Early yesterday morning, we received a tip from a reader in the San Francisco East Bay area who informed us that a local reporter’s life had been threatened by an activist at the Occupy Oakland demonstration.

Our source, who is fearful of reprisal and has requested anonymity, says that KGO-TV’s Amy Hollyfield was accosted by a man who threatened her and used a racial slur:

“We shoot white bitches like you around here.”

According to our source, the Oakland Police Department was apparently called to the scene. Inquiries to the police, and to Hollyfield, which began at roughly 8 a.m. Pacific time yesterday, are still unanswered today.

Other local morning news reports from three of the major Bay Area stations suggested that the Occupy Oakland tent city had descended into rat-infested squalor with complaints of vandalism, public urination, sexual harassment, and sex in public.

The night before, local CBS affiliate KNTV had reported that one Occupy Oakland activist had set his dog on a reporter in a vicious attack that would have maimed his arm had the reporter not been wearing a suit jacket.

Yet even as these local stations reported how Occupy Oakland has collapsed into chaos, they failed to report that police were allegedly called to protect a reporter whose life was threatened in a racist and misogynistic way.

KGO is not playing up the alleged incident on its website, and its reporting on the Occupy Oakland chaos is leaving out these explosive details–that, if verified, would make Occupy Oakland the major national story it ought to be.

Here is Ms. Hollyfield’s report from this morning, in which she mentions threats to KGO’s cameras, but not the alleged threat to her life.

Hollyfield later confirmed, on Twitter, the threat to “break our camera,” but did not mention the alleged threat to her life.

In another report from the Occupy Oakland tent city early this morning, KTVU’s Claudine Wong was verbally abused and intimidated on live television, in a tense scene witnessed by viewers throughout the Bay Area.

(more…)

From the Chron:

Update: In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area.

Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib:

Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.

The Chronicle’s report is accurate.

If the White House has indeed decided not to ban our reporter, we would like an on-the-record notice that she will remain the San Francisco print pool reporter. (more…)

Base Jumping:

Californians are left with a deeply unsatisfying choice for the U.S. Senate this year. The incumbent, Democrat Barbara Boxer, has failed to distinguish herself during her 18 years in office. There is no reason to believe that another six-year term would bring anything but more of the same uninspired representation.

Naturally, the San Francisco Chronicle doesn’t like Carly Fiorina either. That, however, can be filed under “Reaction, Knee Jerk.” This is the newspaper that’s long been considered by Democrats as nothing more than a satellite campaign office. The import of its declining to endorse Boxer, especially in this election, cannot be understated. The editorial says as much.

It is extremely rare that this editorial page would offer no recommendation on any race, particularly one of this importance. This is one necessary exception.

Rarely, if ever, has so much been at stake for progressives in America. They got the president they wanted. They got a powerful Speaker of the House from one of the most progressive districts in the country. And they got what they thought was going to be a decades-long mandate. Twenty months later, it’s all disintegrating. (more…)

A week ago, news began to break in San Francisco about a targeted gay-bashing crime that allegedly occurred on February 26.

Three cousins from Hayward have been charged in San Francisco with a hate crime and assault for allegedly firing a BB rifle at the face of a man they believed was gay, an attack the men videotaped, authorities said Wednesday.

Investigators believe the assailants chose the victim because he appeared to be gay. When the men were pulled over, police found a video camera that was used to film the shooting, investigators said.

Clearly, of course, this had to be a Christian right-wing, tea party, anti-government, bigoted homophobe from the South. Right?

Wrong.

The three men, Shafiq Hashemi, 21, Sayed Bassam, 21, and Mohammad Habibzada, 24, the driver, were arrested. (more…)