Thursday, February 11, 2010
Berkeley Daily Planet to Cease Print Publication
Media / People / Business Robert Gammon — Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 10:30 AM
The Berkeley Daily Planet, devastated by the recession and by a payroll fraud scheme, will stop publishing its print edition at the end of this month and become an online-only publication, the paper’s owners, Becky and Mike O’Malley wrote in an editorial today. In addition, it’s not clear how long that the Planet’s web-only edition will remain in business. The O’Malleys wrote that they would use the remaining money from a fundraising campaign to stay afloat. But they did not say what will happen when those funds run out.
In addition to being hit hard by the recession, the O’Malleys acknowledged that their news content hurt their relationship with advertisers. Although they stopped short of admitting it, the Planet’s sometimes anti-business bent alienated the Berkeley business community.
But that wasn’t the only cause of the paper’s downfall. It was also hurt by a campaign from a group of East Bay Zionists who attempted to convince advertisers to boycott the Planet because it often printed readers’ opinion pieces that were critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
In addition, the Planet was rocked by an alleged fraud scheme perpetrated by its payroll contractor. The O’Malleys revealed today that the payroll contractor had allegedly pocketed funds that were supposed to be used for state and federal taxes for the past five years.
Comments (4)
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The fact of the matter is that The Berkeley Daily Planet is taking advantage of Clickbooks-Globalestaff which has been equally hit hard by the economy.
The Berkeley Daily Planet has launched a rotten assault against its victim
"Clickbooks" and its former owner Bill Norgren in an attempt to dig itself out of its own financial pitfalls and mismanagement. Clickbooks has been operating since Y2K as a legitimate payroll contractor providing employment and creating jobs for the several employess of Clickbooks who have been with the company since Bill entered the business.
As any business that goes out of business, and it appears the daily planet is getting a taste of what it must be like and what clickbooks has suffered in its ordeal and inability to continue to function.
The problem the Berkeley Daily Planet faces will be a countersuit for libel and slander and it faces those charges from each and every individual it has named. The berkeley Daily Planet has named all of the employees as alleged co-conspirators in its super grand fraud story, and the business owner has been completely mischaracterized as a criminal....and it had better watch its step trying to implicate innocent family members , friends, or former employees. Let alone naming them in the press against all rules of conduct of confidentiality and protecting the innocent in the case. Because those are also separate cases and there are privacy violations to consider.
I tried to get several articles written in the Daily Planet about its victimization of Clickbooks all of which were rejected and refused, I even called and they denied even recieving any articles on the matter. WAY TO GO.....Censor everything that affects you but exploit your victim.
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Like I always say, if you keep on pushing the margins, you eventually run out of paper. BDP got too radical in its content for their advertisers to stomach, so they left, as did all but the most loyal readers. You may be proud of your free speech, but that doesn't mean a whole lot if you can't exercise editorial good judgment to be able to afford to keep your words in print.
EBCJR's delicate parsing of their attempt to influence advertisers in the Daily Planet is in ironic counterpoint to their inability to distinguish hate speech, and anti-semitic comments, from legitimate debate over Israeli policy and it's treatment of the Palestinian population in Israel. Discussion and criticism over these policies and practices is no more anti-Israel, than is criticism of America's role in the Iraq war de facto anti-America. If The Daily Planet's editorializing and publication of letters critical of Israel's government were simply and plainly anti-semitic, why then would so many East bay Jews rally in support of the Planet, to the extent of taking out full-page advertisements expressing that support? Free speech is not always pleasant, not always well received, and of course not immune to criticism. It is, however, at the very heart of democracy, and the Daily Planet's honoring of that right is as admirable as it is sadly far too uncommon in jouralism and elsewhere.
An item in your article about the demise of the Berkeley Daily Planet deserves two corrections: First, the campaign by East Bay Jews against the Planet was motivated by the paper's incessant printing of anti-Semitic content---hate speech---not its incessant anti-Israel content. Second, the campaign expressly did not advocate a boycott of the paper by advertisers, but rather advised advertisers that appearing in such a tainted publication was bad for their business.
Jim Sinkinson
East Bay Citizens for Journalistic Responsibility
Oakland, CA
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