Kent German, who served as the Foghorn’s editor-in-chief from 1995-1996 recalled that the paper’s 1990s staff rarely went home before the sunrise on editing nights. “We’d stay all night,” he said. “We were putting something together, and it really, in a lot of ways, was a labor of love.”
German said that he would drive to Potrero Hill to pick up the paper from printers every week, distributing the papers on campus in the early hours of the morning. “It was the greatest,” he said, “walking in and seeing people pick up the paper and go to class.”
In 1990, the Foghorn reported on former University President John Lo Schiavo granting approval for the Institutional Policy on Freedom of Expression, which guaranteed “the right of every member of the University community free expression, free association, and free exercise of religion” when, previously, the Associated Students of the University of San Francisco (ASUSF) Senate was to object to the activity of any on campus groups which “actively foment against the Catholic Church’s conception of human dignity and justice.”
With this new resolution in place, the Foghorn chronicled the efforts of student activist groups, such as Students for Choice, which petitioned the University to provide birth control education and services at the University Health Center, among other actions.
In 1995, the Foghorn introduced the “CounterPoint” series, in which two op-eds with opposing arguments ran alongside each other. The first in the CounterPoint series featured two articles on contraceptives and the catholic church. The series would go on to cover topical events of the 1990s, such as the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998.
With regard to what German, who is now news editor for SF Gate, would like to see from the Foghorn moving forward, he said, “I hope it continues to be a place for young journalists to learn and get good experience that will take them into their careers.”
