Over-the-Top Chronicle Has Finally Topped Out

The Chron has made my mornings go faster and faster over the years by squeezing its newshole almost dry, so that a quick reader can now suck down the whole paper in less time than it takes to drink one cup of coffee and eat one piece of toast. One could see that as a plus, perhaps.

And furthermore, I’ve never believed that it was right to cancel subscriptions to publications just because you disagreed with something you read there. I’ve put up with a lot of Debra Saunders all these years because she’s a good writer and tells me about points of view I might otherwise miss.

But it finally might be the time to draw the line. The piece by Carolyn Jones on the prominent upper-left hand side of the front page of Thursday’s Chronicle was easily the worst piece of so-called journalism I’ve seen in a formerly respectable mass-circulation publication in all of my long life. Before I’d even finished my 10-minute Chron read, the Planet’s City Hall reporter was calling me at home before 8 a.m., which she’s never done before, hoping fervently to be able to change her assignment for Friday’s paper so she could do a piece setting the record straight. Of course!

The topic of the silly story? Here’s the headline and subhead: “Cost of Berkeley's Dozens of Citizen Boards: Officials say city gets sidetracked by work of 45 commissions.”

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