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Brian Timpone

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Brian Timpone is an American conservative businessman and former journalist who operates a network of nearly 1,300 conservative local news websites. In 2012, Timpone stated that articles on his websites are partially written by freelancers outside of the United States, although he described the writing as "domestic" in a separate interview. According to The New York Times , Timpone's "operation is rooted in deception, eschewing hallmarks of news reporting like fairness and transparency." His sites publish articles for pay from outside groups, and do not disclose it.

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59-726: Timpone graduated from Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois . He received a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri ; while attending, he covered sports and news for the University-owned KOMU-TV . After school, he took a job at KDLH in Duluth, Minnesota , which he worked for less than a year before taking another TV job in Champaign, Illinois . Timpone

118-758: A June 2012 episode of This American Life , Timpone disclosed that Journatic was outsourcing its writing to over 300 freelancers using fake "Anglo-sounding" bylines in several geographic areas outside of the United States, including the Philippines, Eastern Europe, Brazil, and Africa. Following the release of the episode and the discovery of plagiarism in Journatic's articles, the Chicago Tribune , Chicago Sun-Times , Houston Chronicle , and Gatehouse Media suspended their relationships with

177-466: A building from Burnham and Root at 690 Market Street at the corner of Third and Kearney Streets to be their new headquarters, in what became known as Newspaper Row . The new building, San Francisco's first skyscraper, was completed in 1889. It was damaged in the 1906 earthquake, but it was rebuilt under the direction of William Polk, Burnham's associate in San Francisco. That building, known as

236-588: A cost-cutting move in May 2007. Newspaper executives pointed to growth of SFGate, the online website with 5.2 million unique visitors per month – fifth among U.S. newspaper websites in 2007. In February 2009, Hearst chief executive Frank A. Bennack Jr., and Hearst President Steven R. Swartz, announced that the Chronicle had lost money every year since 2001 and more than $ 50 million in 2008. Without major concessions from employees and other cuts, Hearst would put

295-551: A prominent role in national politics, and Paul Avery , the staffer who pursued the trail of the self-named " Zodiac Killer ", who sent a cryptogram in three sections in letters to the Chronicle and two other papers during his murder spree in the late 1960s. It also featured such colorful columnists as Pauline Phillips , who wrote under the name " Dear Abby ", "Count Marco" (Marc Spinelli), Stanton Delaplane , Terence O'Flaherty, Lucius Beebe , Art Hoppe , Charles McCabe , and Herb Caen . The newspaper grew in circulation to become

354-401: A redesigned paper featuring a modified logo, new section, and page organization, new features, bolder, colored section-front banners and new headline and text typography. The frequent bold-faced, all-capital-letter headlines typical of the Chronicle ' s front page were eliminated. Editor Ward Bushee's note heralded the issue as the start of a "new era" for the Chronicle . On July 6, 2009,

413-522: A religious order. The new plan called for the first school to accept coed classes until the boys' school was ready, about four years after the school for women was open. The Dominican Sisters of Springfield, Illinois agreed to oversee and staff the new school in 1955. Ground breaking occurred on January 6, 1957, and the school opened in September, 1958. The school was dedicated by Cardinal Albert Gregory Meyer on January 11, 1959. In September 1961,

472-499: A report by Columbia Journalism Review further exposed Timpone's network of companies including Metric Media LLC, Newsinator/Franklin Archer, Local Government Information Services (LGIS), Pipeline Media, and Locality Labs (formerly known as Journatic and Blockshopper). Also disclosed were some of the financial relationships between the entities, certain individuals involved, and several political and advocacy organizations which have funded

531-495: A request to Samuel Stritch , Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, a priest at St. Agnes parish in Chicago Heights was given permission to purchase land and begin raising funds for the construction of a coed high school. By 1951 enough capital had been raised to hire a local architect to design the building. The Cardinal then mandated that there were to be two cooperative schools, one for women and one for men, each to be run by

590-646: Is a member of the East Suburban Catholic Conference and participates in state tournaments sponsored by the Illinois High School Association . The school sponsors interscholastic sports teams for both men and women in basketball , cross country , golf , soccer , tennis , track and field , and volleyball . The school sponsors baseball , football , and wrestling for men, while sponsoring cheerleading and softball for women. While not sponsored by

649-569: Is a political play. Right-wing interests give money through a series of interlocking organizations in return for publishing indoctrination disguised as local news." Timpone's brother Michael began sharing the Metric Media website and mailing address for similar promotions. Metric Media's websites, printed papers, robocalls, and text messages were linked to the 2022 election, notably among right-wing PACs including Tim Dunn 's Defend Texas Liberty PAC, Uihlein 's Illinois-centered People Who Play by

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708-745: Is a response to the competition from other Bay Area newspapers including the resurrected San Francisco Examiner , the Oakland Tribune , the East Bay Times (formerly Contra Costa Times ) and the Mercury News . Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada received the 2004 George Polk Award for Sports Reporting. Fainaru-Wada and Williams were recognized for their work on uncovering the BALCO scandal, which linked San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds to performance-enhancing drugs. While

767-399: Is not as extensive as in the past. The current day Chronicle has followed the trend of other American newspapers, devoting increasing attention to local and regional news and cultural and entertainment criticism to the detriment of the paper's traditionally strong national and international reporting, though the paper does maintain a Washington, D.C., bureau. This increased focus on local news

826-555: Is president, Metric Media, Franklin Archer, Locality Labs (formerly known as Journatic and LocalLabs), DirecTech LLC, Interactive Content Services, Newsinator, Blockshopper, and The Record Inc. The companies have received funding from Liberty Principles PAC (substantially funded by Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein ) and have provided services to the Illinois Opportunity Project , politician Jeanne Ives and hotelier Monty Bennett as customers. The Record network

885-474: Is the architecture column by John King; the Chronicle is still one of the few American papers to present a regular column on architectural issues. The paper also has regular weekly sections devoted to Food & Home and Style. Circulation has fallen sharply since the dot-com boom peaked from around 1997 to 2001. The Chronicle ' s daily readership dropped by 16.6% between 2004 and 2005 to 400,906; The Chronicle fired one-quarter of its newsroom staff in

944-496: The Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel , which in 2008 unveiled radically new designs even as changing reader demographics and general economic conditions necessitated physical reductions of the newspapers. On November 9, 2009, the Chronicle became the first newspaper in the nation to print on high-quality glossy paper. The high-gloss paper is used for some section fronts and inside pages. The current publisher of

1003-427: The Chicago Tribune and various local media outlets. One hundred students who were late on their fees, causing a $ 450,000 budget deficit, were temporarily sent home from the school. Most quickly returned to class after working out payment plans. The Chicago Tribune was charged with bad reporting by many parents, who felt that many vital facts were not accurately represented in the initial article. Marian Catholic

1062-739: The Central Coast , the Central Valley , and even as far as Honolulu , Hawaii. There was little competition in the Bay Area suburbs and other areas that the newspaper served, but as Knight-Ridder consolidated the Mercury News in 1975; purchased the Contra Costa Times (now East Bay Times ) in 1995; and as the Denver-based Media News Group made a rapid purchase of the remaining newspapers on

1121-545: The Chronicle became the city's sole morning daily while the Examiner changed to afternoon publication (which ultimately led to a declining readership). The newspapers were officially owned by the San Francisco Newspaper Agency, which managed sales and distribution for both newspapers and was charged with ensuring that one newspaper's circulation did not grow at the expense of the other. Revenue

1180-695: The Chronicle has for decades used a small cartoon icon, sitting in a movie theater seat, known as the "Little Man", explained in 2008 by the Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert : "...the only rating system that makes any sense is the Little Man of the San Francisco Chronicle , who is seen (1) jumping out of his seat and applauding wildly; (2) sitting up happily and applauding; (3) sitting attentively; (4) asleep in his seat; or (5) gone from his seat." Another area of note

1239-556: The Chronicle is Bill Nagel. Audrey Cooper was named editor-in-chief in January 2015 and was the first woman to hold the position. In June 2020 she left to be the editor-in-chief of WNYC, New York City. In August 2020, Hearst named Emilio Garcia-Ruiz the publication's editor-in-chief. Ann Killion has written for Sports Illustrated . Carl Nolte is a journalist and columnist. The newspaper's websites are at SFGate.com (free) and SFChronicle.com (premium). Originally The Gate , SFGATE

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1298-635: The Gothic Revival architecture style, but most of the Gothic Revival detailing was removed in 1968 when the building was re-clad with stucco. This building remains the Chronicle ' s headquarters in 2017, although other concerns are located there as well. Between World War II and 1971, new editor Scott Newhall took a bold and somewhat provocative approach to news presentation. Newhall's Chronicle included investigative reporting by such journalists as Pierre Salinger , who later played

1357-473: The Philippines , but he states that the writing is "domestic". Journatic's job listings in the Philippines advertised a $ 0.35–0.40 pay rate per article for "writers to work on events stories" who are "able to commit to 250 pieces/week minimum". Journatic managed TribLocal , a hyperlocal news branch of the Chicago Tribune that targeted suburban neighborhoods around Chicago , in the spring of 2012. In

1416-584: The West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like other newspapers, it experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century and was ranked 18th nationally by circulation in the first quarter of 2021. In 1994, the newspaper launched the SFGATE website, with a soft launch in March and an official launch on November 3, 1994, including both content from the newspaper and other sources. "The Gate", as it

1475-766: The Wisconsin Catholic Tribune used content from its in-house publication, The Compass , without permission in violation of copyright law. A 2024 study by NewsGuard , a misinformation tracking company, found that "the number of partisan-backed outlets designed to look like impartial news outlets has officially surpassed the number of real, local daily newspapers in the U.S." NewsGuard identified at least 1,265 such websites "backed by dark money or intentionally masquerading as local news sites for political purposes." According to Axios , almost half of these websites are targeted to swing states, "a clear sign that they're designed to influence politics." Metric Media

1534-554: The "Old Chronicle Building" or the "DeYoung Building", still stands and was restored in 2007. It is a historic landmark and is the location of the Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences . In 1924, the Chronicle commissioned a new headquarters at 901 Mission Street on the corner of 5th Street in what is now the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood of San Francisco. It was designed by Charles Peter Weeks and William Peyton Day in

1593-527: The Chronicle has 34 million unique visitors each month, with SFGATE receiving 135.9 million pageviews and 25.1 million unique visitors per month and SFChronicle.com 31.3 million pageviews and 31.3 million unique visitors per month globally. The paper has received the Pulitzer Prize on a number of occasions. Despite an illustrious and long history, the paper's news reportage

1652-519: The East Bay by 1985, the Chronicle realized it had to step up its suburban coverage. The Chronicle launched five zoned sections to appear in the Friday edition of the paper. The sections covered San Francisco and four different suburban areas. They each featured a unique columnist, enterprise pieces, and local news specific to the community. The newspaper added 40 full-time staff positions to work in

1711-790: The IHSA, Marian Catholic also sponsors interscholastic teams for men and women in fencing . The fencing teams compete as a part of the Great Lakes High School Fencing Conference. The following teams have placed in the top four of their respective state tournament sponsored by the IHSA: The Marian Catholic Band has been awarded both the Sudler Shield (1997), "an international award recognizing high school, youth, and international marching bands of world class excellence", and

1770-590: The Illinois State Marching Band competition every season since 1980, a 40-year streak unmatched by any other Illinois High School Association program (band or otherwise). The band also holds 18 Illinois State Grand Champion trophies. San Francisco Chronicle 226,860 avg. Mon-Fri circulation The San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California . It

1829-645: The Rules PAC (run by Dan Proft ), and Restoration PAC, partly funded by Uihlein. Tim Dunn is also linked to Pipeline Media. The network's printed newspapers were mailed to voters in Arizona, Kansas, and Illinois. Several publications claiming to be Catholic, with such titles as Arizona Catholic Tribune and Michigan Catholic Tribune , are unaffiliated with the Catholic dioceses in the areas they were printed. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay further noted that

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1888-616: The Sudler Flag of Honor (1991), another international award given for outstanding concert performance from the John Philip Sousa Foundation . The Marian Catholic Band has won seven Bands of America Grand National Championships, 23 National Class Championships, and five Bands of America Summer National Championships, the most of any band, as well as holding the record for most total and consecutive National Finals appearances, at 34. The band has won its class in

1947-472: The announcement, several anti-BlockShopper websites popped up and lawsuits were filed. Some of the targeted people said it would "[increase] the risk that baddies will rob them, steal their identities or kidnap their children." Journatic rebranded as "Locality Labs" in 2013. In 2019, Locality Labs delivered the Hinsdale School News to residents of Hinsdale, Illinois . The paper appropriated

2006-585: The book review. From 1965 on the two papers shared a single classified-advertising operation. This arrangement stayed in place until the Hearst Corporation took full control of the Chronicle in 2000. Beginning in the early 1990s, the Chronicle began to face competition beyond the borders of San Francisco. The newspaper had long enjoyed a wide reach as the de facto " newspaper of record " in Northern California, with distribution along

2065-436: The city's largest, overtaking the rival San Francisco Examiner . The demise of other San Francisco dailies through the late 1950s and early 1960s left the Examiner and the Chronicle to battle for circulation and readership superiority. The competition between the Chronicle and Examiner took a financial toll on both papers until the summer of 1965, when a merger of sorts created a Joint Operating Agreement under which

2124-530: The company. While Hearst's Houston Chronicle ended its partnership, Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle reviewed its use of the service and continued using it. BlockShopper, also founded by Timpone in 2006, though it was merged into Journatic in 2008, was said by Timpone to be "a nod to the days when newspapers included real estate, graduations and marriage announcements". After BlockShopper published high dollar real estate sales and purchases by several high-profile people, and in some cases tied in their employer in

2183-626: The de Young family founded KRON-TV (Channel 4), the Bay Area's third television station. Until the mid-1960s, the station (along with KRON-FM), operated from the basement of the Chronicle Building, on Mission Street. KRON moved to studios at 1001 Van Ness Avenue (on the former site of St. Mary's Cathedral, which burned down in 1962). KRON was sold to Young Broadcasting in 2000 and, after years of being San Francisco's NBC affiliate, became an independent station on January 1, 2002, when NBC—tired of Chronicle's repeated refusal to sell KRON to

2242-464: The eleven websites at App Store (iOS/iPadOS) shows the seller to be The Record, Inc. and the copyright holder is Newsinator, LLC. It's sort of a tattered product that's being written overseas and halfheartedly edited and just kinda slopped on the page[...] —Ryan Smith, Journatic employee Journatic (a portmanteau of "journalism" and "automatic") was founded by Timpone in 2006. According to Timpone, Journatic used news data processed by workers in

2301-468: The first female president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). The Chronicle's Sunday arts and entertainment insert section is called Datebook , and has for decades been printed on pink-tinted paper in a tabloid format. Movie reviews (for many years written by nationally known critic Mick LaSalle ) feature a unique rating system: instead of stars or a "thumbs up" system,

2360-408: The first group of seniors preparing to graduate stood at 165, but the incoming freshman class was 450. The initial staff of six nuns was now at 18, and had outgrown the capacity of their convent in nearby Homewood . The Dominican Sisters added a new convent to the school to accommodate the growing staff. Without a male religious order to sponsor the male school, plans were eventually dropped to build

2419-459: The logo of the local school district and had a heavy focus on articles opposing the upcoming referendum, which would have raised the school's budget. Officials from the district sent cease and desist letters to several companies in the Timpone network, stating that the use of its logos were deceptive and an instance of trademark infringement . Building up to the 2020 United States elections ,

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2478-540: The network and, later, Young's asking price for the station being too high —purchased KNTV in San Jose from Granite Broadcasting Corporation for $ 230 million. Since the Hearst Corporation took ownership in 2000 the Chronicle has made periodic changes to its organization and design, but on February 1, 2009, as the newspaper began its 145th year of publication, the Chronicle Sunday edition introduced

2537-434: The network increased from 450 sites to over 1,200 sites. Out of 50,000 articles, 15,000 of them were unique stories, with only about 100 with human bylines. Many automated sources included federal programs ( Department of Education , Department of Health and Human Services , Census Bureau ) and the fuel price site Gas Buddy . Articles with heavy conservative and Republican biases would also appear in targeted areas. In 2021,

2596-531: The network, all under the guise of "local news". Some of the large conservative organizations donating included Donors Trust , Donors Capital Fund , Uline and its owners Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein , and CatholicVote.org . Opining what effect this network of 'pay for play' websites has had, "Increasingly, we are seeing political campaigning which uses news as a cloak for campaigning activities potentially further undermining trust in legitimate local news outlets." Dan Kennedy of GBH News wrote, "Metric Media ...

2655-476: The paper unveiled some alterations to the new design that included yet newer section fronts and wider use of color photographs and graphics. In a special section publisher, Frank J. Vega described new, state-of-the-art printing operations enabling the production of what he termed "A Bolder, Brighter Chronicle ." The newer look was accompanied by a reduction in the size of the broadsheet. Such moves are similar to those made by other prominent American newspapers such as

2714-464: The papers up for sale and, if no buyer was found, shut the paper. San Francisco would have become the first major American city without a daily newspaper. The cuts were made. Despite – or perhaps because of – the threats, the loss of readers and advertisers accelerated. On October 26, 2009, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that the Chronicle had suffered a 25.8% drop in circulation for

2773-675: The second school. Mobile classrooms were brought in to help with the overcrowding. In 1970, the Sisters and the Archdiocese reached an agreement that would leave the sisters as the sole sponsors of the school, while the Archdiocese committed more money to build an addition. While the Archdiocese did not cover all of the needed additions, over the intervening years the school continued to raise money and make needed additions and renovations. The school received some criticism over tuition payment issues in March 2009, with an article appearing in

2832-429: The six-month period ending in September 2009, to 251,782 subscribers, the largest percentage drop in circulation of any major newspaper in the United States. Chronicle publisher Frank Vega said the drop was expected as the paper moved to earn more from higher subscription fees from fewer readers. In May 2013, Vega retired and was replaced as publisher by former Los Angeles Times publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson. SFGate,

2891-622: The suburban bureaus. Despite the push to focus on suburban coverage, the Chronicle was hamstrung by the Sunday edition, which, being produced by the San Francisco-centric "un- Chronicle " Examiner , had none of the focus on the suburban communities that the Chronicle was striving to cultivate. The de Young family controlled the paper, via the Chronicle Publishing Company , until July 27, 2000, when it

2950-451: The two above-named reporters broke the news, they are by no means the only sports writers of note at the Chronicle . The Chronicle ' s sports section is edited by Christina Kahrl and called Sporting Green as it is printed on green-tinted pages. The section's best-known writers are its columnists: Bruce Jenkins, Ann Killion, Scott Ostler, and Mike Silver. Its baseball coverage is anchored by Henry Schulman, John Shea, and Susan Slusser ,

3009-484: Was founded by brothers Charles and M. H. de Young in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle , funded by a borrowed $ 20 gold piece. Their brother Gustavus was named with Charles on the masthead. Within 10 years, it had the largest circulation of any newspaper west of the Mississippi River . The paper's first office was in a building at the corner of Bush and Kearney Streets . The brothers then commissioned

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3068-468: Was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young . The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation , which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and had the largest newspaper circulation on

3127-509: Was hired as the personal spokesman to Illinois House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels in 1997. Timpone is involved with a number of interconnected media companies that post press releases and lightly copied content as news articles, at one point publishing under false bylines. The process has been described as " pay for play ", compared to the content farming of Demand Media , and called " ' pink slime' journalism ". The companies include Local Government Information Services (LGIS), of which he

3186-458: Was known at launch, was the first large market newspaper website in the world, co-founded by Allen Weiner and John Coate. It went on to staff up with its own columnists and reporters, and even won a Pulitzer Prize for Mark Fiore's political cartoons. In 2013, the newspaper launched its own namesake website, SFChronicle.com, and began the separation of SFGATE and the Chronicle brands, which today are two separately run entities. The Chronicle

3245-483: Was noted as a major backer of partisan websites designed to look like news websites. Ahead of the 2024 elections, Metric distributed one-off print newspapers. Marian Catholic High School (Illinois) Marian Catholic High School is a co-educational secondary school in Chicago Heights , Illinois . It is located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago . In 1949, after making

3304-431: Was one of the earliest major market newspaper websites to be launched, on November 3, 1994, at the time of The Newspaper Guild strike ; the union published its own news website, San Francisco Free Press , whose staff joined SFGATE when the strike ended. SFChronicle.com launched in 2013 and since 2019 has been run separately from SFGATE, whose staff are independent of the print newspaper. As of 2020 across all platforms

3363-545: Was sold to Hearst Communications, Inc. , which owned the Examiner . Following the sale, the Hearst Corporation transferred the Examiner to the Fang family, publisher of the San Francisco Independent and AsianWeek , along with a $ 66-million subsidy. Under the new owners, the Examiner became a free tabloid , leaving the Chronicle as the only daily broadsheet newspaper in San Francisco. In 1949,

3422-416: Was split equally, which led to a situation widely understood to benefit the Examiner , since the Chronicle , which had a circulation four times larger than its rival, subsidized the afternoon newspaper. The two newspapers produced a joint Sunday edition, with the Examiner publishing the news sections and the Sunday magazine, and the Chronicle responsible for the tabloid-sized entertainment section and

3481-739: Was started by Timpone in September 2004 with The Madison County Record , a legal journal for Madison County, Illinois . It was silently funded by the United States Chamber of Commerce 's Institute for Legal Reform to oppose lawsuits against businesses and to support tort reform . The Chamber later funded a site run by The Record called Legal Newsline. As of 2021, The Record's network included: Cook County Record, Florida Record, Legal Newsline, Louisiana Record, Madison - St. Clair Record , Northern California Record, Pennsylvania Record, SE Texas Record, Southern California Record, St. Louis Record, and West Virginia Record . The mobile apps for

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