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Corporation stole local weekly weekly 

By Becky O’Mally 

The latest installment in the continuing saga of The Dumbing Down of Practically Everything showed up in East Bay free boxes last weekend. The almost-august and certainly respected East Bay Express, a reliable source of information and occasional good writing, has been transmogrified by its new corporate masters into a clone of the multiple cheap tacky tabloids that form the New Times chain.  

It now looks just like the SF Weekly, itself previously changed from an interesting alternative paper into a loud-mouthed throwaway vehicle for sex ads. We didn’t need this. 

As the weekend progressed, I got reviews from everyone. In Berkeley, everyone’s a critic, and they can be merciless. Civic gadfly Jim Sharp: “In a word, yuck!”  

Several friends noticed the prominent play given to letters praising high-rise development in Berkeley, with no balancing letters from opponents which had certainly been received by the old Express. That’s the same tack the SF Weekly takes, leading one commentator to suspect that the whole New Times chain is actually a front for real estate interests.  

An interesting theory, but I can’t confirm it, though the headline “Rent Stalinization Board” on a snippy story about rent control is telling. 

It doesn’t quite explain the other change that several people pointed out: coverage of classical music in the calendar listings has just about vanished. Unless it’s all part of a giant plot to replace us over-intellectual Berkeley fogies with brainless yahoos. It all fits together – first they shrink our brains, then they take our homes.  

Just like in “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” My science nerd friend, in support of this theory, complains that Cecil Adams, the entertaining answer man who writes about a variety of factual topics, has been replaced by SF Weekly’s Dan Savage, who writes about kinky sex. 

You can also tell a lot from the in-house ads. The new slogan, repeated in various display boxes, is: “...look’n good East Bay Express” (sic). Can’t even spell their feeble attempts at dialect slang. Also: an ad for a managing editor, “no phone calls or e-mails, please,” asking for replies to a Denver P.O. Box. One qualification: “a firm grasp of investigative reporting,” which in cheap throwaways frequently means, in the words of an experienced reporter of my acquaintance “start with a premise, then prove it by any means necessary.” 

Don’t get me wrong.  

I was once, in my callow youth, an investigative reporter myself. In fact, I wrote an investigative piece for the original authentic New Times (no relation, as far as I know), a short-lived seventies magazine that broke some important stories. And I even worked for the Bay Guardian for a while. But that’s how I know that, even though Bruce Brugman was sure right about PG&E, low-budget quick-and-dirty investigative reporting all too often produces more newsstand headlines than substantial documentation of real scandals.  

It would be nice to see some genuine investigative reporting coming out of the Express, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ve read the SF Weekly. 

And the format re-design by a “noted New York designer” and “the New Times design team”? Small print, big headlines, incomprehensible pull-quotes superimposed on fuzzy “arty” photos, much less space devoted to content... It speaks for itself: loud, brassy and incoherent. 

Wearing my mid-life entrepreneur’s hat, however, I see in the demise of the Express as we knew it the chance for a new publication to fill its market niche.  

The Daily Planet has done a great job of creating a newspaper for grownups in Berkeley, and there’s a parallel opportunity for re-creation of a middlebrow weekly with some pretensions to culture and substance.  

If the publishers of the Planet want to take it on as a magazine section, more power to them. Past local attempts at magazine/calendar publications for the Berkeley-Oakland audience could not compete with the successful East Bay Express, but now that New Times has bought the goose that laid the golden egg and killed it, someone should try again. 

Beth El builds community, needs Oxford space 

The Daily Planet received the following letter addressed to Mayor Shirley Dean: 

I write to urge you to support the decision of the Zoning Adjustments Board to grant Congregation Beth El a use permit for a new synagogue and school at 1301 Oxford St. 

Our modern west is the most individualistic society history has ever seen, and (to paraphrase the Gettysberg Address) it remains to be seen whether a society this individualistic can long endure.  

Its working premise is: go out into the world to fill your milk pail, and then retire into the privacy of your home to watch television or whatever.  

If a school, church, or synagogue creates more traffic and fewer parking spaces for me, all other considerations go by the board.  

This overlooks the profound contributions that institutions make to the building of communities. 

I am familiar with Beth El, having served as their Scholar-in-Residence a few years ago and through knowing several of their congregants.  

This lovely institution plays an important role in creating our quality Berkeley community. Its situation in the heart of our neighborhood and its many community outreach programs provide us a living, vibrant resource that enriches all our lives.  

Beth El and other institutions like it are the antidote to the ills of a self-centered world. 

Huston Smith 

Thomas J Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of  

Philosophy, Emeritus  

Syracuse University 

Visiting Professor of Religious Studies, Retired 

University of California, Berkeley 

Berkeley High School Truancy Policy 

Editor: 

Thank you very much for your coverage of Thursday’s Berkeley Unified School District board meeting and of the discussion of the proposed truancy policy at Berkeley High School.  

Ben Lumpkin’s article of Monday, July 9th thoroughly presented Youth Together’s proposed Peer Advocacy Program. However, I would like to clarify my statement that “People who are already used to not going to class probably will keep not going to class.” 

I intended for the statement to include “...without the help of the Peer Advocacy Program.” A major priority of Youth Together’s proposed Peer Advocacy Program is to encourage all students to attend class regularly. 

Thanks for keeping the community informed about this important issue. 

Immanuel Foster  

student, Berkeley High