Tommy Craggs, writing for the SF Weekly, says that the new publisher of the SF Chron has been cast as a villain, but may be exactly what the Hearst Corp. needs to defeat the dark forces of the new economy.

Since taking over in January, Vega has methodically gone about charming the better part of a jittery Chronicle. He estimates he has met face to face with at least 500 employees, mostly in small groups in his conference room, but also on smoke breaks and walks through the building. One of his first moves was to throw open the doors inside the Chronicle, where in the past you’d need a swipe key to get from office to office. “We’re a newspaper,” Vega says. “We’re supposed to be open to the public, and we weren’t even open to ourselves. I think people appreciate the fact that there’s a little more of an open society here than there was.”