Steven T. Jones and Sarah Phelan are reporting (San Francisco Bay Guardian online, 6/19/09) on San Francisco Chronicle immigration reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken's acceptance of "an award and cash prize (he refuses to say how much) from the Center for Immigration Studies--which a Southern Poverty Law Center report in February 2009 criticized for its overtly racist roots and extreme anti-immigrant agenda":

Van Derbeken and Ken Conner, the Chron's assistant managing editor for news (whom the reporter consulted before accepting the award), told the Guardian that they see nothing wrong with accepting the award and they don't see it as validating the views of a group that has been desperately seeking mainstream credibility with which to push its anti-immigrant agenda.

Somewhat confusingly, Van Derbeken claims of his smiling acceptance at the public ceremony, "No one should mistake their decision to endorse my work for my endorsement of theirs." But the group's appreciation for his work does make sense, considering that the stories they specifically laud "have been roundly criticized by immigrant rights groups as inflaming anti-immigrant sentiments and allowing policies that punish the innocent and divide families."

While "Conner both cited the fact that past recipients of the award included the Washington Post and Dallas Morning News," the Bay Guardian writers note that

that's true, but over the last six years since immigration has become such a hot button issue, the awards have gone mostly to right-wing publications and scary nativists. Three of the last six awards have gone to writers for the Washington Times, a right-wing newspaper created by Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

And, in case you had any more doubts about what's going on here: "The ultra-conservative National Review and anti-immigrant television commentator Lou Dobbs also [are] among the recent recipients." See the cover feature of the current issue of FAIR's magazine Extra: "Media Patrol the Border" (6/09).

Veteran actor and activist Peter Coyote (SFChronicle.com, 5/30/09) writes about big media's overriding response to the "Largest Environmental Lawsuit in History--Silence." Taking a look at "the practices that are going on behind Chevron's carefully cultivated 'green' image" as they "drill for oil in the jungles of the Ecuadorian Amazon," Coyote does give credit to the Washington Post reporting of "several damning letters" like "an internal 1972 memo...instructing Texaco [now Chevron] officials in Ecuador to report only spills that attracted the attention of the news media." Nonetheless:

This is a case of epic proportions, where our commons, the lungs of the planet, have been violated needlessly and carelessly, to save money with no thought whatsoever paid to the thousands of people, and millions of species, that would be poisoned while the American media basically slept. Those of you who may have noticed the cozy interview with the [executive vice] president of Chevron in the SF Chronicle last week might not have noticed the small article in the Chronicle's business section mentioning the protests outside of the Chevron stockholders meeting in San Ramon on May 26. Cofan Indian leader Ermenegildo Quillolo, and lead-American attorney for the defense Steve Danziger, Ecuadorian community organizer Luis Yanza, members of Amazon Watch and a host of NGOs seeking to protect the Amazon were there protesting the actions of Chevron, and alerting stockholders that their company paid $30 billion dollars for a company with $27 billion dollars of liabilities attached, a gross failure of due diligence. We, the public, were not offered a comparable interview with the Ecuadorians, Steven Danziger or members of Amazon Watch.

Even though "this spill dwarfs the Exxon Valdez," Coyote notes that it, "aside from an excellent piece on 60 Minutes, remains virtually unreported. How many of you know about it? And if not, why not?" Listen to a similar story of oil company crimes and media neglect on the current FAIR radio program CounterSpin: "Han Shan on Shell & Ken Saro-Wiwa" (5/29/09).

Writing under the pen name Jami Tarn (CounterPunch, 3/27/09), one San Francisco lawyer is rallying against "a hate-filled column in the San Francisco Chronicle." Chronicle commentator Debra J. Saunders "insinuated that Tristan Anderson, still lingering in a coma in Tel Aviv after taking an Israeli tear gas canister to the face, costing him part of his frontal lobe and possibly his right eye, deserves this comeuppance for daring to join Palestinians in protest against Israel’s illegal Apartheid wall." Saunders, Tarn wrote, reduced such suffering to the snarky "love-it-or-leave-it Amer'kuh" line that Anderson now has "found out in the worst way that political protest outside the Bay Area isn't all energy bars and catch-and-release."

Tarn notes that, to Saunders, even "a temporary traffic-snarling protest is 'menacing and violence-tinged'; everything the police say is credible":

Saunders lamented, "The problem is…when an officer's skull is fractured--as happened to SFPD's Peter Shields during an anti-World Trade Organization protest in 2005--there are no angry marches closing down Market Street." As one of the lawyers who represented independent journalist Josh Wolf, jailed for eight months for contempt for refusing on principle to turn over his video from that incident to the FBI (which did not show the attack on Shields, but did show Shields' partner, Officer Michael Wolf, choking a completely non-threatening protester half to death), I know something about the events--a protest against the G8 Summit, not the WTO. It began when Officer Shields sped down a dark street in his patrol car, dangerously scattering protesters like chickens, then jumped out wildly swinging his baton. According to his own account, he was in the midst of striking a protester in the arms and legs when someone hit him over the head.