Opinion

A sharp critic of the controversial settlement agreement between the city and UC Berkeley was dismissed from the Housing Advisory Commission Friday, the same day a page-long commentary bashing the deal which she signed appeared in the Berkeley Daily Planet. -more-

Last Sunday Sylvia Paull organized one of her often-stimulating Cybersalon programs at the Hillside Club. She e-mails invitations to a long list of people, offers a buffet supper, and invites panelists to spark a general discussion among her guests. I was asked to be part of a panel called “Got News? Citizen Journalism.” The other guests were Dan Gillmor, who gave up his tech column at the San Jose Mercury News to start his own interactive-journalism venture, www.Bayosphere.com and Peter Merholz, who founded the Beast Blog, a group blog described by Sylvia as covering “everything of note in the East Bay.” Her invitation alluded to the idea that technology was now making grassroots journalism possible. “With organic publications like these, who needs the artificially flavored New York Times?” she said. -more-