Factual Errors in Berkeleyside’s Reporting on our Mayoral Campaign

This week, Berkeleyside published a long negative article about our mayoral campaign. The article was filled with clear factual errors, and the reporting consisted of anonymous sources and gossip, with very limited on-the-record sources. Berkeleyside also failed to interview any of the sources I recommended they could talk to on-the-record, including: people with first-hand experience; and reputable journalists (including a former senior writer at Rolling Stone and a former investigative reporter at the San Francisco Examiner) who personally witnessed the incidents they write about.

The latest article is the third in a series of three articles Berkeleyside has published with negative attacks on our campaign. In the prior two cases, Berkeleyside did not even check with us for comment. For example, in a report on campaign contributions in the mayoral race, Berkeleyside reported that we had only 161 Berkeley donors and that only 25% of our funds were coming from Berkeley. Both of these numbers are false. In fact, we have over twice as many Berkeley donors as Berkeleyside claims–more than the incumbent mayor by a considerable margin. And over 80% of our funds come from Berkeley sources, including the city’s public financing program. Because we are only taking small $50 maximum donations, most of our donations are not reported in the public campaign filings, which only require the reporting of $50+ donations. But Berkeleyside never checked with us before reporting that outside money was driving our campaign and, to date, has not corrected their false numbers.

This is just one of a long list of factual errors — each slanted to discredit our campaign — that show a systematic bias. We point out the most material errors in their reporting below.

MISLEADING: Wayne Hsiung faces 17 felonies and wants to be Berkeley’s next mayor.

• This headline, which has since been updated after criticism by many readers, suggests a dangerous or criminal history.
• In fact, I have a 15+ year record of challenging unconstitutional laws and unlawful corporate practices, as an attorney, former law professor, and environmental and animal rights advocate.
• Every one of my arrests over the years has been related to peaceful protest or civil disobedience, and I have never been convicted of any crime.
• In the most serious case, I’ve been offered resolution with no prison time, contingent on acceptance of a “gag” order that would prevent me from criticizing Smithfield Foods. I’ve declined that offer as a matter of principle–but will reconsider based on constituent feedback.
• Berkeleyside fails to point out that the City Council of Berkeley (including, ironically, Mayor Arreguin himself) and the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco have both supported our work and civil disobedience on this issue. The Mayor’s strange reversal — from support to attacks — is ignored.

FALSE: DxE’s roadmap sets a target of 2025 to ban meat in Berkeley, although Hsiung says now he has backed off from that goal.

• In fact, I never had such a goal, and I opposed the “Ban Meat in Berkeley” idea from its inception. I have been a consistent opponent of activism targeting consumers for nearly 15 years.
• The 40 year roadmap is a crowd-sourced document that dozens or hundreds of people have made edits to.
• Berkeleyside pulled a single line from this crowd-sourced document and elevated it into a campaign while ignoring all of the campaigns DxE actually works on, e.g. the Right to Rescue or No More Factory Farms.
• For the past 15 years, I have consistently stated that our goal should be to transform our food system towards sustainable and humane practices, rather than target consumers.
• To hear my actual views, consider listening to this recent podcast with Vox’s Ezra Klein. (Klein, in fact, is much more supportive of consumer activism than I am.)
• In the long term, I believe our system of meat production will move towards cultured and plant-based meats. In this ambition, I concur with people like Bill Gates and Richard Branson — hardly extremists.

MISLEADING: In the past four years, DxE members in Berkeley have stormed the downstairs dining room of Chez Panisse and yelled at patrons about meat consumption.

• I have consistently opposed demonstrations of local businesses and stated my opposition publicly.
• DxE is a large grassroots network, and demonstrations like these are organized spontaneously by people involved in the network.
• My focus as a DxE activist has been on investigative work, not protests. These investigations give ordinary citizens the right to know where their meat products are coming from. When I work on animal rights issues, that will continue to be my focus as Mayor.

FALSE: Cracks appear in DxE’s organization in 2017 after 43 core members depart.

• A large number of the 43 individuals who signed the document were not members, much less core members. I do not recognize half of the names on the petition, and I had virtually no contact with most of the other names.
• The primary author of the petition has retracted it and now disavows the petition, as do others who signed. Berkeleyside failed to interview the primary author of the petition, yet uses the petition to discredit us.
• Berkeleyside fails to point out that, immediately after these “cracks appeared,” DxE had its largest mobilization, investigative, and fundraising successes in 2017. This is a strange omission.

FALSE: In a contentious meeting in 2017, one that led to the exit of the 43 disaffected members, supporters said, “He’s an angel,” and “he’s our only hope,” according to two different sources. They also compared Hsiung to Martin Luther King, Jr. “If you agreed with him that was a way to move up,” said the former member. “If you disagreed with him or criticized (him) his lackeys would start to criticize you behind your back.”

Hsiung had called the meeting to question the actions of a prominent member, one who had been acting as a liaison to lawyers working on a case involving a DxE “rescue” at Diestel Turkey Farms. The member in question was not in attendance. During the meeting, Hsiung allegedly discredited the member, accusing her of some terrible transgressions that violated the group’s trust. The meeting turned into a two-hour rant.

• Almost none of the “43 disaffected members” were even present at this meeting. Most of them live around the country and have had limited contact with DxE leadership.
• Berkeleyside fails to point out that the meeting was approved by the chapter membership, who requested that we discuss openly our reasons for removing the individual in question from her position.
• The “two-hour-rant” was a sober, calm, and apologetic discussion by our leadership team on their reasons for removing the person from their position.
• Berkeleyside failed to talk to anyone else about the conversation, though we offered to have them discuss with two journalists who were also in attendance.
• Instead, Berkeleyside primarily quotes a single on-the-record source, Sherry Lifton, with a long history of making verbally abusive comments towards DxE members and of making false accusations. Among other things, she has strangely claimed that I was expelled from MIT. (I was not.)

FALSE: On occasion, the DxE leaders characterized the dissenters as sexual predators — an irony since a number of members felt the organization did a terrible job addressing sexual harassment issues and may have even covered up sexual assaults.

• The Berkeleyside article falsely suggests that people were accused of being sexual predators after they dissented from leadership’s positions. This is false. In fact, in every instance, including the blog Berkeleyside links to, people who have been removed for sexual misconduct only become “dissenters” after they were removed.
• Berkeleyside fails to point out that, in many cases, the individuals who “felt the organization did a terrible job addressing sexual harassment” were the very individuals who were removed for engaging in sexual harassment.
• In one prominent example, a male activist and his friends accused us of mishandling sexual harassment because we failed to punish women who credibly reported him for sexual harassment. Berkeleyside fails to point out that this is the source for their allegation that we do a “terrible job.”

FALSE: Those who have left said they believe that Hsiung made DxE about him rather than about the organization as a whole. He was like a king with everyone else his subjects, they said.

• Berkeleyside failed to interview the dozens of members who would go on the record with an opposite perspective.
• In fact, DxE is the only animal rights organization I am aware of that operates by democratic elections of leadership.
• Moreover, I stepped down from leadership in Sept 2019, and since then, have had to submit project requests — which face the same challenges and objections that other project requests face.
• I am a net donor to DxE’s work to the tune of six figures, and when awarded speaking awards, grants, or other compensation, I have consistently given all the money back to the organization.

FALSE: “As we know … a closed community — in which there is veneration for a male leader, where there is actually no freedom to disagree, or to succeed at challenging leadership — is a community that is cultic,” Adams wrote in the 2018 blog post.

• Berkeleyside fails to point out that Adams had zero experience with DxE’s organizing culture and refused repeated requests for conversations with women of color in leadership.
• Most of DxE’s leadership is female, including its current lead organizer and 60% of its core leadership team.
• The current lead organizer, Almira Tanner, is widely seen as the person who has historically been most critical of me. Yet I endorsed her candidacy for the lead organizer position when I resigned in September 2019.

FALSE: An incident with Berkeleyside showed Hsiung’s ongoing concern with DxE’s image. This reporter’s interview with Hsiung on Monday was conducted by Zoom and Hsiung asked if he could record it, “just for my sake.” Having said yes, Berkeleyside later learned that Hsiung had shared the recording with the nine members of DxEʼs core team, according to Frohnmayer, a member of the core group.

• Contrary to Berkeleyside’s report, I never stated that I would not share the recording internally to our own team.
• DxE’s core team does not have 9 members. It has 5.
• Jon Frohnmayer is not a member of that core team.

FALSE: He would to do [sic] a “Green New Deal” in the city by making “a large investment into public infrastructure, employing hundreds of people to repair roads, build solar panels, and improve our parks and public spaces.” His website does not specify how Berkeley will raise the funds to accomplish that.

• This has been a common and false talking point from Jesse Arreguin’s campaign. Arreguin has repeated this multiple times in recent debates.
• In fact, our website has always clearly stated how we will raise funds: “Three things need to change in order to get us to that objective: a solar panel on every roof; an electric stove and heat pump in every home; and electric cars and shuttles on every road. The total cost of this transition would be approximately $2.5 billion, roughly 5 times the city’s annual budget. We will harness an “ultra millionaire” tax to finance this transition.”
• Berkeleyside failed to reach out to us or even properly review our website before repeating a false factual allegation that has been repeatedly made by our opponent’s campaign.

FALSE: Hsiung talks about his activism but downplays his role in DxE.

• My activism with DxE, in fact, is on our website extensively, and we have talked about it openly with everyone who has asked.
• We have mailed flyers discussing my animal rights activism with DxE to every voter in Berkeley. See, e.g., here.
• When we engage in voter outreach, we start by listening. We lead by asking voters, “What are the issues that are concerning you?”