With the good news, there's always some bad news

​If all goes well and the paperwork is signed, The Bay Citizen newsroom will be handed over to the Center of Investigative Reporting within 30 days as part of an overall merger to bolster the Bay Area's in-depth news coverage.  

While a merger is supposed to bring out the best of both organizations, combining money, sources, and technology, it also means combining staff, which is exactly what has The Bay Citizen newsroom feeling out of sorts over this pending merger. Already, the online paper -- which launched in 2009 --  has had trouble finding its place in the media world, not to mention, it's been a revolving door of leadership; its current editor-in-chief Steve Fainaru is stepping down tomorrow.

Needless to say, sources inside the newsroom tell us that the imminent change and "shit communication" between higher-ups and the staff has them feeling a bit "freaked out" by what's coming down the pike.  

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We know merger talks over at the Bay Citizen have everyone on edge about the future of the online newspaper. But amid all this excitement about joining forces with the Center for Investigative reporting, the BC forgot to do the one thing that would surely help bolster its online presence: Renew its domain name.

Seriously.

This morning, Jim Romenesko was up early enough to grab this oh-so-humiliating screen shot of the Bay Citizen's homepage:

The Bay Area's online newspaper

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Well-adjusted

​It appears there's money to be made in stoking the self-loathing of the American people -- hence this article on the Chronicle's Mommy Blog. It plugs the book Bringing Up Bébé, in which an American expat expounds upon the enlightened parenting techniques of our Gallic brethren, and contrasts them with the lax, slothful methods used to produce loathsome wastrels like you good people (and your humble narrator).

Americans have long romanticized all things French -- an inclination that can be effectively cured via first-hand experience of a French rail strike. Self-reflection is healthy, but lamenting about how much better everyone else has it is not. It warrants mentioning that the French do both: The schools, the culture, the behavior of the young are all so much better in Germany or Italy -- or the United States, the French constantly grumble.

I don't have French parents, but I do have French parents-in-law. I'd write this book off as n'import quoi, but it'll be more fun to break it down point-by-point. Per the Mommy Blog, here's where the French have us licked in the child-rearing department:

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Bye-bye!

​ Examiner Editor in Chief Deirdre Hussey has left the newspaper after more than 10 years. Initial reports say that Hussey resigned from the paper amid a change in ownership, however, the new owners say that her departure was a "mutual decision."

Todd Vogt, president and publisher of the Examiner, told SF Weekly on Wednesday that after speaking with Hussey, the two decided to part ways effective immediately. Her abrupt departure included a nice severance. "Her institutional knowledge will be missed, but I think a fresh start and some fresh ideas in the Editor-in-Chief chair will be good," Vogt said.

The staff was informed of the decision Wednesday afternoon. The paper has started a search for a new editor in chief.

"Everyone is personally sorry to see her go, but professionally, everyone agrees a change is welcomed," Vogt told SF Weekly.
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Gavin Newsom

​UPDATE, 11:35 A.M., 2/3/12: Newsom spokesman Francisco Castillo responded to the below story with an e-mail, stating, "The Lt. Governor never said he thought press coverage was 'unfair,' nor did he suggest that domestic violence charges not be treated with extreme seriousness -- any suggestion otherwise is sloppy and just plain wrong."

ORIGINAL STORY: California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco's former mayor, said on a local radio program today that he feels news outlets are being unfair to Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who is facing charges of domestic violence.

On KQED radio's Forum talk show, Newsom expressed a surprising degree of sympathy with Mirkarimi, a former political rival who is facing trial on charges that he abused his wife. In particular, Newsom called into question the frequent news stories that have appeared about Mirkarimi's case, coverage spurred by a second woman's decision to come forward with allegations of physical violence against the sheriff.

"It's a little indulgent, in terms of just the day-to-day pounding in the media," Newsom said to host Michael Krasny. "There's got to be something else to talk about, as important as this is. So I understand his frustration, feeling he's being picked on. But trust me, I've been there, we all have, and such is the nature of responsibility in the public realm."

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​As the tech and media industries slug it out over laws governing copyrighted material online, one original content producer has won a small victory in its effort to staunch intellectual-property theft. The California-based porn-video producer Digital Sin [NSFW] has won the right to obtain personal information about close to 200 people it says are illegally downloading one of its titles, My Little Panties #2 [NSFW].

While U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan expressed "serious reservations" about the risk of falsely implicating innocent people, Courthouse News reported, she ordered that the names and addresses attached to 176 IP addresses associated with illegal downloads of the porn film to be turned over to the court under seal. After a 60-day period for the implicated parties to fight the release of their information, it can be made available to Digital Sin.

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Reporters are there to observe the story, not be the story

​Plenty of people are unhappy all around about what happened in downtown Oakland Saturday evening -- journalists included. Hundreds of police in riot gear descended on a planned Occupy Oakland rally over the weekend, which escalated into another violent scene where more than 400 people were arrested.

Despite having press credentials, at least five of those who were hauled off to jail were local reporters covering the event, including journalists from the San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, the East Bay Express, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Incidentally, local reporters have now become part of the very story they were covering, prompting the local Newspaper Guild to craft this very blunt message to the Oakland Police Department: Back off.

The guild has written a letter to Mayor Jean Quan and Police Chief Howard Jordan, requesting a meeting with the two leaders to discuss the problem of Oakland hindering reporters from doing their job.

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Michael Scott Moore

​Michael Scott Moore, who previously worked as a theater critic for SF Weekly, was reportedly captured by Somali pirates over the weekend while he was traveling to central Somalia to research for his book about Somali pirates.

The LA Times reports that Moore was on his way to the airport when 15 men in two SUVs kidnapped him, believing he was perhaps a spy. The U.S. State Department issued a statement expressing concern for Moore, who is a Los Angeles resident, and his safety. His captors have threatened to kill him unless a ransom is paid. A specific amount was not specified.

"We have been in contact with the individual's family and we are working with contacts in Kenya and Somalia to ascertain further information," the State Department said in a statement to the press.

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Crime fighters and BFFs!

​Here at SF Weekly, there's nothing we love as much as The Examiner's Law & Disorder crime-roundup page, where thugs, goons, punks, and broads batter the hell out of each other in headlines so lurid and purple they seemed to have been dictated by crotchety hobos.

Or make that where thugs et al. used to batter each other. Since the paper's recent change in ownership, Law & Disorder has become more housebroken each day. The headlines involve "suspect"s. Once in a while there's an "allegedly." And now, today, Law & Disorder reporters Mike Aldax and Rob Nagle are posed back-to-back in the classic mystery-solving stance of child detectives everywhere.

Or of Mary-Kate and Ashley.

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​If you're reading this, chances are that you regularly consume media online. And if you regularly consume media online, you're almost certainly seeing and reading more today than you know what to do with about the federal Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

SOPA and PIPA are the respective House and Senate versions of legislation designed to police websites, many of them based abroad, that sell stolen media content -- movies, music, and more -- to U.S. consumers. Silicon Valley's tech giants, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, are fighting ferociously to stop the bills from going through. Most conventional media companies, particularly in Hollywood, support the bills.

In an ad you've probably seen pop up in your Facebook feed, Google says the bills would "censor the Internet." Wikipedia has gone dark for the day to protest the legislation. Searches on the widely used Internet encyclopedia redirect to a shadowy page that ominously declares, "Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge."

Critics of SOPA and PIPA have good points. But a routine round of fact-checking shows that the depiction of the bills by the tech industry is misleading.

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