THE SAN FRANCISCO FLIER began publishing in print in 1987 as a monthly. Weekly publication commenced in the 1990s and by 1997 the newsletter was appearing three times a week with 125 distribution outlets, including 75 street newsracks.
A Flier web site was established at www.well.com/user/sfflier in 1995, and featured one of the Internet’s first syndication services.
JOHN HUTCHISON began publishing the San Francisco Flier in 1987 and added its on-line syndication service in 1995. He started in journalism with the Washington (D.C.) Daily News, and later worked for the Holyoke (Mass.) Transcript-Telegram. In the late 1960s he founded neighborhood publications in the Fillmore and Tenderloin districts of San Francisco, and subsequently worked for the San Francisco Examiner.
He also worked as a community organizer, longshoreman, warehouseman and Teamster, and has been an advocate for progressive causes and trade unionism.
Hutchison was born in New York City and raised there and in Washington, D.C., Europe and Asia. He graduated from St. Michael’s College (Vt.).
BETSEY CULP is a contributing editor. She was the Flier co-publisher from 1996 to 2000 and later published the award-winning San Francisco Call. A former editor at the University of California Press, she also published four book-length translations from Japanese.
She has been active in civil rights, free speech, and anti-war movements, an interpreter of Asian politics and cultures, and a voice for environmental sensibility.
Culp was born in Baltimore and raised near New York City. She attended Radcliffe College (Mass.) and the University of California, Berkeley, where she received advanced degrees in American history and East Asian languages. She lived for a number of years in Japan.