San Francisco Blog

As I told you in my response to your email this morning, I absolutely did tell Judith Scherr that Hahn had sent out an email flyer asking supporters to join the Wellstone Democratic Club. In fact, I've just forwarded to you a Sept. 5 email to Judith in which I suggested talking to Hahn about it. As I told you also, I'd never even met Hahn when I told Scherr this might make a good story-- someone, not a supporter of Hahn's, had emailed Hahn's flyer to the Planet and lots of other people in Berkeley. Now I have met her, and I am in fact endorsing her in my editorial tomorrow, but that had nothing to do with Scherr's story. I challenge Scherr to produce evidence of ONE SINGLE INSTANCE in the two years she worked for us of my adding or subtracting anything from her stories, except of course fixing the frequent grammatical errors and misspelled names in what she turned in. Her charges are an insult to our whole professional staff, including her prize-winning former colleagues, who would never put up with the treatment she claims she's gotten. I have hesitated to go public with this because I thought Judith might need to get a job somewhere again, but this leaves me no choice. You can read more about it later in the week at berkeleydailyplanet.com.

The Berkeley "Daily" Planet is a joke. Everyone in town knows it's an anti-development blog of O'Malley. She tries to rally people to her causes and insults others. See her above comment to this article "... except of course fixing the frequent grammatical errors and misspelled names in what [Scherr] turned in."

I've been reading the Daily Planet regularly and am grateful for any coverage of the local scene. But I am not swayed by the editor's positions which saturate the letter, opinion pieces and news stories. It's tiresome to see the same complaints (from the same characters) week after week.
I appreciate that she will print almost any letter (free copy never hurts the budget) but it's not a forum that generates much credibility.

I've been an editor, reporter, and publisher of local newspapers as well as a major, metropolitan daily newspaper. At no time during my 25-year career did I hear a reporter who failed to get the story right blame her editor for keeping the story from her. That's the reporter's job: get the story from whomever has the story.

The editor gave her an assignment. It was hers to do. Why beat up your editor who trusted you to get the story in the first place?

If the editor had something to hide, why assign her the story?

There's a story in Scherr's screed but she will only find it by looking in the mirror.

The Berkeley Daily Planet is the worst newspaper going. It's a waste of paper and does not speak for me, it reflects the points of view of such a fringe minority of Berkeley.
If the LETTERS section was not so hysterical to read, I would not even know it get's published.

Hi, I'm Mrs. O'Malley's polar opposite. I find that if you do and think exactly the inverse of what the Berkeley Daily Planet tells you, you'll be right and on the side of the facts nearly 100% of the time.

I cannot recommend enough Berkeley's unflappable guide to the imprudent, inaccurate, and downright laughable. Three cheers to the Daily Planet: all the news that's fit to dismiss.

Becky O'Malley, in my opinion, runs a wide-distribution blog that happens to appear with a lot of local advertising. Play journalism with her anti-growth friends pretending to be progressive and care about people is a joke. Her personal politics are very clear at local public meetings, in her editorials, and in her be-tooled reporters, parrotting her voice in all their articles. I urged more housing for people that need it once at a meeting. Right after she stood up and cut down my comments with personal attacks and cynical remarks about berkeley being a place for the people already here.

she's really a heartless conservative, obsessed with the status quo - not like any progressive I could believe in (but sadly like a lot of "progressives" in Berkeley).

The Planet is not just worthless, its downright dangerous. By including writers like Conn Hallinan, who advocates mass murder, repressive statism and totalitarianism, Becky O'Malley has installed vessels of hatred and has infiltrated our community with her one-man-band of journalism. Her inclusion of a jew-hating Holocaust denier a couple of years ago should have resulted in criminal charges.

Becky's days are clearly numbered, and this writer looks forward to the final demise of the Berkeley Daily Planet -print and online - and will call for a massive celebration amongst progressives when it occurs.

There's a particularly wonderful technique that Becky specializes in. When some citizen or group makes a proposal to improve something in Berkeley, if it has to do with development the Planet story is not about what the proposal would improve -- the headline is about the "controversy" over the proposal, with nay-sayers quoted before proponents.

Often this employs the famous "some say" line of "proving" the opposition. Of course, "some say" that faeries dance under the full moon in Tilden Park -- but merely saying doesn't make it so.

Every journalism student should study how this rag actually works. Becky's not about to win a Pulitzer, but if Karl Rove gave out journalism awards for political thuggery she'd be first in line.