Professor Moorhead Discusses Media Coverage of Homelessness in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS -- That month, the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED organized a week of coordinated publishing, the SF Homeless Project, involving more than 70 news organizations. It was repeated last December and again in June. Though little of it involved long-term investigations or true collaboration, it was an example of journalists being agenda-setters and drawing the public’s attention.

San Francisco State University Journalism Assistant Professor Laura Moorhead, who has studied the project’s output, questioned its efficacy. She said reporters should offer constructive structural critiques, not just exhortations to politicians to fix the problem by doing something — anything.