Mayor London Breed’s six-year gig as a star columnist for San Francisco’s largest Chinese newspaper, Sing Tao Daily, saw a big change on Sunday, with her allotted space in the paper vastly diminished.
The change came three days after a Mission Local article detailing questions of press ethics.
After six years on a dedicated, full-page spread in the news section, Breed’s column was moved to an opinion page, as of Monday’s print issue. Breed had been the only candidate for mayor in this election given such a regular platform in the paper — crucial in a year when the Chinese vote is paramount.
The latest piece from Breed only took up a third of the page, and was accompanied by other opinion pieces, like two from a Hong Kong politician. On other days, the same page also featured opinion pieces on the Olympics, poem on the heat wave in Salt Lake City, Utah, and single-panel comics.
Breed’s signature, two QR codes for her official WeChat account, and event photos — features of the earlier spread — were all gone. Moreover, in contrast to the earlier column, which appeared in the news pages and alongside stories by Sing Tao staff reporters on evictions or public transportation in San Francisco, the page where her article now appears makes clear that it and the other opinion pieces on the page are in a space for “readers to speak freely” and “the published articles don’t represent the view of Sing Tao Daily.”
Breed, who, like former mayors, began writing the column when she was elected, had recently used the column to tout her accomplishments as mayor on public safety and homelessness, issues central to her campaign. In interviews with Mission Local, editors and academics raised questions about the column giving Breed unfair access to a prized platform during a heated electoral campaign.
They argued that all candidates should be given equal access during an election year.
A dedicated megaphone to Chinese voters is particularly relevant in this year’s race, when all the major candidates are vying for the 15 percent of the electorate that identifies as Chinese. Chinese newspapers are one of the very few ways to access monolingual Chinese-speaking voters, and campaigns have sought to win coverage in Chinese outlets.
World Journal, the city’s second-largest Chinese outlet, also carries a biweekly personal column from Breed. As of July 28, that column was unchanged, with Breed’s signature, QR code, photos at events, a different layout, and captions that read “provided by the mayor’s office.”
The mayor hopes to “use the platform of our newspaper to publicize political views and ideologies, interact with the Chinese community and our readers, and jointly promote municipal construction,” reads World Journal.
Sing Tao Daily started the column during late Mayor Ed Lee’s era as part of its effort to close the gap between City Hall and the city’s non-English speaking constituents.
Joyce Chen, Sing Tao Daily’s western edition’s deputy chief editor, said on Wednesday that the paper had already had conversations about whether to move Breed’s column to the opinion section before Mission Local’s story.
Other public officials, she said, are also published in the opinion section, “so we decided just to treat it as a regular opinion piece.”
Awesome – get ’em!