Chronicle “Expose” Seeks to Protect Newsom

by Randy Shaw via Beyond Chron

Thu, Jul 23, 2009 7:25AM

Thursday, July 23, 2009 : When the July 22 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle headlined, “Is Newsom Stretching the Facts?,” some may have been surprised. After all, the Chronicle has promoted Gavin Newsom’s career since he entered politics; and while it has criticized him more in recent years, a major story implying that “the campaigning mayor touts major San Francisco successes as his own” appears to be a sharp critique of Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign.

But the Chronicle is following the same script it used when it ran a lengthy feature early in 2003 about how the Getty family subsidized mayoral candidate Newsom’s business career; the piece insulated Newsom from the story breaking during the heat of the campaign, and forestalled future coverage by making the Getty connection “old news.” The Chronicle did the same with Newsom’s owner move-in eviction of a long-term tenant; Matier & Ross allowed Newsom to spin the issue during the primary race, and the Chronicle then ignored the story during his runoff against Matt Gonzalez. In this case, the Chronicle has identified trivial overstatements by the Mayor few voters will care about; meanwhile, the bigger gaps between Newsom’s rhetoric and the San Francisco reality are ignored.

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