also had to evolve from the age of classified ads, paid print advertising and newsprint to the digital era dominated by social media. 

The paper has continued to publish a weekly newspaper during the pandemic, despite having to lay off an editor and an administrative staff member. 

The newspaper has generated over $33,000 in a public fundraising campaign and begun a monthly membership program. The pandemic has also caused it to try new digital strategies, including a morning newsletter, a YouTube channel and a more robust social media campaign. 

Yamashita said he is also reaching out to other newsrooms. “We’re also collaborating quite vigorously with other publications in the city, in the state, and also LGBT publications nationally,” he said. “So we’re really solidifying our relationships with these different tiers of publications, especially here in San Francisco. Because we found that there’s strength in numbers. We’re also sharing advertising sales, which is something that we should have been doing, frankly, a long time ago.”

“I can’t tell you what’s going to happen to our industry in the future,” he added. “But I really believe that we will survive.”  

A segment from our radio show and podcast, “Civic.” Listen at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 102.5 FM in San Francisco, or online at ksfp.fm, and subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify or Stitcher. 

The post The First Draft of 50 Years of LGBTQ History appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

“They said, ‘Hey, are you OK? Or are you sick?’ And, ‘We couldn’t see your byline,’” she said.

Her fans told her she should set out on her own, and she did so, publishing her first edition of the Wind Newspaper in September, in print and online and in English and Chinese.

“The Chinese community has not been well covered by the mainstream media,” she said. “I understand the mainstream media, they need to cover everyone. But for the Asian and Chinese community, they want to know more about what’s going on in the community.”

For years, Li said, colleagues in the English language press would ask her how they could follow her stories, which focused primarily on criminal justice and were published only in Chinese. She would tell them to use Google Translate, but the results were often unreadable. Now she wants to make her reporting accessible to readers in both languages. 

“I am so happy I can also be the bridge for a very unique community,” Li said. “Many of my readers, they are English-speaking only, or maybe limited-English speaking Chinese and Asian Americans. And they enjoy to read the articles, because it’s so related to them.”

Li’s coverage has already had an impact, she said. The owner of a century-old restaurant, Far East Cafe, credited Wind Newspaper’s coverage and other media attention with bringing in donations from around the country that spared the business from permanent closure. 

“As a journalist I tried to save the restaurant, and this is how I want the community to know about that, ‘wow, this is a 100-years-old restaurant. It’s going to close, and we need to step up to help them, help the restaurant and help the workers,’” Li said. 

Li publishes a printed newspaper weekly, in part on the advice of the same friends who told her she should start her own publication. For now, she is running the operation on her own dime, though she said she hoped to eventually break even. 

“If I can balance the costs and the advertising income, and then I’m a volunteer, I’m happy to be a volunteer to work for my newspaper,” Li said.

A segment from our radio show and podcast, “Civic.” Listen at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 102.5 FM in San Francisco, or online at ksfp.fm, and subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify or Stitcher. 

The post Undeterred by Layoff, Journalist Launches Bilingual Newspaper appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Locally, Mayor London Breed in spring 2020 suspended certain elements of the Sunshine Ordinance, an open records law in San Francisco. Journalists have also found it difficult to get answers to questions from various city departments during frequent virtual press conferences, where they must remain muted and submit their questions in specific formats.

“It’s a terrible setup. They just decide at some of these press conferences not to answer your questions,” said Lydia Chávez, executive editor at Mission Local, which has been focusing coverage of the pandemic on its disproportionate effects on the city’s Latino residents and pressing the Department of Public Health for testing location data. The constraints on when and how reporters may ask questions “just really puts journalists at incredible disadvantage,” she said.

Trisha Thadani, a city hall reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle who has covered outbreaks at nursing facilities and drug overdoses, echoed that concern and said that officials have several times simply not answered her questions. When coronavirus infections began rising at the city’s biggest skilled nursing facility, Laguna Honda Hospital, she said reporters and relatives of residents were barred from visiting the site and struggled to get information from the city about the conditions there.

“During that there were so many family members who had their older mom or dad in that facility and didn’t know what the hell was going on, and they were turning to us for answers,” Thadani said. “We’re the ones who are disseminating the information to the public when the government is falling short.”

In San Francisco, city departments also began funnelling media requests through the COVID-19 command center under the Department of Emergency Management.

“So right now, if you want to get a quote from the Department of Public Health, and often even the Department of Homelessness, you have to email DEM directly,” said Nuala Bishari, who writes for the San Francisco Public Press, In These Times and other media outlets. “The answers I get often do not come from the department that I’m trying to contact. Requests are very, very slow to actually land in my inbox. Sometimes it takes days and days, and they don’t arrive until well past my deadline. And the questions I ask are very rarely answered.”

Statewide, agencies have been blaming slow responses to records requests on the pandemic, said Scott Morris, who has been investigating utilities companies and their state regulator with the Bay City News Foundation and ProPublica

“A lot of people are using the pandemic as kind of excuse to delay or obstruct public records requests,” he said. “They say ‘well, because of COVID-19 we’re all working from home and our staffing is low.’”

In some cases, Morris said, agency representatives have even told him to simply put off his records request until the pandemic is over.

Withholding or slow-walking information that the public legally has access to erodes trust, the journalists said. 

“When you look at city departments, especially something like the Department of Homelessness which has an enormous multi-million dollar budget, and we don’t understand the breakdown of where that budget is going, people start to lose trust in that department,” Bishari said.

Highlights from this discussion are also available as an episode of our radio program and podcast, “Civic.” Find the episode here. You can also hear “Civic” daily at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on 102.5 FM in San Francisco, and subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify or Stitcher. 

The post Journalists Encounter Roadblocks to Government Transparency During Pandemic appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

The end of 2020 saw several local publications change hands, with real estate and hospitality magnate Clint Reilly acquiring the San Francisco Examiner and SF Weekly, and Street Media acquiring the Marina Times. The San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper is undergoing its own transition, but rather than simply changing hands it is going to a cooperative ownership model. 

The newspaper, which has been operating for more than four decades, has kept a primary focus on the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood but also has a national and sometimes even worldwide scope. That’s partly because it features reporting by and for incarcerated people. Malik Washington, Bay View’s new editor, began writing for the paper while in prison.

“I actually became a nationally known activist and journalist. And it wouldn’t have been so without the support and the guidance of Mary Ratcliff, who actually gave me the opportunity to publish my writings in the San Francisco Bayview National Black newspaper,” Washington said. 

Willie and Mary Ratcliff acquired the Bay View from its founder, Muhammad Al-Kareem, in 1991. Now approaching 82, Mary Ratcliff attributed the couples’ decision to pass the torch largely to age. 

Ratcliff, who is white, said ensuring that the paper published the writing of Black reporters and community members unfiltered helped build trust.

“I found myself in the editor’s chair and always was very conscious of how wrong it was for a white woman to be the editor of a Black newspaper. So maybe one of the things that made it popular was that I bent over backwards to make sure that the voices that you were hearing in the Bay View were Black voices, and they were coming from Black people who felt as if they were speaking to their people through their newspaper without a filter,” she said. “And we’ve tried to make the paper very, very trustworthy, very honest. And, and, of course, very radical.” 

Taking radical stances has cost the publication advertisers at times, Ratcliff said. But the paper remains popular with readers, particularly incarcerated ones — indeed, more so during the coronavirus pandemic, Washington said. 

“We’ve had a spike in subscriptions. More people want our newspaper,” Washington said. “But this is the problem that we’ve also seen: We have seen an increase in censorship of our newspaper. Prison officials throughout the United States, they do not want the public to know how horrible the conditions are.”

He said the paper helps link incarcerated people, who are disproportionately people of color, to their communities.

“The San Francisco Bay View National Black newspaper actually bridges the gap from the prison cell to the neighborhood to the on-the-street activist, the abolitionist, the reformist, the person who says, ‘You know what, although you are incarcerated, your life is valuable. You are a human being and you matter,’” he said.

A segment from our radio show and podcast, “Civic.” Listen at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at 102.5 FM in San Francisco, or online at ksfp.fm, and subscribe on Apple, Google, Spotify or Stitcher. 

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