SF Chronicle Food Section Fold-In: Recipe for Disaster?

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Reports in foodie-centric San Francisco that the award-winning Food section of the Hearst-Corp.-owned San Francisco Chronicle may be folded into a lifestyle section is stirring controversy, according to a report in yesterday's New York Times.

Chronicle Publisher Jeffrey Johnson would not comment in the Times article on reports that the Food section would combine with content from the Home section and be part of a lifestyle section tentatively called Artisan.  The Chronicle, a multiple winner of the James Beard Foundation award for stellar food coverage and perhaps the only daily that sells its own honey and maintains a roof garden and test kitchen in a building separate from the newsroom HQ, may be forced into the move--reportedly, by Feb. 2014-- by declining readership and dwindling ad page revenues.

Newspapers once provided food for thought, but among Chronicle readers, the thoughts are about food.

Golden Gate Bridge Meets SF Chronicle Paywall

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The Hearst Corp.-owned San Francisco Chronicle has erected a paywall for its digital edition SFChronicle.com, but SFGate.com will remain free to visitors, the daily announced today.

According to a report by Cnet.com, digital-only subscribers will be able to access online content for as little as $12 a month, though for the same price, readers can get online access plus home-delivery of the Sunday paper.  For $3.60 per week, subscribers may have digital access to SFChronicle.com plus Friday through Sunday delivery of the paper edition, and $5 a week will net Monday through Sunday delivery along with online access, Cnet.com reported.

Mark Adkins, president of the Chronicle and SFGate.com, wrote in a letter to readers: 

"Subscribers to the new website will find the newspaper's unrivaled content with brilliant photos, an uncluttered format and the familiar design of the Chronicle. Premium stories and columns will update and change with the news throughout the day. Subscribers also will have full access to the Chronicle's most enduring legacy — its columnists."

Hungarian Prez Beats Plagiarism Rap-sody

Pál Schmitt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Hungary's President, Pal Schmitt, must have a few pals among the five-member Semmelweis University committee who concluded Schmitt's  215-page, 1992 doctoral dissertation on the Olympic Games did not involve plagiarism by the nation's leader.

HVG, a Hungarian weekly magazine, created shockwaves last January when it claimed Schmitt's thesis included portions that had been copied from other writers' works, particularly in the wake of resignations a year earlier by Hungarian politicians Silvana Koch-Mehrin and Karl Theodorzu Guttenberg amid charges of plagiarism.

According to accounts by the Sofia News Agency, Novinite.com and the Associated Press and San Francisco Chronicle, the Semmelweis University panel exonerated Schmitt, though acknowledged the absence of footnotes and citations and slipshod bibliography in his work. HVG alleged 180 pages of the 215-page Schmitt thesis merely translated Bulgarian researcher Nikolai Georgiev's Analyse du programme olympique (des Jeux d'Olympiade), also written in 1992.

The five-member committee ruled Schmitt's dissertation "met the formal requirements of the time," according to the AP story. Schmitt in his youth earned two gold medals in fencing from the Summer Olympics. Some might allege that Schmitt is still engaged in fencing, only using stolen writings, instead of an epee, so it's good to have the Semmelweis University confirm the Hungarian paprika...er, paper... at issue, was Schmitt's own creation.

Alaska Corp. Drops Libel Suit Against Nonprofit Investigative Reporting Group

Image via WikipediaSuuluutaaq, Inc. and its CEO Samuel Boyle have abandoned their defamation action against the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting's CaliforniaWatch.org, according to a CaliforniaWatch article.

The case, Suuluutaaq, Inc. & Samuel Boyle v. Lance Williams, Center for Investigative Reporting & San Francisco Chronicle (Case No. 3:10-cv-00048), filed March 10, 2010, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, claimed an article written by California Watch senior reporter Lance Williams and published in the San Francisco Chronicle January 30, 2010, contained 11 offensive statements that defamed the company and its chief executive.

Suuluutaaq, an Alaskan corporation, received a $54 million federal stimulus contract to relocate the Napa Valley Wine Train tracks. The company had sought $24 million in damages, and Boyle, $8 million in damages from the defendants. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy M. Burgess last December dismissed much of the plaintiffs' claims as legally insuficient, according to California Watch.

Will SF Chronicle Erect Paywall or Golden Gate?

Image via WikipediaThe Hearst Corp-owned San Francisco Chronicle is moving closer to greeting visitors to its online edition with a paywall, according to the Bay Guardian and Medialifemagazine.com.

In contrast to the metered payment model recently introduced by The New York Times, the Chronicle is contemplating a "hard paywall" model that would charge online visitors for every article. Although the Chronicle has declined to confirm plans to charge online users, the Bay Guardian story said digital subscribers might be charged $9.99 a month. If the Hearst property follows the trend of other dailies, print edition subscribers would have free access to the online version.

Although no start-up date was mentioned by the Bay Guardian or Medialifemagazine.com, it is expected the Chronicle may introduce a paywall at the same time it debuts its iPad application, which could be as soon as the end of April.

Calif. High Court Gives SF Weekly Owner the Golden Gate

Image via WikipediaThe California Supreme Court this week refused to hear the appeal of Village Voice Media Holdings-owned SF Weekly's adverse ruling in the antitrust suit brought by rival weekly Bay Guardian, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com).

With only one of the seven-member high court willing to hear the appeal in Bay Guardian v. New Times Media (Case No. S186497), the $21 million judgment against the defendant for attempting to shut down the Bay Guardian by selling its own ad space below cost.  The California Supreme Court rejected the defendant's argument that its low advertising rate constituted legitimate business competition that was a boon to local businesses.

Both the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly are free publications heavily reliant on advertising revenue for their existence. In 2008, a jury found for the homegrown Bay Guardian, awarding $6.2 million in damages against the defendant for illegal predatory pricing (114 Cal. Rptr. 3d 392 (2008)). The verdict was upped to $16 million by the trial judge pursuant to antitrust law penalties, and interest accrued brought the total award to $21 million.  An appeals court subsequently allowed the Bay Guardian to collect half of SF Weekly's ad revenue in partial satisfaction of the judgment.