Best Dead Newspaper

SF Frontlines disappeared from city streets late last year, unlamented, unmourned, and basically unnoticed. In a town that desperately needs legitimate newspapers, it was a partial shame to see the provocative Frontlines pull the plug on itself. Toward the end, piles of the tabloid could be seen rotting sadly in odd corners of the yuppie cafes in which they had been dropped with such high hopes that they would actually be read. The paper's main fault was that it suffered from a cult of personality: that of its sole owner, writer, and editor, Carlos Petroni, who used the monthly journal as a running political advertisement for his quixotic attempts to be elected to exalted office in the city power structure -- which he otherwise claimed to despise. The one-man rag will be forgotten, but not missed.