The ''Berkeley Daily Planet'' was a free weekly
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
published in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
, which continues today as an internet-based news publication.
The ''Daily Planet'' is politically
progressive
Progressive may refer to:
Politics
* Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform
** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context
* Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...
, and offers endorsements of progressive and liberal to left leaning candidates.
The ''Berkeley Daily Planet'' provides coverage of City Council meetings as well as other official city functions and commissions. The ''Planet'' distinguishes itself from other local news sources in its detailed coverage of local land use issues in the city.
History
The ''Berkeley Daily Planet'' was founded April 7, 1999 by a group of journalists and Stanford MBAs with funding from outside investors. In September 2000, the ''Daily Planets owners, doing business as Bigfoot Media, started a second free daily, the ''
San Mateo Daily Journal
The San Mateo Daily Journal is a daily newspaper published six days a week, Monday through Friday plus a combo weekend edition. The newspaper is distributed throughout San Mateo County, California.
Operations
The Daily Journal's publisher is Jerr ...
''.
On November 22, 2002, due to the soft Bay Area retail economy, the ''Berkeley Daily Planet'' suspended publishing temporarily. "Employees arrived at work this morning only to learn the newspaper's board of directors had decided to shutter the paper," th
''Daily Californian''wrote in its November 22, 2002 issue. The ''Daily Cal'' noted that the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' speculated in January 2002 that the ''Daily Planet'' had not made a profit since its inception in 1999, a contention the owners said was not true.
On April 1, 2003, Becky and Michael O'Malley—described by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' as a "liberal Berkeley couple who are grandparents and longtime activists"—began publishing the ''Berkeley Daily Planet'' again, but only twice a week, Tuesday and Friday. However, they kept the word "Daily" in the paper's name.
Since the O'Malleys restarted the ''Planet'' with Michael O'Malley as publisher, Becky O'Malley as executive editor and Michael Howerton as managing editor, it has won a number of awards from the California Newspaper Publishers' Association and other organizations, including first prizes for its opinion page, which publishes lengthy reader-written commentaries, and the editorial cartoons of Justin DeFreitas.
On February 4, 2010 the ''Planet'' broke a story that "Clickbooks.com", their own payroll firm, had conducted fraud. The firm had under-reported employee income to the IRS, and pocketed the difference in payroll tax.
In March, 2010, the ''Daily Planet'' ceased production of its print edition altogether, and since then it has been online only. Financial reasons were cited by its publishers. Almost from its inception the ''Daily Planet'' published an online version, in addition to its newsprint edition. The online archives go back to April 1, 2000.
Current owners
Becky O'Malley, the executive editor and opinion page editor, worked in the civil rights and anti-war movements in Ann Arbor in the 1960s and early 1970s. She was a reporter and editor for the ''
San Francisco Bay Guardian
The ''San Francisco Bay Guardian'' was a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1966 by Bruce B. Brugmann and his wife, Jean Dibble. The paper was shut down on October 14, 2014. It was relaun ...
'' and
Pacific News Service
Pacific News Service (PNS) was an American nonprofit alternative news media organization. PNS ceased operations in 2017.
The organization was located in Berkeley, California, Berkeley, California.
History
PNS was founded in 1969 by historian ...
in the late 1970s while attending law school. After passing the California Bar, she wrote articles for magazines, including ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'' and
''Mother Jones'', and was on the staff of the
Center for Investigative Reporting
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) is a nonprofit news organization based in Emeryville, California. It was founded in 1977 as the nation’s first nonprofit investigative journalism organization, and has since grown into a multi-platf ...
. Her husband Michael O'Malley, now the ''Planet''s publisher, is a former faculty member in the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
's
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
department whose primary research was in the field of
text-to-speech
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...
conversion technology. The couple founded a company in the early 1980s,
Berkeley Speech Technologies, which developed commercial text-to-speech software and hardware. They sold it to a Belgian speech technology corporation,
Lernout & Hauspie
Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, or L&H, was a Belgium-based speech recognition technology company, founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, that went bankrupt in 2001 because of a fraud engineered by the management. The company was based in Ypr ...
, in 1996. After the speech company was sold, Becky O'Malley served on Berkeley's Landmarks Preservation Commission for 7 years, resigning after taking over the editor's job at the Planet.
Editorial controversies
O'Malley wrote in 2004 that the paper repeatedly was criticized for its position on the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other ef ...
. In August 2006, the paper published a letter, later characterized by some readers as an anti-Semitic diatribe, in the opinion section of the ''Planet''. It was a response from an Iranian student living in India to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and included his charge that Jews were to blame for the Holocaust. Two open letters containing criticisms were sent to Ms. O'Malley by local politicians and Jewish leaders and were published in the August 11th issue of the ''Daily Planet''.
[Johnson, Chip]
"Why did Berkeley paper run anti-Jewish column?"
''San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
'', September 1, 2006.
Struggling financially in the bad economy, in early 2009 the ''Daily Planet'' published a full front page asking for donations, resulting in $12,000 in the first two weeks. In March 2009 the paper ran a letter from the proprietor of Urban Ore reporting that a Jim Sinkinson, representing “East Bay Citizens for Journalistic Responsibility”, asked her to stop advertising there; she claimed that he misrepresented what the ''Planet'' had been publishing. The paper subsequently printed "An Open Letter to Our Advertisers and Readers" to "clarify the policies of the paper, its overall mission, and the nature of this campaign of intimidation"; Sinkinson denied pressuring or threatening advertisers. The dispute was covered in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in November 2009.
See also
*
Twin Cities Daily Planet
The ''Twin Cities Daily Planet'', in operation from 2006 until 2019, was an independent website specializing in news events in the Minneapolis – Saint Paul metropolitan area. The ''Twin Cities Daily Planet'' was a community-edited news sour ...
*
Daily Planet (Philadelphia newspaper)
The ''Daily Planet'' was a weekly underground newspaper that was distributed for free on college campuses in the greater Philadelphia area in the 1970s. It was an early example of an advertiser-funded weekly local entertainment guide.
The ''Dail ...
*
Daily Planet DC
Daily or The Daily may refer to:
Journalism
* Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks
* ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times''
* ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
*
Asheville Daily Planet
The Asheville Daily Planet is a free independent alternative newspaper published in Asheville, North Carolina. It was named after the fictional newspaper Daily Planet in the Superman universe.
In spite of its name, it is not, and never has been, ...
*
Telluride Daily Planet
The ''Telluride Daily Planet'' is a local newspaper published in Telluride, Colorado which covers news and events in the Telluride area. It is published three days a week, on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. According to the masthead, it has been pub ...
Notes
External links
''Berkeley Daily Planet'' Website''Berkeley Daily Planet Watch Dog'' WebsitePublishers hope Berkeley has space for a new tabloid''Berkeley Daily Planet'' ends publication; Closing comes as surprise''Berkeley Daily Planets''{{' Debut is Filled with Gravity; New Berkeley tabloid criticized because it lifted classified ads''Daily Cal'': Breaking News: ''Daily Planet'' Folds''Berkeley Daily Planet'' rises again; Preservationist couple revive independent paper -- twice a week
Newspapers published in the San Francisco Bay Area
PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners
Weekly newspapers published in California