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| Ainsworth |
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Rita Williams said farewell to Channel 2 viewers last night after 35 years with the station and a remarkable career that blazed a trail for other women reporters in what was once a male-dominated business.
She told The Almanac, the paper serving her hometown of Portola Valley, that she considers herself to be tenacious, but also sees herself as bringing a woman’s feeling and warmth to her reporting.
In an era when reporters have short careers and bounce around from station to station, it’s unusual for Williams to have been at Channel 2 for 35 years.
“Most women who started with me back then stopped doing it. It was a tough business, lots of barriers, lots of discrimination. Sometimes, people would do their best to get rid of you. So you just worked harder than any of the guys, and you showed them you can do it, and you just did it,” she said, according to a story posted on the KTVU website.
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| Williams in the 1980s |
- She recalls a news conference she covered after a child was murdered. "I remember waiting until all the guys finished yelling their questions, and I knew the police chief had kids, and asked, 'How did this case affect you?' He teared up and said, 'This is the hardest case in my 39 years; I have a kid the same age, and it hurts.'" That turned out to be the quote most of the newsmen used in their stories.
- Another memorable story she tells is running onto the Bay Bridge minutes after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, wondering if she was putting her own life in danger, spending the night there, and then reporting on the situation from another live location well into the next day. She also witnessed the last gas chamber execution at San Quentin in 1993.
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| Williams in the early 2000s |
“Most women who started with me back then stopped doing it. It was a tough business, lots of barriers, lots of discrimination. Sometimes, people would do their best to get rid of you. So you just worked harder than any of the guys, and you showed them you can do it, and you just did it,” she said, according to a story posted on the KTVU website.
Monday, 25 February 2013
Tuesday, 12 February 2013
The estate of Jack and Emma Anderson — whose Globe Printing Co. printed San Jose State's student newspaper, the Spartan Daily, for two decades beginning in the 1950s — has donated $7.8 million to the school's journalism department. The Mercury News' Sal Pizarro reports that the money will be used to create an endowment, fund infrastructure improvements and establish a Center for New Media and Social Media Research.
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| Harry Press |
According to an obit from Stanford, he was the managing director of the university's Professional Journalism Fellowships (PJF) Program. Harry Press' son, Tony, told the Stanford News Service that the last few weeks had been hard on his father and all of the family after the recent death of his daughter Lindi Press.
Press graduated from Stanford in 1939 and worked on the Anaheim Bulletin, Palo Alto Times, SanFrancisco News, where he was city editor, and San Francisco News–Call Bulletin. Here’s the Chronicle’s obit. (Photo credit: Chuck Painter, Stanford News Service)
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| Jack Fischer |
As a reporter, he wrote an award-winning 1991 series on guard brutality against inmates at the Santa Clara County Department of Corrections. He did feature stories on such topics as the reopening of San Francisco's de Young Museum and downtown San Jose's Green Rice Art Gallery, a small space exhibiting works by local Vietnamese artists.
"I've worked with several art critics, including some fairly respected hotshots at the L.A. Times," said Tony Lioce, a former Mercury News assistant features editor who worked with Fischer, "and, of them all, none would get as excited, touched, moved or thrilled as Jack, whenever he'd find something worthy in a gallery or museum. He saw the task of conveying that pure joy as a sacred trust." (Photo credit: The Fischer family via the Merc)
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Police and the Contra Costa Times are investigating how a newspaper hold list ended up in the hands of suspected burglars who used it to target homes while families were on vacation.
The Times reports that the list was recovered in Livermore earlier this month inside a car stolen from a Walnut Creek home. The home was included on the list. Two men were arrested in Livermore in connection with the burglary, and police say they were outside a second home they intended to burglarize.
On Jan. 30, the LA Times reported that four men were arrested on suspicion of burglarizing the homes of its subscribers who were on vacation. The burglars allegedly stole $1 million in property over the last three years.
The unanswered question in both cases is how did the burglars get the list? Did they hack the newspapers’ computer systems or have help from an employee?
The Times reports that the list was recovered in Livermore earlier this month inside a car stolen from a Walnut Creek home. The home was included on the list. Two men were arrested in Livermore in connection with the burglary, and police say they were outside a second home they intended to burglarize.
On Jan. 30, the LA Times reported that four men were arrested on suspicion of burglarizing the homes of its subscribers who were on vacation. The burglars allegedly stole $1 million in property over the last three years.
The unanswered question in both cases is how did the burglars get the list? Did they hack the newspapers’ computer systems or have help from an employee?
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| ESCARSEGA |
Saturday, 2 February 2013
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| Rodgers |
Rodgers began his broadcasting career at WIND in Chicago in 1963 as a disc jockey and sportscaster, followed by stints at stations in St. Louis and Miami. He was the evening host on KGO 810 for 10 years. He went north to KIRO in Seattle for a year and then returned to San Francisco in 1996 to take over the morning show on KGO's conservative sister station KSFO. In 2010, he was forced out of his job.
"After 25 years with ABC in San Francisco (KGO & KSFO) I was pushed into retirement by Farid Suleman of Citadel last year," he wrote in 2011. "He thought I was making too much money (upper six figures) and there was unhappiness that I took a harsh line against Muslim terrorism. Since trade gossip has it that Cumulus, the new owners of ABC Radio, will make Farid look like Mother Teresa, I'm glad to be out of the industry and living happily in Arizona."
"Lee Rodgers was a real radio guy," said Jack Swanson, Rodgers former boss at KSFO and KGO. "He worked very hard, didn't always play well with other children, but always made our industry proud."
Bruce Kyse, publisher of The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, says his paper will start endorsing candidates again. The PD had endorsed candidates for all offices until last year, when it was purchased by the Halifax Media Group, which has a no-endorsement policy. Halifax has since sold the paper to a group of local investors, and Kyse said the no-endorsement policy has been dropped. Kyse says endorsements will return as early as Tuesday with a recommendation for a vacancy on the Santa Rosa City Council.
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