From the Managing Editor

Support for the legalization of cannabis grows

2009-11-01T06:04:02Z

Standing outside of a Sacramento medical cannabis dispensary, you might detect something in the air. No, it's not secondhand THC vapor — public medicating is prohibited in the county. What you sense is a shift in perspective. Public pressure is building for the legalization and regulation of one of the oldest cash crops in America: the plants of genus Cannabis.

The US federal government has held since 1970 that cannabis is a danger to public health and safety and listed the annual flowering herb under US code as having "high potential for abuse" and "no accepted medical potential."

"A lot of people are thinking that federal drug laws are arbitrary and now we're starting to see the translation of public sentiment into political will,” Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D - San Francisco) told The Sacramento Press.

In 1996, California voters passed a ballot initiative, Proposition 215, which allowed the possession, cultivation and use of cannabis for patients with a doctor's recommendation. Since then, voter majorities in Alaska, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington have passed ballot initiatives to allow seriously ill Americans to use cannabis.

In 2003, after numerous rewrites, the California Legislature recognized and further protected medical marijuana uses with SB 420. State legislatures of Hawaii, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Mexico have passed bills that do mostly the same. SB 420 is unlike other bills in that it also allows for the formation of patient collectives — not-for-profit businesses that provide medical cannabis to qualified patients.

American Association for Medical Cannabis state director Ryan Landers had a hand in the shaping of 420. "Originally, 420 started out as 187, a bill that was more conservative and, I felt, would help less people. It was sent to the suspense file and I had this feeling it would be coming back, so I helped to rewrite it for greater patient coverage."

Before 420, several bills entered debate that would contravene Proposition 215. In 2000, two of these bills emerged. Former state Senator Maurice Johannessen authored SB 2089, a bill that would have limited the recommendation of cannabis and restricted patients to two indoor plants. It failed in the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, its first committee.

SB 848, authored by former state Senator John Vasconcellos, would have placed harsher regulations on medicinal cannabis and was refused passage in the Assembly.

"I testified to kill those bills to ensure that there would be no misunderstanding," Landers said. "I want to provide freedom for the most patients possible."

According to a 2004 survey by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), over 75,000 Californians have become cannabis patients under the provisions of the Compassionate Use Act (215) and the Medical Marijuana Program (420).

Physicians and medical professionals have been a vital source of support for the medical cannabis movement. Dr. Frank Lucido, a 30-year private practice doctor and respected medical cannabis spokesman, estimates that 1,500 doctors in California recommend cannabis to chronically ill patients. He said that significant stigma still surrounds the drug, however.

"There are two reasons doctors are hesitant to prescribe cannabis," he said. “First, a lot of doctors don't know the value of the drug because they simply weren't taught that in medical school. Second, many are afraid of the California Medical Board and federal law enforcement, even though they're protected by Supreme Court rulings."

Lucido believes that medical cannabis, despite its enduring taboo in the medical sector, has wide applicability.

"Every doctor knows they have about 20 slam-dunk patients that could benefit greatly from medical cannabis."

Full legalization is a completely different animal and Ammiano knows it. The state representative introduced AB 390 in March to a blaze of attention. Since then, the bill has failed to move through the legislature. However, Ammiano planned for AB 390 to be a two-year bill.

"The debate we're having is sustainable, it has legs," Ammiano said. "And it's way bigger than just me."

AB 390 is a bill of a rare breed: It is both a full decriminalization of cannabis for adults over the age of 21, and a plan to enforce systems of taxation to tap into the drug's booming commercial value.

This would work twofold by would generating tax receipts and reducing state expenses. The bill planned to institute a tax of $50 per ounce of dried marijuana sold by official retailers, who would pay no more than $2,500 for an annual sales license and $1,000 for a renewal. Further, the bill would free up state resources in law enforcement, no longer regarding cannabis users as a criminal priority.

"It's California's biggest cash crop and right now we're hemorrhaging money to prosecute and imprison minor drug offenders,” Ammiano said. “With the current budget crisis, this is looking like the perfect storm."

Cannabis activists largely support AB 390, though the seasoned Landers objects to some points.

"The bill started out ahead of itself," he said. "The profits and tax numbers it projects are based on the illegal price of cannabis. Once legalization gets through, supply will increase and prices will have to settle. A $50 tax on an ounce that costs $25, which is the final pre-tax price most people hope for, would be ridiculous."

The age limit in the bill -- that Ammiano modeled after alcohol regulations -- is also contentious.

"The age limit of 21 is entirely a concession," Landers said. "Putting cannabis into the same category of regulation as alcohol opens up a host of problems. Eighteen-year-olds could take the state to court and force them to explain why cannabis is more dangerous than alcohol, even though marijuana alone has never killed a soul."

Ammiano's bill has the support of San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey, although law enforcement has historically been extremely critical of legalization. "I think marijuana should be decriminalized," Hennessey told SFWeekly in February. "I'd like to give more thought to heroin and methamphetamines and that kind of stuff."

The California Police Chiefs Association disagrees, having issued a 2009 White Paper that rebuked even the medicinal use of cannabis. The white paper characterizes medical cannabis dispensaries as "multi-million dollar enterprises" which are "often used as a front for organized crime" where "many violent crimes have been committed," fostering "generally unhealthy conditions."

But actual instances of crime in and around dispensaries is fairly rare, according to Sacramento Police Department spokesman Norm Leong. "Service calls are generally uncommon, he said. “And when we do get calls, it's the dispensary owners that call it in."

Ammiano sees a gradual change of mind regarding cannabis in law enforcement.

"There's certainly a mindset there, but there are cracks in that as well. It's not as monolithic as it used to be."

He also cited the late conservative economist Milton Friedman, who supported cannabis legalization and taxation toward the end of his life.

Outside of Ammiano’s efforts, activist groups are taking other routes. Two voter initiatives are circulating through California, both of which propose to legalize, regulate and tax cannabis.

The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, introduced by Oaksterdam University, would enact largely the same legalization measures as Ammiano's bill. This would allow the pro-cannabis supporters to get legalization directly onto the ballot and circumvent any lack of political support.

"The cannabis regulating system we currently have in place has failed," said Salwa Ibrahim, spokesperson for the initiative. "We want to empower the state to benefit from something that's already existing."

Ibrahim cited other benefits that are frequently discussed in the cannabis debate. "We don't think consumption or crime would increase at all. Similar to prohibition in the '20s, the black markets [that] illegality has created would disappear."

Regardless of the outcome of any of these movements, it seems clear that the public dialogue on legal cannabis has taken a step forward.

"390 has done an amazing thing, and that's this: It ignited the conversation," Landers said.

With or without the blessing of the law, humans worldwide are planting the cannabis seed. The renewed question on everyone's mind is what to do with the harvest.

This story was written by former Sacramento Press intern Cheyenne Cary.

Medical marijuana activist Ryan Landers speaks

2009-11-01T06:01:56Z

Medical cannabis in California wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for Ryan Landers. The Sacramento activist helped to develop the laws, policies and realities of medical marijuana in a career of activism that spans more than a decade. He was there to help roll Proposition 215 into motion in 1996 and had a significant hand in crafting SB 420 in 2003.

"I live the cause," he said. "When I'm not out testifying or counseling or negotiating for the cause, I'm just home and sick."

He's a 15-year survivor of HIV/AIDS, a personal fact that he doesn't usually publicize partly due to prior experience.

Landers, now 37, became a member of Californians for Compassionate Use in 1995. CCU is the group behind the successful Prop. 215 ballot initiative that won state medical legalization.

"When we got started, the public perception was really different," Landers said. "As we were collecting signatures, people were shocked. 'What do you mean you want to change drug laws?'"

As a volunteer, Landers ran information tables and collected signatures at California colleges, the Capitol, bookstores and food co-ops. “The press was giving us coverage every night, and I started appearing on TV,” Landers said.

Prop. 215 landed on the 1996 ballot and swept through into law on a 55.6% margin.

Landers is no stranger to news cameras and microphones. His media skills made public figures of his friends Steve Connell and Jacqueline Mahone, who testified beside him for years. He has also worked extensively with activists like East Bay resident Dr. Frank Lucido and Sacramento attorney Joseph Farina, to whom Landers says he probably owes his life.

Getting a tattoo at 16 changed his life forever. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 1995.

He started medicating to help deal with the nausea and pain that the HIV virus and medication brought with it. Cannabis helps relieve his neuropathic pain and allows him to eat and keep food down once a day, even though he hasn't been hungry in 15 years.

Landers' activism reads like a history of medical pot. He testified in the California State Legislature against SB 535 (1997), SB 847 (1999), SB 848 (1999), and SB 187 (2001). He helped to author a revised version of SB 187, which went on to become the successful SB 420.

In appearance, Landers is not what you'd expect when you think of a cannabis activist. He keeps his hair cropped and short, reminiscent of his service with the Navy during the first Gulf War, and stays snappily dressed in three-piece suits on a normal day of business. He looks nothing like Tommy Chong.

The medical cannabis cause wound up making Landers a parent. As he was working with teens at risk of expulsion for cannabis use, he took two kids under his wing and eventually officially adopted them. David, 23, and Nate, 24, both graduated with their senior classes. More recently, they made him a grandfather at 37.

"In the end, that's why I could never walk away, when I thought about how many lives in the community could stand to benefit from this," Landers said. "If what I was doing was dangerous, or if it were wrong, I wouldn't be doing it."

(This story was written by former Sacramento Press intern Cheyenne Cary.)

Mayor Johnson responds to editorial criticism

2009-10-23T00:42:26Z

After reading an editorial in the Sacramento Bee this morning, Mayor Kevin Johnson posted a response on his blog.

We haven't been able yet to get permission to reprint it on our site, but we think Sacramento Press readers will find it interesting.

Here is the link to the blog post.

Please feel free to continue the conversation here on The Sacramento Press.

(Later this evening, our reporter Kathleen Haley received permission from Johnson's office to reprint Johnson's blog post from his private campaign website, which is not subject to the same open access as would be a post on a government blog. Here is his post in his entirety.)

It’s all about accountability

I love accountability. And I find it curious when elected officials and the media decide the moment has arrived to wrap their arms around the fundamentals of accountability, for the time being. They demand accountability -- for everybody but themselves. They choose which rules they follow -- then attack others without investigation, due process or fact. They ignore my calls for an independent audit -- only to embrace an audit when it suits their ambitions. And now, suddenly, conveniently, they are champions of accountability.Let's talk about accountability. It's a subject I understand. I ran for Mayor on a platform of accountability.

I demand accountability for myself, my staff, and every employee in the city of Sacramento.

But standing alongside accountability is responsibility. Public officials have no claim to accountability if they make accusations without facts and blunder forward in pursuit of personal gain. That is not the definition of acting responsibly.

I've been Mayor of Sacramento for 324 days. Not one day has passed without me talking about accountability.

Some facts: In my first action as Mayor, I convinced a nationally respected firm to send experts to Sacramento and perform an external review of city departments. It was all about accountability.

The company was willing to waive most if not all of its fees -- an unprecedented offer for the city.

How did a majority of the city council respond? With disdain, ridicule and ambivalence.

The council voted against the review – not once, but twice.

Today, several council members have rotated 180 degrees. They want an audit of the city's Community Development Department.

To which I say, "Amen," and "Where were you in January? Where were you in June?"

The need for an audit became obvious after the suspension of two city employees after other city officials found problems with building permits in Natomas.

An investigation is underway. When the facts are established, I will do what I have always done: demand swift and appropriate action and protect the taxpayer. In other words, accountability.

Now I am asking the city council for accountability.

At the October 20 city council meeting, in a brief remark, I asked the City Manager to investigate how privileged city documents were being leaked to the media.

My request puts several people in uncomfortable positions. The people who leaked the material are uncomfortable. And the media are uncomfortable.

But the comfort of those people and organizations is not my concern.

My motive is simple: Leaking privileged documents violates the trust placed in us by the citizens of Sacramento. It destroys the integrity and credibility of municipal government, and the government’s ability to function. It’s sneaky and dishonest.

It’s all about accountability.

Accountability isn’t just for front-line city employees. It runs from top to bottom. I must be accountable. And so must my colleagues.

Yet today we have the possibility that a city council member or council senior staff member decided to violate the spirit if not the letter of our laws, and violate the public trust.

Maybe they have what they consider a good reason. Maybe they believed the media had a right to the documents, despite the fact that they were written under the attorney-client privilege fundamental to our judicial system.

If so, they should have had the courage to accept accountability, stand up at City Hall and say, “I did this.”

I would respect that person.

But they have no courage. And while I won’t speculate as to their motives, their lack of courage and need for secrecy erases any legitimacy of their act.

Accountability is not situational. It can’t be used for political convenience. You are either accountable, or you are not.

The Sacramento Press Journalism Open starts today!

2009-10-01T04:40:22Z

How many times have you read a newspaper article and said, "I could have written that"?

Well, now you can. For nearly a year, you have been able to do that on The Sacramento Press, where everyone can try his or her hand at writing a news story, and be published instantly, on the Web. That will continue to be the case, as the Press grows its audience and a small army of community contributors that now numbers more than 500 people.

But for the month of October, The Sacramento Press is sweetening the pot: Not only can you write stories, have them copy-edited and posted on our site. Now you can win, and win big: The Sacramento Press Journalism Open is offering prizes of as much as $500 for telling the stories that only you can tell.

From midnight Thursday, October 1 to the end of the month, The Sacramento Press Journalism Open welcomes writers, professional and amateur alike, to compete for cash and prizes. No story is too small, no subject too obscure. But more than that, we want you to try your hand at making a mark on your community by telling the stories that you know and no one else does, about events, people, businesses, cultural curios and...well, anything you want!

We want to see Sacramento through your eyes, your words, your pictures. And so do thousands of your fellow Sacramentans, who read the Sacramento Press every day.

There's much more to say about the contest. Please visit the Sacramento Press Journalism Open landing page and find out more about this month-long event and how you can enter. It is as easy as a blog post, as free as the air we share, and as challenging as you want it to be. Tell us about your community and the people in it, and gain an audience of thousands who you never thought you could reach - with your very first post.

We're waiting to read your stories.

Commit your acts of journalism now!

Our new navigation bar

2009-09-30T21:38:11Z

One of our goals here at Sacramento Press is to make our content as accessible as possible - and to do that, we've chosen a look very similar to a traditional newspaper. We've even tried to recreate the newspaper's division into sections - sports, politics, culture, etc.

Those sections show up on the green bar that runs across the top of the Front Page of the Sacramento Press. We call it the "navigation bar," and it is designed to get you easily to the stories you want to read. To do that, we've listed our "sections" in the nav bar, one click of which will take you to a new page, laid out like the Front Page.

But we may have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves. Although our content is growing nearly as strongly as the numbers of readers we have coming to the site, we still don't often have enough content to fill up the "splash pages" that those names promise. If you click on Sports, for instance, you are more likely to get a list of all the stories that have been tagged Sports by either writers or readers.

Which is fine - you can see all our recent stories on any subject - but our goal is to have every "section" under the nav bar come up as a new laid-out page. We want you to go deeper into the site, beyond the Front Page. But to do that, there needs to be more laid out. And we're getting there, but we're not there yet.

Our hope is that very soon - perhaps this month, as The Sacramento Press Pro-Am Journalism Open begins on Thursday (Oct. 1) - we will have so many stories, written by so many members of the community, that we will have to start laying out new section pages for all manner of subjects. It really comes down to what you, our readers, decide to contribute.

In the meantime, you can still search the site by tags that reflect your interest, whether it be sports or music or city services. Just enter the tag in the search field at the right side of the nav bar, and in addition to the search results, you will get a list of all the stories we have published that were tagged with that subject.

But we've decided that as we want our look to mirror our content as much as possible, and to keep things simple and streamlined. To that end, we've taken down three of the "section" titles in the nav bar that we rarely lay out: Crime, Sports and People. We will still cover these subjects, but won't be laying out pages dedicated to them in the near future.

One of the first additions to the nav bar is a section about the Journalism Open, Open 2009. Over the coming month we will continue to lay out new contributions from citizen journalists as the contest unfolds, as well as updates from Sacramento Press editorial staff.

We will also take advantage of the flexiblity of the nav bar to put up special sections that will lead you to a page display of stories on a particular subject, mirroring our Storyline feature. This is the Web, and flexibilty is a given; we want to make sure that there's also a sense of solidity to the site as well.

I've laid out a section on the stories we've run recently on Sacramento County's ongoing budget crisis. Reporter Kathleen Haley has, just by herself, written more than two dozen stories on the subject in the last few months. We will feature just a handful here, so know that even a whole page devoted to a subject is just the tip of the iceberg. We plan to go deep into the subjects we cover.

To see these nav bar changes, you must log out and log back in, or if you're not a logged in user of our site, just refresh the page.

So keep an eye out in coming days and weeks for new featured "sections" in the nav bar. Because as with all of The Sacramento Press, you never know what you might find there.

Sacramento's liberal ranking

2009-05-19T02:38:43Z

Today's online edition of The Sacramento Bee featured an interesting story by Phillip Reese, the paper's stat master, who has been putting together a terrific series of interactive maps and charts using data from various state and local databases.

Today's was a listing (and slide show) of the most liberal and the most conservative cities in the state, based on data from the Secretary of State's office.

According to the charts, the most liberal city (that is, the city with the highest percentage of registered Democrats) in the state was -- no surprise -- Berkeley (only 4.5 percent Republican). The most conservative (highest percentage of registered Republicans) was tiny Canyon Lake, a gated city of 6,207 registered voters in Riverside County (only 21.1 percent Democrats). Greens, Libertarians and independents weren't included.

But after I got through both lists, looking all the time for my hometown, I discovered that Sacramento wasn't on the list! My curiosity piqued, I went straight to the source for information: Reese himself.

Here's what he told me, via email:

"Sacramento is the 88th (of 481) most liberal city in the state. About 20.3 percent of Sacramento residents are Republicans. The only local city with a lower percentage of Republicans is Davis."

Indeed, Davis is on the list, at No. 43, with only 16 percent Republicans.

Still, you might wonder: How did Sacramento rate only 88th most liberal when it is 79.7 percent Democrat? That's a high percentage. The answer is that all cities with a population of 5,000 or more were included, so there are a lot of smaller towns with higher percentages than Sacramento (think: Santa Cruz, even tiny San Pablo in Contra Costa County).

Sacramento Press contributor wins Hearst journalism prize

2009-05-17T17:20:01Z

We at The Sacramento Press are pleased to note that one of our new community contributors, Ali Tabatabai, who wrote just two days ago on a local health forum, has won a journalism award.

Tabatabai, who went to journalism school at San Francisco State, won fourth place in the 49th annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s Journalism Awards Program. Ali won in the second year of the Multimedia Competition, coming in fourth out of 78 entrants from 47 undergraduate journalism programs at colleges and universities around the country.

Ali won a $750 award for his work on a project he explains here.

“We did a street level ‘non-linear’ multimedia project, documenting the goings-ons of the community of Sixth Street (in San Francisco)," Ali said. “The area, ridden with SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotels and drug problems has been a quagmire for the city for a while. Our project ... brought you to the lives, homes and businesses on the street, to meet the people and give you a chance to explore the area via the internet.”
To see Ali’s work, visit newsworx.org.

The Hearst Journalism Awards Program is funded by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and awards $550,000 in grants and awards every year. It is conducted under the auspices of accredited schools of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, and is made up of six monthly writing contests, three photojournalism contests and four broadcast news competitions. Ali competed in the multimedia competition.
Judging the multimedia competition this year were: Arthur S. Brisbane, ASB Consulting, East Dennis, MA; Janet Reeves, Former Senior Editor/Photography and Multimedia, The Rocky Mountain News, Denver, CO; Fred Young, Former Senior Vice President of News, Hearst-Argyle Television, New York, NY.
For samples of winning work, please check the monthly winners section of the Journalism Awards’ website, hearstawards.org, which is updated shortly after each competition.

Congratulations, Ali!

Journalist Suzanne Hurt joins The Sacramento Press

2009-05-11T22:36:23Z

Sometimes, being a bit outside the mainstream isn't just fun, it's what pays.

According to the blog graphicdesignr.net/papercuts, nearly 25,000 U.S. journalists have lost their jobs in the last 16 months. Nearly 9,000 jobs have been lost so far this year, including at The Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento Business Journal.

But while nearly every other media outlet in Sacramento is shrinking, The Sacramento Press is growing. That's a wonderful thing in itself, but it gets even better: Because we're growing, we're also hiring. And as a longtime journalist watching his beloved profession in agony, being able to actually hire a journalist at a time like this isn't just a job; it's a joy.

And when that journalist is a terrific one, so much the better.

We at The Sacramento Press are pleased to announce that we've hired Suzanne Hurt to help us cover Sacramento's downtown/midtown grid. She is the third journalist we've hired this year.

Suzanne started today, and is already writing her first story, about this morning's Hmong protest over the conspiracy trial of Vang Pao, at the Robert Matsui Federal Building. Suzanne threw herself into the event - a story she has already written about extensively for Reuters - before she'd even met everyone in the office. That confirmed our bet that she has the enthusiasm and energy we expect she will bring to her official beat, which will cover business and development issues in our town.

She'll be writiing about those topics at a time when both business and development are under great stress, but, it is still generally agreed, show remarkable promise for the future.

Our town, now more than 150 years old, continues to develop in new and wonderful ways. This is particularly true in the grid, where a new club or restaurant or office space seems to open weekly, despite the hard times. A new bar, The River City Saloon, opened this weekend on Second Street in Old Sacramento. A beautiful new yoga studio, Asha, opened late last month in the MARRS Building. And a new California Pizza Kitchen opens next week at 16th and L. Many more establishments large and small are in various states of planning and completion.

Suzanne will cover these stories and more as she delves deeper into the town she has called home for about seven years. A native of San Francisco, Suzanne has lived in Chicago, Eugene and now lives in the grid with her photographer partner, Eric Whalen. She loves the area for, as she put it, "all the creative energy you get downtown."

Suzanne has a master’s degree in literary journalism, but business and development is a relatively new beat for her. She has written on a wide variety of topics, from spelunking to swine flu, from the Laos coup plotters to yoga, and she has done those stories for an equally wide variety of publications: Reuters news service, the City News Bureau of Chicago, the Register-Guard in central Oregon, the Chicago Tribune and The Sacramento and Modesto Bees. She has also done work for National Public Radio.

"I'm excited to be part of this journalistic experiment," she told me. "I guess I'm what people refer to as a 'traditional journalist,' and I am a professional, but I'm also an innovative person, and I'm looking forward to this process of creating this new journalistic hybrid."

True to that attitude, Suzanne has also done multimedia work, producing podcasts and online slide shows and editing digital photos. It is her enthusiasm for the possibilities of citizen journalism and the web, as well as her passion for traditional journalism, that made her our winning candidate.

Like the two other journalists we hired last month -- apprentice Jonathan Mendick and city politics reporter Kathleen Haley -- Suzanne will not only be writing stories, she will be interacting with readers and those who post comments on The Sacramento Press. Our "paper" will remain at heart a community project, a place for all citizens to contribute and have their voices heard. Now, it also offers hope to those who want to step into a journalistic role at a time when so many others are stepping -- or being pushed -- out.

Welcome to The Sacramento Press, Suzanne!

The Sacramento Press welcomes its first staff reporter

2009-04-15T22:11:24Z

The Sacramento Press is, first and foremost, a community-contributor website. Some call it "citizen journalism." Whatever you call us, we are here to give an online voice to members of the community, to cover stories that may be otherwise ignored by the mainstream press, and to provide a forum for discussion of local issues.

We are also working to promote the values of traditional journalism — thorough reporting, balanced perspectives, clear writing — through workshops and internships, while making the new tools of the web available to all. We offer copy-editing available to anyone who wants to post on the site and will continue to find ways to empower ordinary (and not-so-ordinary) citizens to share important information that will ultimately make Sacramento a better place to live.

So, why did we just hire our first professional staff reporter?

I think the answer will become clear as you read the stories being posted by Kathleen Haley, who started work this week as a reporter covering city government and services. Kathleen brings well-honed reporting skills and writing chops that she has worked on for the last decade as a freelance reporter for the Associated Press, Salon.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Santa Cruz Sentinel and a staff reporter for the San Luis Obispo Tribune. She has covered all sorts of topics, but her first love is city government.

"My father was on the city council," she told me during her job interview. "I guess it's in my blood."

Not everyone finds the details of city government fascinating, but Kathleen seems to be the exception. She relishes digging through public documents and city council agendas, and she'll get lots of practice in her new job.

We hired Kathleen because part of our function at Sacramento Press is to spread journalistic literacy, so that citizen journalists learn to balance opinion with reporting, in order that all sides on an issue, including those that don't shout as loud as the other side, are heard. She is here to promote journalism's traditional values while at the same time being open to the possibilities of the new media.

Kathleen is fascinated by the notion of citizen journalism, which she will now have the opportunity to help shape in Sacramento.

"I really like how I'm going to be actively engaging the community," she says. "I'm really looking forward to playing a role in making the community aware of the information it needs to function well."

Kathleen gives several advantages to the Sacramento Press. Her stories will make every effort to capture all sides of a story, providing a standard for citizen journalists to aspire to, and she will also make sure that we cover the important stories, regardless of whether anyone in the community gets to writing about them or not.

She also brings with her a belief, she says, "that journalism is a public service. When residents participate in local groups, they can help make decisions that improve their communities. Informed communities are stronger communities; I will work hard to provide news that will help Sacramento residents strengthen their communities."

The bottom line, she says, is that "this publication is different because it talks with the public, not at the public. I’m not going to tell you what to think, but I am going to promote community involvement. Get out there and make your community strong."

Welcome aboard, Kathleen!

A farewell to comrades

2009-03-29T23:20:44Z

Some 50 or so people gathered Friday night at Bee reporter Ed Fletcher's East Sac home to say farewell to a couple dozen of the reporters, graphic designers, photographers and editors who were let go during The Bee's most recent staff cuts, this time through layoffs. For most, Friday was their last day.

So you will not see the names of many wonderful reporters and photographers in the paper from here on out, and there will be little notice in The Bee's pages themselves. Melissa Nix, Chris Bowman, Florence Low, Brian Baer, Robert Faturechi, Walt Yost, Marty McNeal, Jennifer Morita, Bob Walter, Quwan Spears, Scottt Howard-Cooper, Sandy Louey, Ramon Coronado, Charles Waltmire, Brian Ching, Rachel Leibrock and Rachael Bogert...all gone.

But there are names you never, or rarely, saw in the paper, of people who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure that stories read well or business ran smoothly: Yvonne McKinney, DeWitt Russell, Kim Rutledge, Chad Jones, Randy Allen, Scott Lorenzo, Shahryar Ahmad, Brian Daly, Terry Dvorak, Debbie Meredith and George Costenbader.

And then there was Marco.

Marco Smolich was - I don't even know what his title was, but he was indispensible. Marco knew stuff. Lots of different stuff. If your computer was malfunctioning, he knew what to do, or who to call. If you needed help with your HOME computer, he knew what to do. If some editor was driving you crazy, he could explain why. But more than that, the guy was - is, he is not dead, after all - funny as hell. And his wit came in part from the fact that he knew more about what was going on in the newsroom - and saw it for the bittersweet human comedy it was - than most or any of the reporters he was tasked with assisting.

As someone pointed out Friday evening, Marco was the guy who gave newcomers the tour of the building and explained how things REALLY worked. He had a great sense of humor, knew who you could trust and who you couldn't, and was the best source for news inside Sacramento's "most-trusted" news source.

It's hard to imagine him not there. Imagining The Bee without Marco Smolich is...well, it's like not having The Bee itself. But then, that's the big story, isn't it?

More than that, Marco, like George Costenbader, Bob Walter, Walt Yost, Debbie Meredith and many others, was at The Bee most of his career, or at least seemed to be. They literally spent their lives at the paper, and when the paper couldn't pay them anymore, that was that. And that is one of the subtext's of the events of the last few years at the paper: long careers with established employers are going the way of the newpaper itself. That's painful to many, this cultural sea change, and it was a subject of much conversation Friday night.

Marco wasn't at Ed's party, which was a shame. It was a great party, of course - the esprit de corps of Bee reporters is legendary - but it was also a sad occasion, as people spoke about their work at The Bee, and what the future might hold. And they worried quietly about each other.

Those conversations were, of course, off the record, and will remain so. But I could not let the occasion pass without one more mention of the passion for journalism of the people who until Friday helped create it in this town. That passion will survive, whether or not they find another newspaper job. Whether The Bee will survive their loss is an open question. They're cutting into muscle now. But let the record show that the people who made the paper cared about it right up until the end.

As I was leaving the party well after midnight, a night shift partying on into the early morning hours, huddled against the cold but unwilling to part ways, I saw a pile of front page mock-ups honoring a number of the editorial employees who had worked their last shift Friday afternoon. I shot the above photos of those mock-ups and now post them (with apologies to whoever made them, please comment for credit) with the idea that these people, like the hundreds who preceded them out the door, deserve more honor than was given them at The Bee.

We will miss them, even those of us who never knew them. Good luck to each and every one.

Editorial: In hard times

2009-03-08T00:47:21Z

These are the strangest days. Even after a decade of bad news, the news is even more terrible. And the bad news is now as close to home as it's ever been in my memory. Sacramento always felt like a bubble, largely because of the state and the diverse economy, we weathered previous downturns better than a lot of places.

But with the ongoing shrinkage of the mighty Bee, not to mention the troubles at the state, which always protected us from feeling what places like Michigan felt, Sacramento feels less like the safe place it's usually been.

Today, the New York Times tells us that 2009 is going to be more of the same, and other economists are saying that a recovery won't come until next year at the earliest, with others citing 2011, 2012 and others are evoking the spectre of a "lost decade" like Japan's. The "D" word - Depression - is showing up on TV screens from CNBC to Fox. Moody's economist Mark Zandi was quoted in the Bee yesterday as saying that the stock market may not see 12,000 again for a decade. This is not good news.

Today's NYT also said that many of the jobs that are leaving us will not be back, just as Bruce Springsteen wrote during our last terrible recession in the early '80s.

“These jobs aren’t coming back,” said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia in Charlotte, N.C. “A lot of production either isn’t going to happen at all, or it’s going to happen somewhere other than the United States. There are going to be fewer stores, fewer factories, fewer financial services operations. Firms are making strategic decisions that they don’t want to be in their businesses.”

Our world is changing, perhaps even more than it did after 9/11. That changed our sense of security, and for many, undermined our trust in government, as US citizens' privacy became a moot point in the pursuit of "enemies foreign and domestic."

But what makes it doubly strange is this: Today, it's sunny and breezy and trees are budding and people are out and about and life just ain't so bad. We're in a drought, but it's been raining enough to help, a bit. The economy is tanking, but most of us still have jobs. Job losses have been severe, especially in construction, and high profile troubles at the state and for media workers in newspapers - and TV, and radio - underline how bad it is.

Still, between bouts of pessimism and despair, I'm essentially an optimist. It's harder in times like these, but while I see very clearly the hard times - having been through more than a year of no job myself - it's still the only way to go.

These are the times that try men's souls, it's true. And you see a bit about people in their reactions to the bad news, not always appealing. I admit my own vascillations between hope and despair, particularly in the way I talk - one day I'm quoting terrible news, the next I'm sayin' it ain't so bad. Strange times.

But I had a conversation with some good friends the other night, outside the Torch Club, and the conversation turned to the economy, and the gloom. And several of the conversants - all guys in their 30s and 40s - opined that, in times like these, the cops were spread thin, and the best insurance against hard times was a shotgun.

I see their point - guns can be powerful protection against home invaders, maybe - but maybe they aren't. And maybe being able to kill someone isn't really the best solution to an economic problem (isn't that the province of armed robbers?). What was most striking was that my friends went there - they chose to go there. Of all directions they could go, they chose to focus on the fact that they had guns, and that those weapons bought them some sense of security.

In times like these, there seem to be two basic choices in how to respond. One is to hunker down, surround yourself with your dwindling cash (or better yet, supposedly, gold), a pantry full of canned goods and home schooling for your kids. We've all seen dystopian films about a devastated future in which everyone wears black leather or rags, the guys shave every three days and the women look kinda hot and are even more "accessories" than usual.

But that's not how it's going to be, folks. It's going to be a lot less appealing to guys who like to see some showdown on the front lawn as the final denouement of our civilization.

It's not going to be like that because life goes on. Life must be lived, not fought. And the other choice is to do just the opposite of hunkering down; it is to expand, to reach out, to do things that are NOT the stuff of macho movies and apocalyptic fantasies. It is to do the hard work of community.

The solution is to do what every great spiritual and moral tradition dictates as the road to happiness, and probably even success: GIVE. Look outside yourself, your little house and family, and see what other people need.

It is perhaps no surprise that this is the basic advice of entrepreurship: "Find a need and fill it."

Well, folks, there are a lot of needs out there. One of my hopes for The Sacramento Press, coming into being at such a strange moment, at a time when not only is society in general undergoing major shifts, but the news business is as well, is this:

We choose optimism. We choose community. We are offering a place where members of our community can reach out to each other, give each other news and ideas that can help mitigate the difficulties of the time and even inspire. I want us - and when I say us, I mean all our readers and contributors now and in the future - to ask a basic question of ourselves:

What is needed? What information can I post here that will help other people, help our community see a way forward, help our town's leadership make wise choices, and do everything we can to make sure that our connections with each other are stronger, and more productive, than they've ever been before?

Jobs at paper-and-ink (and gas) newspapers are shrinking, but the news (bad as it is) is still crucial. It will get out. As the Times said, a lot of the jobs we thought we'd always see, or have, are going away and not coming back. The world is changing. The choice is simple: Hunker down and try to hold onto what you've got, or expand, look at things in new ways, try new things, and above all, be hopeful and optimistic.

This may be a tall order, particularly in times when the "natural" impulse is to protect what is "mine." But nothing is really ours, we just have things for a time, and that includes our very lives. One of the basic wisdoms of the world is to practice "non-attachment": to things, to people, to outcomes. Life is going to give us what it gives us - or takes away - ultimately, it will take everything. Being OK with that is the first step to being able to see past ourselves, past our animal instinct to go into our holes and put a rock in front of the door.

Times like these offer us a chance to roll away the stone and step out into our community. It may be scary, but it also may start a shift away from fear and into something like love. And it will probably be what saves our economy.

What's in a name?

2009-03-05T01:18:38Z

As we are just inventing The Sacramento Press as we go along, we have many, many discussions about which way to go on any given subject. The web is above all, about options, and we're constantly assessing ours.

One such subject that has occasioned discussion here is whether to allow commentators to use aliases instead of their real names. Community contributors, who write articles for the site, must use their real names, which goes to the credibility and transparency of The Sacramento Press.

But commentators, who respond to what has been written, need not use their real names. Thus we get "Doug" commenting, or "HillWalker." These names are not identifiable to anyone the Doug or HillWalker haven't clued in. While this is entirely permissible, I find it inadequate for several reasons.

First off, I always wonder why people post under aliases. Are they hiding their real identities so that they don't have any responsibility for what they say? Freedom without responsibility sounds like a good thing, but it's not realistic, or socially desirable, in real life. And we at Sacpress aim to record real life in our city. I hope The Sacramento Press feels, above all, like real life in our community.

Even assuming that people are hiding their real identities because they would otherwise not be free to state "the truth" - they are, say, whistleblowers, afraid of retribution if they reveal something the powerful don't want revealed - I haven't seen much whistle-blowing here.

I also think that aliases take us out of reality - if I'm arguing online with, say, Geoff Samek, I know who I'm arguing with. If I'm disagreeing with "midtownmom" I have only the slightest inkling of who this person might be - or rather, "type" of person "she" might be. Yes, I don't really even know if she's a man or woman. And she knows I don't know.

Our names mean something. Our name is our bond in society, and keeping "one's good name" strikes me as a very baseline motivation for anyone, on- or off-line. We don't check, via drivers license or other means, the identity of our community contributors when they sign up. People on The Sacramento Press are who they say they are. But the more honest we all are with the rest of the community, the more the bonds of community will grow.

Kids fantasize about doing things without anyone knowing about it; some adults do, too. It is perhaps human nature to want to do whatever we like without any consequences. It remains a juvenile, if understandably appealing, impulse.

It is also potentially dangerous. Imagine trying to keep order in a school yard where anyone could do anything to anyone else without any repercussions. Chaos. Anarchy.

Some say that this anarchy is the nature of the Wild Wild Web. It surely can be, and I have certainly availed myself of some of the advantages the anonymity of the web can offer. Indeed, for some of us, the anonymity of the web has been liberating. Closeted gay teens and questioning "straight" marrieds have been able to assert their true identity and reach out to others from behind the cyber veil of internet anonymity. The New Yorker cartoon got it right at the turn of the last century, with a dog seated at a computer and the caption, "On the internet, no one knows you're a dog."

But The Sacramento Press has as one of its goals the creation, or further co-creation, on- and off-line, of community. People in communities know each other. We want people to come here and speak their minds, but we want them - you - to be yourself. Be a member of your community, let your words, not your anonymity, be your strength. Let the power of your argument, not the vehemence of your disdain, be your rhetorical sabre.

Watching The Sacramento Bee's website has been enlightening, though in often disturbing ways. Sacbee.com allows anonymous posting, and it has been rewarded with comment threads that are so juvenile, so full of bile, provocation and plain rudeness, that they prove the school yard metaphor to be true. You do not go to The Bee's comments threads for intelligent discussion. Do you?

The comments on The Sacramento Press are on a different level so far, and I hope they stay there. I attribute that to the fact that most of our commentators post under their full names. They are taking responsibility for what they say, and I think that's good.

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor made a memorable appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart earlier this week. She noted that the nine justices, despite holding very different views on a variety of subjects, may have gotten into heated arguments, but they never got personal. She noted that the Supremes are appointed for life, and life can be a very long time indeed. They knew that they were going to see each other year in and year out, possibly for decades, and that bad feelings occasioned because of a disagreement over a particular subject taking a personal turn could make that long term relationship difficult.

We are building long term relationships at The Sacramento Press. We are here to stay, both online and in this town, and we do not want disagreements over small, near-term issues to tear holes in the fabric of community. We can disagree with each other, online - that is, in public - and still keep it civil. And one way to keep it civil is to own our opinions and our language, and stand behind what we have to say with the full faith and credit of our good names.

We are not trying to control this. You may post comments under a "handle" or alias if you want to - our official position is that we do not want to limit the free expression of opinions - but I'd like to make a personal pitch for using your full name when you comment. If it's worth saying, and you really believe in what you're saying, I think it's worth saying it as yourself.

If you are posting under a "handle" and would like to change to your real name, it's easy to do. At the top of the Front Page, click the "profile" box, then go to "edit profile." Enter your first and last names as you'd like them to read, then click "Submit" at the bottom of the page. Now you are you, and we can put a name - a real name - with the opinion.

My day in court: Some observations

2009-01-30T00:59:19Z

Those who are cynical about the state of the country should pass some time in court.

I’m no lawyer, but after spending most of Thursday inside Sacramento’s two most important courthouses, on two crucial cases, I can declare myself a fan of the process. Call it naive, but it is clear to me that, more than free commerce, the rule of law is still the core of our democracy.

I’m also led to tell those who say that nothing ever happens in Sacramento: You’re looking in the wrong place. Because two significant things happened today in Sacramento, just blocks from the offices of SacramentoPress.com, at the Amtrak station at 5th and I.

This morning, in Superior Court in the County Courthouse, lawyers argued mightily against Governor Schwarzenegger’s executive order proposing furloughing state workers two days a month to help balance the state budget, and the Governor’s lawyer argued his side. The judge, who had already clearly made up his mind based on papers and arguments filed before the hearing, was nevertheless clearly interested in doing the right thing.

In the end, Judge Patrick Marlette decided in favor of the Governor, but with no joy. It was just that after hearing the arguments, despite feeling for the situation of the workers, he made a ruling that he had reasoned through. There is power in that, even if you don’t agree with him.

Then, just after noon, another judge, Morrison C. England, Jr, presided in U.S. District Court, in the gorgeously-appointed Matsui Federal Building. England was hearing arguments from proponents of the victorious anti-gay marriage initiative Proposition 8, who are trying to exempt their contributors from the state law that requires all political parties and movements to report the names of the people who fund their campaigns.

In this case, legal precedents were evoked going back 50 years, and fine Constitutional hairs were split. But in the end, the arguments were clear, and England delivered a clear, reasoned argument for why he denied the plaintiffs’ request.

Not only am I not a lawyer, I am new to legal beat, which I now cover in my capacity as a freelance legal stringer for Bloomberg News in New York. My veteran journo friends, who have been many years in courthouses (while I was reviewing concerts and exploring national parks and interviewing movie stars) assure me that cynicism is the way. They don’t do it with words, they do it with an air of fatigue with the relentless coverage of competing interests arguing fine points of law and language.

It seems to tire them out, which I understand; it got to a point when writing about concerts wore me out! But to me, a day in court is invigorating, even thrilling. To see law and language - two of our culture’s greatest achievements - on full display is to witness the best of our culture, in action, in full effect. Mattering.

Rules of conduct are strict, people are well-dressed and polite, language is precise and courteous, and respect for the rule of law and the people who exercise it is palpable.

Listening to intelligent people making reasoned cases, based on history (precedent) and yes, self-interest, is powerful stuff. Regardless of the outcome of either case, witnessing the process was itself encouraging. Lawyers get bad reps, as does the court system, and I understand why. But when it comes to significant issues that must be decided so we can move forward, we still don’t have a better system.

Beyond that, anyone who thinks nothing interesting ever happens in Sacramento needs to get downtown, in this little legal quarter near the rail yards and SacramentoPress.com, to get a sense of how very much actually does happen here. It’s a beautiful, if imperfect, thing.

R.E. Graswich opines

2009-01-29T00:03:55Z

Former Sacramento Bee "three-dot" columnist R.E. Graswich was an early supporter of Kevin Johnson's campaign for mayor of Sacramento. But recent events have caused him to reconsider his support. This column was written specifically for SacramentoPress.com.

King Kevin?

By R.E. Graswich

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson promised to be different. Yet his first two months have featured one stumble after another. The collapse of Johnson’s self-indulgent “strong mayor” scheme proves Johnson has much to learn as he fills the vacuum of leadership at Sacramento City Hall. Sorry, Kevin wasn’t elected to be our king.

The mayor’s failures have been self-inflicted. Kevin has made the quest for more power his top priority, rather than solidifying support from council members. In the “strong mayor” push that ended today, Kevin made no serious effort to capitalize on the pulpit and megaphone that accompany the mayoral office. He sought to junk the job he was elected to hold, change the rules and reject a system that he doesn’t seem to comprehend.

The present council system, belittled by Kevin as outdated and straight out of Mayberry, wasn’t contrived by accident or naivety. It was designed to combat big-city problems that plagued Sacramento in the Roaring 20s – corruption and cronyism. The “weak mayor” rules evolved from community outrage over payoffs and backroom maneuvering. City residents only needed to read history before rejecting Kevin’s argument that we need to turn the page forward. By adopting a “strong mayor” system at the urging of a power-hungry pol, we would have turned the page back.

The drive to give Kevin more power and rewrite the city charter with an off-year ballot suggested arrogance and irresponsibility on Kevin’s part. Indeed, it could have been grounds for removal from office. A special election would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a city plagued by deficit. And the professionals gathering signatures were mercenaries paid $1 per name. Many were bused in from places like Missouri and Texas. That’s mayoral leadership?

The hucksters standing outside supermarket lied to unsuspecting rubes who signed the “strong mayor” petitions: “Do you know the city manager can’t be fired? Do you know the city council has no accountability? Do you know the mayor wants the people to decide?” In fact, an “aye” vote by six council members can fire the city manager with no debate. And council members have the same accountability as the mayor – they stand for election every four years.

If Kevin wants more power, he should try a tactic he has avoided: Work the room, sweet talk council members, make them see the wisdom in the Johnson Way. Council members love to be appreciated and respected, but Kevin has made minimal effort. He looked past the community’s elected representatives with disdain, and behaved as if the council’s cooperation was insignificant to his grand schemes. Kevin has spent his first several weeks acting like the Sun King. But storm clouds have gathered, and Sun Kings have a habit of getting drenched by democracy.

New interns!

2009-01-08T01:39:11Z

We here at SacramentoPress.com are thrilled to announce the first group of new interns, joining us as fresh and eager as the new year. They came to us through word of mouth, and through their growing passion for journalism. They come to us from a variety of backgrounds, and with very particular interests that will serve them, and SacramentoPress.com and its readers, very well.

Pictured from left to right, they are:

Mark Forsyth, who is currently a student at Sac State, currently earning his Masters Degree in English.

Susan Arroyo, who is a native of Antelope in Sacramento's north area, went to the Art Institute for Fashion Journalism but dropped out to pursue journalism at Sacramento City College, where she is currently studying.

Jonathan Mendick, a UC Irvine graduate in Literary Journalism, reviews CDs for an online magazine.

And Raoul Kleven lives in Downtown Sacramento, and has a ravenous mind and a taste for good journalism about issues international and local alike.

All will work with our delightful new journalism support manager (and frequent contributor AND former intern) Colleen Belcher. She can be reached at journalism@sacramentopress.com.

We look forward to having them around, and seeing what they contribute to SacramentoPress.com!

Breaking the Buck at The Bee

2008-12-24T19:58:08Z

As Chuck D. of Public Enemy once asked rhetorically, "How low can you go?"

The stock of the McClatchy Company, parent of The Sacramento Bee (where McClatchy has its corporate offices, at 21st and Q), "broke the buck" for the first time Monday, and continued to slide Tuesday. The stock finished at 75 cents a share on the NYSE Tuesday, after dipping as low as 66 cents a share.

This, for a stock that was valued at $70.90 just four years ago this week. Stunning.

So, as Chuck asked: How low can it go? Presumably, it has to stop somewhere short of ZERO, but really: Who expected it ever to go this low? From $70.90 to 75 cents in four years? That’s a 99 percent drop, using my rough math. Imagine anything else losing that much value. Anything.

Granted, even mighty Starbucks has dropped 50 percent in just the last year. And we know all about other American giants, from banks to automobile manufacturers, teetering desperately. But still, even in these dire times, when newspaper companies are going bankrupt and everyone else is feeling the pinch, a 99 percent drop - again, in four short years - seems almost unimaginable. I mean, again, HOW LOW can you go? Can it go to zero?

I called Gary Pruitt, who as CEO of McClatchy is taking most of the heat on this - besides the people who are losing their jobs, of course - and he referred me to treasurer Elaine Lintecum, whose answering machine says she’s out until after Christmas.

And really, who needs a Christmas break more than the people who are watching this train wreck from the inside?

And besides, what are they going to say? Reassuring words have been plentiful all the way along a stock slide that looks like a black diamond at Squaw Valley. But the slide continues.

Dale Kasler, the Bee’s reporter on McClatchy matters, has had to fend off blog-posting cranks who think that The Bee is losing readers because of its “liberal bias.” But the story is much bigger than that, and much less easy to summarize.

In the meantime, just how this is all going to play out is anyone's guess, but at least one knowledgeable media wag here in town expects McClatchy to follow the Tribune Company into bankruptcy in the new year. That's just a guess, but based on a $70 to 75 cent drop in stock price, it doesn't seem like a bad call.

On the other hand, The Bee is STILL a good newspaper, particularly in its news pages, and while we are looking to scoop The Bee when we can – see Sonny Mayugba’s piece on the all-star local recording of “Happy Xmas,” which just posted - we have no desire to see The Bee go away. We are daily readers.

And so this is Xmas, and I for one am hoping for a big rebound in 2009 for The Bee, the housing market, the retail sector and everyone’s spirits.
And I’m especially excited about the possibilities for SacramentoPress.com, which faces the new year as something new, exciting and, above all, growing, with a whole new media world before us. Come join us, become a community contributor, and help create the next generation of Sacramento media!

What should I write about?

2008-12-17T23:38:52Z

OK, here's a big question, one that stops everyone at some point, even veterans:

What should I write about? What's "interesting"? And there are other questions: Is this story too small? Too big? Not local enough? TOO local?

We're feeling our way on this one, but we've been very specific that this is about The Grid, the central city, midtown/downtown. (BTW, I'm not that keen on the midtown/downtown distinction, because they're such vague areas. A map I once saw in the Bee had the line demarcating the two meandering all over the Grid, making hash of the distinction. So let's just call it "downtown" or the Grid, eh? And don't get me started on the whole "Handle District" or "SoCap" thing ... that's marketing, pure and simple.)

We want reporting on what's happening in this little 806 square block of heaven and hell known increasingly, if not universally, as the Grid. Because that's what it is, a grid, and one of the great beauties of it is that it is so well-defined. Though I've heard people extend the Grid into East Sac, and past Broadway into the inner suburbs like Curtis and Land Parks, the Grid is very well defined. And that's a good thing. We've got two freeways and two rivers hemming us in, and that gives us something to push up against. We should keep it well-defined, in the same ways that San Francisco and Manhattan are "hemmed in,' and Los Angeles is not. Limits are a good thing, they literally "define" something.

I focus first on the geography because Sacramento is a place more than, say, an idea. In fact, the idea of Sacramento is rather dull: Capital city. Zzzz. I grew up in the suburbs and lemme tell ya, that was not an inspiring idea then, and it still isn't.

However, the reality is much more interesting than the idea. Sacramento, the place is, in a word, cool. Yeah, that's right. No, it's not New York, but it's also not Albany, NY, or Salem, Oregon. (Austin? C'mon, be fair...) But people who come here from other places - unless those other places are Chicago or SF or other much larger cities - are struck by Sacramento's complexity and depth.

After all, Sacramento is one of the most diverse cities in the US, and thus, in the world. We have a new African American mayor, who follows a Latino mayor and a female mayor, and they represent us well. We have thriving communities that are almost cartoonishly diverse. My street in the grid, on the south side, is home to Chinese immigrants, Indian shopkeepers, gay couples, a mahjong parlor, dive bars, several Burners (denizens of Burning Man) and more than one drug dealer. And a Latino family of four, and a Vietnamese family of three. And musicians. Musicians everywhere.

Sacramento is diverse in every way, and the Grid squares that (pun intended). My point is this: Every single one of those people has a story. Some of those stories are old - my ancient Chinese neighbors came here in 1969, escaping Communist China, and still barely speak a word of English - but others are as fresh as daily headlines: One neighborhood house has seven guys living “halfway” to somewhere, and there’s an art gallery - wait, now there are two - just down the street. We used to have a record label two blocks down (they moved to nicer Digs), and we’ve got a cigar store that is all the way Cuban. There used to be an all-local-rap radio station next door.

These are ALL stories. They’re too small for The Bee. But they’re perfect for us. We’re interested in the Capitol and its craziness, but we’re not at this point equiped to cover that (on the other hand, if you're in the Capitol, we'd love to hear from you). But the above stories, and so many more, are instantly available to us.

Or rather, to YOU. It is you who will tell these stories, and the more that are told, and linked to each other, the more we will create a crazy quilt of cross-referenced stories that will reinforce each other, and teach us about each other.

And there is no story too small for SacramentoPress.com. In fact, as a new writer, you're more likely to go too big, to be too inclusive. My advice: Forget trying to cover the waterfront (unless you've found a very interesting part of the waterfront); just tell a simple story. You'll find that even the smallest story isn't all that simple, and as you build it, and post it, others may have aspects of the story to add.

This is another remarkable part of what this site can do: Every story is potentially just the start, not the end, of any story. When I used to write a story for The Bee, I'd cover it the best I could, then it would be published, and that was that. If someone called to add something to the story, as often happened, I had no way to update the story. That's changed, even at The Bee, but at SacramentoPress.com, that's our bread-and-butter. Every single reader has the opportunity to add something to the story, and that, again, is the essence of the Storyline. Stories do not end just because a reporter stopped reporting, and wrote it. Life goes on, and SacramentoPress.com captures that ongoing story.

Start the conversation!

Editing a new kind of newspaper

2008-12-17T23:13:08Z

As the Managing Editor of SacramentoPress.com, and a life-long journalist of more than 30 years, I thought I should start a storyline about what I'm trying to do here. My purpose is to get feedback, and to give you, the potential or current contributor, and above all, to give MYSELF, some idea of what's going on with SacramentoPress.com. Despite my experience as a writer for The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento (and other) magazines, my own blog and with stints at radio, this is as new for me as it is for everyone else.

Because this is NEW. The internet is not yet a generation old, blogging far newer. And journalism - well, what is that? Our Thursday, Dec. 18 workshop will answer that, in part, but let me try to demystify it a bit for you, especially in context of SacramentoPress.com. Because while we use the word "press," your laptop is the press. There are no big - and we're talking BIG - presses like those that cost The Sacramento Bee so much money to run. There is no paper, though founders Ben and Geoff routinely refer to the press as "the paper."

So what is this? It's not a "paper"; that’s just a convenient metaphor. SacramentoPress.com is something new. It's contributor-driven, amateur in the best sense of the word (for the love of doing it) and, especially as we get more and more people contributing, self-edited. There is no way that Editor-in-Chief Geoff Samek or I can edit everything that goes on this site, and that will become even more true as the readers/contributors grow in number, as you already have significantly, in just a month.

So, how to get a handle on this thing? As I see it, the essence of what drove newspapers into existence two centuries ago, and continues to drive the news, is very simple: STORIES. We love to hear stories, to tell stories, we tell each other stories all day long, just as we tell ourselves stories as we live our lives. These stories range from purely factual (and possibly even accurate) to fantastical. Along with Geoff and Ben, I’d love to see SacramentoPress.com become a repository of stories about this central city, where there is so much going on, against a backdrop of so much history, and with so many unimaginable things yet to come.

Stories boil down to people. "Who?" is always the first in the old cliche who-what-when-where-how (and why). Yes, the trees are beautiful, the architecture rich and sometimes grand, the art and music compelling at times. But it’s always the people who make Sacramento what it is, and that should always be our focus. Good people, bad people, and as often as possible, interesting people.

Regarding journalism and how that applies at SacramentoPress.com, amateur as it is, the main thing that it boils down to is what journalists call “reporting.” You’ll all heard the word, and everyone knows that journalists are “reporters.” But what does it mean?

It means that, above all, your responsibility as a reporter for SacramentoPress.com - self-assigned though you may be - is always to find out what is, to the best of your knowledge, true. What was actually said, what was actually done, where and when did it actually happen? In blogging, it’s too easy to just go straight to the WHY - you’ve got a theory about why trees are being cut down, why drug dealers are suddenly in an apartment complex, why a developer is building in this spot rather than that spot - but if you post accurate information, you empower every reader who comes after you to add more, to build something true, together. Something that will literally serve the entire community, in ways you can’t even imagine now. Perhaps even years down the line. But it has to be TRUE.

How do you know it’s true? Best is to see it with your own eyes, though even that’s not foolproof. Next best is to talk to someone who saw it themselves, and better still, two or three people who did. You do this every day, in things that matter to you. So, write about things that matter to you.

And if you get to a point where you don’t know something - and that is devoutly to be hoped for, because when you have to learn something, then you’re really going somewhere - you need to call someone. You may not know what you need to know, but someone else does, and more often than not, they’re happy to tell you. And they’ll tell you something that you didn’t know, and it may well be something completely contrary to what you thought you’d find. And that’s when it really gets good.

OK, that’s enough for now. I’ll be posting more, in part to give you a break, and also to give you a demo on how storylines work. And to get myself better at it. Because I’m just a step or two ahead of you...