Category: Media

by JW August / Times of San Diego / March 19, 2024

[Last week was] Sunshine Week, a celebration of democracy and the transparency that keeps it alive in this country — and you don’t just have to be a journalist to join the celebration. It’s for civic groups, government employees, and anyone who cares about maintaining our rights to access public information so that we can keep an eye on our government at all levels.

The California Public Records Act is  one of those powerful “hammers” the public can use to find out what the government is up to.

By Aliah Fabros / LomaBeat.com / March 1, 2024

If you travel down pot-hole-ridden Rosecrans, you’ll find La Playa Books — an independent used bookstore located six minutes away from campus. Upon opening their heavy wooden door, you’ll be greeted by the chime of a bell and that woody, slightly medicinal old-book smell.

By Rick Reilly / Washington Post / Feb. 5, 2024

Are you bummed you weren’t around when the Stasi ruled? Do you wish you could’ve been one of Mao Zedong’s millions of neighborhood snitches? Maybe watch the Red Guards drag off your least favorite aunt?

Not to worry, the bad old days are back — thanks to Nextdoor.com.

On Nextdoor all you have to do is sign up, log in and start profiling everyone on your block. Teenager in a hoodie walking on your street? Lock your doors. Black guy with a backpack standing on the corner? Call the cops.

Its new owner, Sinclair executive chairman David D. Smith, has pushed local TV news hard to the right. Will he do the same with newspapers — a medium he’s called “so left wing as to be meaningless dribble…so devoid of reality and serving no real purpose”?

By Joshua Benton / NiemanLab / Jan. 16, 2024

It’s a question only the bravest have dared contemplate: Is there something worse for a newspaper than being owned by Alden Global Capital?

The vulturous hedge fund has, after all, been traditionally seen as an end-stage owner. In the old days, newspaper owners existed in an ersatz great chain of being. Family-owned papers worried about being bought by McClatchy;

By Sara Blanche Hayes

The below comment was left on the news story CBS 8 San Diego made about the closing of OB Playhouse.

“Unchecked capitalism and straight up Greed!!! The state needs to cap this sh#t!!! Hopefully that spot sits open and nobody rents it…”

There are many others like it, full of disgruntled San Diegans railing against the lack of rental protections and the landlords who exploit this fact. They toss around phrases like price gouging and profits-over-people, expressing their anger and disappointment.

The board of Wildsong Productions was shocked at the outpouring of anger and love.

“We were hopeful, of course, that mainstream news coverage would help us in some way. We never expected this.” — Kannon Gowen, Technical Director of Wildsong Productions.

Please join the Ocean Beach Historical Society on Thursday evening January 18th as they kick off their 30th year of our free monthly lecture series.

Ocean Beach photographer Randy Dible will present a program of his own wonderful photos mixed with the great historic photos of his grandfather, San Diego photographer Robert Thompson, from his travels around the world in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s.

This news headline on local TV channel CBS8 proves the OB Rag is not the only news site that needs a proof reader. (The Rag is notorious for needing its posts proof read.)

This headline says Councilmember Cabrillo wants something to happen. Trouble is, there is no councilmember named “Cabrillo”. We do have a Cabrillo Monument and numerous other things named after the Spanish explorer and conquistador. But no one by that name on the city council.

Surfer Today / December 19, 2023

Progress and technology are often associated with quality of life and happiness, but they sure come with more or less various downsides.
Throughout the history of surfing, beach surf cameras have always been the subject of love-hate discussions and some serious attacks on private property.

By beach cams, we mean video cameras installed near beaches and surf spots seldom pointed toward the best wave peaks.

Back in the day, in the pre-Information Age (roughly before the 1950s), apart from tides, surfers knew little about what to expect from the ocean.

Here’s San Diego Magazine’s Neighborhood Guide to Ocean Beach – “Where to shop, eat, and play in the bohemian beach town,” (unedited) by Lili Kim.

Ocean Beach is the quintessential laid-back, free-spirited California beach town. While much of its retro culture has persisted through the decades, OB has also welcomed many modern restaurants, bars, and shops, attracting a new generation of food lovers and sandy surfers.

Here’s where to chow down, hang out, and gear up next time you’re wandering Newport Avenue and its nearby streets.

Part 1

By Frank Gormlie (Updated version of original published 10 years ago)

It’s been 60 years since the end of Camelot and we are told it was the end of the “idealism of the Sixties”.

Well, it has been sixty years, and it’s been 60 years of the Big Lie – the Big Lie that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman, and that Kennedy’s killer was then killed himself – which wraps it all up rather nicely, – case closed. The Big Lie is the Warren Commission Report – and all its apologists and defenders.