| Type | Alternative weekly |
|---|---|
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner | Village Voice Media |
| Publisher | Gil Padia |
| Editor | Tom Walsh |
| Founded | mid-1980s |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | 55 Francisco Suite 710 San Francisco, California 94133 |
| Circulation | 65,000 (2011)[1] |
| Official website | SFWeekly.com |
SF Weekly is a free alternative weekly newspaper in San Francisco, California. The newspaper, distributed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area every Wednesday, is published by Village Voice Media, a 16-paper alt weekly newspaper chain that also includes the New York City Village Voice and the Los Angeles, California LA Weekly. Founded locally in the mid 1980s and bought by Village Voice Media (then New Times Media) in 1995, SF Weekly has garnered notable national journalism awards and enjoys mixed reviews by the Bay Area community. The paper sponsors the annual SF Weekly Music Awards, also known as the "Wammies".
SF Weekly is politically independent, and encourages its writers to form and support educated opinions about the topics upon which they report. Contrarianism and questioning of political dogma is openly encouraged. The paper combines columns critical of both the left and right, emphasizing investigative reportage, long-form, narrative feature writing, and comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage.
The paper trains anywhere from 1-5 up and coming reporters per academic quarter, but interns must receive academic credit for their work.
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With an October 30, 2007 Op-Ed blog entitled "SF's Needs to Kill Its Armenian Genocide Resolution", Benjamin Wachs stirred controversy due to remarks deemed to be extremely offensive by descendants of survivors of the genocide by pondering what gift would most appropriate for his girlfriend to celebrate Armenian Genocide Day.[2] The Weekly's former web editor David Downs responded by musing "If there was a genocide, then why is there so many left of you around to bitch?"[3]
The SF Weekly was the subject of ethical controversy in Jan., 2006, when a column about the AVN porn awards misidentified the event's location and honorees. The paper's editor had apparently altered a column about a different event from years before.[4][5]
The San Francisco Bay Guardian, another free alternative weekly newspaper distributed every Wednesday in the SF Bay Area, sued SF Weekly in civil court, alleging that it tried to put the Bay Guardian out of business by selling ads below cost. The Guardian won the suit in March, 2008, and was granted a $6.2 million in damages, a figure that swelled to $21 million with antitrust penalties and interest by June 2010. After the verdict, the Guardian obtained court orders allowing it to seize and sell the Weeklys two delivery trucks and collect half of the Weeklys ad revenue.[6]
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