Blog Posts for Phil Bronstein

A Cool, Not Cold Guy: Remembering David Brown

Phil Bronstein — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:49:36 -0800

We were sitting at the Slanted Door down on the Embarcadero a few years ago, watching a procession of young, swan-like and striking women walk languidly by to their tables. There are lots of beautiful San Franciscans but this was weird, like there was a runway model convention in town. Only they seemed to be arriving separately, with boyfriends, parents, other statuesque women. It was endless. ...

Keeping your New Year's resolution is a matter of national security...

Phil Bronstein — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:49:28 -0800

Full-body scans are like your first visit to a nude beach. Or Barack Obama's first year in office: unreasonably high expectations dashed by dumpy, lumpy pedestrian reality. We should thank Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz for pushing an amendment earlier this year banning full-body airport scans. At least someone is showing a little taste in the stampede to make people look at other ...

The whole truth, and nothing but -- now open for negotiation?

Phil Bronstein — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:44:48 -0800

"In the 21st century, can facts matter?" Good question from Mitch Kapor, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, at a UC Berkeley forum on the Future of the Forum last weekend. "How do we make facts matter? Or is that hopeless?" Ouch. More potential bad news for journalists searching for their future value, and also for the public hoping to sort out the massive scrum of ...

Eye on the Tiger. OR: Will the real Phil Bronstein please stand up?

Phil Bronstein — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:33:28 -0800

There's a Tiger Woods lesson in here somewhere. I had a great time at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington the other night. Or I might have, if I'd been there. But, wait, I was there. Even though I was also here in San Francisco, 3,000 miles away AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME! I love the new digital world, where anything, as Google engineers will tell you, is possible. And I also have sympathy and ...

When's a crash like a train wreck? When we can't look away...

Phil Bronstein — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:34:14 -0800

Free the White House 2! And Tiger, too. In the film, "The Paper," Michael Keaton's editor character explains to a reporter that you can always get past a police barricade or most other obstacles "with a clipboard and a confident manner." Tareq and Michaele Salahi were just extending the concept, leavening one of Washington's most tony events with a little Punk'd of ...

Obama & Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- if one branch is good, two must be better?

Phil Bronstein — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:35:56 -0800

ot every president in the last 35 years has considered Richard Nixon a role model. But our current POTUS seems to. When the darkly fascinating Mr. Nixon declared Charles Manson guilty of murder before that 1970 trial was over, there was only a small intake of national breath. What about that whole innocent-until-proven-otherwise thing that's woven into our national fabric? As with most things ...

Has Gavin Slipped from Ringmaster to Slideshow?

Phil Bronstein — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:40:06 -0800

Here's the burning San Francisco mayoral political question of the day: Where are Larry and Moe? The Gavin Newsom drama has gone downright absurdist on us. This poor guy is tripping over his laces and running into so many walls it's stopped being funny. You might have a guilty giggle watching someone take a tumble on an icy sidewalk, but not if it's an infirm, homeless kid. Has Gavin Newsom ...

The original power couple emerges again with Hillary on top...

Phil Bronstein — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:33:43 -0800

Barack and Michele Obama, the couple, continue to captivate the public and the press, most recently in the cover story of the NYTimes Sunday magazine: "The first marriage. It's modern, it's a formidable international brand and it's an ongoing negotiation." Sounds like a reality show promo to me. Behind the scenes with those sleek and powerful Obamas. The First Lady's Halloween leopard ...

New York Times responds to "liberal" borrowing policy question...

Phil Bronstein — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:42:57 -0700

I like the tussle of digital world commmenting, as nasty and angry and messy as it can get. There are also endless tips, suggestions, ideas and other useful things in comments sections that may be bad for the ego but good for journalism. I've tried to have a fairly transparent inbox on this blog and have responded both to commenters and to people whose names show up in the post itself. Today, the ...

All work, no play makes us all dull: Who will replace Jack as THE bad boy?

Phil Bronstein — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:54:57 -0700

I'm thrilled to see they cut some slack for that criminal kid who brought the camping utensil to school. He got off with time served. Maybe next year, when he's seven, he'll understand the rules better. The whole episode seems to reflect one of those cultural shifts: a larger intolerance level for behavior considered inappropriate. We could include Roman Polanski in there, especially since the ...