The San Diego Mayor’s office did not respond to questions from The San Diego Sun.
Too often, that’s a line of journalistic due diligence inserted into local political news stories. In this case, it’s the lead.
The San Diego Society of Professional Journalists gave the “Wall Award” to Mayor Todd Gloria at its annual Walls & Windows event held on April 18, 2024.
Awardees are “those in our community who have worked hard to expand the public’s right to know by fighting for transparency — and hold accountable those who have stifled these efforts,” according to an announcement on the SPJ’s website.
The SPJ story notes that the Wall Award “goes to the person or public agency that made it difficult for journalists to do their jobs by ignoring information requests or otherwise compromising the public’s right to know.”
Windows & Walls candidates are nominated by journalists and voted on by the SPJ board.
There are two journalism-focused groups in San Diego, including the San Diego Press Club, which had the mayor as a speaker at its awards dinner in 2023.
“The San Diego Press Club was honored to have Mayor Todd Gloria present the Club with a 50-year anniversary commemoration from the City at the Excellence in Journalism Awards last fall,” Press Club Immediate Past President Eileen Gaffen wrote in an email to The Sun. “He also thanked our retiring Executive Director Terry Williams for her 20 years of service.”
The Press Club had no comment on the SPJ Wall Award.
According to the SPJ’s website, “Multiple journalists working in print, TV and radio said they have been unfairly denied access to interviews, press conferences and site tours involving the Mayor’s office.”
La Prensa Publisher/Editor-at-Large Art Castañares, whose news outlet is highly critical of the mayor, was vocal on social media last year about being excluded from a city-run tour of a Safe Camping site for the homeless population.
After covering San Diego’s dire flash flooding this past February, news website Voice of San Diego ran a follow-up story detailing the mayor’s communications team chastising its coverage.
The Voice story that irked the mayor’s team was headlined: “Trust Between Southeastern San Diego Flood Survivors and Local Government Is Dead.”
Wrote the SPJ: “We believe the Mayor’s office should focus more on cooperation and less on reputation management.”
In October 2022, when retired NBA Hall-of-Famer Bill Walton publicly denounced what he felt was the mayor’s lack of commitment to abating the city’s homelessness issue, the mayor’s communications team was very aggressive in social media statements.
A mayoral tweet described a press conference by Walton as “a tantrum of self-aggrandizing hyperbole and outright lies.” That post concluded, “It’s unfortunate Bill Walton is quitting on San Diego, but you can be damned sure Todd Gloria never will.”
The San Diego Sun was not involved in the SPJ’s Windows & Walls nomination process, though this news outlet has consistently been ignored when querying the mayor’s office for comment.
A local political pundit says he’d hoped Gloria would be a “breath of fresh air” when elected mayor in 2020 but has turned out to be the opposite.
“There certainly is a general culture of keeping the drapes pulled tight,” says Carl Luna, professor emeritus in political science at San Diego Mesa College.
Luna opines that Gloria, a Democrat, may feel insulated from criticism by the strong Democratic majority that exists in San Diego politics.
“It’s a strength but also a weakness,” Luna says. “He’ll probably win re-election–so that’s no inspiration to open the windows. Todd Gloria has not been the aspirational leader we had hoped for.”
In the March primary election, Gloria finished first and advanced to the November general election along with second place finisher Larry Turner.
A former Marine and current San Diego Police Department community relations officer, Turner effusively pounced on the SPJ Wall Award bestowed on Gloria.
Turner points out Gloria refused to take part in primary election candidate forums.
“I also heard some of the examples from journalists and listen, I’ll do a 180-degree turn on this as mayor,” he says. “The mayor works for the people–even the people who don’t agree with you.”
Turner vowed that if elected he’d allow the press to have constant access to him.
Asked to clarify if he was promising 24/7 press coverage, Turner jokes: “Well, not when I’m in the bathroom or sleeping. But, yes.”
Prior to the primary election, Turner was subject to unwanted scrutiny when press reports questioned if he had been a resident of the city of San Diego long enough to be eligible to run for mayor.
The issue was preliminarily heard in Superior Court, and the case was dropped after Turner finished second in the primary.
Turner maintains he has the documentation that shows he has been in compliance with the residency requirement.
“I know that the press asks politicians tough questions,” he says. “But we volunteered to run for office. So you have to respond to the press. You can’t disregard reporters or show favoritism. That’s sophomoric.”
Turner says he knows reporters have a job to do.
You can’t cut them off from the mayor’s office or they can’t do their job, which is to report to the people of San Diego what is happening in local politics,” he says.
The mayor has to take responsibility when negative stories arise, Turner adds.
“You can’t take credit for the good and blame others for all the bad,” he says. “And this Wall Award, that’s on the mayor, not his administration. If it’s his staff that’s not responding to the press, the mayor needs to reprimand them or not retain them.”
To reiterate the lead to this story, at press time the mayor’s office had not responded to a request for comment. –SDSun
