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I apologize for my recent absence from the blog, but it was for a worthy cause: I was swamped trying to finish two 4,000-word investigative stories. I’m happy to report that both are now in print and on newsstands across the Bay Area.
The first is “It’s A Wonderful Bank” for San Francisco magazine. It takes a critical look at community banking and the “Move Your Money” movement, via an in-depth profile of Circle Bank, a well-regarded Novato-based community bank that recently opened its first San Francisco branch up the street from me in Noe Valley. The institution has some interesting ties with Tamalpais Bank, which was seized by regulators last April. Readers should be familiar with that name.
The piece cautiously endorses MYM but laments the lack of transparency and regulatory oversight of the industry, which makes the process of deciding on a bank overly difficult for consumers. If the movement is going to succeed, it needs to find a way to help the public determine which banks are truly community minded in the way we expect community banks to be.
My second piece was the cover story of the SF Public Press’ first print-edition newspaper. Since it’s not available on line yet, let me just say that it followed up on a previous blog post on this site. You can pick up a hard copy of the story at these locations.
Both stories owe a lot to the reporting that goes into this site. Yes, you can see tomorrow’s investigative stories today, here, every day. Well, not every day, but we’re hoping to improve on that score.
