BURBANK – In the wake of an in-depth investigation into the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the organization responsible for the Golden Globes by the Los Angeles Times, which revealed a lack of racial diversity among its voting members and various other ethical concerns, NBC Universal announced Monday the network would not broadcast the 2022 Golden Globes ceremony. This past February ahead of the HFPA’s 78th Annual Golden Globes ceremony, HFPA board chair Meher Tatna told Variety magazine that the organization that the organization of international journalists which covers the film, television, and entertainment industry has not had any Black members in at least 20 years. Actor Sterling K. Brown, a Golden Globe winner and two-time nominee, posted to Instagram; Criticism of the HFPA, which puts on the Globes and has been denounced for a lack of diversity and for ethical impropriates, reached such a pitch this week that actor and superstar celebrity Tom Cruise returned his three Globes to the press association’s headquarters, according to a person who was granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the decision, the Associated Press reported. “We continue to believe that the HFPA is committed to meaningful reform. However, change of this magnitude takes time and work, and we feel strongly that the HFPA needs time to do it right,” a spokesperson for NBC said in a statement. “As such, NBC will not air the 2022 Golden Globes,” the spokesperson added. “Assuming the organization executes on its plan, we are hopeful we will be in a position to air the show in January 2023.” NBC’s decision comes as Vogue reported that the backlash to the HFPA came swiftly and decisively. Some of Hollywood’s biggest studios, including Netflix, Amazon, and WarnerMedia, announced they were severing ties with the organization until efforts were made to increase diversity and stamp out corruption, while a group of more than 100 of the industry’s biggest PR firms released a statement in March in which they pledged to boycott the ceremony for the foreseeable future. The HFPA did not immediately respond to inquiries by media outlets requesting comment about NBC’s decision. In February, the organization said it was “fully committed to ensuring our membership is reflective of the communities around the world who love film, TV, and the artists inspiring and educating them.” “We understand that we need to bring in Black members as well as members from other underrepresented backgrounds, and we will immediately work to implement an action plan to achieve these goals as soon as possible,” it said. HFPA also announced a full timetable through this summer for implementing promised reform initiatives in response to NBC’s decision. “Regardless of the next air date of the Golden Globes, implementing transformational changes as quickly — and as thoughtfully — as possible remains the top priority,” the HFPA board said in a statement. “We invite our partners in the industry to the table to work with us on the systemic reform that is long overdue, both in our organization as well as within the industry at large.”<doc-sep>With San Francisco’s mayoral campaign clock ticking down, tracking polls show Board of Supervisors President London Breed remains the top choice for the most voters, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Given San Francisco’s ranked-choice voting system, there’s still room for either Supervisor Jane Kim or former state Sen. Mark Leno to overtake Breed with second- or third-choice votes and come out the winner. “And that is why you have seen Kim and Leno campaigning together on TV, in the mail and on the street,” said longtime San Francisco political consultant John Whitehurst, who is not working with a candidate in Tuesday’s election. Kim and Leno’s “one-two strategy” is to ask their supporters to cast their first vote for their favored candidate and their second-choice vote for the other half of the team. The hope is that whoever places second behind Breed in the first-round count will get the needed boost to overtake her in the ranked-choice phase. “It’s unclear if it will work, but that is the plan they are executing,” Whitehurst said. “By far, Breed has the biggest field operation and the largest campaign out there — but the idea is that combined Kim and Leno campaigns could be even bigger.” The one-two strategy was first used in the 2010 Oakland mayoral election, when front-runner Don Perata, the former state Senate president pro tem, scored 35 percent of the first-place votes — only to be bested by Councilwoman Jean Quan in the subsequent ranked-choice count. Quan had encouraged supporters of Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan and others to list her second, as part of an “Anybody but Don” campaign. When the second-choice votes were added in, Quan overtook Perata, 51 to 49 percent. The Oakland race, however, is different from the current San Francisco mayoral sweepstakes in one key aspect. Perata, while popular with a good portion of the voters, was disliked by even more voters — setting up that anyone-but-Perata dynamic. Eric Risberg / Associated Press Breed, on the other hand, has consistently polled favorably with voters, by a 2-1 margin. Polls also show Breed picking up a healthy portion of No. 2 votes from other candidates. Most insiders agree that, at this point, the result of Tuesday’s contest will depend on who actually votes. According to Whitehurst, vote-by-mail returns from the city’s Department of Elections show that 80 percent of the people who have cast ballots early are older than 40 — a demographic that would probably favor Leno, who has been in politics the longest, and Breed, who has the most active operation on the city’s more moderate West side. A big turnout of techies and other younger voters would probably favor Kim. “So far, however, the ‘new’ San Francisco has yet to turn out,” Whitehurst said. Either way — no one is ready to call the race. Revolving door: Psychiatrist Aaron Chapman got an unusual call from San Francisco probation officials the other day, alerting him that the man who had burglarized his Eureka Valley home 3½ years ago was about to be sentenced. “It really hit me out of the blue,” Chapman said. After all, Chapman hadn’t heard a word about burglar Phillip Benard since his arrest the day after the December 2014 break-in. It wasn’t the hardest case to crack. Benard had left behind a backpack containing his hospital release form and vials of medicine with his name printed on them. But then Benard isn’t the brightest of burglars. He has a lengthy sheet of burglary arrests and just as many releases from custody. The most notable case was in 2012 when, after being given a break by Community Court Judge Lillian Sing, Benard walked out of the courtroom and promptly broke into the judge’s car with two cops standing nearby. Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle Fast-forward to last week, when, after pleading guilty to felony burglary for a string of four break-ins in 2014 that included Chapman’s home, Benard was sentenced to six years in state prison. But with credit for time served, Benard will be eligible for release as soon as a bed is available for him to take part in a year-long, anti-recidivism residential treatment program. “If he violates the terms, he goes back to jail,” says district attorney spokesman Max Szabo. “And if he picks up another case, he would face three strikes, with the potential for 25 years to life in state prison.” Which would certainly put an end to the revolving door. San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross<doc-sep>SAN FRANCISCO — The City by the Bay could make history by electing its first African-American woman, Asian-American woman or openly gay man for mayor in a contest added to Tuesday's ballot after the unexpected death of Mayor Ed Lee in December. The leading candidates are London Breed, the African-American president of the Board of Supervisors who briefly served as interim mayor after Lee's death; Jane Kim, a San Francisco supervisor and daughter of Korean immigrants; and former state Sen. Mark Leno, who entered the mayor's race long before Lee's death, and who championed gay marriage statewide. It is the city's first competitive mayoral race in 15 years, and one without an incumbent. All three are Democrats, but Breed is backed by the establishment business community while Leno and Kim are favored by more liberal elements of the Democratic Party, including tenants and critics of tech companies such as Airbnb and Uber. The city has enormous wealth thanks to a flourishing economy led by the tech industry, but it's also plagued by rampant homelessness and deep pockets of poverty. A fourth candidate, Angela Alioto, served as a supervisor in the late 1980s and 1990s and her father, Joe, was mayor from 1968 to 1976. San Francisco uses a ranked-choice voting system. Voters rank their top-three candidates in order of preference. The candidates with the least votes are eliminated in rounds until there's a winner. How Ranked-Choice Voting Works Roque Ruiz John Artnz, the director of the Department of Elections in San Francisco, says a winner might not be known until Friday, which is also the state deadline for counties to receive ballots postmarked by June 5. "If it's very, very, very tight it might come down to every single ballot card," Artnz said. In 2010, Jean Quan became the mayor of nearby Oakland when she scored enough second- and third-place votes to beat the candidate with the most first-place votes. In this race, Kim and Leno are deploying a similar tactic and have asked supporters to vote for the other as their No. 2 choice on the ballot. The other candidates are Michelle Bravo, a massage therapist; Amy Farah Weiss, a homelessness activist; Republican businessman Richie Greenberg; and Ellen Lee Zhou, a public health worker who opposed recreational marijuana legalization.<doc-sep>
The odd alliance between these mayoral rivals ahead of the June 5 election is a function of San Francisco’s system of ranked-choice voting, whereby residents can choose up to three candidates by order of preference instead of the usual one. Kim and Leno each want voters to put themselves as their first choice, but they’re urging their supporters to select each other as their second choice on Election Day. Ranked-choice voting has been in place for municipal elections in San Francisco for 15 years, but this year’s race is the most wide-open campaign for City Hall during that time and the first in which two major candidates have so explicitly taken advantage of the system by forming an alliance. Advocates of ranked-choice voting cheered the move as a validation of an election reform they hope to expand to other major cities, such as New York, and to states as well. Maine next month will become the first state to use ranked-choice voting in its primary elections for governor and other offices. But the Kim-Leno alliance is not without controversy. By endorsing each other, they are effectively trying to thwart the candidacy of the putative frontrunner in the race, London Breed, the Board of Supervisors president who served briefly as the city’s acting mayor following the December death of Mayor Ed Lee. In a move that enraged Breed supporters, her colleagues on the board—including Kim—voted to name another member, Mark Farrell, as interim mayor through the election. The editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle, which endorsed Breed, accused Kim and Leno of “gaming” the ranked-choice system and wrote that the move “projects an element of desperation.” Each of the three leading candidates would mark a first for San Francisco if they win. Breed would become the first African American woman elected to lead the city; Kim would be the first Asian American woman to serve as mayor; and Leno would be the first openly gay mayor in the city’s history. In heavily Democratic San Francisco, all three hopefuls are staunch progressives on the issues that animate national politics: They back same-sex marriage, a higher minimum wage and government spending, and all of them oppose President Trump’s crackdown on immigration and support San Francisco’s status as a “sanctuary city.” But on local issues, Breed is seen as the most moderate of the top three candidates in the race, which has been dominated by a debate over the city’s twin crises of affordability and homelessness. In press interviews, Kim and Leno have knocked Breed for siding more frequently with developers, and they’ve criticized her association with a tech investor who endorsed her candidacy at a memorial service for Lee and then helped fund super PACs backing her bid on the airwaves. “When it comes to asking the private sector to do more, or to follow along with rules, or to have rules even that benefit greater society as a whole, that’s where London and I have been apart,” Kim told me. “We always say: Everyone is progressive until money is involved in San Francisco.”