large media corporations. when you are out there speaking the truth that they do not want to hear, just to make your media -- especially if you are pointing out your expos -- that you are exposed. we also believe that in media there should come education. the word minority is a derogatory term. believe it or not. thank you. >> we have a little bit of time left. i want to make sure all of the audience members are heard. >> my name is bruce grimes. i am an independent writer and producer of television, going back to "rolling stone." my question will relate to the

comment about quality from dr. abraham. specifically about journalists today. 250 people, ranging in age between 25 and 35, pretty frightening. they were new media folks from a content perspective. what i came away with listening to them talk about their audience, reaching out, being writers, was scared me was how selfish the audience seemed to be. subway breakfasts, your comment about crime and people being tired of reading about it, they were reaching for people like this, this is how they were going to make money. it scares the hell out of me. i brought it back and brought it up, especially in the '60s and

'70s, it was a extremely political newspaper magazine that used music to bring in an audience. so, my question, what about the new journalists today reaching out to the 20-year-old and 30- year-old? your comment about the two schools of journalism and reaching out, getting quality journalism to the public, how will we do that? >> we have a couple of issues here. the old school and the new school. i guess the question would be -- is there a standard? a single standard anymore for journalism? >> i do not know who sets that

standard anymore. frightening, sometimes, to hear the fact that the most trusted name in news is jon stewart. but who can argue that there is not some good quality reporting and information that goes on on a show like that? i think it will be far reaching. we have young people, both in print and on the internet. it is a wide range of opportunity. i do not know that there is any one standard today that anyone could point to that would be the single source. >> what about the chronicle right now? reducing $1 million per week, what does that look like right now?

>> thank goodness we are not losing $1 million per week today. i am happy to say that. to give you an idea, fourth quarter of last year, in the toughest economic times of this country that we have seen since the great depression, it was a record quarter for us for the decade. now, the bar was awfully low, but it was a profitable quarter. started out at the beginning of the year, in this type of environment, not making money today. but we are on our budget and on our plan. the last six months of the year looked to be a strong revenue environment for us. we think we will be fine overall for the year. >> we have gone over our time a little bit. one last question. >> this is for mr. frazier. the panel last night, it looks

like there is no after the chronicle, so congratulations. we were talking about how people to get them to eat their broccoli with their ice-cream. reading city hall coverage with subway breakfasts. can you talk about ways you are experimenting with getting people to eat them both? making it palatable? concrete experiments that you will try? >> that will -- that sounds terrible. [laughter] >> maybe we can have broccoli with cheese? i do not think that there is a simple answer. i think that people come to read various news sources. there will be multiple sources. some for entertainment, some for other resources. the key thing about broccoli and

in sustaining a democracy, it tells us what we need to know even if we did not need to know it. it is about the role that the journalist plays, telling the community what we did that no we needed to know. cheese, ice cream, it does not matter. that means editors. that means transparency. that means education about media. it means membership of junior journalists. without all of those things, there is no broccoli. no one will tell us what we need to know that we did now know we need to know. >> on that note we will have to conclude today's town hall forum. we hope that you enjoyed it. it has been presented by the northern california chapter of professional journalism. they've asked me to express thanks to tonight's panelists. thank you for being here today.

[applause] thank you to the audience as well. give yourself a clap, making it on the tuesday evening from work or whatever. we would also like to thank the san francisco public library from -- for sharing this facility, the crew from sfgtv, thank you for joining us. we wish you good news in everything that you do. [applause] >> thank you very much for joining us tonight. i would appreciate it if folks would move into the lobby for conversation.

>> so it's a tremendous honor to be here today. we've got a tremendous program for you. this is our annual black history month kickoff. it was started many, many years ago. dr. carter g. woodson had participated in the founding of black history month. he was involved in the group known as the oh, -- association for the study of african-american life and history.

the local chapter of that group is what is now known as the african-american cultural and historical society. so it's an honor. we've been doing this for many, many years and it's great to see so many faces out here today. right now what i'd like to do is thank our partners and acknowledge them for their participateation. the san francisco public library much the california cultural arts program and we couldn't do it without the good folks in the mayor's office of neighborhood services. what i'd like to do now is strue -- shall truce -- intro duce tanish hollins from the mayor's office of neighborhood services. >> good amp, family. happy black history month. could we hear it one more time? [applause]

>> we are so honored to be here. we look forward to this every year. it's a hall mark event for the city and county of san francisco. an opportunity to reflect on the many, many contributions of african-americans in this city and how each of us has changed the gee graval and cultural landscape of this city. how fitting that we celebrate black history month today, which is also the same as lunar new year and also an opportunity -- opportunity to reflect on the diversity of this city and how happy we are to be in a city which is so inclussive. so without forth delay i would like to welcome you on behalf of mator's office of neighborhood services. mayor lee will be joining us later. with the invocations, we would like to invite pastor stacey kerns. >> good amp.

let us pause for a moment to invite the presence of god. shall we pray together? god, our help in ages past, our hope in years to come, we invite your holy presence to bless this celebration of african-american history month. we give up thanks and praise for the legacy, the creativity, the genius and contributions of african-american people everywhere. we pray that you would strengthen this organization and strengthen all organizations that support telling the story of black history. and so today we ask that as we continue on the journey. that we might be able to do justice, love kindness, and walk hummably -- humbly with our god. may you bless this time together and all god's children say amen, amen, amen.

>> and now if you would stand for "lift every voice and sing," sung by leah suites. >> ok. everyone can join in with me. ♪ lift every voice and sing ♪ tell up in heaven rings ♪ rings with a harmony of liberty ♪ ♪ let our rejoicing rise high as the listening sky ♪ ♪ let every sound loud as a roar -- rolling sea ♪

♪ sing a song full of the faith that the horde has brought -- brought us ♪ ♪ sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us ♪ ♪ facing the rising sun of a new day begun ♪ ♪ let us march on to victory ♪ ♪ as one [applause] >> thank you. i'm al williams, president of

the board of the san francisco african-american historical society. we'd like to join, and trevor, in welcoming you all to this annual 2011 kickoff program for black history month. first of all i'd like to say that the chairs to my right are vacant and will be filled shortly. the mayor will be arriving about 11:30. he had another engagement that he was they'd at. and supervisors -- he was delayed at. and supervisors -- no, that's not them -- miracle arim aye and coyne are in committee and i understand they will be finishing up shortly and then they will be joining us to bring greetings. i want to thank pastor curran and ms. suites for their participation in the program. and ms. suites with her

wonderful voice, we use this program as an opportunity to present cameos of people who are otherwise engraged shall -- engaged in black history month programs and ms. suites is going to be appearing next tuesday, february 8 at yoshii's. and of course pastor is appearing weekly and a couple times sunday at jones united methodist church. so let's certainly visit and support her at jones united memorial methodist church. i'd like to take a moment to thank the members of the committee for their support and participation. as i always say, something like this cannot happen without a committee of people involved. with us today, trevor hunnicut, who started the program off, who say member of the board of

drorves the society. lamont bishop is a stalwart member -- where are you? in the back. he's a represent of senator mark leno's office. b.j. jones from public utilities commission is here. stewart. from the public library. and pete fitzsimmons and tannish col -- hollins and camille dawkins. camille is over here. without camille and tannish rkt , none of this happens. so let's give them a round of applause for their wonderful effort. the society's primary mission is to enlighten, to inform, to inspire and to empower. we achieve that mission in a variety of ways. almost always in partnership with others. through our current partnership

that trevor spoke to with the finance -- kinsey foundation shall the san francisco public library, and the california council of the humanities, we are now hosting an incredible exhibition of art and artifacts from the kinsey collection, the kron -- that chronicles the story of people of frick desnent america. if you haven't done so you owe it to yourself and particularly to your children to visit and see this important exhibit which is at our library in the frake american -- african-american art and culture complex at 762 bolton street. the posters you see here are examples of elements in that exhibit. these are actual objects that are part of the kinsey collection that are on display in our exhibit. bernard i'm sure will touch on the collection during his remarks. our speaker, bernard kinsey, is

one half of team kinsey. the other half is his lovely wife shirley, so please join me in welcoming shirley kinsey who is with us today also. stand up, shirley. now, my notes go on to say that a few years ago we had a wonderful opportunity to work with supervisors mirkarimi and are lee on the adoption of san francisco's slavery disclosure ordinance and we're looking forward to having is the same kind of experience with supervisor coyne as she moves forward in legislation with us the we're very excited about that undertakele -- taking. that was supposed to lead to a nice little smooth transition for them to make remarks. since they are not here -- somebody's coming, i'm told. on cue, supervisor coyne, right

on cue is here. supervisor malia cohen, ladies and gentlemen. >> thank you. hello. happy black history month. -- month. how are you good. thank you for coming out here this morning. i'm so excited to be here. there have been many years that have come and gone in the past that i was in these seats over here listening to the speakers commemorate, honor the memory and legacy of many of our an set of erps and the persons that have gone on before us and it is about time that we started to think about the legacy that african-americans have had and the legacy that the civil war has had and the intermingling between the two because it is with no easy feat that over 200,000

african-american soldiers fought in the civil war during a time when african-americans were denied the right of course their citizenship. can you imagine that? so i'm very excited to welcome you here to our great city hall. and as i stand before you, i want you to understand that i am your represent and if you have a chance to stop by before you leave and leave your contact information, so we are able to better communicate and keep the lines of communication open. ed high -- the high -- rm importance of plaque history months also reminds us of the power of all americans united and working together. oftentimes with the census data

that's been released people have been spending a lot of time lamenting that the african-american pop lakes is at 3.9% and i am really here to encourage you that our numbers may be diminishing but we are also here, present and we are still strofpblgt we don't need to have huge numbers but we must remain engaged in order to make sure to we remain relevant. the last two years have been a meaningful time for all of us with obama in the administration. i'm personally very proud of the work that he has done, that we have done here in san francisco among a wide array of voters and to be elected by what many consider the last batchtyon of president african-american community in after, it is a special honor to be here today buff. thank you very much. >> thank you, supervisor. supervisor mirkarimi is here

with us but before he calms -- comes up -- comes up i want to mention ralph lewin, with the california huh-uh -- humanities council here with us also. we have a number of other elected and appointed officialed and at i said to them earlier, i was ansigned the task of introducing -- i was ansigned the tasking introducing them and don't have the list but i was specifically threatened bim dr. torea moses if i didn't many introduce him. ing [laughter] or without further ado, supervisor ross mirkarimi. >> i'll make my statements we

-- very quick. i just came out of charing the public safety committee meeting. there's a lot be to talk about. i want to say another happy congratulations on black history month here in san francisco. this has been i think a very auspicious haft few months of course in seeing the ascendancy of our district attorney, kamela harris, rise to attorney general in the state of california. certainly of course ases to the incredible impact of advancing the issues much import to all of us, joining the board, supervisor malia cop henn. and we continue to see great challenges, nationally and

internationally and president obama and his quarterback effort to continue to retain as best he can as republicans allow him to, our continued enthusiasm for his ongoing leadership. but in san francisco, reference has been made to this earlier, why we do celebrate many of the advancements of people who rise to positions of power and stature is certainly well noticed, i think we also have to use this opportunity, black history month, to retrench on a couple of key points. one is we have to be very clear about the fact that if he -- if we really want to speak to the question, i think, of black edoseous from a cosmopolitan city like san francisco, then we also must speak to the questions of what are we going to do about the hi recidivism rate in california so that there is meaningful rell entry

and reintegration back into our communities? what are we going to did to he will everybody ain't the standards of our public schools so that the truancy and dropout rate is stemmed so that the kids can stay in school and be? school. these are the opportunities i hear as we celebrate black history month, especially the residents of the fillmore and the western addition, as people know it in both ways, that has struggled through decade of urban renewal and through its own chals that we're reminded here in the city of san francisco that these challenges wrb certainly ones we are confronted by every day but amazing things are happening here. we have just now selected our first chinese-american, asian-american mayor in the city of san francisco. [applause] on the board of supervisors, 11 of us, eight of us, eight members of the board of supervisors are people of

color. this is true representation. but what has laid the foundation of the great muscle that has made san francisco well known in its reputation as being forward thinking also obligates us to answering the other questions some of the chals that i remarked on especially as it concerns the african-american population in after. i'm not so sure that the numbers really have dropped to 3.%. that's a quick drop from 6.2 two years ago. but whatever the case is, that decline in population is a healthy reminder that even the most forward-thinking cities have incredible work to do. thank you, everybody, and happy black history month. >> thank you, supervisors cohen and mirkarimi. just want to announce also that thanks to the efforts of lamont bishop and others, we do have

for the kinseys proclamations or certificates of recognition for shirley and bernard kinsey from senator leno's office, is ash asem blipman ma and we have those and had present them to them later in the program. we'd like to now turn to the -- to our presentation by the -- i'm blanking -- the omnira institute, who will perform for us at this point. the mirror institute. ♪ [drumming]

♪