Monthly Archives: December 2011
Posted inEconomy & Business, From the Newsroom, Health, Media, Social Justice

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Avatar photo by Michael Stoll

In the Public Press, elites don’t dictate coverage

If you missed it, the Winter 2011 edition of the Public Press (Issue 5) went on sale in November, and it came on the heels of a national conversation about how to fund and fortify community journalism. This is the editorial on page 2.

Issue 5 of the San Francisco Public Press, an ad-free nonprofit local newspaper, takes cues from noncommercial magazines, some of which have become influential of late. One model was Adbusters, the “culturejammer” magazine that inspired the global Occupy movement. Our approach at the Public Press has always been to look for stories that see the city and the Bay Area from the viewpoint of average people instead of just the elites, whose concerns are well represented. While we don’t practice advocacy journalism, we do strive to cover, in depth, stories and communities that commercially funded media don’t often pay attention to.

Posted inNews

In weak economy, business lobby flexes its muscles in state legislature

by Public Press staff

By Laurel Rosenhall and Chase Davis, California Watch Business interests were the top bill-killers inside California’s Capitol during Gov. Jerry Brown’s first year back in office, as concerns about the state’s weak economy cut into labor’s newfound clout. Legislative data show business interests wielded strong influence, despite a Capitol dominated by Democrats in the Legislature […]

Posted inFood Systems, Labor, Public Safety

As work conditions shift, inhumanity of immigrant labor becomes human rights concern

by Alejandra Cuéllar

Gabriel Thompson worked alongside immigrants in the back of restaurants in New York City and in factories that produced some of the most basic foods in the American diet: lettuce and chicken. Not an immigrant himself, Thompson used his investigative reporting techniques to lift a veil on working conditions that many undocumented immigrants and low-income Americans face daily. His colleagues experienced excruciating soreness from physical labor. They had no employee benefits. And they had to do monotonous and repetitive work, which led to a high rate of injuries. Thompson’s one-year immersion into the lives of working immigrants, documented in his recent book, “Working in the Shadows,” comes at a time when working conditions are changing. The immigrant workers are leaving the workplace under pressure from law enforcement, a trend that is forcing the employers to look for new ways of attracting workers.

Posted inNews

Prime hospital bills for malnutrition, but patient says she wasn’t treated for it

by Public Press staff

By Lance Williams, California Watch As far as Medicare knew, Darlene Courtois fell ill last year with kwashiorkor, a dangerous form of malnutrition usually seen among starving children during African famines. At least that’s what her hospital claimed in the bill it sent to Medicare, records show. But Courtois, 64, says she wasn’t treated for […]

Posted inEconomy & Business, Education, Media, Social Justice, Social Services, Transportation

Sharing skills during the holidays

by Ambika Kandasamy

With the holiday festivities swiftly approaching in a year marked by global protests over economic inequality, people in the Bay Area are turning to alternate, community-based means of exchanging goods and skills. Collectives like the Timebank help people circumvent buying gifts with money during the holidays. “The systemic way in which the economy works undermines every good that we try to do,” said Mira Luna, co-founder of the local nonprofit Bay Area Community Exchange, an organization that has been facilitating trades of talents and commodities using time rather than money as the currency. “There’s a lot of underutilized resources and a lot of needs out of there.”

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