The San Francisco Bay Guardian's G.W. Schulz won "the coveted Public Service award" for his coverage of MediaNews Group's purchase of nearly all Bay Area daily newspapers. SPJ's panel of judges noted that the Bay Guardian "demonstrated by example the value of diversity in news media ownership." Eliza Strickland's examination of questionable practices at an expensive cooking school and how California has failed to regulate for-profit schools for SF Weekly won for investigative reporting, while East Bay Express' Kara Platoni took home the award for feature writing for her piece on gun violence and gun availability. The Society of Professional Journalists' Northern California Chapter will honor the winners at a Nov. 8 dinner.
As we reported yesterday, the group behind the killing of Oakland Post journalist Chauncey Bailey waged a campaign of intimidation against then-East Bay Express writer Chris Thompson after he wrote a series critical of the group. Thompson, now with the Village Voice, recounts his experience being stalked by the group's followers. They tried to follow him home, so he'd have different colleagues drive him so they wouldn't recognize the cars, he writes. They repeatedly called him with greetings like "Mr. Thompson, I just want to say that your days are numbered," and "You fucked up for the last time, and your time is up." The death threats -- and the lack of response to his complaints by the Oakland Police Department -- forced him out of the Bay Area. "I spent several months out in the countryside of Northern California, reporting and writing my Metro column from an old hunting lodge ... [until] the goons got bored with hunting for me, and I slowly returned to the office full-time. Chauncey Bailey wasn't so lucky, but he fought the good fight against bad men."
Last week, a 19-year-old follower of the Yusuf Bey family shot and killed Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was working on an investigation of the group and its headquarters, Your Black Muslim Bakery. Fortunately, former East Bay Express reporter Chris Thompson's run-in with the group didn't end so grimly. In 2002, the Express published Thompson's investigative series alleging acts of torture, rape, and sodomy perpetrated by the group. After the stories were published, the retaliation began. "Someone smashed up the windows of [the Express'] offices, and Thompson received numerous death threats," according to the Village Voice, where he's currently a staff writer. "Men repeatedly tried to follow Thompson home, or staked out routes he took leaving the office." Express editor Stephen Buel tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the intimidation campaign forced Thompson to work in a different county for months, and shook the paper to the point that "we stopped writing about the group."
In the East Bay Press Club's 2006 Excellence in Print Journalism Contest, the Express finished first in nine categories: sports feature, business feature, technology feature, general news, columnist, long feature, lifestyle feature, criticism or reviewing, and profile. According to a press release, the awards are "somewhat unique in that all print media organizations are judged against each other -- there are no separate categories for circulation or for magazines." Winners were announced Friday evening at a banquet in Oakland.
Since being purchased from Village Voice Media by a consortium of investors in May, the newly independent alt-weekly has been called on to name every person with ownership interests in the paper. Originally, the Express named only Pitch Weekly founder Hal Brody, Express editor Stephen Buel, Express co-founder Kelly Vance, and Monterey County Weekly CEO Bradley Zeve. Yesterday, the paper wrote on its blog, "Lest anyone assume that we are hiding anything related to the identity of our other colleagues, we are happy to formally introduce all our investors." The remaining investors: Gary Jenkins, founding partner of Kansas City-based Punch Software; Paul Ung, Oakland resident and spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia; Rick Watkins, president of the Kansas City real estate firm Watkins & Company; and Jay Youngdahl, a Cambridge-based managing partner of The Youngdahl Law Firm.
Last week, Stephen Buel, the editor and new co-owner of the East Bay Express e-mailed a letter to AAN to point out "several errors" in the Daily Planet's coverage of the paper's sale. The Daily Planet responded and countered with a number of questions for Buel and the other new Express owners about the ownership structure. Buel provided some answers, but they didn't satisfy the Planet.
