Rumble in the Jungle
Timber or Tourists? Environmentalists are Fighting Each Other Over How Best to Protect Forests in Guatemala. Part of the Future of Petén project funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Earth Island Journal, Autumn 2009

No Profit, No Problem
How a new city daily (on newsprint!) rolled
A prognostication about The San Francisco Public Press five years in the future. Part of a package of future retrospectives from 2014, imagining the changed media landscape.
Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2009

A Tale of Two Wildernesses
It's still possible to get lost in a remote Guatemalan forest park, but that could change if it succumbs to the forces that did in other protected lands. Earth Island Journal, December 2008

The Future of Petén blog
The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, based in Washington, funded a four-person expedition to the remote Petén region of northern Guatemala, where environmentalists are fighting environmentalists in a behind-the-scenes ideological conflict over how best to save the vast but rapidly shrinking Maya forest.

American archaeologists, Guatemalan bankers and the country’s government have aligned to support an ambitious plan to protect hundreds of thousands of acres and support the excavation of ancient Maya cities with tourist dollars. But some international green groups, which in the 1990s helped local communities win the right to build “sustainable” logging businesses on overlapping lands, say new, large-scale tourism would sweep away the local-empowerment movement they’ve worked so hard to build.

The group traveled to Guatemala to sort out the scientific claims about conservation and document the stories of residents caught up in a transnational conflict over the fate of Guatemala’s disappearing northern wilderness. The blog represents the first draft of longer-form documentary video, audio and text reports on the region.
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Washington D.C.

KTVU Anchor Griffith Bites Hand That Funded Her Makeovers in 'Shut Up and Read'
Last week Griffith went public with her views about the sorry state oftelevision news during a panel discussion hosted by the Commonwealth Club. Laying into the industry that employed her for 25 years, she decried the cost-cutting, reportorial timidity, infotainment, and general "decay of my once-proud profession."
SF Weekly, Oct. 3, 2007

Rosey People
It's the end of a rather short-lived era at the San Francisco Chronicle, as Robert ("Rosey" to all) Rosenthal heads back into retirement for the second time in five years.
SF Weekly, June 6, 2007

Watchdog Catfight
Activists aren't happy about the deal struck between Clint Reilly and Bay Area media barons.
SF Weekly, May 2, 2007

Your Ad Here: News or ads? The Examiner makes it hard to tell
Of all the formerly august Bay Area news organizations risking their journalistic credibility by experimenting with bigger, more intrusive advertising, no one does it quite like the San Francisco Examiner.
SF Weekly, March 14, 2007

Making a Killing
No, this is not the Zodiac speaking. Instead it is I, Paramount Pictures, who along with Warner Bros. has lightly fictionalized, filmed, and marketed the story of the hippie-era taunting serial murderer who had the press wrapped around his pinky.
SF Weekly, March 7, 2007

Chron2.0
As readership and revenues continue to plunge, the San Francisco Chronicle's strategy of targeting news to an Internet audience is changing the journalism that gets into the paper.
SF Weekly, Nov. 29, 2006

Mercury News and Contra Costa Times sold to MediaNews
Newspaper chain would dominate Bay Area with more than 800,000 daily circulation, placing Hearst Corp.'s Chronicle a distant second; union voices concerns and urges government antitrust probe
www.gradethenews.org, April 26, 2006

Prominent TV news doctor puts own name on pre-fab reports: San Francisco station also ran press releases under his byline on Web
Syndicated multimedia medical reporter Dean Edell, who calls himself "America's Doctor," has for years taken credit on KGO Channel 7 for medical reports wholly or partially produced by an outside company. And his byline has appeared on the KGO Web site and a health-advice site over articles that were taken verbatim from medical center press releases.
www.gradethenews.org, March 16, 2006

Interview: Milo Radulovich
How journalism saved one man, and the rest of us, from McCarthyism
At 79, Milo Radulovich is as outraged about government-sponsored injustice as the day he stood up in 1953 on Edward R. Murrow's "See It Now" to proclaim his innocence of charges by the Air Force that he was a security risk. The real-life hero featured in the 2005 docudrama "Good Night, and Good Luck" speaks about Sen. Joseph McCarthy's legacy in the war on terrorism.
www.gradethenews.org, Feb. 20, 2006

'60 Minutes' spinoff for Bay Area takes time to go deep
The CBS 5 show, "30 Minutes Bay Area," looks like the network show, in both style and substance. It offers a rare opportunity to glimpse what local TV news might look like if stations invested in in-depth journalism.
www.gradethenews.org, Dec. 16, 2006

Flagging station tries reinventing TV news with home-video tech
KRON-TV in San Francisco has eradicated the distinctions among reporters, editors and photographers, making everyone a "video journalist" with a camera and a laptop. The station says this move will be its salvation. Critics say this will be its undoing.
www.gradethenews.org, Dec. 13, 2006

At free dailies, advertisers sometimes call the shots: News blends with ads, and the wealthy come first for home delivery
Free tabloid-size daily newspapers in the Bay Area allow advertisers to determine some journalistic content and distribution.
www.gradethenews.org, July 27, 2005

Maurice Strong: Our Man in Rio (and San Francisco, too)
Interview: the convener of the first World Environment Conference in Stockholm in 1972 and the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 speaks about his new project, the Earth Council Alliance, a vehicle for international cooperation and political pressure for the environment.
E/The Environmental Magazine Online, June 2005

Downward spiral: Many Journalists Say Media’s Duties, Ethics Are Sliding in Order to Conform to the Company’s Bottom Line
Corporate executives trying to maintain the extraordinary profits of a less competitive age are downsizing or freezing staffs and conjuring new advertising-friendly synergies across all media. News workers nationwide report that these changes degrade the quality of their work and sap their desire to stay in journalism.
Quill Magazine, April 2005 (With John McManus)

Sales Pitches Overwhelm Democratic Debate
Before the elections, TV stations in the San Francisco Bay Area ran more ads about state propositions than news -- even during the newscasts. That let deep-pocketed partisans, instead of impartial journalists, frame the public-policy debate.
www.gradethenews.org, Jan. 6, 2005

Whose Art Is This, Anyway?
The M.H. de Young Memorial Museum embarks on a global buying spree to remake itself with Third World art, but has trouble explaining where everything in the collection comes from.
San Francisco Magazine, May 2004 (also available as 2.8 MB PDF)

News From Nowhere
Local TV stations air -- and take credit for -- pre-packaged stories from anonymous, out-of-town production companies that try hard to disguise their true source.
www.gradethenews.org, Sept. 4, 2003

The Peace Portfolio
Cover story on pacifist investors' financial strategies during wartime.
San Francisco Bay Guardian, April 9, 2003

Ebb and Flow Energy
Research is being conducted on several continents into the potential of tapping the tides to generate electric power.
E/The Environmental Magazine, March-April 2003

Opportunity Knocks, but Only Lightly
A multimillion-dollar youth employment program in San Francisco has little to show for years of work.
San Francisco Examiner, Sept. 3, 2002

Drug Treatment to Prevent AIDS, House Homeless
San Francisco's lack of drug treatment creates problems for HIV prevention and rehabilitation of the homeless.
Editorial, San Francisco Examiner, Jan. 22, 2002

New Transplant Rules
Healthier cardiac patients -- who stand the best chance of a successful heart transplant -- have to wait the longest as sicker patients leapfrog ahead of them. Medical ethicists debate whose life is worth saving.
Philadelphia Inquirer (printed in the Chicago Tribune), March 2, 2000

Designer fish flounder over legal hurdles
Researchers are developing genetically altered fish that will grow faster, but opponents say "Frankenfish" might be harmful to eat and pollute the environment.
Christian Science Monitor, March 4, 1999

Tribes Use New Riches to Recast History
Native Americans use casino riches to build elaborate culture museum.
The Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 11, 1998

Lessons on Laptops
Software and computer makers in the last two years have encouraged 250 middle and high schools to lease or loan the computers to about 40,000 students nationwide.
Christian Science Monitor, June 9, 1998

Indians Bid for Casinos in Mexico
Hoping to ride an international wave of legalized gambling, the world's most profitable gaming business is setting its sights on Mexico.
Christian Science Monitor, July 3, 1997

Native Americans Create Their Own NAFTA
prominent Indian leaders in Mexico propose alternative trade networks that would take full advantage of the new continental order by trading with Indians in other countries.
Christian Science Monitor, July 3, 1997

Mexico Debates Pros, Cons of Legalization
Some Mexican politicians tout the legalization of casinos as part of a plan to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign investment.
Christian Science Monitor, July 3, 1997