“Lorraine’s Lowdown” gets Boardman’s briefs in a bunch at The Union

The Union columnist George Boardman never graduated past the podunk San Mateo Times, so it’s hard for him to appreciate the talents of beloved and award-winning columnists at big-league newspapers such as The San Francisco Chronicle.

Although Amphlett’s San Mateo Times has all but vanished, Northern California’s largest newspaper, The Chronicle, earlier this month was named the state’s best large newspaper for the fourth year in a row by the California News Publishers Association. Woo-hoo!

The volume of Boardman’s corrections alone would disqualify him from being called a talent. He might as well just sign his name “CORRECTION:”

Let’s face it: George is no Herb Caen, Art Hoppe, Jon Carroll, Carl Nolte, Bruce Jenkins, Matier & Ross and so on.  I know it also has irked George to no end that Herb was a friend, longtime former colleague and neighbor of “Jeffy” on Nob Hill.

Transport yourself from the late Pulitzer-winning columnist’s home on Nob Hill to George Boardman’s haunt in “Lake of the Pines” (one of western Nevada County’s two “gated” communities) and bear witness to The Union columnist sitting in his BarcaLounger and fuming about the content in Lorraine Jewett’s new column, “Lorraine’s Lowdown.” (Where’s the R.L. Crabb cartoon?)

On his “blog,” George is gnashing his teeth because Lorraine had the audacity to run this in her column: “. . . the classy magazine published by Jeff and Shannon Pelline.” And it even got past the editors!

Boardman goes on to lecture us like a schoolmarm: “The word (‘classy’) was used by Lorraine Jewett in her column, ‘Lorraine’s Lowdown,’ where never is found a discouraging word. Lorraine speaks for herself, not The Union.”

“Never is found a discouraging word”? Meow George! As if George’s column is “investigative journalism.”

For the record — and George is too out of touch to know this — but The Union publisher has also complimented our magazine, as well as the annual art gallery guide that we publish for the Nevada County Arts Council. And so has the Grass Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Yup, George also got it wrong with his churlish remark: “You have to wonder what (Chamber Executive Director Robin Galvan-Davis) thought when Jeffy’s membership application showed up in the mail.”

If Georgie had bothered to get out of his arm chair and do some reporting (a recurring complaint about his work around town), our not-so-curious George would have learned that “Jeffy’s membership application didn’t show up in the mail,” as mischaracterized in his “reporting.”

To the contrary, Robin and Chamber President Joy Porter reached out to us to join. Joy came to our home, made a pitch, we had a good (and frank) discussion —and we decided to join. We also belong to the Nevada City and Truckee chambers.

Robin invited us to distribute our magazine at the Grass Valley Chamber ‘s Visitor Center, and the digital version of our magazine was promoted in the latest Chamber newsletter, along with a link to digital.sierraculture.com. George can pick up his own version there — for free.

“Bored” Georgeman’s column has become stale and boring, and I keep waiting for The Union to drop it. To his credit, George does top all The Union’s regular columnists in one category, however: corrections.

Author: jeffpelline

Jeff Pelline is a veteran editor and award-winning journalist - in print and online. He is publisher of Sierra FoodWineArt magazine and its website SierraCulture.com. Jeff covered business and technology for The San Francisco Chronicle for 12 years, and he was a founding editor and Editor of CNET News for eight years, among other positions. Jeff has a bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley and a master's from Northwestern University. His hobbies include sailing, swimming, and trout fishing in the Sierra. View all posts by jeffpelline