Timber, dairy and chemical companies are lining up to sell carbon credits, which regulators call “offsets,” to the largest California polluters so they can compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions. Many environmentalists say that because it is notoriously difficult to prove that such projects actually reduce the state’s overall carbon footprint, California should proceed slowly in approving a vast expansion of the cap-and-trade market. This story is part of a special report on climate change in the summer print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
Author Archives: Michael Stoll
Michael Stoll is senior editor and co-founder of the San Francisco Public Press. Formerly executive director, he has also been a reporter and freelance writer for local and national outlets, including the San Francisco Examiner and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has taught journalism at two Bay Area universities, and researched media ethics at Stanford.
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, News
The Fourth Estate and You
Note from the editors, in the summer 2013 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press Welcome to the future. Thanks to the collapse of print advertising and über-consolidation of formerly competing commercial news companies, independent journalism is becoming a threatened, if not endangered species. In the news vacuum this trend has created, journalism entrepreneurship […]
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, News
Don’t Let the Fog Fool You
San Francisco is getting sunnier. Not in the way you might learn about from TV news or features in the daily papers; superficial stories about the warm weather at street festivals are cheap and easy to produce. The sunshine we need is of a kind that’s harder to capture. Journalists at the San Francisco Public […]
Posted inMinimum Wage, News
S.F.’s Minimum Wage, Highest in the Nation, Eludes Thousands as Enforcement Efforts Face Obstacles
10-year-old reform unfinished as businesses routinely flout $10.55 mandate, labor activists say
This story is part of a special report in the Spring print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
While San Francisco’s minimum wage is the highest in the nation, thousands of workers still earn below the current mandate of $10.55 an hour, say economists, anti-poverty activists and public officials. It has been 10 years since voters passed the groundbreaking labor reform, and the city has built a first-of-its-kind inspection team that has recovered back wages for more than 3,000 workers. But these efforts appear to have addressed only a fraction of the problem. ALSO: Listen to discussion of S.F.’s minimum wage enforcement on KALW Radio’s “Your Call” Friday Media Roundtable.
Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Housing, Land use, Media, Technology, Transportation
San Francisco pitched as beacon of ‘collaborative consumption’
San Francisco’s current crop of leaders ran for office on a platform of deploying city resources to encourage private-sector job growth — which in this famously liberal city is seen as about as conservative as an elected official can get. But last week a task force convened by Mayor Ed Lee and four members of the Board of Supervisors opened an opportunity to expand the meaning of the pro-business moniker to a new crop of startup, do-gooder social enterprises that enable small-scale, peer-to-peer economic activity and resource sharing.
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, Human Trafficking, Media, Public Safety
Infamous Berkeley human trafficking case’s long shadow: KALW News interviews reporter Viji Sundaram
The story of Lakireddy Balireddy made international headlines in the early 2000s, but what happened in the decade since then was even more important, said reporter Viji Sundaram of New America Media and part of a team project on human trafficking in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
Last week Sundaram sat down with KALW News host Holly Kernan to discuss her reporting on the history of efforts to battle human trafficking in the Bay Area and California.
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, Human Trafficking, Media, Public Safety
Understanding the Bay Area’s human trafficking problem: KPFA News interviews reporter Jason Winshell
The Public Press’ latest print edition cover story, on California’s uncoordinated attack on the problem of human trafficking, has been picked up in a variety of media since the publication of the special team reporting project in the Spring 2012 edition: “Force, Fraud Coercion: Human Trafficking in the Bay Area.” The project was produced in collaboration with New America Media and El Tecolote, San Francisco’s bilingual newspaper. Last week Public Press reporter Jason Winshell was interviewed on KPFA Radio by producer Anthony Fest. Winshell’s lead story showed that four years after a high-profile state task force issued a study, many of its recommendations for better laws, funding and coordination among agencies have yet to materialize.
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, Human Trafficking, News
Uneven fight against human trafficking — San Francisco Public Press Issue #6
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: WEDNESDAY FEB. 15, 2012 CONTACT: Michael Stoll, executive director Lila LaHood, publisher (415) 495-7377, news (AT) sfpublicpress (DOT) org UNEVEN FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING — SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS ISSUE #6 SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Area’s battle against the scourge of human trafficking has been hampered by state inaction because of budget […]
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, News
Event — ‘The Future of Universal Health Care: Is San Francisco Leading the Way?’
WHEN: Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012, 5:00-6:30 p.m. WHERE: 330 Ellis St. (at Taylor), San Francisco RSVP on FACEBOOK! Download the 8.5″ x 11″ flier Four years ago, the city launched Healthy San Francisco, a pioneering plan to bring universal health care to residents through a network of community clinics and hospitals. Though the program has earned […]
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, News
Examining local universal care: How San Francisco took an independent — and expensive — approach to covering the uninsured
This is a repost of a blog item for Reporting on Health, the website of the USC Annenberg School for Communications & Journalism California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships, which supported the Public Press’ Healthy San Francisco reporting project this winter. In 2007, San Francisco embarked on a rare and bold experiment, resolving to provide universal […]