April 04, 2006 | The Chronicle

The San Francisco Chronicle has been beaten up in the journalistic world for decades, perhaps because of the infamous line in "All the President's Men" when Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee dismissed a pitch for a feature that would recap yesterday's weather for people who were too drunk the day before to remember if it rained or not. He said he'd sell that story to the Chronicle.

I thought back to that story the other day, since to read the Chronicle, one should really pay attention to the bylines. I'll never skip a story written by Anna Badkhen, whose work in Iraq deserved way more professional praise than it got. The Sunday magazine is mostly fatuous lifestyle pr0n for suburbanites, except for Sam Whiting's insanely good reporting on little Bay Area neighborhoods (note to Chron management: the mag might be better if editor Alison Biggar bothered to respond to pitches).

Reyhan Harmanci is the Chron's latest treasure, filling the new 96Hours Thursday section and filing great pieces on everything from online social networking to this great piece taking on fake trend stories run by the New York Times. You should also be on the lookout for the rare, but prized, byline of Seth Rosenfeld, the Chron's best investigative reporter.

But what started me on this was a story my friend Chris Ulbrich sent me which was penned by the Chron's wittiest and most versatile writer, Steve Rubenstein. As Chris puts it, Rubenstein got assigned to write a color piece on Daylight Savings Time. Here's the fine piece he turned in, a story every journalist in San Francisco should be wishing they were good enough to write. (I'd excerpt it, but you should start at the start.)

Posted by Ryan Singel at April 4, 2006 04:13 PM

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Posted by: anon at April 5, 2006 10:50 AM