"Cheery" front page of today's CoCo Times: Can I go back to bed now...

. . . for about five years?

Oh, not that I'm one to ever deny or postpone reality. . .

So, I didn't sleep much last night. Psst, ladies, that time of the month. Plus, I had this not massive but still annoying, frustrating, lingering work project that I've been struggling to complete. The annoyance and frustration over that prompted me to wake up extra early, after going to bed late, to finish it.

I pulled myself out of bed, made super strong coffee, and perused the, yes, actual print versions of today's San Francisco Chronicle and Contra Costa Times. And here's the cheery headlines that greeted me, and other home subscribers, of the Times this morning. They were enough to add to my already sleep-deprived, hormonal, emotionally frazzled state--and to make me wonder, will there ever be a silver lining, that light at the end of this tunnel? Will the sun ever really come out tomorrow?

Contra Costa's plight deepens: County forced to slah more than $50 million, leading to lay offs and cuts in health social services.

BART strike threat returns: Agency "ready to impose a contract" after words mine train operators, station agents reject no-raise proposals.

If that work project was frustrating and annoying me, this news was about to send me through the roof. Idiot, self-centered train operators and station agents, everyone of whom probably earns much more than me, especially after my pay cut, and far more generous health and pension benefits. Talk about people who deny reality, or the reality that many of the rest of us are living with. Or who don't care.

"Wave of bad news hits East Bay homeowners: Plummeting prices push more houses in region under water.

Negative equity in Contra Costa County, in the second quarter, is at 49 percent, meaning that this is the percentage of mortgaged homes for which homeowners owe more on their property than what its worth.

Even more cheery online headline for this story: "East Bay homes with negative equity could pull down economy"

And, finally:

"Woman's life thrown into reverse after layoff."
Apparently, this 1990s college grad was enjoying a lucrative career in online wine sales. Now, after getting laid off, she's back to living like a college student, renting a room in someone's house after giving up her apartment, selling most of her furniture, and burning through her savings.

The big story on the homepage of the online Times was of course:
Police seek suspect in Richmond-San Rafael Bridge shooting

The only upside to this story, if you could call it that, given that two people were slain, one in front of lots of shocked and horrified Richmond-San Rafael Bridge commuters is this:
Man connected to Richmond-San Rafael Bridge shootings arrested

Yeah, I know, I know, I shouldn't read the newspapers, or watch TV news, or listening to news headlines on the radio, or worst yet, read online news websites, or check my Twitter. But what can I do? I'm a bit of a news junkie. I can't stay away for long.

My chat with the manager of the Chinese restaurant whose flag was stolen

Just got off the phone with Linda Lam, the manager of OI-C Bowl Chinese Kitchen and Bar on North Main Street. A flag that the restaurant had flying out front, a flag of the People's Republic of China, was reported stolen Thursday.

I explained to Linda that I had posted a story about her flag and a reader's objections to it on this blog on March 24. Well, Linda, busy restaurateur that she is, had not seen the blog and was not aware of its existence. I told her I was sorry that I hadn't contacted her back when I first published my story.

"Oh, that's okay. Thank you for telling me that."

Linda says she and her family is from Hong Kong, a former territory of the United Kingdom which became part of mainland China in 1997. She said the flag had been sent to her friends in Hong Kong. She said she and the other restaurant staff meant absolutely nothing political in flying it.

"We are just a restaurant, for relaxing, and for people being happy," she said.

She added that she viewed flying this flag the same as other restaurants--Mexican, Italian, French--flying the flags of the nations whose cuisine they serve. I said that I thought that some people have negative associations with this flag: they see it as representing communism, and people still have strong feelings against that political ideology; that many Americans fear China because of its size and economic power; that people from mainland China may have negative feelings about a flag that represents a leadership that oppressed family members in the past.

She again said that her restaurant and its ownership are not trying to make any kind of political statement: "We're have nothing to do with government or politics."

Furthermore she said: "This is America, this is the United States. Lots of restaurants flying different kinds of flags. I don't know why anyone is aiming at us. That is not the spirit of free speech."

She repeated what she told the Contra Costa Times Friday, that she received a call from a man about two weeks ago who complained that the Chinese flag did not represent democracy. She added that whoever took had to put a lot of effort into the theft.

And, yes, she plans to get ahold of another Chinese flag and fly it again.

Okay, readers, she sounds like a nice woman, who just wants to make a living running a local business. It's hard to disagree with her point about free speech, a cornerstone of American democracy. But perhaps she's being a bit naive and idealistic in thinking that everyone will agree that a flag representing the Communist Party-run nation of China is not political.

Oh, with regard to my gripe with the Contra Costa Times. We'll see. So, she couldn't have complained to the Times about my blog, because she didn't know about it. It's possible the reporter, Roman Gokhman, wasn't aware of my story about the flag. After all, my blog is fairly new. But my story did receive a fair amount of response after Claycord.com picked it up, and I'm pretty sure most Times reporters keep up, or should keep up, with Claycord.com these days.

Bloggers so-called lack of transparency and the Contra Costa Times so-called not lack of it

The other day I was chatting with a smart, friendly guy who works as public relations manager for a local company. He was talking about the challenge for him in dealing with new media entities like bloggers. He wasn’t dismissing bloggers or the work we do, just saying it’s a challenge knowing who is credible—as in which ones approach their information- gathering and writing in a professional manner—and which ones do not. During this conversation, I didn’t tell him I had a personal blog, because we were talking in a context outside of what I do as Soccer Mom and Crazy in Suburbia. Also, his is not a company I ever foresee contacting as Soccer Mom. I was mainly interested in hearing his viewpoint, not initiating a full-blown discussion or debate about the topic.

More recently, a good friend who still works for a news organization raised the question of transparency and blogs like mine, which are anonymous or in which their publishers, like me, use a nom de plume. But what’s transparency and what’s not? What’s truth and what’s not?

My decision to identify myself as Soccer Mom on this blog rather than by my real name is ultimately a creative decision. I could say, from a writing standpoint, I feel more free—and therefore more honest and transparent—in expressing myself about certain topics, than I would if I used my real name. (That’s not the case in other works I’ve published under my own name.)

By the way, my employers recently became aware of my personal blog, and they turned out to be fine with it. They support any employee’s right of free speech—as long as the employee isn’t using company time to work on their personal hobby or money-making venture. Believe me, this is no money-making venture, and never will be. That was never my intention. I love learning more about my community, digging, raising questions, writing, sharing the information, getting dialogue going. It’s more than a hobby. It is, as I published yesterday, an addiction…

Meanwhile, the question of transparency and bloggers versus traditional news organizations was much on my mind last night and today. Yesterday, the Contra Costa Times published a story about the theft of the flag of mainland China which had been flying in front of OI-C Bowl Chinese Kitchen and Bar on North Main Street in downtown Walnut Creek. The Times story was based on original reporting from its night cops reporter, Roman Gokhman.

However, Gokhman left out what could be a key piece of this story. It is that this theft follows a blog I posted on the flag on March 24. As the Mayor of Claycord said in his own post about the flag theft: "The Times actually wrote the story about the theft of the flag, but for some reason, gave no mention of 'Soccer Mom's' recent article, which was probably the entire reason for the theft."

The Mayor has had his own dealings with the Times jumping on stories that he has broken but not giving credit, instead making these stories to appear to be their “scoops.” So not cool. Of course, the Mayor has been gracious about it, as explained by Phil Bronstein, editor at large of the San Francisco Chronicle, in an August 2008 blog. In this blog, Bronstein is trying to deal with the “New Media Puzzle”:

Local blog Claycord … broke a real story with the help of its community of readers. … When some guy started buzzing his small plane way too low over homes in the area late the other night, reporting done by Claycord contributor "The Mayor" and commenters on the site helped identify the naughty pilot, took photos of the plane at low levels, and even found out the alleged pilot had a restraining order out on him related to some apparent domestic dispute.

This is happening more and more with some blogs - they break real news. CBS-5 did a segment about it and gave The Mayor and his blog credit (the right thing to do.) But the Contra Costa Times took the story and gave no credit. The Mayor was forgiving and understanding, even though the reporter sent him a less-than-forceful argument for why they stiffed him. To his credit, the CCTimes reporter did sound a little, well, conflicted about it all …

Moral: always give credit where it's due.Your owe your audience a proper accounting. And they'll eventually kill you dead if you don't, especially these days when it's so easy to check the trajectory of a story.

By the way, I’ve had good dealings with CBS-5 as well, picking up on stories I’ve broken and giving me credit.

And, as readers of both this blog and Claycord.com know, I’m not as gracious as the Mayor. I’m Crazy Soccer Mom. I called the Times night desk last night. I left voice mails with Gokhman. I also e-mailed him and some of his editors.

I pointed out in my voice messages and e-mails how bloggers often get accused of “stealing” content from traditional news organizations and professional journalists. I fully confessed to my frequent “theft” of content from the Contra Costa Times and other traditional news sources. But I said I always give them credit and say that this information comes from them, not me. I also said that, yes, I occasionally complain about how the Times covers certain stories. But, ultimately, I support their continued existence and the important public service role they play in the community.

As I write this on Saturday morning, the writer and editors are no doubt off duty, and maybe will be off-duty through the weekend. But if I get any response, I’ll post it.

Okay, one could question why I’d want to take credit for a story that might have prompted a criminal act. Well, I don’t think what I wrote caused a crime. The criminal caused the crime. I didn’t expose anything that was not visible to the hundreds of people who walk or drive daily up and down Main Street in Walnut Creek. That flag was flying in plain view. I was asking the question of what people thought of it, after receiving a complaint from a reader. I personally took no position on whether this flag should fly or not.

As I mentioned in what I wrote last night, I believe I could have handled my original story better in one regard. I want to slap myself on the head for this oversight. Before publishing, I should have called the restaurant owner and or manager and asked, “why are you flying this flag?” This was a Basic Reporting 101 oversight. I would have written my post anyway, but with their response.

Of course, my blog could have nothing to do with the theft. Maybe the thief doesn't know about Crazy and noticed the flag on his or her own, was offended for whatever reason, and stole it. Unfortunately, whether the owners of the restaurant want to acknowledge it or not, that flag has different associations for different people, some positive, some negative. This flag flying in downtown Walnut Creek pushed buttons. The button-pushing certainly was apparent in the comments shared on my original post.

As for the Times failure to mention Crazy’s original blog in its story?

Well, I think by omitting it, the writer left out a potentially crucial piece of the story. Maybe the restaurant manager is angry at my blog, maybe the restaurant manager complained about it, and said I published an improper story. If that was the case, the reporter should write that. If that was what this manager said, then that’s the background of her restaurant’s current situation. And it deserves a mention.

Or, maybe the restaurant manager never mentioned Crazy in her interview, because she doesn’t know about it. Maybe Gokhman is unaware of Crazy, or at least that I “broke” this story about this flag flying and that it might not sit well with some people.

If so, he and his editors are aware of it now.

And, today, as unpleasant a task as it will be, I will call the restaurant, apologize for not getting their response in the first place, and apologize that their flag was stolen. I will also see if they will share their grievances about my blog, or this theft situation.

I’ll end yet another of my long diatribes with this question: Ultimately, who is being more transparent and thorough in reporting this story? The traditional Times and its staff writer who signs his story with his own name. And fails to provide possible context to the event he's reporting. Or me, the anonymous blogger who doesn’t work for a “credible” traditional news organization like the Contra Costa Times.

In this case--and, yes, I’m biased--I vote for myself.