One of my regular gigs is compiling and following up on stories about current asbestos exposure levels,which is how I started reading the SF Bay View. This landed in my mailbox today, and I’m passing the word along – the Bay View is currently not available in print because of funding and budget problems. If you read the Bay View or know someone who does, the editors are asking that you pass the following information along – so that’s what I’m doing.
**** Please spread widely ****
* *
*The Bay View’s not dead! We’ll see you on the web*
* *
You’re looking for the paper – the Bay View in print – and you can’t
find one since the July 2 edition. You’re wondering why no one’s told
you what’s wrong.
The quick answer is that yes, we ran flat out of funds or any source to
tap and had to suspend printing the paper, at least for now. And that
tragic decision set so many things in motion we haven’t yet been able to
get to a lot of the basics, like telling our dearest friends and most
faithful readers what’s up.
*How you can learn more and give us a hand*
* *
*Meetings:* If you’re in the Bay Area – and please forward this
invitation to Bay Area residents you know – come to one of two meetings,
in San Francisco and Oakland, that Minister of Information JR is
planning to announce and discuss with the community the Bay View’s “next
steps.” With enough community support, we hope to find a way to print
the Bay View monthly. We also need your help to make www.sfbayview.com
more interactive and to campaign for
internet access for everybody.
JR explains: “We think it is important for the community to be forward
thinking when looking at the demise of the SF Bay View newspaper print
edition. We want to come together with organizers to discuss the future
of this Black led alternative independent media crew known as the SF Bay
View newspaper and discuss some future plans that lie on the horizon and
get concrete commitments from supporters.
*“The meeting is Thursday, July 24, ‘08, 6 p.m., at 1095 Market St. #307
off of Seventh in downtown San Francisco, by Civic Center BART. All are
invited.”*
* *
*Save the date of Saturday evening, Aug. 9, for the **Oakland** meeting,
which will feature a media panel and a party along with the grassroots
discussion and planning. The Black **New World**, **836 Pine St., West**
**Oakland**, is the place. We’ll be looking for all our **East** **Bay**
readers – everyone’s welcome! More details soon.*
* *
I just got two calls – there have been many, as you can imagine – one
from a young teacher and one from an elder, saying how “distraught” they
and those around them are not to be able to hold a Bay View in their
hands. I surely feel their pain (this is editor Mary Ratcliff); the
paper’s been my entire life 24/7/365 for over 16 years of editing every
word in 697 editions – and I’ve loved every minute.
At the top of the home page at www.sfbayview.com
View: The end of an era, the dawn of a new day
Some of my thoughts about the Bay View’s transition to publishing online
only, at least for the moment, are there along with a Block Report Radio
interview by Minister of Information JR with Bay View publisher Willie
Ratcliff that was broadcast on Flashpoints.
Now it’s your turn: Whether or not you can attend the meetings, please
email your thoughts and suggestions to editor@sfbayview.com
*Readers in prison: *The printed Bay View has literally been a lifeline
for people without internet access and most of all for prisoners. Our
mail is heavy every day with letters from every concentration camp in
the country, many prisoners saying, “The Bay View keeps me alive.”
Until we can afford to mail the sad news – or, hopefully, a monthly
paper – to them, *you can help by telling all the prisoners you talk
with or write to and ask them to spread the news. Tell them we care
about them as much as ever, that we’ll continue to post their stories
and pen pal requests on the website (volunteers are badly needed to type
a huge backlog of requests) and that we want to join them in campaigning
for internet access behind enemy lines.*
Eugene Thomas, an amazing young man in a Georgia state prison who won
his fight to legalize cell phones, is now pushing for permission to
upgrade to phones with internet access. And some federal prisons now
give prisoners access to the web. The prisoners themselves have kicked
off this campaign. Let’s follow their lead!
*Web advertising and traffic: *Whatever opportunities the future holds
for the Bay View and other alternative media will cost money, and income
for most media, whether in print or online, comes primarily from
advertising. When we had to suspend printing the Bay View, my first task
was to tell our advertisers the sad news and ask them to move their ads
to our website. Most agreed to do so or at least to consider it.
Knowing very little about web advertising, especially how to price it
and what options to offer, I’m afraid our website, like the print
edition, could be starved for funds. *If you or someone you know has
expertise in web advertising to offer, please email me at
editor@sfbayview.com
* *
Maybe www.sfbayview.com
help put the Bay View back in print! The traffic to our site, which
already draws over a million hits a month, is bound to increase. *You
can help build the www.sfbayview.com
readership by spreading this Bay View Alert far and wide.*
Now here’s the heart of the matter – the stories, the reason you read
the Bay View. We’re posting new ones to sfbayview.com
Here are the stories posted since our last alert, on July 7. More are
ready to post, including some great local stories and a tribute to
Madiba, Nelson Mandela, on his 90^th birthday, and I’m about to type a
letter from Rev. Pinkney’s wife Dorothy in Michigan updating his heroic
struggle, so check back tomorrow.
One on One with Yusuf Bey IV
by Minister of Information JR
SF Health Dept. waited six weeks to notify community of Lennar’s huge
toxic exceedence
by Rebecca Ruiz-Lichter and RM Arrieta
Another world is possible: Boots of the Coup interviews Mumia Abu Jamal
by Minister of Information JR
Court school students tell their stories through theater arts project
by Mitzi Mock
The New Jersey 4: Correcting the injustice
by Quandra Chaffers
Library fees legislation passes first of two votes at SF Board of
Supervisors
Wanda’s Picks
including news from the ground in New Orleans – by Wanda Sabir
Federal class action against City of Antioch documents police targeting
of African American tenants
by ACLU of Northern California
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s long-shot appeal for reversal of last year’s
disastrous 3rd Circuit ruling
by Dave Lindorff
New Yorker’s lynch job: ‘Hard-working’ whites’ revenge
by the Black Star News and Red Necker New Yorker: Unforgivable!
It’s official: Cynthia McKinney is Green Party’s presidential nominee
Cynthia McKinney stands for real change
by George Gonzalez
The sinking Titanic
by Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D.
POCC speaks before the United Nations: an update wit’ POCC Chairman Fred
Hampton Jr.
by Minister of Information JR
8,000-mile Longest Walk II reaches destination in D.C.
by Yaynicut Franco and Klee Benally and the entire text of the Longest
Walk’s Manifesto for Change: ‘All Life Is Sacred’
Oak Grove tree-sit, Peace and Dignity and Longest Walk II
by Zachary RunningWolf and Marcella Sadlowski
Saving bankers while homeowners fall
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Conviction overturned after 36 years in solitary for Albert Woodfox of
the Angola 3:
call on prosecutors to forgo retrial, release men immediately
by Coalition to Free the Angola 3
What’s Going On Community Calendar: Current events
– a much more complete listing than there was room for in the print
edition. Check it out; a worthy cause is waiting for you to get involved.
To reach the Bay View, email editor@sfbayview.com
To subscribe to this list, email sfbayview-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
To unsubscribe, email sfbayview-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net
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