Petrelis Files

(BAR publisher Tom Horn, on the left, wearing glasses)








BAR Endorsement of Angelides Omits Owner's Donation

By and large, the Bay Area Reporter adheres to standard journalistic practices in reporting news for the gay community and at election time, making endorsements.

But an integral rule of good journalism, disclosing to readers when the publisher has made a donation to a candidate, one that the paper strongly supports, is an ethical rule the BAR ignores.

An editorial in the current BAR asks Democratic voters to cast their ballots for California governor for Phil Angelides and the paper argues in favor of him in the June primary, and also says he's the man who can beat Gov. Schwarzenegger in November. Read the editorial here.

A quick search of the Secretary of State's campaign finance disclosure web page reveals BAR publisher, Thomas E. Horn, on March 7 donated $3,000 to Angelides' campaign, but this fact is not reported anywhere in Horn's paper.

In my view, Horn can donate to as many federal, state and local politicians as he wants to and there's certainly nothing illegal or unethical about such giving. Heck, looking at all of Horn's political giving over the years at every level of government, it's clear he has quite a bit of cash to spread around.

However, on the other hand, it's also incumbent on the BAR to be up front with readers about Horn's political largesse.

While we're on the topic of Horn and the BAR, I didn't know he was rather cheap about paying one of his star gossip columnists, who no longer writes for the paper.

From the very informative and fabulous online publication, the San Francisco Sentinel:

Read it here first, graybeards... Political junkies of the more mature generation remember Page Nine as a must-read every week for politico majesty and dirt... That would be Page Nine of the Bay Area Reporter (BAR) where Wayne Friday bold-faced every name that mattered and those who still striving...

Comes now Sentinel scooplet on just why Friday walked away from Page Nine...

With publisher Bob Ross gone to his reward - and white gloved Tom Horn squat purse-lipped in publisher's rocker - Horn and Friday thought otherwise on Friday's value to the BAR...

This weekend Friday described founding publisher Bob Ross as brilliant, rude, and an expletive deleted ("can't you see we're eating," Ross withered the overly helpful)...

Still, the two men often moved as one as they grew the early Tavern Guild and forged a fledgling communications medium called The BAR within the only publicly permitted LGBT gathering spots of that era... Friday took a weekly paycheck of $100.00 all those years...

Then came Horn and an assessment of Friday's value.

"I'll stay but I want $150.00 a week," Friday told new publisher Horn.

"You can have $125.00 but don't bring it up again," millionaire Horn edicted.

"I won't ever bring it up again," Friday pledged, departing Page Nine and the BAR...