Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. BART board President Bob Franklin promised that the embattled agency would stop trying to push fake news, after the Bay Citizen reported on a clumsy media manipulation strategy that was hatched by BART spokesman Linton Johnson. Johnson had unsuccessfully tried to recruit loyal passengers to attend a press conference and read from a BART-friendly script he wrote.
Johnson even spent public funds on limos to ferry the loyal passengers — although none of the passengers ever showed up. Franklin said the agency has decided to never do that again. However, Johnson’s direct boss Jennifer Barton said it was not the first time that the public agency had given loyal customers “talking points” to use with the news media.