A media icon of progressive Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, has shut down. The staff was called in today and told the Oct. 15 issue will be its last. Just before the meeting, editors found their e-mail, Twitter and Facebook accounts deactivated. The Bay Guardian started in 1966, a year before the Summer of Love, and covered San Francisco and Berkeley through the free speech era, the anti-Vietnam War era, the emergence of gay rights and the Dan White murders, through the gentrification wars right up to the recent changes in San Francisco wrought by technology billions. The operating slogan was to “print the news and raise hell.” The Bay Guardian survived a move by rival alt weekly owners from the Phoenix New Times chain to squeeze the older paper out of business, but in 2012 founders Bruce Brugmann and Jean Dibble stepped down and agreed to be bought out by the parent company of the SF Examiner, which later bought the SF Weekly as well.Back when I worked in the world of alternative weekly newspapers (good times!), the Bay Guardian was considered a powerhouse in the field, along with New York’s Village Voice. It’s a shame to see it collapse just at a time when we could all use more “real,” energetic journalism in the world, as opposed to the sketchy, free-for-all sort of amateur reporting now being spread by so many news blogs of one sort or another.
READ MORE: “The Bay Guardian Shuts Down,” by Tim Redmond
(48 Hills).
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