Posts published in “From the Archives”

Res Ipsa Loquitur by PHL posted on NOVEMBER 26, 2011 The Bay Citizen reported this week on the personal bankruptcy of Lt. John A. Pike III, the campus policeman who gainedworldwide notoriety recently for pepper-spraying a line of protesters at the University of California, Davis. I was one of the editors at The Bay Citizen who approved and edited the story. It didn’t take long for critics to question the journalistic propriety of reporting details about Lt. Pike’s personal life. One critic, Shawn King, the host of “Your Mac Life,” a radio show broadcast on the Internet, wrote on Twitter: “So this is what we’re doing –…

The Singularity by PHL posted on NOVEMBER 17, 2011 SAMUEL BUTLER (1835-1902) “Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it, you are lost.” – Samuel Butler Butler is best known for two works, “Erewhon” and “The Way of All Flesh.” “Erewhon” was published anonymously — it was a scathing social satire of Victorian Britain and religion — but once it became successful Butler acknowledged authorship. By the way, “Erewhon” is an anagram of “Nowhere,” and the author left instructions for it to be pronounced in three syllables: E-re-whon. I…

“I am not a journalist … but I play one in the newspaper” by PHL posted on NOVEMBER 8, 2011 It’s Election Day today in San Francisco, and The Bay Citizen marks the occasion by throwing a rock at its journalistic competitor, The San Francisco Chronicle. Why? The Chronicleemploys a columnist named Willie Brown Jr., who, were it not for term limits, might still be either the Mayor of San Francisco or the Speaker of the California State Assembly. What irks The Bay Citizen is that Mr. Brown, whose day job is political consulting, uses his Chronicle column to toot his own horn as a kingmaker and power…