A Special City Loses Its Voice

[marmar]

from truthdig:



A Special City Loses Its Voice

Posted on Aug 26, 2011
By Bill Boyarsky


The death of The Oakland Tribune is leaving its city without a voice. Moreover, its killing symbolizes the contempt that newspaper publishers feel toward the communities they purportedly serve.

This week, the Tribune, where I began my career, was combined with four other papers owned by the Bay Area News Group, which calls itself BANG. The historic paper, which was founded in 1874, will now share the title East Bay Tribune. The News Fix blog on the website of KQED, the San Francisco public television and radio station, quoted a union official as saying 120 jobs would be eliminated, 48 from newsrooms, in this and other BANG consolidations.

Oakland, a city of almost 400,000 across the bay from San Francisco, is an American urban classic. Oaklanders—African-Americans, whites, Latinos, Asians and people of other races and ethnicities—have survived a declining industrial economy, crime and racial tensions. Oakland, as a city, is both nondescript and fascinating. Great African-American and country and western music was nurtured there, as were the Black Panthers and the Hells Angels. Today, it can be as mean as its National Football League team, the Raiders, or as smart as Billy Beane (who is portrayed in the book and forthcoming movie “Moneyball”), general manager of Oakland’s American League baseball team, the Athletics.

Through it all, the Oakland Tribune covered the city like a blanket, as they used to say, although the blanket once had gaping holes when it came to reporting on race or Democratic politics. That was the situation when I started my career on the Tribune, my hometown paper, as a copy messenger, rising to rewrite/reporter. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_special_city_loses_its_voice_20110826/?ln

[xchrom]

1. the decline of the trib has been a sad thing to watch over the years. nt