The Berkeley Daily Planet

The editor of the Planet, Becky O’Malley, does a great job in a shrinking market for print news. Reading the Planet allows for the opinions of local expert voices on a variety of subjects who are not encumbered by the bonds of commercial media. It is refreshing, enlightening, and of broad interests. If you need a little levity mixed with the murders,
housing exploitation, disgraceful City politics, and national disgusting ones, check out
Carol Denney’s delightful page, Pepper Spray Times.

This newspaper is really at a college level with college level journalists and journalism… they are very biased in their reporting and do not follow the fundamentals of good journalism… this newspaper is at the poor level of the City of Berkeley now… the city of Berkeley was a fine city once… before the Vietnam War and
the hippies and drug culture and liberalism/​socialism invaded the city and turned it
into a refuge for vagrants, drug dealers, druggies, bums, brainwashed leftist college students and brainless socialist graduate students/faculty/administrators…doesn’t anyone realize that socialism does not work; British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once wisely said that
«Socialism works until it can no longer borrow other people’s money»…Socialism has failed
in France and Greece with their gridlocked economies at 30 percent unemployment… it has failed in the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Zimbawe, and countless other nations… the sad thing is the USA failed to even send a government representative
to the funeral of Ms. Margaret Thatcher in London when she died in 2012 or 2013… she was a great ally of the USA and a good friend of President Ronald Reagan…
both of them along with Pope JOhn Paul II worked together with thousands of others to
end the failed and tragic experiment of socialism in the Soviet Union with its repressive dictatorship over EAstern Europe, etc…
Berkeley lets a student called the «naked guy» walk around campus naked for 4 years… what are the administrators and faculty at UC Berkeley thinking about when they let this happen ?? ARe they all smoking pot when they make decisions like this ??

I read a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, and on line content, and am often reminded of an exchange between Dr. Bashir and Garak in Star Trek: DS9:
Of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren’t?”
«My dear Doctor, they’re all true.»
«Even the lies?»
«Especially the lies.»
In its broadsheet edition day, the Berkeley Daily Planet was both a great read and infuriating. I did not agree at all with their Israel, Marine Recruiting Office, and other «progressive» stances, and often found myself flinging down the paper in disgust. Yet, I couldn’t wait to pick up the paper again and read some more, especially Becky O’Malley’s «holy» opinions and the best letters section outside of the Anderson Valley Advertiser. Broad and sometimes contentious political debate within the Fourth Estate can be free speech at its best.
«To hold a pen is to be at war» — Voltaire
Unfortunately, thanks to narrow special interest boycott (of which one of the leaders has his say below), the economy, and some payroll service fraud thrown in, the Berkeley Daily Plant closed up their print edition and went on line. So image my delight when I recently picked up a Copy Mat «newsletter» edition of the Daily Planet.
«Great Caesar’s Ghost!» — Perry White
I devoured the issue and was left wanting for more. So whether I agree with the content or not, I hope that the Daily Planet is on the way back, and mindful of the Joseph Pulitzer quote that «Newspapers should have no friends»

The Berkeley Daily Planet is as unprofessional and biased as a «newspaper» can be. Why the quotes around «newspaper?» Well, the DP breaks every law of good journalism, be it having a reporter (Douglas-​Allen) who both covers Oakland as a «journalist» and also writes editorials about it, a member of the staff whose fawning odes to the paper are printed as «independent letters,» a cartoonist whose drawings have reached the polluted waters of anti-​Semitic bias, a primary advertiser who was allowed to review a book he himself had written, and an editor/​owner who can’t keep her manifest biases out of the publication.
The latter refers to Becky O’Malley, whose principal reporter Judith Scheer quit the publication saying that O’Malley excised quotes from those people she didn’t like. Indeed, when it comes to biases, O’Malley’s obsession with loathing urban development and Israel percolate, or I should say «pour» through a majority of editions.
On the latter, O’Malley published an op-​ed by an Iranian who wrote that Jews deserve every tragedy, including the Holocaust, they have experienced through history. And the paper is regularly filled with editorials, columns by former editor of the Communist Party’s newspaper Conn Hallinan, op-​eds and letters which reflect the owner/editor’s contempt for Israel and indeed often stray into the excreta of anti-​Semitism.
Correspondingly, her advertisers-​not wishing to be associated with such garbage-​have left the paper in droves, leading the DP to lose scads of money. Hence, the paper will soon be taken out of street news racks and distributed only in a few cafes-​a signal of its welcome demise to come.
Becky O’Malley has exhibited little integrity in what she prints. Most reflective of this was the infantile op-​ed rant she recently published by the virulently anti-​Israel, anti-​white Joseph Anderson who wrote that the murder of the four Oakland policeman amounted to karmactic justice. You would not find such rubbish in any reputable newspaper. But then again, the Daily Planet would never fall within the standard of «reputable.»
For those who wish to see a meticulously researched website compiled by a most respected local businessman, John Gertz, please access
. On this site, you will be able to read examples and analyses of Becky O’Malley’s screed and her abhorrent excuse for a newspaper…

I LOVE the local coverage in this paper.
Who else will keep us appraised of the goings on of the Berkeley rent board, the zoning meetings and of course, the local crime blotter? Who could possibly survive the boredom of all those ridiculous meetings with the endless public comment?
They are the only news source that has the slightest chance of getting Berkeley right.