The Hall of Fame (and Shame) of local reporting on this story.

When we first started this website on June 5th, 1997, we assumed the local newspapers, the Chronicle and Examiner, would pick up on this obvious story eventually.

Imagine our surprise when they not only dropped the story but also seemed to be going out of their way to aid in what appears to be an official cover-up by engaging in spectacularly inept reporting.

Lest you think we are exaggerating the extreme difficulty we have had in getting the local media to discharge their public responsibility by covering this story, here’s a story from the Wired News Service dated July 14, 1997, about our efforts which at the time of this article were already over one month old.

Senior editors of both the Chronicle and the Examiner were called. Read their disingenuous responses to Wired’s inquiries and then examine this page to see the level of coverage they were giving this story before external events forced their reluctant hands.

Note also our Exhibits page, both for the volume of material we presented them with as well as the various dates this information was first made available to the public.

Local coverage

Note: “Lots of stories” and good reporting are not necessarily the same thing.

• The impending indictment of Edward DeBartolo, Jr. appears to have woken up the San Francisco Examiner. We’ll add links to their recent stories soon. In any event, the local press is publishing mere fragments of the total story and fragments that were publicly available on this site several months ago.
• November 26, 1997
  Two election stories that reveal the epic incompetence and inanity of San Francisco’s newspapers:

– Examiner – Invitation to test new voting machines
– Chronicle – S.F. Invites Residents to Test Several New Voting Systems

• October 29, 1997 – Ex-S.F. Registrar of Voters Says She Made Mistake
• October 29, 1997 – Wong admits error in stadium voting

Note: Wong was caught in a lie by a citizen who attended the voter fraud hearing on October 28th and was forced to disclose her deliberate disregard of a written warning from the California Secretary of State. Both the Chronicle and the Examiner reports misrepresented the facts to make it appear that Wong volunteered the information.

• October 26, 1997 – Stadium backers interfered, voters say
• September 6, 1997 – New Stadium Ballot Analysis Finds Fewer `Ghost Voters’
• September 3, 1997 – Elections Chief Says Tracking `Dead’ Voters a Tricky Task
• August 30, 1997 – FRAUD, IMPROPRIETIES ALLEGED – S.F. Elections Department, HUD, secretary of state look into 49ers’ win
• August 30, 1997 – Fraud Probe In Stadium Election Were fictitious ballots cast in 49ers vote?
• August 13, 1997 – The Chronicle finally gets a clue. Note the date this website started (June 5th) and the date the largest newspaper in northern California caught up to the story.
• July 4, 1997 – The front page of both dailies trumpets pictures from the surface of Mars, yet citizens of San Francisco are barred by the Director of Elections from seeing their own voting and election records, public records in a publicly owned building – and the only place you can read about this is on the Internet.
• June 20, 1997 – No Fraud Found in 49ers Vote: Elections Office Finds Nothing Out of the Ordinary
  San Francisco ChronicleAn embarrassingly bad piece of reporting from a major (?) paper. Even a small child can see through it. The product of either extreme gullibility or cynicism. Or maybe they’re just too busy covering “Manny the Hippie.”
• June 18, 1997 – Bulletin: Stadium Election Facts
  The San Francisco Investigator
• June 14, 1997 – Story dropped by both dailies!(Meanwhile, the release from jail of “Manny the Hippie” (a David Letterman pseudo-celebrity) gets the front page of the Examiner and page 3 of the Chronicle with photos.)
• June 13, 1997 – Investigators barred by Registrar of Voters after discovering suspected forgeries in voter books
  San Francisco Examiner
• June 12, 1997 – 49er Precinct Worker Charged with Voter Fraud – San Francisco Chronicle
• June 12, 1997 – 49er fan arrested in vote fraud
  San Francisco Examiner
• June 11, 1997 – 49er fan suspect in vote fraud
  San Francisco Examiner
• June 11, 1997 – Winning ugly: How Willy Brown used city employees to win the 49ers stadium-mall.
  San Francisco Bay Guardian
• June 10, 1997 – Man posing as cop cast an extra ballot on the stadium– San Francisco Examiner

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