San Francisco Blog

Gustave Caillebotte

Cloudy, with a chance of imminent demise of our business model...

 Looks like the money-hemorrhaging Chronicle is finally going to give the people of San Francisco the kind of news we really want: weather. Around the same time that the newsstand prices for daily issues will go up a quarter to $1 (July 27), Sunday's Chronicle (which will remain at $2) will feature two full pages of America's favorite news subject.

The new two-page section -- provided by Weather Underground -- will include a detailed presentation that includes reports of San Francisco's many microclimates, plus what is sure to be a riveting forecast of the fog, and a weekly summary of earthquake activity. The high-tech weather spread is made possible the paper's new state-of-the-art, outsourced presses. So not only will the weather be two pages long, it will also be high-def.

Either the incredibly shrinking San Francisco newspaper really likes weather, or they're making a last-ditch effort to wield cable-TV newsy marketing powers. Weather has been the consistent all-time American favorite subject area, according to Pew's research surveys, with nearly half of those queried saying that they follow weather news "very closely," above any other subject out there.

Of course, Pew also found that the majority of Americans wouldn't really care so much if their local paper folded. Lucky us -- here in San Francisco we may get the best of both worlds.