San Francisco has a serious picture downside

Read a few national and even international headlines and you can see it: San Francisco is having an image problem.
It’s not just the conservative media that beat up the city. The New York Times, The Economist, and even UK-based publications like the Independent and the Sunday Times have published up-to-date reports on the state of San Francisco, ranging from its highly visible housing problems to its shoplifting problems.
“Why the San Francisco City Council is so dysfunctional,” reads an Economist headline. “Crime is fundamentally legal in San Francisco,” read another Daily Mail headline. The New York Times, meanwhile, just published an article stating that “the mundane crime of shoplifting in San Francisco has gotten out of hand and has shut down some chains.” (SFGATE has published an in-depth investigation into this claim.)
Ian Davis, professor of media studies at UC Berkeley, told SFGATE, “Yes, San Francisco’s progressive image in American consciousness makes it a prime target for conservatives to criticize. It often functions as a symbol of liberal or democratic politics. “
Indeed, a cursory search for Fox News headlines last week reveals an obvious bias in coverage. “Families in San Francisco no longer feel ‘safe’, hiring private security guards in the midst of crime,” read a headline published last week. On the same day, the media site ran an article that read, “San Francisco Prosecutors Are Leaving Chesa Boudin’s Progressive Prosecutor’s Office, Join the Recalls.”
Davis cited a 2019 Fox News story about the homeless crisis that he said spelled out their bias: “In the summer of 2019, Fox News embarked on an ambitious project to document the toll progressive policies are taking cities on the west coast had four cases of the homelessness crisis: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore, ”read a note at the beginning of the story.
“Apart from all valid points about the failure of the housing policy, Fox’s article describes the problem as a failure of the ‘Democrats’ and the progressive ideology that SF has symbolized in the American imagination,” he said.
“In stories like this, the city is used as a symbol of progressive political failure,” he continued. “The city is a figure in a narrative that confirms the correctness of conservative politics. Selected quotes also allow the reader to see the problem of the homeless through the eyes of those who are uncomfortable and uncomfortable by the ‘scary’ people on the streets. “
The biased media problem is a historical problem. Davis said that “Americans lived in a media environment with little freedom of choice until the 1980s,” which “had the advantage of putting Americans on the same page about the big problems we face as a nation.”
“Scholars and journalists could see something like a unified mainstream public debate,” he said.
But a paradox has arisen in the current high-choice media environment.
“The variety of perspectives available should be more democratic and empowering, but the high-choice media environment paradoxically allowed us to isolate ourselves from conflicting views and information,” said Davis.
20th century journalists viewed the news as “a kind of schoolhouse that provides information to promote educated voting and self-governance,” he said, noting that “the 21st century has changed the role of news in public life.”
“The schoolhouse metaphor has given way to another metaphor: the church. Americans are increasingly using news as a means to support a shared ideological belief, “he said. “Conservatives expect Tucker Carlson to affirm the evils of Nancy Pelosi and to regret the dangers of ‘creeping socialism’. MSNBC viewers tune in to see if Trump will be charged for his role in the Capitol Riots following Biden’s election.
“In many ways, our choice of news is a choice of worldview,” he continued. “Believers don’t go to church to learn anything new about what happened to Jesus. You participate in a community of common values. ”
In an interview with SFGATE, Sam Singer, one of San Francisco’s top communication strategists, approached San Francisco’s image problem from a PR perspective. As a former journalist, Singer has worked with Chevron, Airbnb, Disney and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others (SFGATE and the San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently).
“Perception is reality,” he said.
Singer believes that San Francisco’s image in the media and beyond “is somewhere between ‘The Wire’ and ‘Squid Game'”.
“San Francisco has an ingrained and significant image and reputation problem,” he said. “Actually, I would say the city is in crisis mode.”
Singer said San Francisco’s publicized corruption issues at City Hall and the Department of Building Inspection add to the city’s reputation. He pointed out that the city is unwilling to arrest and prosecute criminals, leading to viral videos showing thieves running out of Walgreens with their loot or ripping through Neiman-Marcus with stolen designer purses. (The Mayor’s Office and Chamber of Commerce did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment.)
Singer also said the city’s housing shortage, evidenced by the visible homeless population, makes San Francisco seem inhospitable to tourists and locals alike.
“You are seeing a city that is beyond the pandemic, that has a pandemic of mental health, substance abuse, crime and corruption. And the city has to start addressing these issues or it will keep falling behind, ”he said.
Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, turned Singer down.
“Homelessness is not a PR issue,” she told SFGATE. “It’s a problem of poverty. It’s an issue of racism. And it’s an issue of disability and homophobia. These are major systemic problems that need to be corrected. “
For Friedenbach, the question is not necessarily why San Francisco has such a big problem of homelessness, but why such a wealthy city has so much poverty.
“What I keep hearing from many visitors is, ‘Why don’t you have guaranteed accommodation?’ And that’s a great question because almost every other western country is doing this, ”she said.
While viral videos like the one above are fueling perceptions that crime is increasing in San Francisco, it is not exactly the case, crime statistics show.
At a news conference in July, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott stated that rape cases, robberies, and thefts / thefts are all down in San Francisco. Homicides and grievous bodily harm were relatively stable between 2015 and 2021, but gun violence victims nearly doubled in 2021 compared to the last two years.
Automotive-related crime, including break-ins and theft, increased from 2020 onwards. Scott also noted that burglaries in general increased in 2020 and 2021.
“There is a lot of misinformation going on in San Francisco,” said Scott. “But ultimately we have to use this data to make decisions about our policies and our investments.”
An increase in certain crimes isn’t a single problem in San Francisco. According to local media and law enforcement agencies, New York and Los Angeles, among others, have seen a surge in pandemic-era crimes.
But for many the question remains: How does San Francisco fix its image?
From Singer’s point of view as a PR expert, the city first has to admit its problems.
“Anyone worth their money in communications, public relations, reputation management, or crisis communication isn’t going to try and tell you to sweep problems under the rug,” he said. “You have a problem and you need to act.”
He said he would urge the mayor to “declare a crisis not only on the streets of San Francisco, but also on theft and petty crime”.
According to Singer, the city also needs to increase “accountability for the results of city agencies and non-profit organizations” and develop not only a better communication plan, but also an operational plan.
All big cities have problems, and sometimes very visible ones. But as we live here, these issues go far beyond the realm of PR. Can San Francisco customize its image to reflect the reality of life here? We will see. As Friedenbach noted, the topic is firmly anchored.
“I think San Francisco is being misused as a symbol of a progressive left-wing city by conservative interests that are greatly exaggerating the situation here,” she said.