By Kate Callen
Last month, KPBS launched a “Public Matters” initiative “to expand the culture of community involvement.” The station wants San Diegans to share their thoughts, especially those “left on the fringes of political power.”
The OB Rag is happy to oblige. We live on the fringes of political power, and we have some thoughts.
If KPBS wants to expand community involvement, it should curb YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) bias in its news coverage and report diverse views on issues like bike lanes and housing density.
It’s bad enough when far-right media like Fox News distort reality to pursue political agendas. When left of center media follow suit, we’re trapped in a journalistic race to the bottom.
Which brings us to Andrew Bowen.
Anyone familiar with Bowen’s reporting expected him to push a YIMBY narrative as a panelist in the KPBS mayoral debate between Todd Gloria and Larry Turner.
Bowen didn’t disappoint. He touted the idea of selling accessory dwelling units as separate condo units – Gloria responded, “I love the question, thank you, Andrew.”
He harped on the need to “protect San Diegans from traffic violence,” and he said that “cars are a very expensive form of transportation [with] costs to society in terms of air pollution, noise, and road maintenance.”
Since joining KPBS in 2015, Bowen has been an advocacy journalist who consistently promotes YIMBY positions and dismisses or ignores divergent viewpoints.
In “Advocates Are Becoming Journalists,” a 2018 Columbia Journalism Review analysis, media scholar Mathew Ingrim wrote that “traditional media organizations often get accused of distorting the news [by] selectively including certain facts or quoting certain individuals because those facts or views fit a certain worldview.”
That’s how Bowen, a passionate cyclist, covers the topic of bike lanes.
In Bowen’s worldview, San Diego’s bike lanes are hugely popular. Reliable bike lane counters have proven conclusively that lots of cyclists use them regularly. Small businesses love them because they bring in more customers.
People who are skeptical about bike lanes are lost souls who don’t care about the environment. On the crucial topic of bike safety, cyclist injuries and deaths are
never caused by reckless bicycling, like running stop signs and red lights. Motorists are always to blame.
To build his case, Bowen quotes leaders of the San Diego Bicycle Coalition (which has given him awards and featured him as a forum presenter), Circulate San Diego
(ditto), YIMBY Democrats of San Diego, Bike SD, Families for Safe Streets San Diego, and other bike lane lobbying groups.
Bowen has written glowingly of the 30th Street bike lanes, the Park Boulevard bike lanes, and the Pershing Bikeway. Under his pen name, Andrew Bowen-Ataide, he
wrote “Stranded in the Bike Lane,” a 2022 bicycling cri de coeur published in San Diego Magazine.
But the shining example of Bowen’s biased reporting is his April 2022 coverage of the Gold Coast Drive bike lanes. These “advisory” bike lanes force motorists in both directions to share a single lane. Public backlash was so severe that Mayor Todd Gloria closed them and personally apologized to residents.
Yet Bowen’s coverage included no critical views. Instead, his stories presented:
- An unsourced observation that advisory bike lanes have “existed for decades” elsewhere.
- A mention of a San Jose State University study that “advisory” lanes reduce the odds of a collision.
- Quotes from cyclist Nicole Burgess, a representative of the City of San Diego’s Bicycle Advisory Committee.
- An indignant Tweet from the SD County Bicycle Coalition.
- A mention of a 2021 rise in traffic deaths, cited without context.
Other news outlets talked to people who questioned the project and numerous residents who actively opposed it.
CBS 8 and ABC 10 News interviewed District 6 Councilmember Chris Cate, who said he hadn’t been forewarned about the project. CBS 8 News interviewed San Diego Fire Captain Joe Raymundo, who cited accident risks. NBC 7 News interviewed Mira Mesa Community Planning Chair Jeff Stevens, who criticized City Hall for its failure to conduct community outreach.
At this point, you may be thinking: Doesn’t the OB Rag report the news through a countercultural lens? Yes, we do. We state upfront that we present “grassroots and
progressive views” on the news. We exist as a counterweight to the corporate-fueled coverage delivered by the mainstream media.
From that vantage point, we offer this advice to KPBS.
If you want to give Bowen a platform to pursue his agenda, that’s your call. But if you’re serious about “expanding the culture of community involvement,” you should assign other reporters to present other views, especially from the legions of San Diegans who have been “left on the fringes” of the city’s YIMBY oligarchy.
Yes, yes, & yes! Andrew Bowen’s “Freeway Exit” podcast also demonstrates his incredible, pretty-much-undisguised bias. While he gets some of the history right, it’s all presented within a framework full of questionable assumptions that also skew his interviews with friendlies to his pet causes. At a KPBS donor event I raised concerns about this, but they fell on deaf ears. It’s reasonable to expect better of our publicly supported radio station.
I missed the Turner/Gloria debate last night. I love this article for many reasons, first it helped me imagine the debate at least through your eyes. Second it brought up a topic that is maybe existential in its scope. Media bias,whether it be OBRag, Fox, or the moderator of the debate I didn’t see. Unless a person is truly straddling the middle line (maybe a practicing Buddhist) it is unlikely any of their ‘reporting’ will be unbiased or without agenda.In fact, if we deep dive into how we perceive the world, where that comes from, and then how we interact with the world, and beyond that how we set our own agenda (how we influence people and why) we will probably have a lot of untangling to do. If it is okay for OBRAG to openly declare their progressive left leaning bias, then it is okay for everyone who is in the business of reporting the news. I prefer ‘that’ rather than hiding and pretending that media is simply reporting the news. It is the unannounced biases that are painfully transparent that are most commonly designed to promote a particular agenda. If, in that deep dive into our own ‘thinking’ we question where our ‘beliefs’ developed and ‘how’ tightly we hold on to those beliefs we are unraveling a giant part of the divided world we have created. I commend OB RAG for their honest statement of their bias. But then don’t I have to also commend Fox news?
When I was pregnant I was amazed that pregnant women were everywhere. I was amazed how ‘everyone’ was interested in all topics related to birthing, babies,and raising children. Of course, it was my own perception based on my life at the moment. It always is, unless of course, a person has made a decision to walk on the razor’s edge and consider both sides of a one-sided coin. Thanks for the article and insight into the debate. One of my take-aways from news reporting in general and debating in particular is the viewpoint of the ‘news’ organizations and individuals moderating have to influence listeners/watchers, either by osmoses or my design.
Thank you for giving voice to this important consituency.
Amen, Kate! Had to laugh when Andrew Bowen tried to appear sympathetic by talking about having to pay for “a $1,300 car repair” just this week. Gee, why not just sell it and ride a bike or take public transportation like he says everyone else should have to?
Could also mention how he covered the coup against Uptown Planners, where he continually described Vibrant Uptown as “mostly younger renters,” when their three founders are property owners over the age of 60. Not to mention his breathless write-up of their first election, where “even noncitizens could vote” — either not realizing or not caring that this had always been the case and so not the innovation he claimed it was — and has been totally silent about the fiasco that followed.
Spot on Kate!!!
One thing the bike zealots forget with their gushing about cyclists, and rage about cars, both groups need to learn how to pay attention more. Remember those who are not physically capable of riding a bike. Some people own their own homes, and do their own repairs. I can’t image going to Home Depot to get a couple 5 gallon buckets of paint and jumping on their bike and going home. Or those who don’t have kids, and not been around nieces/nephews, picture this….. mom, a toddler and an infant. Shopping for a two week or month’s supply of groceries, put the kids in a little cart behind her bike, but where oh where does she put her groceries? Or, mom/dad with 3 kids, one in grade school, one in pre-school and one infant in day care. Parents both work and their start time is 9AM in Mission Valley and they live in North Park. Hope on their bikes, to drop off 3 kids at 3 different locations. You can’t dump kids at the site of their destination, before the gates open at 7:45 or 8:00 AM for before school care. Or, they have a car. Dad goes to work, Mom goes grocery shopping, and parks in the parking structure in North Park, goes shopping, then how does she get a child or two and her groceries from her car parked 3 blocks away, to her apt. she can’t leave the child alone while she makes multiple trips back and forth. Or, they want to take their kids to Wild Animal Park, it would take them several hours to bike there and back. Cars have a purpose. SD is too spread out to think a family does not need a car. SD was and not ever will be NYC where everyone lives in a tiny box, on the umteenth floor and they don’t grocery shop for a week/weeks/month at a time. They stop at the deli on the way home from work. Those who think they can turn SD into NYC, are delusional and there is a huge difference between single people who work at home and a couple with kids, who work outside the home, and want their kids to have a broader opinion of their surroundings, than the inside of their living space.
Nicely stated and also to you Kate. Our leaders are pushing (not leading) us to a hyper controlled city that fits an unrealistic and distorted view of reality. Keep it up. On behalf of almost all of my neighbors we appreciate your view. (Live in Hillcrest but was an OB resident in the 1970s and still consider it a spiritual home.)
“I can’t image going to Home Depot to get a couple 5 gallon buckets of paint and jumping on their bike and going home.”
Neither can any of us bike “zealots”. No one has ever said to eliminate cars and that everything can be done with a bike. Nearly all bike infrastructure advocates own vehicles.
I even own a pick up truck. Small one tho (Ford Ranger).
Isn’t OddTodd carted around town in an oversized, petrol-powered rig? Never seen him zipping to and from the office on an e-scooter, bus, or bike.
It’s the darnedest thing.
OMG, I thought I was the only one. Bowen may be a talented reporter, but he needs to be tasked with covering issues different than those which allow him to merely cheerlead for his personal obsessions. Put him on education and military issues. The endless one-sided coverage of alternative transport/bicycles, and the editorial privileging of that coverage over all the other possible things on which to report, makes me yelp at the radio. Thanks for making me feel included!
Kate,
Thanks so much for researching and writing this article.The information you gathered confirms the bias of this KPBS reporter. I had a very similar problem with an article that he wrote about three years ago, which completely ignored an important and factual but contradictory aspect of his story. I wrote a letter to KPBS management which they essentially ignored. I do think that in general the station leans left in it’s reporting, which would be OK if they identified themselves as such. But all their publicity paints them as an unbiased, balanced, fact-based news organization, which I simply don’t think they are. And that’s why I stopped contributing to KPBS about four years ago. My money is better spent supporting news outlets that clearly identify their point of view, and if they have biases, acknowledge those biases.
Well, I’m glad I read all the comments first, all I have to do is agree, much less typing. Seriously, another great, detailed piece Kate.
I only thought of one comment about the conundrum facing people today about what to believe in the media. My advice has always been to look at two things. Is the news outlet honest about its bias? Do they present all of the facts not just a selection of facts?
The Rag writers present the facts correctly and attempt to report them all. If something is missed, the open comments section help silt in around the story until it’s pretty tight. The Rag is candid about its leaning. That’s the best you’ll get anywhere these days folks.
This post and the comments are incredible. Years ago we decided to be a platform for OB run by progressives rather than a progressive platform for all San Diego. The Rag came on the scene when local OBceans craved local news and gradually we came to understand that. Of course, since then, we’ve expanded our scope and coverage and have come to embody that old adage, ‘inflict the comfortable and comfort the inflicted.’
This is also a very crucial time in our history and it’s no time to be quiet.
I’ve listened to the Freeway Exit podcast and find it biased with a slick and smirky proposal to close the 163 through the park since there are parallel routes. And, pushing for other freeway closures based on how construction was based on some ethnic issues. He also wants expensive lids over freeways to build parks. I don’t think he talks about what it would cost – probably include new taxes on drivers.
On his personal X account he blocked me while hyping everything bicycle. He has that NPR monotonal voice he uses to sound neutral while pushing his biased points. I hope he reads the Article and comments.
I’m sure he does, Paul. As the inveterate narcissist he is, I’m sure he’s hate/loving all the attention he’s given — and takes it as reward for his obtuseness.
Shame his reportage never rises above enjoyment of personal attention. Can’t understand the same for his employers.
The Federal highway administration has published information showing advisory bike Lanes (more commonly called Edge Lane Roads) are safer than a standard two-lane road. Look up crash modification Factor number 10976, titled Edge Lane Roads.
Do a simple Google search for a study published by the Mineta Transportation Institute on Edge Lane roads. That study provides the information upon which some of those statements rest.
Choosing to do no research and putting claims in quotes is misleading. Please try to do better for your readers.
This story focuses on journalism bias, and it was thoroughly researched. The Mineta Institute study is cited (as the “San Jose State University study”) in the second bullet in the list about Bowen’s Gold Coast Drive coverage that only presented supportive views of bike lanes.
My purpose was not to analyze claims about bike lanes per se. I set out to analyze whether Bowen’s reporting on YIMBY issues and specifically on bike lanes included diverse “pro and con” views. If he had aimed for even a hint of balance, perhaps by quoting an occasional bike lane skeptic, I wouldn’t have written this. But he didn’t. His coverage speaks for itself.
Gee, Michael Williams is a pretty common name and I have a friend named Michael Williams, But, by chance are you the Michael Williams who’s pushing these edge lanes in America? The semi- informational/hilarious Road Guy Rob YouTube video clearly shows the project on Gold Coast was a disaster and lots of interviewing a Michael Williams, who was pushing these lanes with a background of a country road without cars or parking. It might work there, but not by an elementary school and during commute times. Surely, the crash stats didn’t include streets like Gold Coast Drive as it’s idiotic to use edge lanes on that street.
They might work near parks where the might more than a few bikers per day, lightly traveled roads without parking and driveways.
San Diego is installing things without input or concerns for safety.
For example, 30th street and Convoy were heavily parked. Those spaces are gone and patrons who decide to go anyway find they might be walking up to a half mile on dimly lit, vacant nighttime side streets well after dark and up to 2am or later.
Common sense says you don’t remove parking that is always used to install bike lanes that no one uses – I’ve walked that street numerous times and haven’t seen more than 1 bike, that was going the wrong direction.
I agree with the criticism of Andrew Bowen at KPBS! We are donors
but we may cancel it given the prejudiced perspective of Bowen.
He’s young and GREEN – MUCH to learn!