Former Daily News writer gets NYT byline

Former Daily News reporter Kristina Peterson has a byline in this morning's New York Times (link). She left the Daily News about a year ago and moved to New York to get a master's degree from Columbia University's J-school. We're told that the story this morning was her master's project, which was originally a story about 5,000 to 10,000 words that was reduced for publication today. Congratulations, Kristina!

East Bay BANG eliminates 17 jobs

Joe Eskenazi of the SF Weekly reports that the Bay Area News Group-East Bay has 17 fewer journalists today than it did yesterday. Eskenazi obtained an internal memo from Editor Kevin Keene that said 11 employees took voluntary buyouts and six had their positions "eliminated, effectively immediately."

Taking buyouts were:

• Dave Carpenter, copy editor
• Pat Craig, theater critic
• Mike DeCicco, copy editor
• Christine Harrington, Alameda clerk
• Ben Hawkins, copy editor
• Karen Holzmeister, Hayward-based reporter
• Paula King, east Alameda County reporter
• Kathleen Kirkwood, online news supervisor
• Christine Morente, San Mateo reporter
• Jeremiah Oshan, copy editor
• Kimberly Wetzel, west Alameda County reporter

Those whose positions were eliminated were:

• Mike Lucia, Hayward-based photographer
• Mike Martinez, Tracy-based reporter
• Jenny Starks, sports reporter
• Ginny Stemler, librarian
• Jolene Thym, food editor
• Steve R. Waterhouse, Fremont-based prep sportswriter

SF's "Energy 92.7" sold for $6.5 million

Radio Insight and Radio Online are reporting that Ed Stolz has purchased KNGY-FM "Energy 92.7," a dance music station targeting the gay communinty, for $6.5 million. The seller is Flying Bear Media headed by Joe Bayliss, which bought the station in 2004 for $33 million. The station's Russian Hill transmitter broadcasts at 3,600 watts, which sends the signal about as far south as San Mateo. Stoltz will take over the station via a local marketing agreement on Sept. 13 if the sale has not closed by then.

Journalist to deputy: 'Dude, you just assaulted me'

Luke Thomas, the journalist behind the San Francisco blog FogCityJournal.com, reports that he was grabbed and forcably moved by a deputy sheriff while filming a line of Aztec dancers who were performing at a San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday. He posted the video above that documents the incident. Rebecca Bowe of the Bay Guardian writes:

According to Thomas, Deputy Sheriff Thompson "dug his left hand fingers into my right side that caused an [excruciating] pain and literally pulled me by my skin and flesh outside Board chambers like a dog on a leash."

The incident began when the Deputy Sheriff told the cameraman to back up from a line of Aztec dancers who were performing, to which Thomas says he complied.

But when he was told to step back a second time, Thomas says he complained that he was being prevented from documenting the event.

That's when the Deputy Sheriff grabbed him, Thomas recounts. "It shocked the hell out of me," the photojournalist told the Guardian later. "I can't imagine what was wrong with this guy. It was completely unwarranted."

In the video, Thomas can be heard telling the Deputy Sheriff in disbelief, "Dude, you just assaulted me."

According to the Guardian, a sheriff's department spokeswoman said that Thomas was asked "several times" to step away from the dancers.

However, Thomas wasn't issued a citation and Deputy Thompson apologized.

Judge: Shield law covers student in murder case

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Tomar Mason ruled Wednesday that an SF State photojournalism student who was at the scene of a Bayview neighborhood street killing was a working journalist and did not have to surrender his photos to police, according to the Chronicle. Mason ordered police to return evidence they seized from the student's apartment after the killing, saying the man was covered by California's shield law for journalists. The 22-year-old student has refused to talk to police about what he saw April 17 when Norris Bennett, 21, was gunned down during a dice game at Griffith Street and Navy Road.

Radio tower collapses in Sacramento

KCRA-TV Sacramento reports that the tower for Radio Disney (KIID-AM, 5,000-watt daytime, 1,000-watt nighttime) crashed to the ground at about noon Wednesday, sparking a wildfire. The heat was so intense that it bent a second KIID tower and threatened a third. Disney said it will switch to a smaller tower and expects to return to full power in two weeks. (Photo credit: Steve Gonzalez, KCRA)

Police monitored newspaper's phone calls

The Stockton Record reports that its telephone calls were among those secretly monitored by police who were investigating the murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu of Tracy.

"All communications ... from April 8, 2009, to April 13, 2009, from phones registered in your name, and/or by you, were intercepted and monitored," Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Freitas wrote in the undated letter sent to The Record.

The letter disclosing the wiretapping is required by law.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Richard Vlavianos signed an order allowing the wiretaps. Another judge in that county, Linda Lofthus, has imposed a gag order prohibiting officials involved in the case from commenting.

More ways to follow the local media

When the Press Club started this blog a few years ago, we were all alone. Nobody was covering the Bay Area news business. But in the past few months, four excellent online sites have started covering this beat.

• Baynewser, a spin-off of the NY-based Mediabistro, covers everything but emphasizes the online news business. It's staffed by E.B. Boyd and Jason Turbow, who are paid by the post.

• The SF Appeal is a 4-month-old online newspaper that has an entertaining media section. SF Appeal is brainchild of Eve Batey (left), former Chronicle ME for online and co-founding editor and lead writer for SFist.com. The Appeal's media section includes several Chronicle critiques, such as "John Cote's Trashy Ledes."

• SFWeekly also has a media section worth bookmarking, with postings that often include original reporting. Joe Eskenazi's byline shows up in this section frequently. Check out his take on SPJ's decision to honor "two dead guys and a 90-year-old."

• Rich "Big Vinny" Lieberman (right) is a sportscaster who writes about the local media scene, particularly sports journalism and broadcasting. He's hosted by SFGate.com, which gives him a large audience when a link to his column is featured on the first page of that portal. He gets his share of scoops, such as story about Tony Salvador's firing last week.

Our competition is so good, maybe the Press Club's Web site is obsolete?

Bronstein leading secret Hearst project

Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher reports that former Chron editor Phil Bronstein is leading an investigative reporting project that will draw upon the resources of Hearst's newspapers and TV stations. Bronstein is targeting an unidentified health issue. The project will appear July 26, the day before the Chron's newsstand price goes from 75 cents to $1.

Unlicensed station wants news programming

Melinda Adams of FCCFreeRadio.com, an unlicensed station at 107.3 FM in San Francisco, says her station is interested in adding news programming. The station allows people to go on the air for a "small monthly membership fee." If you're interested, go to FCCFreeRadio.com.

Chron raising news stand price to $1

Stores that sell the Chronicle have been told that the paper's Monday-Saturday price will go from 75 cents to $1 effective July 27. The new wholesale rate will be 88 cents a copy, an improvement of 2 cents for each daily Chronicle sold.

The Sunday cover price and wholesale rates will remain unchanged.

A letter to retailers by Chron single-copy sales manager Ken Kim notes that the Chronicle is now being printed on state-of-the-art presses. "These new presses will improve the quality and color capacity of The Chronicle. That significant capital investment is not only geared toward enhancing the customer experience, but also to increase retail traffic," Kim wrote.

The Chron raised its retail price last July from 50 to 75 cents. Last year the Chron also raised its Sunday price from 50 cents to $2. In mid-January, the Chron raised its subscription price from $300/year to $400/year for seven-day delivery.

In January, Editor Ward Bushee hinted that readers would be paying more for the paper in the future. "The Chronicle is losing large sums of money each week and has been for some time. The primary reason for this is a decline in advertising revenue, which once supplemented the cost of producing a newspaper. Few readers realize that it costs more than $10 to produce and deliver each copy of the Sunday Chronicle. In better times, advertising offset those costs, but that has changed."

Young Broadcasting calls off auction

Michael Malone of Broadcasting & Cable reports that Young Broadcasting has called off the auction of its assets -- including KRON 4 -- without comment. Malone said that insiders believe the development means the bids did not meet the minimum. Chairman Vincent Young had anticipated strong interest in the stations that also include 10 network affiliates in the Midwest.

Merc's doing a little less zoning

The Merc has dropped the "Valley" label for its B section and is now just calling it "Local News." Apparently the Merc is no longer zoning its B section on Mondays and Tuesdays. Wednesday through Saturday, zoned advertising is possible in the B section, but it will still be called "Local News."

KCSM drops PBS, lays off six employees

Neil Gonzales of the San Mateo County Times reports that KCSM (43.1 digital, cable 17) has dropped its PBS affiliation and has laid off six staffers to avoid being sold.

PBS cost KCSM $400,000 a year.

"We're trying to do everything we can to get it out of the red," said Karen Schwarz, board president for the San Mateo County Community College District, which owns the license to the KCSM public television and radio stations.

KCSM will no longer air shows such as "American Experience," "NOVA" or "Frontline," but KQED 9 was airing them anyway. KCSM will still air shows on cooking, home-improvement and other subjects from organizations that distribute noncommercial programming, Schwarz said.

Lawrence told Gonzales that the cutbacks also include the loss of six positions from accounting to producing — five on the television side and one in radio.

KCSM also plans to lease some of its multi-channels, Lawrence said.

A favorite emerges to win Young and KRON

Broadcasting & Cable's Michael Malone says he was told by a source that H.I.G. Capital (link for more information abougt them) is looking like the favorite to scoop up the bankrupt Young Broadcasting stations including KRON 4. Malone also notes that when you Google "KRON," the first link says its an NBC affiliate. Of course NBC dropped KRON at the end of 2001.

Telemundo 48 gm Angulo jumps to KTNC 42

Broadcasting & Cable reports that Former KSTS San Francisco acting general manager Cesar Angulo has been named president and general manager at KTNC, an Estrella TV affiliate airing in San Francisco and Sacramento. KTNC, which Pappas Telecasting lost in bankruptcy proceedings, is owned by Titan Broadcast Management. It serves both markets from a signal broadcast from Diablo Peak.

Angulo called Estrella "the up and coming hip network" for Spanish speakers. "I am joining some great people at Titan and KTNC and have several more key people that will join us in short order," he said. "Watch us grow."

Hearst, NBC not interested in KRON

Michael Malone of Broadcasting & Cable reports that Friday was the deadline to submit bids for Young Broadcasting and its 10 stations, including KRON 4. The winning bidder is scheduled to be selected on Monday, with the announcement presumably coming some days later.

Rumored suitors include billionaire Robert Bass's venture capital company Oak Hill Partners, whose Local TV unit is comprised of 16 stations including WJW Cleveland, KTVI St. Louis, WBRC Birmingham, WHO Des Moines and KDVR Denver.

Another suitor is reported to be a leveraged buyout/venture capital firm called H.I.G. International that has an office in San Francisco. One of its units, Bayside Capital, specializes in companies with "distressed or over-leveraged balance sheets" -- which describes Young Broadcasting.

Malone says Oak Hill wouldn't comment and H.I.G. wouldn't return calls.

Representatives from Hearst and NBC dismissed speculation of their interest, Malone reports.

Young famously outbid NBC for KRON in 1999, paying $823 million -- a record price for any single television station. General Electric responded by pulling its affiliation from KRON and buying KNTV in San Jose. Now Malone says that experts put the value of KRON at between $150 million and $250 million.

Young filed for Chapter 11 in February, listing assets of more than $575.6 million, versus total debt exceeding $980.4 million.

Why Ling, Lee need support from all of us

Sacramento Bee editor Melanie Sill devoted her column today to why people should care about the imprisonment of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the reporters from San Francisco's Current TV who were captured by North Korea:

Beyond the local ties, we should support these women for a simple reason: A free society relies on journalists who are willing to take risks to inform the public. ...

Getting to the truth has meant taking personal risks and breaking rules for generations of journalists who have covered wars, social movements, disasters, chaos or wrongdoing by those in power.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee don't work for a storied media organization. They're part of a new generation, and even as they've been imprisoned in North Korea, they have taken plenty of heat back home.

I think such criticism is misplaced. We shouldn't excoriate journalists for taking risks to get stories. We should celebrate them and the quest for truth they represent. ...

Many questions have been raised about the actions and decisions that led to the arrests and imprisonment of Lee and Ling. There's time enough to review all that when they come home.

For now, though, the cause is simple. Let's support efforts to free Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

For information on how to help, visit www.lauraandeuna.com, the Web site set up by the journalists' friends and family.

Photographer Len Vaughn-Lahman dies

Len Vaughn-Lahman, a Mercury News photographer for nearly 30 years died Friday following a year-long battle with cancer at age 55, the Merc reports. "His favorite motto," said Sharon, his wife of 12 years, "was 'Drive it like you stole it.' And he ran his life that way. He lived life fully. His favorite thing was being a foreign correspondent, traveling to Iraq, to Afghanistan, any place there was a war. He was an adrenaline junkie. He liked being put into different situations and then figuring out how to dig out."

A new approach to freeing Lee, Ling

Quiet diplomacy hasn't worked. Al Gore hasn't produced any results. President Obama isn't taking about it. So it appears a new strategy is emerging in the effort to free Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were captured by North Korea nearly three months ago.

Now the idea is that the two women should admit their "crimes" and ask for mercy.

Lisa Ling (pictured at a rally in Sacramento Thursday) said her sister Laura told her by telephone on Tuesday that she and colleague Euna Lee had violated North Korean law and needed help from the U.S. government to secure amnesty.

Now that admission is being used by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to plead for amnesty for the two reporters from the San Francisco-based TV company.

"The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened," Clinton told foreign service employees and others at a State Department meeting, according to the AFP news agency.

The U.S. government might have to apologize, too. According to the AP, University of Georgia political scientist Han S. Park said that North Korean officials told him during a five-day visit that the U.S. should offer "a remorseful acknowledgment" over the journalists' reporting, which they believe constituted "hostile acts" against their country because it would have cast the North in a negative light.

To help secure the women's release, Park said the U.S. "should acknowledge" that, though he cautioned that such an expression alone might not guarantee their freedom.

(Photo credit: Rich Pedroncelli, AP)

Cumulus sacks GM Tony Salvadore

Tony Salvadore, the radio executive who flipped KFOG's format in 1982 from beautiful music to adult alternative and turned it into a ratings powerhouse, has lost his job in what's described as a cost-cutting move.

Salvadore was Cumulus Broadcasting's vp and SF market manager in charge of KFOG, KNBR and KSAN ("The Bone"). He's been a major figure in the Bay Area radio industry for decades.

Rich "Big Vinny" Lieberman, a blogger for SFGate.com, broke the story Thursday of Salvador's termination. Lieberman says program director Lee Hammer has been named interim GM.

Lieberman says anybody making over $200K at Cumulus has been under intense scrutiny by CEO Lew Dickey.

Surprise! Newspaper adds an edition

The Daily Post announced today that it will launch a Saturday edition starting this week. The Post will go from printing five days a week to six. The Post is based in Palo Alto and covers the Peninsula from Burlingame to Mountain View.

The Post said the move will allow it to present Friday's news in a more timely manner and give its advertisers another day to reach potential customers.

The Post was started last year by Jim Pavelich and Dave Price (see note below). They started the Palo Alto Daily News in 1995 and sold it in 2005 to Knight Ridder.

The expansion comes at a time when other papers in the area are retrenching. The Post doesn't put its stories on the Web and that might be one reason for its growth.

“People say newspapers are dying, but we didn’t get that memo,” said Price. “We’re adding advertisers and readers every day.”

(Full disclosure: Price is also a vice president of the Press Club and its webmaster.)

Stations reject marijuana legalization ad

KTVU, KPIX, KGO and KNTV have rejected ads from a group that wants to legalize marijuana and tax the drug to help reduce the state's deficit. KRON, which is in bankruptcy, and some cable stations agreed to air the 30-second spot by the Marijuana Policy Project. It begins airing today.

Josh Richman of BANG-EB talked to station executives about their decisions.

The Field Poll in April found 56 percent of California voters favor legalizing marijuana. A few days later, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said "it's time for a debate" over legalization.

Press Club board meeting delayed a week

The Press Club's monthly board meeting has been rescheduled to July 15, 6:30 p.m., at the San Mateo Daily Journal, 800 S. Claremont St., Ste. 210, San Mateo. As always, members are welcome to attend.

The board meeting with local bloggers is set for August.

Here's the agenda for the July 15 meeting.

1. Approval of Minutes
2. Finance and Membership Reports
3. Open Director positions-discussion of new directors
4. Town Hall Meeting
5. Fall high school journalism workshop
6. Professional development workshop for members
7. Other business as needed

Mother Jones raps KRON for advertorial

Michael Mechanic of Mother Jones says KRON is blurring the line between advertising and news. He says the station contacted a lawyer friend of his and offered to sell her air time. She was told she would appear as legal expert on what looks like a news program. The segment would have only a brief disclosure that it was advertising. Mechanic writes, "When the old media turns to obvious desperation measures, I just can't help pondering the future of my profession and concluding, well, that we should be expecting even more fog in the future."

UPDATE, July 10:KRON Acting General Manager Brian Greif e-mailed a response to the SFWeekly: "The material referred to in the article are COMMERCIALS. ... These efforts have been in place at KRON for years. They are not new elements and meet all ethical and legal broadcast standards."