HATE WATCH | JULY 20, 2025

Bigot Sam Mondros & the SF Standard: Buzzards Circling a Better World

To be important without doing anything important, to be special without doing anything special, and to be superior without doing anything superior—it’s quite a trick. Not only is it a tenuous thread to exist upon, but evidently, the ultimate goal of many who pursue a career in journalism.

Sam Mondros face as buzzard over San Francisco

A recent San Francisco Standard article ground out by the content-famished reporter-bigot Sam Mondros holds out for you a classic example of those who can’t-and-couldn’t sitting in judgment on those who can and have—in this case a local Scientologist and highly successful entrepreneur.

Sam cannot sit idly by while a Scientologist works to create a better world.

This Scientologist built a thriving business, created jobs, paid professional athletes real wages and benefits, and kept his sport positive and accessible to millions, motivated by his goal “to teach, motivate and inspire” and to “do everything I can” to create “a positive place” where members of his sport “can come together.”

Of course, the fact that he openly credited Scientology as part of his success made him an even bigger target for every “can’t-do” journalist looking to take a cheap shot.

The Scientologist then made the decision to dedicate his time to helping others as an executive of his local Church, working to reverse the profound social decline San Francisco has become famous for. As even Sam admits, the Scientologist was highly successful at this, too.

But as anyone old enough to turn on a TV knows, social decline is the bread and butter of not only the writers of the Standard, but journalism everywhere. The old editorial maxim “if it bleeds, it leads” is still in full flower as a working formula for fixating the attention of readers and viewers just long enough to view advertising. It works every time, and it works like a charm: Use bad news to fixate attention and ad space fills up.

And how fitting that the can’t-do reporters for the SF Standard trot out an unemployed can’t-do former “reporter”—Tony Ortega, a man whose job was acting as a champion for child sex trafficking while getting called out by the Columbia Journalism Review for falsifying stories—as their “expert” anti-Scientologist.

But why bother explaining the sleaze factor of his article to Sam? It would be like pointing out the health risks of rotting meat to a buzzard. He’d completely miss the point. Sam cannot sit idly by while a Scientologist works to create a better world.

So, I’ll keep my message to Sam simple: Good luck stopping Scientologists or Scientology. Many have tried. All have failed.

You see, we don’t have to pretend to be valuable. You do.

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