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| Audrey Cooper, Chron EIC (left) and Leah Garchik |
Even when the Chronicle was daily lampooned and ridiculed (rightly so) it could still boast a pretty damn good staple of columnists --Herb Caen, Art Hoppe and the like. I wasn't a Jon Carroll fan because he constantly wrote about his cat but his writing style was fairly solid.
Now?
The Chronicle is so, so lame. There isn't one decent columnist I look forward to reading unless its in the sports dept. and Scott Ostler is worthy of a glance, occasionally Bruce Jenkins.
If Leah Garchik is considered the woman Herb Caen we're all SOL. I can't read the other scribblers because they aren't interesting. Peter Hartlaub? Gimme a break. What an amateur.
Mick LaSalle on Sunday and his Friday movie reviews are worthy of reading. Everyone else? Yuck.
I agree with you....the news is so old when you get the hard copy version.....
ReplyDeleteOne more thing.....I haven't seen you say anything good about the news media for a long long time....
Since we live in the Bay Area, we have to except the news media whether good or bad.
Funny, I always thought LaSalle was an idiot, especially compared with real critics of journalism's bygone days such as Desmond Ryan, Pauline Kael and Judith Crist.
ReplyDelete7:07 -- completely agree. LaSalle is maybe the worst film critic writing for a major paper. Hates what everyone else loves and vice-versa, and enjoys having that reputation. And for a guy who's a published "film scholar", he gets a lot of facts wrong. And when they were forcing him (and everyone else on staff) to write a blog -- OMG the awfulness!
DeleteOh Rich, stop belittling Leah Garchik. Haven't you noticed how nice her teeth are.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't read Kevin Fisher-Paulson's column every Wednesday, you are missing out. He is a terrific writer and a wonderful storyteller. Check it out.
ReplyDeleteLeah GArchik is not anyone other than Leah Garchik. Why would you assert that she wants to be someone she is not? Herb Caen has been dead for eons.Don't you try to affect his style?That never works.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Peter Fong-Torres!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhy can't the San Fransico Chronicle hire a minority for it's socialite columnist ?
ReplyDeleteCurrently being held by a women who will give you only the White Liberal point of view.
Another perfect example of a Lame One-Sided SF Chronicle Columnist is their East Bay Columnist Otis Taylor a progressive who twice a week reports on issues related to diversity & equality in the East Bay. Politically speaking I'm an independent moderate who willingly listens to both sides of the political spectrum but in the case of Otis Taylor all his columns were predictable hard-core left wing rants primarily about the ways oppressed black/brown folks were continually being enslaved & kept down by the white man their oppressors. Since May 31 Taylor has only written 2 other columns one on July 11 & the other on August 5. Either Mr. Taylor is on hiatus or as you most aptly said "hardly any columnist at the SF Chronicle is no longer worthy of reading." Rich--I absolutely love your blog!
ReplyDeleteOtis Taylor is gone? I hadn’t noticed.
ReplyDeleteThe Comical (known by all who read Herb Caen as the Daily Fishwrap)has been an armpit for decades. Even when they inherited all the REAL examiner's photographers (a limit-out if one was ever known in newspaper photography)but especially Judy Calson and John Storey.
ReplyDeleteNow they have a bunch of millennials, Mike Macor and Carlos Avila Gonzalez, both good, but not in the aforementioned's class. Columnists? I never read the comical for words since Meredith May became a book author.
Bay area print journalism is dead. Dead as Waylon Jennings, George Jones and Little Jimmie Dickens.
Newspaper columnists are the modern day version of dinosaurs slipping into the tarpits. Perhaps some day there will be some historical interest in their demise, but otherwise nobody cares.
ReplyDelete