Berkeley Daily Plant Returns to Publication

The Berkeley Daily Planet, the city's beloved local paper that stopped its presses last November, returned to the racks yesterday.

No longer a daily and under new ownership, the paper will publish twice weekly.

Berkeley couple and fixture of local progressive politics Mike and Becky O'Malley, who bought the paper in December, have, however, promised the same basic package of local reporting that so endeared the paper to the city's politically involved citizenry.

The paper will no longer fill its back pages with wire stories, though, as did the old Planet.

"A lot of people said they didn't want to see that in the paper," Becky O'Malley said. "We want to supplement the big papers."

The O'Malleys have brought back former Planet reporters David Sharfenberg and John Geluardi, who Becky O'Malley called the "pick of the litter."

Founded in 1999, the Planet's parent corporation Bigfoot Media unceremoniously shuttered the paper because of poor finances. The company failed to get its last round of venture capital, Becky O'Malley said.

But the company nearly broke even before folding, O'Malley said, and she expected the paper to perform well financially, despite the national economic recession.

"We bought the paper's assets, not its debts," O'Malley said.

The O'Malleys have sunk their own money into the paper. They became wealthy when in 1996 they sold the computer company Berkeley Speech Technologies they founded 15 years earlier.

Mike O'Malley will act as the paper's publisher and Becky O'Malley the executive editor. Some have questioned Becky O'Malley's decision to retain her position on the Landmarks Preservation Commission, a body often covered in the local press.

O'Malley disputed any conflict of interest.

"I will strictly be the managing editor," she said. "My duties with the day to day stories will be limited to proofreading in a pinch."

The paper's return was joyfully greeted.

"I'm very happy," said Elliott Cohen, a politically active citizen. "It's important this city have a newspaper."

The Planet's return was also welcomed at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. The paper had in years past published submissions from the school's students on a regular basis.

"We'd love to continue working with them," said journalism professor Lydia Chavez.

Journalism school Dean Orville Schell recently had lunch with the O'Malleys to discuss the possibility, Chavez said.

The paper will survive if it produces a quality paper, Chavez said. But steady advertising revenues will be hard to find in Berkeley, she said.

"You just don't have a huge advertiser like a Macy's, and that's what the dailies have always found," Chavez said.

Former Planet editor Judith Scherr had been slated to rejoin the paper, but decided against it.

"I saw my editorial duties a little differently than the O'Malleys," Scherr said. "I am a pretty independent person."

Scherr had initially been skeptical that Becky O'Malley would be able to separate her political philosophy from the paper's content.

"But since I see that there are reporters who are talented and writing that might not be true," she said.

Mike O'Malley was Downtown yesterday at the celebration commemorating the city's 125th birthday, carrying a stack of Berkeley Daily Planets.

"Someone accused me of stealing these," O'Malley said. "'No,' I said, 'These are mine.'"

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