Careers: Early Years
5.3.24
One October day in 1971, I drove an old Chevy van up Fell Street to the Fillmore in San Francisco, on the final leg of a cross-county trek, and started my post-college journalism career after a two year hiatus in the Peace Corps.
A small group of us started a magazine called SunDance at 1913 Fillmore Street. It was a large-format magazine, with big graphics and long articles on the intersection of post-Sixties politics and culture.
Actually, it was pure-Sixties in its sensibility; we just didn't know yet that that era was finished. SunDance had an eclectic list of writers and artists, none more famous than John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who also gave us some money. When they came to visit the office and share stimulants with us, we knew we'd been blessed by the gods.
Alas, none of us knew what a business plan was, and SunDance lasted all of three issues, though glorious issues they were.
A few years later, I landed across town at Rolling Stone, at 625 Third Street, where celebrities of every stripe poured through the office, and the stimulation never ended. Not being a music writer, I rarely hung out with musicians, but a small group of us formed an ad-hoc investigative unit on staff there, and we did some good work until the founder, Jann Wenner, decided to move the operation to New York.
Some of us left behind then started a non-profit, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and our first real office was in the Broadway Building in downtown Oakland. Financing ourselves by a combination of foundation grants and contracts with media outlets, we produced newspaper series, magazine articles, books, television and radio documentaries and eventually, long after I left, articles on the web.
(This is an excerpt from a much longer piece I first published in 2006. I may continue with other parts in the coming days.)
HEADLINES:
Nearly 2,200 people have been arrested during pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses (AP)
U.C.L.A. Tries to Reconcile a Week of Turbulent Events (NYT)
After weeks of college protests, police responses ramp up (WP)
A Campus in Crisis (New Yorker)
How Columbia University became the driving force behind protests over the war in Gaza (AP)
Escalating campus protests across the country are forcing President Joe Biden to walk a careful line. (Reuters)
Biden says ‘order must prevail’ during campus protests over the war in Gaza (AP)
‘No surprise’: US students slam Biden’s comments on Gaza encampments (Al Jazeera)
U.S. and Israel Struggle With Clashing Visions on Ending Gaza War (NYT)
Campus calls to divest from Israel hinge on a tough question: Where’s the money exactly? (NBC)
The "Access Hollywood" tape that almost derailed Donald Trump's bid for the presidency in 2016 is the key to understanding his criminal hush money trial.[HuffPost]
Trump’s coup plan: Bombshell Time interview exposes drive ‘to destroy system for his own purposes’ (NBC)
One thing is already clear at Trump’s N.Y. trial: Nobody liked Michael Cohen (WP)
Trump’s Contempt for His Court Is So Pervasive It Has Become Routine (NYT)
Biden calls Japan and India xenophobic: ‘They don’t want immigrants’ (Guardian)
Here's why Americans having fewer kids won't doom the economy (Business Insider)
The Battle for Attention (New Yorker)
How disinformation works—and how to counter it (Economist)
The AI arms race may soon center on a competition for ‘expert’ data (Fast Company)
The AI-Generated Population Is Here, and They’re Ready to Work (WSJ)
Congress Passes Opioid Crisis Legislation After Addict Cousin Steals Their Xbox (The Onion)