Phil Bronstein's Blog
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Jul.21.2008
Does this bring to mind any IT professionals you know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqeC3BPYTmE
Apparently SF tech engineer Terry Childs can't find the password to open his jail cell door. But he definitely figured out the key to chilling hearts.
Childs is accused of hijacking the city computer...
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Jul.18.2008
The newspaper business is struggling. That's not news, though newspapers seem to write so much about their own possible demise there just ought to be permanent black borders around the business pages.
Maybe things are inexorably grim and maybe they're not. There's a lot of talent at newspapers, and...
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Jul.18.2008
Will they or won't they? Suspense builds. The clock is ticking down the hours and minutes till the mixed metaphor window closes for good.
Nothing short of the integrity of Muni is at stake here. Will they make it on time and redeem themselves? Or will they stumble into the murky pit of...
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Jul.17.2008
Wednesday was sizzling and steamy in DC, but I got to spend most of it in the cool corridors of the Capitol, surrounded by lots of marble, statuary and history. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reclined -- reflective, loose and folksy -- in his sitting room underneath portraits of John Kennedy and...
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Jul.14.2008
Here's a piece of clearly newsworthy news from this last Sunday's New York City Times Sunday Arts & Leisure section:
Famous man looks his age.
Slow the presses! Is it really news because someone looks as old as they really are? What does this say about cultural expectations these days? Women...
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Jul.11.2008
It's been a busy summer - fires, politics, gay marriage, "Weeds" back on TV. But just say the name "Ed Jew" and we're instantly transported back in time a year or so ago to the scandal and disbelief over the former Supervisor's weird disappearing act blown into headlines...
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Jul.10.2008
This is about money. And doing what you say you're going to do.
It's only a quarter involved, it's not a $100 tank of gas or the $9.7 trillion national debt. But those quarters can add up to bigger numbers and, besides, if you promise someone a quarter, you should give them a quarter.
In this case...
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Jul.09.2008
Some of my best friends are lawyers. No, really. And they have great integrity in their work and their lives. But attorneys are with politicians and journalists down at the bottom of the public's popularity list.
So it was no shock when Hans Reiser's lawyer, William Du Bois, got excoriated by...
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Jul.08.2008
At a mellow Sunday evening dinner this last weekend, I raised a glass to the recently late Jesse Helms, shocking some of the other guests. For me, Sen. Helms' death was like a snap back to some old school reality, like being reminded of a solid, green-tinted Coke bottle in a world of diet and...
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Jul.07.2008
Are we soggy enough yet?
There's the serious debate, discussion and outrage over water boarding (Is it torture that should be forbidden? "Just" mentally excruciating but not the same as cigarette burns, bamboo shoots under the nails or joints being crushed one by one?).
Then there's the...
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Jul.02.2008
Cyclists, bi and otherwise, take note: The City of Alameda was about to take away your very right to pedal. This was no mere stop sign stink. This was existential.
But freedom of travel in the parks and other city-owned areas for what the Alameda City Council called, oddly, any conveyance "...
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Jul.01.2008
On the way to this blog post I used the last remaining hours of personal freedom to endanger the lives of my fellow drivers, tear up the patience of the guy behind me and break a future law. My car was littered with more evidence than Anna Nicole Smith's bedside table (or Marilyn Monroe's before...
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Jun.27.2008
If the Keystone Kops had lived in the electronic era, their slapstick silliness would have included San Francisco's security surveillance cameras.
Yesterday, a Board of Supervisors' committee voted to cut funding for the cameras. If the full Board approves the cut, our reporter Wyatt Buchanan...
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Jun.26.2008
Rockwall County, Texas assistant district attorney Louis William Conradt might have been pleased by today's Supreme Court ruling allowing handguns in the home for purposes of self-defense.
After all, Conradt was clearly defending himself against NBC-TV when he blew his own brains out at his home in...
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Jun.24.2008
"Facts aren't the truth," said Clarence Barron, a co-founder of the Wall Street Journal. "They just indicate where the truth may lie." A great lesson for journalists, or anyone else, who might mistake facts for truth.
Think of your own life and all the factual details of your...
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About Phil
Phil Bronstein was Executive Vice President and Editor-at-Large of Hearst Newspapers Division and the San Francisco Chronicle until becoming Executive Chairman of the CIR, the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2012.
As Editor-at-Large, Bronstein was...
Causes Phil Bronstein Supports
Good Ones; anything involving the possibility of redemption.
Phil’s Favorite Books
“Death in the Family” by Philip Agee
Short Stories by H.E. Bates (not the novels)