SF Chronicle Doesn’t Know The Value of Money

C.V. Whitter
Sep 3, 2018 · 3 min read

Today, I came up with a revolutionary idea: what if the newspaper of record of the Bay Area, the San Francisco Chronicle, stopped trying to report newsworthy information, and instead focused exclusively on generating profits?

The newspaper industry is in bad shape. Revenue has gone down significantly ever since technological advancements disrupted the way we get our information, but newspapers are still hanging on for dear life, making feeble attempts to stay relevant.

Also, trust in journalists is at an all-time low among the American public. Accusations of “fake news” are everywhere these days, from the White House all the way down to regular Facebook users who don’t agree with the articles they read.

The obvious question is: why don’t newspapers just give up and make way for the future?

I started asking myself this question after I read an article about SF Zine Fest from the Chronicle. I attended SF Zine Fest today, and I found it to be pretty confusing, so I wanted to read what the Chronicle had to say about it. At first, I agreed with all the points the article made.

“Hundreds of writers who don’t care about making money came to San Francisco, where they didn’t,” the article began. That was totally true. I didn’t get why so many people came to a building in Golden Gate Park on a Sunday just to sit there without making hardly any sales.

Side note: I’m not actually into art, literature or stuff like that. I was on a 14-mile run today and went into the County Fair Building to use the bathroom, and I just checked out SF Zine Fest out of curiosity after talking to one of the greeters.

But then, at the end of the article, it says that SF Zine Fest’s organizer “may have been the only person coming out ahead at the festival.” I was asking myself the same question, so I asked some of the other organizers “You make an annual salary to do this, right?” and they laughed at me and told me they didn’t. I was really surprised.

I shouldn’t be too surprised, though. Anyone who makes art in the Bay Area is just a trust fund kid anyway, not someone who actually has to WORK for a living. I’m a software engineer, and in the three years I’ve been living in San Francisco, I’ve faced a lot of discrimination and prejudice for my choice of profession.

I felt that same prejudice from a lot of the people at SF Zine Fest today, even though everybody was friendly to my face. I got the feeling they were laughing at me behind my back.

So when I read the Chronicle article, it made me wonder what kind of culture we’re living in where a bunch of artists gather to NOT make money, seemingly on purpose, and it dawned on me that that’s exactly what the Chronicle is doing.

Think about it: the Chronicle could make so much more money if instead of journalistic articles, they did paid sponsorships for brands that want access to a trusted media voice to reach more potential customers.

The Chronicle should really look at itself in the mirror and get its priorities straight before publishing a snarky article about how local zinesters don’t care whether or not they make money. Doesn’t maximum profitability matter to San Francisco’s paper of record?