Gavin Newsom’s half-baked announcements harm credibility, raise troubling questions

When Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sacramento Kings CEO Vivek Ranadivé stood on the floor of Sleep Train Arena on April 6, their words seemed to give a clear impression: The NBA team was making a big philanthropic contribution to California.

Newsom thanked the team for donating 100,000 masks, supporting food banks and providing cash donations to help people in need. Newsom also profusely thanked Ranadivé for having “offered” the Sleep Train arena facility – the former home of the Kings – “before we even asked.”

Newsom extolled the Kings’ actions as “an example of philanthropy at scale and people extending their hand” and thanked Ranadivé “on behalf of a very grateful state.” Ranadivé took the podium and spoke of the Kings’ belief in the need to be “bigger than basketball” and to “use our platform to impact the world in a positive way.”

Afterward, The Sacramento Bee reported that the Sleep Train Arena site was a “donation.” Other news outlets framed the arena announcement in the context of the basketball team’s philanthropic contributions. But all of the stories missed a crucial detail.

“Turns out Sleep Train Arena, the team’s home in Natomas until 2016, is coming at a cost to taxpayers,” wrote The Bee last week in a follow-up story. “The state is paying the Kings $500,000 a month for use of the facility for three months, though the team has donated the use of adjacent practice facility.”

The price is apparently comparable to what the state has paid for similar facilities, and it seems like a fair use of taxpayer money during the COVID-19 emergency. But why didn’t the governor make it clear that this was a business deal rather than a donation? He never said the word “donation,” but he framed the April 6 announcement in purely philanthropic terms.

He cast it as an act of generosity and “largesse,” not a $1.5 million contract to let the state use an empty arena. His language obscured this key detail, and neither the governor’s office nor the Kings sought to correct the “donation” characterization on April 6.

Last week, The Bee learned the deal’s price from public records and set the facts straight.

A spokesperson for the Kings said the deal is “consistent with other similar alternate care facilities that have been created to support the growing medical needs of the COVID-19 crisis” and noted that the team is letting the state use a separate practice facility at no cost. That’s great – but why not make all of the details public on the day of the announcement? There was a $1.5 million elephant in the arena on April 6, but nobody mentioned it. The spokesperson said Newsom had said the word “contract” when he mentioned the arena during a separate press conference on April 2.

But no one heard anything about a contract during the big announcement at the arena. If Newsom had mentioned the price tag, it would have made every news story – but he didn’t mention it.

Winston Churchill is often credited with the famous saying “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” There’s no proof he ever said it, but the lesson remains: false impressions can quickly spread and seem true.

Gov. Gavin Newsom should take this lesson to heart and do a better job of making sure the information he gives to the public is 100 percent accurate. A recent story by the Associated Press detailed how his actions don’t always live up to his words. Unfortunately, the governor has a long track record of making announcements that turn out to be half-baked.

In March, Newsom announced that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had delivered over 1,000 ventilators to California. Weeks later, it turned out that no California hospitals had received any actual ventilators.

In early 2019, Newsom’s office confirmed that he and his family were moving into the historic governor’s mansion near downtown Sacramento. Weeks later, it turned out they were actually moving to a mansion in Fair Oaks.

A month later, Newsom announced in his first State of the State speech that he was essentially scrapping his predecessors’ plans for a statewide California High-Speed Rail project.

“There simply isn’t a path,” he said, leading most news outlets to report that he was putting “the brakes” on the project.

Afterward, he backtracked, denied what he’d said and blamed the press for reporting his words.

“I just think people in the media should pause before they run headlines and actually consider the facts and maybe even ask the person that’s stating things before they run with things,” Newsom said. “That’s the deep lesson I learned in this.”

At the time, this Editorial Board blasted Newsom as “Gov. Gaslight” for his attempt to rewrite reality. But maybe Newsom had a point.

Ideally, the governor should make clear, complete and truthful announcements. Or, at the very least, his staff should do “clean up” duty when he makes errors. This means reaching out to reporters to clear up any false impressions created by the governor’s words.

In lieu of such practices, however, Newsom is right: The governor has repeatedly given reporters a reason to be much more skeptical of what he says.

This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Gavin Newsom’s half-baked announcements harm credibility, raise troubling questions."