How can anyone trust the San Francisco Chronicle? (Commentary)

November 25, 2007
San Francisco

Maybe some hard-nosed people might tell me to "go get a life". Fair enough-- I suppose there may be better ways that I could spend my time than surfing the internet reading news-- but trying to figure out why some of it spreads while other news simply vanishes has become an obsession of mine.

Not only is reading the news an obsession, but reporting news is a compulsion. This is true especially when I think that something happening (which might never be reported by anyone else) is important enough for more people to know about.

Such was the case yesterday afternoon when I happened to be at Union Square when a number of activists appeared with flags and signs to protest Pakistan's Dictator-General Pervez Musharraf.

Without thinking too much, I automatically began to ask questions and snap some photos with an old camera which I try to always carry with me.

To my amazement, some of the protesters kept asking me if I had seen any other press. I told them no, and their disappointment was obvious. They had hoped that the mainstream media would be there to cover their story.

By the time I got home I was weary and wondered if I would have the energy to sort through my photos, format them, and write the descriptions that would help make them comprehensible. But even though I had more pressing things to do for myself-- I knew that this story had to be told because elsewhere in the world peoples lives might well be at stake. There are so many things constantly happening in this busy world, but yesterday I had learned things that no one else knew-- or would likely know (so I've since learned to my chagrin). Nevertheless, I was compelled to post my story:

"Pakistan's Enduring Strife Echoes in San Francisco"
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/25/18463311.php

Errors and all, I finally was able to upload this story to Indybay.org sometime after midnight. I then did what I could to address the story's most consequential error by writing a comment-- and then I went to bed.

This morning after reading other news-- I was curious to see what had become of my story. Using Google, I searched for San Francisco news related to Pakistan. To my surprise, only two articles about the protest at Union Square turned up using the famous search engine-- both were San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate) stories. The first (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/24/BALCTI2S8.DTL) reported about the plans for the protest, the second amazingly reported that if the protest had taken place-- the Chronicle reporters could not find it!

In the second, Rachel Gordon writing for the Chronicle wrote: "If there was, as planned, a protest in Union Square Saturday against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, the participants did a mighty good job blending into the crowd of holiday shoppers." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/25/BARVTILAH.DTL

Having been there and seen and heard the protest for myself-- I simply was flabbergasted by what I read! Had anyone been near Union Square, they could hardly have missed the protesters waving signs and flags, calling out on a bullhorn, and shouting.

I could only guess that the Chronicle's assigned reporter had missed them because the protesters arrived a little after three pm (the time the protest was scheduled to start). But hadn't the Chronicle itself, in the first article, reported the time of the protest to take place between 3 and 5 pm? Couldn't the Chronicle reporters have called someone to find out more-- if indeed they totally missed seeing the protesters? Obviously, they hadn't bothered, or had given up without hardly trying.

This is where this commentary gets interesting.

Anyone who reads Chronicle news at SFGate knows that the Chronicle's web portal allows readers to comment on stories. Using my alias, "alabamarasta", I posted a comment to Rachel Gordon's story, saying:

"Maybe the news here is that your reporters were asleep. The protesters arrived a little bit late, but your reporters were gone and did not bother to find out more. Go to indybay.org for the story."

This evening, I again became curious as to whether or not the story of the protesters at Union Square had been picked up by Google or not. To my surprise, it had not. Google continued to link to only two stories-- the same SFGate ones which I have mentioned. Google's search engine had (as yet) not recognized my story at Indybay at all.

I returned to the SFGate story by Rachel Gordon where my comment remained-- the only one. That is strange, I thought. Maybe Pakistan's troubles are not as as relevant to the Chronicle's readers as say, C.W. Nevius' stories about needles in the park, or stories about the Blue Angels (stories which typically get hundreds of comments).

Sigh. Oh well.

That is the way things go.

I wondered how people were faring in Pakistan where thousands had been arrested prior to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's return to that country.
I read about events going on there for awhile, and then I wondered what breaking news might be happening in San Francisco.

Using Google again-- I discovered something which was personally shocking. It was an article titled: "San Francisco Chronicle Tricks Bloggers And Trolls." http://www.anorak.co.uk/twitterings/177919.html

In it there was a link to a blogger's story (http://investigatethemedia.blogspot.com/2007/11/san-francisco-chronicle-deceives-its.html) which explains that SFGate has a method to (for whatever reason) delete readers' comments-- and get this: allow the comment to remain visible only to the person that posted it!

Ostensibly, this ability is used to thwart troublemakers-- but I can prove here that it is used quite capably to deceive readers. I would learn for certain that it had deceived me!

Instead of returning to Rachel Gordon's story using my Firefox, or Opera web browser-- I accessed the SFGate article site using Dillo (a fast, no-frills open-source browser). Rachel Gordon's article about not finding the Union Square protesters remained the same-- but surprise! surprise! My comment was gone (SFGate did not recognize the Dillo browser and thought that I might be a new reader.)

Interestingly, there was a message instead that said: "Be the first to share your thoughts on this story....
Sorry, comments are closed for this story."

How many of SFGate's readers have read that message all day? I wondered. If they had never read my comment, they would all have been misinformed. The truth is that SFGate did not cover the story of the protesters. It actually told a story that if there was a story-- they could not find it!

As I write this now-- I wonder in what other ways the Chronicle misleads or deceives its readers. How can anyone trust the newspaper?

If sincere but uncomfortable comments can be erased-- can others be created out of whole-cloth? Like the hundreds of comments that extol the Chronicle's editorial perspective on various issues-- such as who is more trustworthy Gavin Newsom or Chris Daly?

I would mention that comments are routinely erased at other websites because they violate rules that readers agree to. But to hide uncomfortable comments such as mine smacks me as bad faith at best, and as a cover-up and deception at worst.

Perhaps I am making a mountain out of a mole-hill. It is said that some of the world's best journalists have admitted that they occasionally wrote reviews about plays or concerts that they never attended (being found out only after a theater burns down calling off the show).

I would appreciate an apology from the Chronicle-- and a promise to be more transparent about the way it allows its comments to be posted and read. I will post a comment update here if that ever happens. If I am in error with regard to any of my facts I will apologize right away, and try to set the record straight. I will post such a correction here as a comment if that is necessary.

Now I just have one question left that bothers me... why hadn't Google's search engine ever recognized my story at Indybay even while it continued to promote SFGate's non-story?

How well can Google be trusted?