Emilio Garcia-Ruiz came to San Francisco in the fall of 2021, taking the helm of the city’s largest daily newspaper. Garcia-Ruiz had previously served as digital editor at the Washington Post and many hoped his arrival would signal an era of serious journalism at the San Francisco Chronicle.

It was not to be. Garcia-Ruiz’s tenure at the Chronicle coincided with the rise of the Astroturf Network, a phenomenon covered extensively by the Phoenix Project and smart reporters like independent journalist Gil Duran. It is a story the Chronicle has chosen to ignore and has, indeed, enabled.

Today, San Francisco’s “broligarchs,” as they have become known, have surrounded President Donald Trump. They are beginning to realize aims that are deeply anti-democratic. Many of the moneyed tech crowd want nothing less than to exit democracy, the better to avoid government regulations and taxes. At their behest, President Trump has floated the idea of “Freedom Cities” that will do just that. Among the first sites proposed was the Presidio here in San Francisco.

By the time Garcia-Ruiz unpacked his bags and assumed his new role, a handful of lavishly funded political groups — including GrowSF, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, and TogetherSF — were well along on a project to convince voters that the city was failing due to progressive governance.

Last week, I interviewed Garcia-Ruiz regarding the role the Chronicle played in furthering the Astroturf Network’s narrative, one carefully crafted to move the city to the right. The conversation quickly became contentious. Garcia-Ruiz pushed back against allegations that under his watch the Chronicle had failed to recognize the role right-wing money was playing in local elections. Not only did it largely ignore the rise of an Astroturf Network, Garcia-Ruiz’s newspaper did not track the Astroturf Network’s connections to other right-wing crusades, including those focusing on taking down progressive school boards and district attorneys.

Garcia-Ruiz rejected the notion that his newspaper promoted an Astroturf Network narrative that portrayed San Francisco as a cesspool of crime, a contention largely unsupported by data. “We were criticized by both sides,” Garcia-Ruiz maintained. “I think we did a good job at balance. We weren’t perfect.”

In the course of our discussion, Garcia-Ruiz made a telling admission: He decided the Chronicle would report on misdemeanors, abandoning the policy long subscribed to by other big city newspapers to focus on higher profile felony crimes.

This is the kind of decision that seems minor, but had a significant — and entirely predictable — impact on perceptions of the city, both locally and beyond. Most metropolitan newspapers do not report on misdemeanors. “Felonies, yes, misdemeanors, no,” Garcia-Ruiz conceded. And yet, the paper’s editor-in-chief determined that the Chronicle would report on lesser infractions, particularly property crime like car break-ins which saw a relatively short-lived spike during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We did it at the urging of our readers,” he claimed. “We held town halls and people wanted us to report on this. They, or someone they knew, had been a victim of crime.”

Garcia-Ruiz’s lack of self-awareness and commitment to circular thinking is galling. He made an editorial decision that created a perception that crime had become a crisis, and then feigned surprise when San Franciscans expressed their belief that crime, indeed, was a crisis.

The decision to report on misdemeanors would prove devastating for District Attorney Chesa Boudin as he faced a recall funded by the Astroturf Network, an effort driven substantially by the Chronicle’s unrelenting crime coverage.

Garcia-Ruiz also refused to address questions about former Chronicle columnist Heather Knight, a frequent Boudin critic and Astroturf Network favorite. In July 2022, Knight wrote a glowing profile of prosecutor Brooke Jenkins, asserting that Jenkins left the district attorney’s office to “volunteer” on the recall. Jenkins, according to Knight’s account, claimed that Boudin prioritized ideology over outcomes. Left out of Knight’s account was the fact that Jenkins had been hired by William Oberndorf, the billionaire donor to numerous conservative causes, who created Neighbors for a Better San Francisco. Oberndorf paid Jenkins a handsome $100,000 for six-months work on a report that never saw the light of day. With his backing, Jenkins was appointed Boudin’s successor.

Garcia-Ruiz bristled at the mention of Knight, who wrote for the Chronicle from 1999 to 2023: “You’re asking me about a columnist who no longer works for this paper? I suggest you talk to her.” He reminded me that the Chronicle had opposed Boudin’s recall. However, by the time the Chronicle’s editorial board weighed in, Boudin was mortally wounded, in no small part, by Garcia-Ruiz’s newspaper.

Although Garcia-Ruiz appeared puzzled that San Franciscans had felt unsafe when violent crime was at a historic low, criminal justice expert Alec Karakatsanis has a compelling explanation. Karakatsanis noted that “crime waves” had been “specifically manufactured by self-interested groups and complicit journalists.” San Francisco’s obsession with shoplifting was often illustrated by a single offense at a local Walgreens which prompted 309 separate articles. “This was during a public relations push by Walgreens, police unions, far-right media, and billionaire-funded DA recall activists to drive fear around ‘retail theft,’” Karakatsanis said.

“Bad media translates into bad politics, which translates into bad policy, which translates into bad outcomes,” said Thomas Abt, a senior fellow at the Center for Criminal Justice in an article on the recent decisions among responsible newspaper editors to curb sensationalistic — and politically motivated — crime coverage.

When I tried to draw a connection between the tech titans who cut their political teeth in San Francisco politics and are now advising President Trump, Garcia-Ruiz became angry. He compared me to Trump, the implication being that these ties do not exist and that I had concocted them from thin air. He seemed particularly bothered by my description of Garry Tan and Elon Musk as aspiring fascists. I pointed out that the term “techno-fascist” had, for good reason, become a popular label among members of the national press.

Garcia-Ruiz rejected the idea that San Francisco had been a warm-up for the likes of Tan, Musk and David Sacks, a tech investor and leading contributor to the School Board and Boudin recalls, who are now focusing their efforts on national politics. Sacks, in fact, was recently appointed as the White House’s first artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, payback for his generous support to the Trump campaign.

Editors-in-chief come and go. Garcia-Ruiz may remain at the Chronicle for a few months or a few years. Regardless, he is part of the newspaper’s long standing problem, that of failing to devote adequate attention to the role conservative moneyed interests play in San Francisco politics — and, all too frequently, amplifying those very interests. In the face of rising oligarchy, this complicity poses a dangerous threat to our democracy, one that demands an independent press willing to hold corporate and big money interests in-check.