Education
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As ad revenues and staffs shrink, TV news turns to technology

05.11.2011
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BROADCASTING: Multi-person news teams turn into solo ‘VJs’
This article appeared as part of the Public Press’ Spring print edition media package of stories. 
Local TV stations, the No.1 news source for people in the Bay Area, are scrambling to adapt their news formats and slash budgets to fend off the triple threat of diminishing ad revenue, growing Internet adoption and cable news. To do so, they are using technology to turn multi-person news teams into solo “VJs.” News directors say it is the best use of dwindling resources and gains in technology. But critics say the cost to local viewers is less information about substantial topics and more crime and weather coverage.
 

City Hall
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University of San Francisco aims to move transmitter quickly following KUSF sale

02.16.2011
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Even as supporters of the University of San Francisco’s radio station race to file a petition with federal regulators to block the sale of its frequency, the school and a nonprofit group called Classical Public Radio Network are moving quickly to relocate the station’s transmitter off campus.

Dismissing critics of the recent dismantling of the student- and community-run radio station, USF and the radio network filed their own petition Monday to move the transmitter to Sausalito, requesting speedy approval.

Law & Justice
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Former women prisoners face longer odds staying out after aid programs slashed

12.24.2010
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Rehabilitation taking backseat to punishmentBy the time Sunshine Schmidt was 19, her rebellious streak led her to prison in Wisconsin for violating probation on a forgery charge. But it was just the beginning of her troubled young adulthood. As she tells it, the uncaring reaction from a criminal justice system on autopilot put her back in prison for minor violations, only driving her further into the life of small-time crime as she racked up drug and theft-related charges.

“Every time, I was released back into homelessness or an abusive partner,” she said. “I didn’t have the resources or tools to get back on my feet.”

It was only three years ago, after leaving a California prison at age 27, that Schmidt was able to pursue legitimate jobs and an education. After living in transitional housing, she became a client of Way-Pass, a City College of San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that helps female ex-prison inmates adjust to everyday life.

Arts & Culture
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Geographies of San Francisco re-imagined

11.30.2010
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Innovative atlas juxtaposes dissimilar items into fanciful maps

On the night that San Francisco Giants fans took to the streets delirious over a World Series championship, a tamer crew of folk including cartographers and poets gathered to mark the release of “Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas.”

The collection of fanciful maps of the city combines disparate but creatively juxtaposed items such as World War II shipyards and African-American political and musical landmarks, as drawn together in “Shipyards and Sounds: the Black Bay Area Since World War II.” Other maps are called “Death and Beauty: All of 2008’s Ninety-Nine Murders, Some of 2009’s Monterey Cypresses”; and “Graveyard Shift: The Lost Industrial City of 1960 and the Remnant 6 A.M. Bars.”

Labor
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Utopianism behind them, co-ops seek new strength helping low-wage workers

09.09.2010
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Worker-owned cooperatives are growing as an alternative business model that puts the people who do the work in control. And they are getting a lot more organized than in the recent past, turning local networks into regional and national organizations. With the Bay Area still grappling with high unemployment rates and a weak economy, co-op advocates say they have a solution that is gaining momentum. Membership in the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives has grown 25 percent a year for the past two years, said Melissa Hoover, executive director of the San Francisco-based group.

City Hall
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San Francisco left seeks to channel spirit of ’75

08.17.2010
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It could have been the plot of a science fiction novel, or perhaps “Rip Van Winkle.” Thirty-five years after its first meeting, the Community Congress awakens in 2010 to find its city and the world transformed — and perhaps a new reason for being. Many things in San Francisco have changed since the first such gathering in 1975. The first Community Congress was held that June and is credited for several major political changes to the city, including rent control and district elections.