The June issue of San Francisco Frontlines announces on its cover the lawsuit over newsracks that the paper is championing. An editorial inside this issue contends that San Francisco's new ordinance banning freestanding newsracks is "designed to suppress political dissent."
Frontlines, a monthly with a circulation of 80,000 (nearly the same as that of Seattle's Stranger), is a progressive, volunteer-produced paper that has experienced enormous growth in the past year, but the paper's comparatively noncommercial nature would make it quite difficult to raise the thousands of extra dollars per year necessary to rent spaces in the city's new scheme of "pedmounts", multi-newspaper vending stalls operated by a private contractor. Furthermore, as a monthly, it is doubtful that Frontlines would even qualify for a space in the pedmounts even if it could pay, since priority is given to dailies and weeklies.
But in terms of public impact and reading the public pulse, Frontlines currently seems to be outdoing all the competing dailies and weeklies. In the May elections, Frontlines' progressive ballot endorsements matched the actual voting behavior of San Franciscans more closely than any other paper's electoral endorsements. An initiative to repeal rent control was defeated, local corporate welfare initiatives were defeated, and a measure to regulate the salaries of Supervisors (equivalent to Seattle city councilmembers) was passed.
Articles in the June issue of Frontlines include "How Mark Garcia Was Killed", dealing with the police beating and subsequent death of a man who was not even a suspect in a crime. "Eight Proposals to Effectively Control Police Abuse", by editor Carlos Petroni, and "Queer Mecca" a gay column that blasts gays and lesbians who have lost any sense of working-class consciousness. The paper also contains various art and cinema reviews, but with an emphasis on labor and ethnic issues, and a tear-out page for gathering signatures for an initiative to repeal a city plan to borrow $100 million to build a new stadium.
If you don't feel like popping down to Frisco to pick up a copy, try visiting their website at http://www.sf-frontlines.com. Mailing address is:
San Francisco Frontlines
3311 Mission St., ste. 25
San Francisco CA, 94110.
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