zlacker

>>etc-ho+(OP)
This article is emblematic of everything wrong with "journalism" today. Regardless of what Garry wrote on Twitter (which I'm not defending), he didn't send the letters in question, which are the core of the incident. So some lunatic prints out a tweet and mails it to politicians at their home addresses, and the "journalist" spends a couple thousand words focusing on the tweet, and how the guy who wrote the tweet is rich.

Also, featuring the price of his liquor bottles (prominent in the first article about this by the same writer) is indicative of the level of pettiness involved. Maybe there's an actual story here, but this isn't it, and it's not clear that the story is more than "someone said something regrettable on Twitter".

>>timr+Y6
> everything wrong with "journalism" today

Mission Local is one of the best sources of local San Francisco news, especially anything directly relevant to the Mission District.

If rich jerks don't want to be called out by local journalists, they shouldn't post unhinged public death threats, even as a "joke" or "song reference".

>>jacobo+vb
> Mission Local is one of the best sources of local San Francisco news

OK. Maybe their coverage of potholes is fantastic, but this article is a terrible, obviously partisan hack job. Both things can be true.

>>timr+Ec
I think your own "partisanship" is coloring your reading of a fairly neutral and factual article. Mission Local regularly publishes stories which are (implicitly or explicitly) critical of the supervisors Tan was threatening here.

>>jacobo+9g
I have no idea if missionlocal is partisan, but this article is obviously partisan -- it brings in a bunch of irrelevant factors (e.g. the value of Garry's liquor collection) into a story that boils down to "someone said a thing on Twitter that was bad and offensive, while drunk, and someone else took an obviously unhinged action in result".

It's the easiest thing in the world to report this in a neutral, factual way. You don't need to focus on Gary's money, his association to tech, his liquor cabinet, or anything else. That the reporter(s) could not do this speaks volumes about their motivations.

Aside from that, I have no dog in this particular fight. I haven't lived in SF in years, and if you're insinuating that I'm on a particular side of the political spectrum, you're way over your skis. Partisan doesn't have to mean "left" or "right", by the way...you can just be partisan against tech.

>>timr+qy
Here's the text of the article directly:

> During his online tirade, Tan posted photos of his private liquor stash, and indicated to a fellow Twitter-user that he was inebriated.

Describing the tweets adjacent to the offensive one gives useful context. This is not the reporter dredging up some irrelevant trivia from deep in Tan's past or something.

Readers might not know who Tan is. It is even more essential context to explain that:

> Garry Tan, the CEO of Y Combinator and a heavy campaign donor to efforts to oust progressive politicians [...]

> Tan is a well-heeled donor for San Francisco’s moderate causes and candidates. He sits on the board of Grow SF, a political pressure group favoring moderate causes and candidates and targeting progressives. Tan gave more than $100,000 to the 2022 campaign to recall then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin. He gave at least $20,000 to the 2021 school board recall, too.

If Tan was just some random person with no influence and no relation to SF politics this would probably not be much of a story. That he is one of the major donors to the political rivals of these supervisors is the reason this is a political shitstorm. Tan's tweet damages the reputation of his "Grow SF" group and the candidates they support, and has possible further political implications:

> Peskin today asked the City Attorney’s Office to look into requiring public disclosures from recipients of political donations from “purveyors of hate and violence.”