Career Beginnings

On an October day in 1971, I drove an old Chevy van up Fell Street to the Fillmore in San Francisco, on the final leg of a cross-county trek, and started my post-college journalism career after a two year hiatus in the Peace Corps.

A small group of us started a magazine called SunDance at 1913 Fillmore Street. It was a large-format magazine, with big graphics and long articles on the intersection of post-Sixties politics and culture.

Actually, it was pure-Sixties in its sensibility; we just didn't know yet that that era was finished. SunDance had an eclectic list of writers and artists, none more famous than John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who also gave us some money. When they came to visit the office and share stimulants with us, we knew we'd been blessed by the gods. 

Alas, none of us knew what a business plan was, and SunDance lasted all of three issues, though glorious issues they were.

A few years later, I landed across town at Rolling Stone, at 625 Third Street, where celebrities of every stripe poured through the office, and the stimulation never ended. Not being a music writer, I rarely hung out with musicians, but a small group of us formed an ad-hoc investigative unit on staff there, and we did some good work until the founder, Jann Wenner, decided to move the operation to New York.

That same year, 1977, Lowell Bergman, Dan Noyes and I started a non-profit, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and our first office was in the Broadway Building in downtown Oakland. Financing ourselves by a combination of foundation grants and contracts with media outlets, we produced newspaper and magazine articles at first, with books, television and radio documentaries coming later on. 

In my mind, the Center would be a place where reporters who worked hard could see their journalistic dreams come true. And for quite a few of us, they did.

(This is an excerpt from a much longer piece I first published in 2006.)

HEADLINES: 

• Democrats hail major win as Susan Crawford delivers blow to Trump and Musk in Wisconsin (Guardian)

• Democratic-backed Susan Crawford wins Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, cementing liberal majority (AP)

• Since DOGE has taken over, the Social Security Administration has made plans to cut thousands of staff and downsize services. One of the biggest changes involves taking away the phone-call option for verifying enrollees’ identities. People will now need to apply for benefits online or in person at their nearest Social Security office, which isn’t convenient or even possible for many people, depending on their circumstances. [HuffPost]

• The American consumer is on the ropes. Tariffs — and anxiety — could deliver the knockout blow (CNN)

• Despite data showing tens of millions of Americans don’t have ready access to proof of citizenship documents, Republicans are now pushing hard to require those records nationwide for voter registration. They haven’t been able to make it happen yet. But two efforts, one each from the White House and congressional Republicans, have made the prospect of a national proof of citizenship requirement a real possibility. [HuffPost]

• Sen. Cory Booker breaks Senate record with marathon 24-hour speech protesting Trump and Musk (ABC)

• GOP lawmakers take aim at anti-Trump rulings, nationwide injunctions (WP)

• Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Is “Only a Matter of Time” (ProPublica)

• Trump officials say they mistakenly deported Salvadoran migrant but are unable to rescue him (WP)

• More Republican voters think Pete Hegseth should resign, poll finds (Guardian)

• Waltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say (WP)

• Trump Wants Made in America, Musk Wants Robots. That’s a Problem for U.S. Jobs (Barron’s)

• Stocks Mark Worst Month in Years as Trump’s Tariffs Loom (NYT)

• A top European Union official warned the U.S. on Tuesday that the world’s biggest trade bloc “holds a lot of cards” when it comes to dealing with the Trump administration’s new tariffs and has a good plan to retaliate if forced to. President Donald Trump has promised to roll out taxes on imports from other countries on Wednesday. [AP]

• Cantor Analysts Blast RFK Jr., Warn of ‘Dangerous Territory’ (Bloomberg)

• If Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism, What Does? (WSJ)

• Massive layoffs, purge of leadership underway at U.S. health agencies (WP)

• Twenty-three states sue Trump administration over decision to rescind billions in health funding (Guardian)

• Cutting Off NPR and PBS (NYT)

• Trump task force to review Harvard’s funding after Columbia bows to federal demands (AP)

• China staged military drills off Taiwan's north, south and east coasts as a "stern warning" against separatism and called Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te a "parasite," as Taiwan sent warships to respond to China's navyapproaching its shores. (Reuters)

• Antarctic iceberg the size of Chicago breaks off, reveals thriving undersea ecosystem (ABC)

• DeepMind is holding back release of AI research to give Google an edge (ArsTechnica)

• If Anthropic Succeeds, a Nation of Benevolent AI Geniuses Could Be Born (Wired)

• Ghibli effect: ChatGPT usage hits record after rollout of viral feature (Reuters)

• The Miyazaki Maelstrom: OpenAI’s Ghibli Craze Signals a Troubling Future for Hollywood (Hollywood Reporter)

• Are We Taking A.I. Seriously Enough? (New Yorker)

• ChatGPT isn’t the only chatbot that’s gaining users (TechCrunch)

• Radio City Music Hall banned him. A T-shirt and AI might be to blame. (WP)

• Highway Patrol Officer Asks Pete Hegseth To Carry Out Drone Strikes In Straight Line (The Onion)