[Moorbey]

*** Please spread widely ***

The Bay View’s not dead! We’ll see you on the web

You’re looking for the paper – the Bay View in print – and you can’t find one since the July 2 edition. You’re wondering why no one’s told you what’s wrong.

The quick answer is that yes, we ran flat out of funds or any source to tap and had to suspend printing the paper, at least for now. And that tragic decision set so many things in motion we haven’t yet been able to get to a lot of the basics, like telling our dearest friends and most faithful readers what’s up.

How you can learn more and give us a hand

Meetings: If you’re in the Bay Area – and please forward this invitation to Bay Area residents you know – come to one of two meetings, in San Francisco and Oakland , that Minister of Information JR is planning to announce and discuss with the community the Bay View’s “next steps.” With enough community support, we hope to find a way to print the Bay View monthly. We also need your help to make San Francisco Bay View - HOME more interactive and to campaign for internet access for everybody.

JR explains: “We think it is important for the community to be forward thinking when looking at the demise of the SF Bay View newspaper print edition. We want to come together with organizers to discuss the future of this Black led alternative independent media crew known as the SF Bay View newspaper and discuss some future plans that lie on the horizon and get concrete commitments from supporters.

“The meeting is Thursday, July 24, ‘08, 6 p.m., at 1095 Market St. #307 off of Seventh in downtown San Francisco, by Civic Center BART. All are invited.”

Save the date of Saturday evening, Aug. 9, for the Oakland meeting, which will feature a media panel and a party along with the grassroots discussion and planning. The Black New World, 836 Pine St., West Oakland, is the place. We’ll be looking for all our East Bay readers – everyone’s welcome! More details soon.

I just got two calls – there have been many, as you can imagine – one from a young teacher and one from an elder, saying how “distraught” they and those around them are not to be able to hold a Bay View in their hands. I surely feel their pain (this is editor Mary Ratcliff); the paper’s been my entire life 24/7/365 for over 16 years of editing every word in 697 editions – and I’ve loved every minute.

At the top of the home page at San Francisco Bay View - HOME, you’ll see the headline San Francisco Bay View: The end of an era, the dawn of a new day. Some of my thoughts about the Bay View’s transition to publishing online only, at least for the moment, are there along with a Block Report Radio interview by Minister of Information JR with Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff that was broadcast on Flashpoints.

Now it’s your turn: Whether or not you can attend the meetings, please email your thoughts and suggestions to editor@sfbayview.com.

Readers in prison: The printed Bay View has literally been a lifeline for people without internet access and most of all for prisoners. Our mail is heavy every day with letters from every concentration camp in the country, many prisoners saying, “The Bay View keeps me alive.”

Until we can afford to mail the sad news – or, hopefully, a monthly paper – to them, you can help by telling all the prisoners you talk with or write to and ask them to spread the news. Tell them we care about them as much as ever, that we’ll continue to post their stories and pen pal requests on the website (volunteers are badly needed to type a huge backlog of requests) and that we want to join them in campaigning for internet access behind enemy lines.

Eugene Thomas, an amazing young man in a Georgia state prison who won his fight to legalize cell phones, is now pushing for permission to upgrade to phones with internet access. And some federal prisons now give prisoners access to the web. The prisoners themselves have kicked off this campaign. Let’s follow their lead!

Web advertising and traffic: Whatever opportunities the future holds for the Bay View and other alternative media will cost money, and income for most media, whether in print or online, comes primarily from advertising. When we had to suspend printing the Bay View, my first task was to tell our advertisers the sad news and ask them to move their ads to our website. Most agreed to do so or at least to consider it.

Knowing very little about web advertising, especially how to price it and what options to offer, I’m afraid our website, like the print edition, could be starved for funds. If you or someone you know has expertise in web advertising to offer, please email me at editor@sfbayview.com.

Maybe San Francisco Bay View - HOME can earn enough to help put the Bay View back in print! The traffic to our site, which already draws over a million hits a month, is bound to increase. You can help build the San Francisco Bay View - HOME readership by spreading this Bay View Alert far and wide.