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WEED, SISKIYOU COUNTY -- Chronicle outdoors writer Tom Stienstra and his wife were arrested at their Northern California home on suspicion of possession of marijuana for sale, and later released with no charges filed pending an investigation, officials said. Siskiyou County sheriff's spokeswoman Susan Gravenkamp said deputies found "a sophisticated marijuana cultivation operation in the barn" at Stienstra's home in Weed, a small town 30 miles south of Yreka, when they searched it March 25.

The 2009 political year began on a high note of "change" and "hope" and ended in a thud of stalemate, despair and public fury over the economy, health care reform and the war in Afghanistan. No wonder it may go down as the year of the angry voter. (snip)

The Northern California Media Workers Guild said late Wednesday that five members of the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial department are being laid off, the latest in a series of staffing cuts at the troubled daily newspaper. The Guild didn’t indicate which editorial staffers were losing their jobs. Five staffers in the Chronicle’s classified advertising department, four of them Guild members, agreed to job buyouts last week, according to the union, and “at least one voluntary layoff has been accepted in editorial, the Guild said. That would mean at least 11 jobs have been eliminated this month, after earlier rounds of...

Carl T. Hall, the local representative for the Media Workers Guild, told SF Weekly this morning that he has been informed by San Francisco Chronicle management that another round of layoffs is in the works. "We're anticipating some discussions," he said. "And it's not good news. But that's all I know." When asked how many layoffs were possible, Hall noted "Obviously that's the question everyone wants to know." He also added that no reason was given for the paper's announcement other than "what one might infer: I guess it's a continuing problem of getting costs in line with revenues given...

So Mayor Gavin Newsom tells The Economist that if The Chronicle were to disappear "People under 30 won't even notice." Hey Mayor Twitter -- if you can hear us from wherever you are outside San Francisco -- that's not what you told CBS5 back in February when asked about the possible effect of a Chronicle closure. "I think it's a very serious concern for all of us," Newsom said waaaaaaaaay back then. "It is part of the fabric of our community. You cannot have a world-class city without a world-class newspaper. So I think it is a very serious concern...

Everyone has an opinion about the dying newspaper industry, including Gavin Newsom. The SF leader turned gubernatorial candidate/media pundit apparently told The Economist if the Chronicle were to fold, "People under 30 won't even notice." This guy looks awfully familiar If that's the case, then people under 30 won't even notice you haven't been our mayor for more than a year. So, Gavin, whether you like it or not, it's time to burn through those frequent flier miles to come back here and take care of your constituents.

There goes Nancy Pelosi again. First she wanted bail-out money to save some mice in the San Francisco wetlands. Now she wants bail-out money to save some rats in the San Francisco media. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Duh) asked Attorney General Eric Holder “to weigh the public benefit of saving The Chronicle and other papers from closure against the agency’s anti-trust mission to guard against anti-competitive behavior.” She neglected to mention anti-competitive behavior by the government. .......

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The San Francisco Chronicle joined the lengthening list of imperiled newspapers Tuesday as its owner set out to purge the payroll and slash other expenses in a last-ditch effort to reverse years of heavy losses. If it can't reduce expenses dramatically within the next few weeks, the Hearst Corp. said it will close or sell the Chronicle, northern California's largest newspaper with a paid weekday circulation of 339,430. Hearst didn't specify a savings target nor a deadline for wringing out the expenses. A Hearst spokesman didn't immediately respond to messages Tuesday. But management made it clear...

The collapse of the newspaper industry continues apace; now it's the San Francisco Chronicle that is likely to be sold or even closed down in a matter of months. This follows Sunday's bankruptcy filing by the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, just two and a half years after investors paid more than $500 million for the company. We've known for a while that the newspaper industry is in desperate trouble, but it didn't occur to us until recently that it may be a leading indicator.

Hearst to Slash, Sell or Close the Chronicle By SHIRA OVIDE Hearst Corp. said it may close its San Francisco Chronicle newspaper unless it can quickly slash costs at the money-losing daily. A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. Getty Images A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. A vendor sells a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle at his newsstand in the San Francisco Municipal Railway station. A vendor sells a copy of...

The Hearst Corp. said Tuesday that unless the San Francisco Chronicle can undertake "critical" cost cutting measures including job cuts within weeks, the company will be forced to sell or close the newspaper. Hearst said the Chronicle lost more than $50 million last year and added that, "this year's losses to date are worse." The Chronicle has had major losses each year since 2001, Hearst said. The closely-held media company said cost reductions including an unspecified reduction in union and non-union employees are needed to restore the Chronicle to health.

Attorney General Jerry Brown's legal challenge to California's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage marks the first time that the state's top lawyer has refused to defend a newly enacted ballot measure since 1964 - another epic discrimination case that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In November 1964, an overwhelming 65 percent majority of the state's voters approved Proposition 14, a constitutional amendment that overturned a fair-housing law and allowed racial discrimination in property sales and rentals.Attorney General Thomas Lynch - newly appointed to succeed Stanley Mosk, a Prop. 14 opponent who had just been named to the state Supreme...

A supporter of Proposition 8, fed up with what he believed was the gay community's and "liberal media's" refusal to accept the voters' verdict, fired off a letter to the editor. "Please show respect for democracy," he wrote, in a letter we published. What he encountered instead was an utter lack of respect for free speech. Within hours, the intimidation game was on. Because his real name and city were listed - a condition for publication of letters to The Chronicle - opponents of Prop. 8 used Internet search engines to find the letter writer's small business, his Web site...

That said, I am entirely convinced that same-sex marriage will again be legalized in California, the 52 percent vote notwithstanding. Just as the courts overrode the will of the majority in ordering desegregation of public schools and public accommodations, and just as the courts ignored the demands of the electorate by opening voting to people of color and the right to marry to mixed-race couples, so, too, will the courts, in defiance of the majority, however slim, reopen the doors of marriage to the gay community. The Sturm und Drang with which society greeted these courageous and controversial court rulings...

The "Spin Cycle" stands by a report that was never written and never published. The San Francisco Chronicle is standing by their non-existent newspaper report on Barack Obama's coal-killing comments from an interview back in January. SFGate reported: It's not true. But the Drudge Report, the Republican National Committee and apparently even GOP VP candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fell for completely fabricated news from a shady website called Newsbusters today suggesting the San Francisco Chronicle has ''hidden'' audio with Sen. Barack Obama regarding his statements on coal. ''Barack Obama explained his plan to the San Francisco Chronicle this year,''...

In reporting the speech by Gov. Sarah Palin in Ohio today, CNN’s Political Ticker tried to spin her question about Obama’s coal comment as old news when it clearly isn’t. Palin asked why we are just now finding out about the interview where Barack Obama said he had hoped to bankrupt the coal industry but CNN termed this interview and Obama’s startling admission as “months-old coal comments” in an attempt to soften the blow to Ohio and Pennsylvania voters. The Political Ticker said that since the San Francisco Chronicle had these comments on its website for nine months, the news...

If same-sex marriage survives next week's ballot challenge, it will largely be due to state Attorney General Jerry Brown. It was Brown's office that decided on the final ballot description for Proposition 8, the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay and lesbian weddings. And by changing the way the measure was framed in its title and summary, Brown just might have tipped the balance in what looks to be a close election. Here's the story: Prop. 8 asks voters to affirm that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" - a concept that...

JimJam, a blogger at Investigate the Media, has caught the San Francisco Chronicle selectively editing comments to its on-line version of the paper in an apparently deliberate effort to deceive its readers. It works like this: Like most papers, the Chronicle solicits comments from its on-line readers. Comments that for whatever reason the editors don't like are deleted, a practice that nearly all on-line websites and newspapers follow from time to time. No problem so far. What makes the Chronicle different is that when the Chronicle makes a comment disappear it goes away for everyone except the writer, who continues...

STATE SENATE President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, called the budget impasse "a Republican problem." To be precise, it is the problem of a small group of Republican senators who have allowed their egos and ideologies to trump the public interest. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, also a Republican, expressed frustration with the holdouts during a news conference Thursday. The governor effectively gave them want they wanted - in terms of the budget - when he agreed to use his line-item veto to cut the remaining $700 million deficit when it reaches his desk. The budget contains the largest reserve in state...

Why the San Francisco Chronicle is a candidate to exit print Play with me on this one: Which major American newspaper should be the first to throw up its hands and stop publishing a print product? It's a question worth asking. This could be the worst year for newspapers since the Great Depression. The double-digit revenue declines long forecast by doomsters have arrived. While nearly all the major papers still post profits, albeit smaller than before, a few prominent ones are losing boatloads. At Hearst Newspapers' San Francisco Chronicle, according to a deposition given by James M. Asher, the company's...