COMMUNITY ACTIVISM

Meetings with the San Jose Mercury News

July 2005

April 2005

Members enjoy monthly speakers

San Jose Mercury News Meeting
July 2005

On July 27, members of the Media Committee, Richard Geno, Jack Ward, and Jack Mallory interviewed, Steve Wright, Editorial Page Writer and Vice President of the San Jose Mercury. The purpose of the meeting was to learn about how the editorial page operates and to discuss media bias issues. This was the second meeting with the Mercury. The first was held on Feb 12, 2005 with Executive Editor and Vice President of the Mercury News, Susan Goldberg, and two members of her staff.

It was a good open meeting that covered many questions about how the Mercury operates it editorial page including the Letters to the Editor. Steve Wright has been in this assignment for 30 days, but has been with the Mercury locally for about 20 years on news side of the newspaper.

Mr. Wright said the focus of the editorial section and the news section is on local news, not the national news. He said the opinions of the Editorial page are those of the Editorial Staff including publisher, George Riggs. These people are listed on the editorial page. Steve calls the editorial staff the corporate citizen voice. It gives the community the views of the Mercury. He also said the opinions of the newspapers owned by the corporation vary by the editorial staff.

His editorial staff includes six writers who have specialties. They include: Barbara Marshman, state government; Ed Clendaniel, health; John Fensterwald, education and Supreme Court; Miguel Helft, technology; Daniel Vasquez, gang issues; and Tom Mangan; copy editor and designer.

Steve plans to move the liberal slant of the editorial section from 70 to 30 percent to more like 60 to 40 percent. This is not to be done with a change in staff, but a stronger emphasis on balance and insuring both sides of the opinions are given. He wants to have more inclusion to the writing. For example, David Yarnold, his predecessor, brought in David Hansen, a conservative, as a guest writer.

Steve said the newspaper has and will continue to have a liberal slant. He implied this is a liberal area. We did not get heavily into the issues due to time. When asked, he said he would welcome us back to discuss a specific issue.

As far as who selects the titles for the editorials, it is Tom Mangan who is the copy editor and designer. Mr. Mangan also selects the highlighted quotes.

When asked if he feels that the editorial pages are mainline positions, Steve found it difficult to answer the question. He then responded that their editorials were the position they believed was right and not either side, liberal or conservative. We commented that mainline was a term used by the newspaper, and not our term.

As far as who is responsible for Letters to the editor, it is editorial writer, Dan Vasquez. They get 300 letters a week so they need to select which letters get published. Mr. Wright said there is also a new online newspaper where they publish all letters to the editor except those that are overboard due to racism, pornography, etc. This just started about 2 weeks ago earlier.

We were provided guidelines on letters to the editor (150 words) and guest op/ed pieces (600 words). He opened the door for us to write a "well written" op/ed article. We did talk briefly about the new online Mercury, and the potential of submitting more uncensored and a higher quantity of opinions.

We were pleased with the willingness of the Mercury to sit down and discuss issues of concern to us but remain unhappy with the admitted liberal bias of the editorial department.

“Meetups” are groups that organize online around a common interest and meet offline. Much to the surprise of the liberal Meetup.com founders, one of the fastest growing groups is sponsored by TownHall.com, the conservative news and information site backed by the Heritage Foundation. The Silicon Valley TownHall group has become one of the largest in the nation and has officially become known as The Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley.

Taking on the San Jose Mercury News
April 2005

As a non-partisan issues-based group, 15 members volunteered to form a Media Committee to determine what could be done to encourage the Mercury News to provide more balanced (less left leaning) reporting. Over several months, through much patience and persistence, the Media group secured a meeting with Susan Goldberg, the Executive Editor of the paper.

In preparation for that meeting, the committee:

• Found that 70% of the Townhall members did not subscribe to the Mercury News because it’s reporting is perceived as liberal, but they might be willing to subscribe if the paper was more balanced.
  
• Collected a very large stack of articles from the Mercury News, illustrating each of 8 ways to recognize newspaper bias.
  
• Scripted a presentation and spent hours rehearsing to maximize their allotted time. They prepared for the worst!
  

Being prepared paid off! Susan Goldberg and members of her staff were very interested in what the group had to say. Not surprisingly, she was shocked that the Mercury News was viewed as being so far left and that 70% of Townhall’s members refused to subscribe. Ms. Goldberg asked the group to report instances of left bias to her in real time…and, complained that the Mercury did not have any conservative sources.