Beast Blog

Another Beast News Source

The Berkeley School of Journalism publishes the North Gate News Online, a news website written by students, focusing on issues in the Bay Area. They were good enough to feature a story on the Beast Blog, if you're interested in learning more about the site you're currently reading!

Berkeley News Scan

Want to keep tabs on what folks are writing about Berkeley? The City of Berkeley web site offers News Scan, featuring clips from various Bay Area newspapers every day.

All The News That They Can Find

A few weeks ago, we wrote about how the Berkeley Daily Planet is coming back. Today, that became true. At the Ashby BART station this morning, a woman was giving away free copies of the new journal.

I suppose "daily" has a new meaning, because neither the Berkeley Daily Planet nor The Daily Californian publishes every day.

The first issue of the Planet has a certain scrappy sweetness. The layout is terrible--articles drift from page to page in a confusing manner, leaving paragraphs stranded throughout. The writing varies widely, from a homey and difficult-to-follow paean to Berkeley's diversity, to a cutting (and depressing) column by Henry Orr about being suspended from the SF Chronicle for anti-war activity. The main news focus deals with the massive layoffs in Berkeley's public schools, a well-written (and also depressing) piece.

Here's to the Planet finding its legs.

The San Pablo Avenue Times

There is a interesting collection of local feature stories by UC J-school students up at The San Pablo Avenue Times.

March 24-29 at the J-School

From UC Berkeley School of Journalism:

MONDAY, MARCH 24
7:30 - 8:30 pm
Should Journalists and News Organizations Blog?
A discussion with:
- J.D. Lasica, Online Journalism Review senior columnist and author of New Media Musings weblog
- Rusty Foster, founder of kuro5hin group weblog

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26
7 - 8 pm
The Future of Wireless Technology
A talk by:
- Cory Doctorow, co-editor of Boing Boing weblog and outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation

THURSDAY, MARCH 27
7:30 - 8:30 pm
Can Online Publications Charge for Content?
A talk by:
- Vin Crosbie, president and managing partner of Digital Deliverance

All three events will be held in the journalism school library at North Gate Hall.

The events are free and no RVSP is necessary. The presentations also will be Webcast live at:

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/events/mm2003/

FRIDAY & SATURDAY, MARCH 28 & 29
Sixth annual new media conference
"Connecting with the Wired Generation: How Young People Use Technology, the Internet and the Media."

Just a reminder if you haven't already registered for the conference, which begins on Friday evening with a keynote address by John Seely Brown, and then goes all day Saturday with a series of panels. For the conference you do need to register online as we may have a full house. The conference Web page, which includes a schedule and list of speakers, is at:

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/events/conference2003/

And directions to the Journalism School are at:

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/directions.html

The presentations and the conference are sponsored by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism.

Food? I like Food!

Another in the East Bay Hipster Media series.

Today's Chronicle features Karen Eng, the publisher of PekoPeko, a culinary zine that's straight outta Berkeley.

Welcome back, Berkeley Daily Planet

I remember being so sad about the demise of the Berkeley Daily Planet that I wrote an obituary for it. Well, when I was at the Digital Rights Management Conference at UC Berkeley last week, I saw a man wearing a Berkeley Daily Planet badge. I went up and introduced myself to him, and asked him what the story was with the badge. The man, who turned out to be Tom Hunt, the MIS guru and computer science teacher at Longfellow Middle School, and local Berkeley technical entrepreneur, told me that Becky and Mike O?Malley, who had retired after a successful career in the software business (i.e. they sold the company they had founded for a reasonable amount of money) had bought up the assets of the Berkeley Daily Planet and were going to try and restart it. I was delighted at the news, since I miss knowing what is happening in Berkeley, and I miss my daily ritual of picking up the paper and a pastry from the Cheeseboard and reading the paper on my one mile walk to the office. Today, while walking past the cheeseboard, I saw a sign in the otherwise empty BDP news-rack inviting people to check out the Berkeley Daily Planet website for the preview for the paper.

Well, the website is up and it looks good. The O'Malley's have hired at least one of the reporters back, they have more offers of help than they can use, and they hope to start publishing again in April.

Thank you, O'Malley's. Welcome back, Berkeley Daily Planet. We've missed you.

Geodog

Speaking of Kitchen Sink magazine...

The last post mentioned Kitchen Sink magazine, and then I went online to read the Chronicle, and there's a big long article about the new rag.

East Bay Hipster Media

Glancing at your local newsstand reveals a wealth of publications emerging from the post-boom East Bay.

Three of note:

ReadyMade - Published in Berkeley, this lifestyle improvement magazine is chock full of ideas for young urbanites with not much money. A recent issue is devoted to reusing cardboard boxes as a building material for all manner of household items.

Kitchen Sink - Straight outta Oakland, this "magazine for people who think too much" really couldn't have come about if its various editors and writers still had gainful employment. An assortment of essays, memoirs, poems, and fiction, it's a little like if the New Yorker were written by no one over 30. And published in Oakland.

Kitchen Sink is fast becoming the hub of the Oakland arts and letters crowd, with its sold-out fundraisers and other art, gallery, and cafe events.

On the more obscure side, we've got Berkeley's Loud Paper, an art and architecture zine for kids who miss grad school.