Best Neighborhood Newspaper

SF Herald is the brainchild of Gene Mahoney, who started his "Monarch of the Monthlies" in 1998. It began primarily as a showcase for Mahoney's comic Good Clean Fun, which featured his often hilarious recountings of personal neuroses and San Francisco roommate culture. But in time the Herald has grown to become a witty and caustic journal of the Tenderloin bohemian life. Good Clean Fun is still the anchor, but the Herald now sports a stable of angry young columnists and artists working as cabbies, writers, and would-be rock stars. The New York Times it ain't: The writing isn't always there, the music reviews trumpet "KICK-ASS ROCK AND ROLL!!!," and Mahoney gleefully and unapologetically plugs local establishments in the hopes they'll take out ads. But the Herald is welcome proof that there's still a smart set of people who genuinely miss the old San Francisco culture, are willing to admit their fuck-ups, and want to turn it all into something that matters. Where most neighborhood papers settle for the police blotter and chirpy reviews of taquerias, the Herald is pissed and proud.