Tag: Sac Bee

Text of Sac Bee’s embarrassing draft post-election editorial

Here is the full text of the cringe-worthy “internal discussion” version of the Sac Bee’s post-election editorial (which was updated yesterday afternoon, here). Items you may need before you read this: vomit receptacle, punching bag, phone number to cancel your subscription.

Editorial: You did it! Uh, so what now?

Published: Wednesday, May. 20, 2009 – 12:00 am | Page 18A
Last Modified: Wednesday, May. 20, 2009 – 9:09 am

Good morning, California voters. Do you feel better, now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?

You wanted to show the state’s politicians just how mad you are at them. And you did. Boy, did you ever.

Continue reading “Text of Sac Bee’s embarrassing draft post-election editorial”

Watch Your Prepositions

Is it just me, or was anyone else confused by the following Bee headline: California Fugitive Caught with $70,000 in Shoes.

It turns out that the man, Rosevillian Christopher Warren, did not, as I had originally thought, have $70,000 worth of shoes on him when caught, but rather had $70,000 in cash stuffed in his shoes.  I had just pictured this man burdended with a Santa-sized sack of stilettos trying to cross the Canadian border and it made me smile.

Punching the Bee’s Ticket: Sacramento Comedy Spot Featured

Sure, we all know that Sac hates hip-hop, but the Bee sure loves improv.  Resisting the urge to feature another poorly reviewed movie on the cover of the Friday Ticket, the Bee went with the local angle and featured performers from the Sacramento Comedy Spot.  Stepping away from his usual theater and dance reviews, Bee critic Marcus Crowder does a nice writeup of the shows being offered at the ‘Spot every Friday night.  

Hats off to the small group of folks who work hard at the ‘Spot every week to put on creative, entertaining shows, not least of which director Brian Crall, who busts his ass to keep the place running like a wildly uncontrollable ship without a rudder.  Improv at the Comedy Spot runs every Friday night at 9pm, tickets are $10, presale tix can be purchased on the ‘Spot’s website.

Bee tuition piece focuses on woes at Country Day

The Bee’s Robert Faturechi reports today that area private schools are seeing increased requests for financial aid:

At Country Day – where tuition costs as much as $17,300 a year – administrators are already taking steps to buy cheaper school supplies, save energy and reduce gas consumption in school vehicles.

I can’t help feeling that Faturechi was playing for an unsympathetic audience reaction by mostly highlighting Country Day School and Jesuit High School (my alma mater) in his report about area families having trouble paying for private school. That’s the only explanation I can find for his relegating Cristo Rey High School to the bottom of his piece. Cristo Rey exclusively targets low income students, who pay for their education by working at local businesses. Some of those businesses are having to pull their support for Cristo Rey, Faturechi reports, which is hurting the school’s bottom line.

Proven innocent?

Perhaps all of you legal eagles out there can help me with something. The Sacramento Bee reports that a man was shot in the abdomen yesterday in downtown Sacramento. The story has a headline that reads, “Sacramento panhandler accused of shooting disabled man.” The first sentence of the story reads, “A woman panhandling in downtown Sacramento Monday pulled out a gun and shot a disabled man who refused to give her money, scattering a terrified crowd gathered at a busy bus stop, police said.”

Is there a difference between *accused* and *police said*? Throw in a photo of the “accused” and you got yourself an open and shut case…

I did enjoy this quote though:

“Why would someone ask money from someone who is obviously disabled?” asked his younger brother, Adrian Perez. “This is really outrageous.”

Do disabled people have a history of not carrying spare change? Just sayin’

Update: Bad example as the suspect has basically confessed to the crime. I do still wonder what terms the media can use, quote, etc. with regard to criminal activities.

Bee’s New Comment System Highly Commented Upon

In a piece by the Bee’s Ken Chavez, new rules were rolled out today to help police the otherwise monumentally ridiculous world of online comments.  In an Onion-esque move, the Bee has gone to a system called “Pluck” to help monitor, organize, and expand on the Bee’s current comment system.

To this reader, the new system looks like it’s aimed at doing three things: 1) Keep inappropriate comments off the site, 2) keep inappropriate commenters off the site, and 3) create a community on the website that will draw more clicks throughout sacbee.com. 

The most insane, and perhaps the most meta, thing about this issue are the comments on the story at sacbee.com talking about comments on stories on sacbee.com.   Feel free to comment.

Bee’s teacher database sidesteps privacy issue

Kudos to the Sac Bee for its newest salary database on all of the state’s teachers. “See how well your school district pays its teachers.” Not “See how much your kid’s teacher makes.” The tool allows you to look up district average salaries and other data, and compare salaries across districts in a region or across the state. A useful tool without any of the privacy issues. This should be the model for all of the Bee’s salary databases.

I do think it is interesting that the spin has been spun somewhat on this one… “Are teachers in your area making what they deserve?” That sentiment is absent from Melanie Sill’s editorial on the backlash to the State worker pay database. Back then it was all about doing a public service, giving us information about worker compensation because “state spending [is] under pressure.” Now, it’s all about making sure your kid’s teacher is getting a good paycheck? Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but I sense that the Bee is making some much needed course corrections here.

Bee’s Crime Q & A is not bad

Via the Bee’s Sacto 9-1-1 program I discovered an interesting feature called the Crime Q & A by Ryan Lillis. Ryan tracks down information related to area crimes in response to reader queries. No question is too small either:

Coming home last night in the Tahoe Park area, 65th street between 14th and 21st was blocked by cop cars. This morning nothing in the paper or other news. Do you know what happened? Where can a neighbor find information about incidents area quickly after the fact?

Give it a read, it’s not as fun as learning how much money your neighbor makes, but it’s informative just the same.