About Mister SF

by Mister SF on 06/24/2008

Hank Donat is the San Francisco based journalist known as Mister SF. Hank created MisterSF.com in February, 2001, when it seemed that San Francisco had given up on itself. In the post Millennium, dot-com-bust hangover, articles and items appeared in abundance in the City’s media that enumerated the many ways in which the City sucked. Hank says, “I wanted to remind everyone of all the reasons it’s still the best place.”

Hank decided to combine earlier success in journalism, the arts, and advertising & design to create MisterSF.com. Hank began by publishing his Heart of the City column online at a time when the word “blog” had appeared fewer than a handful of times in the City’s dailies. In a milestone for a web site, Heart of the City became the first ongoing Internet column picked up by a citywide newspaper when it was published regularly in The Examiner/Independent beginning in February, 2002. During the 2003 mayoral election, Heart of City and MisterSF.com were the only media to feature an individual writer in unique field interviews, in San Francisco’s neighborhoods, with all of the major candidates.

Other honors and distinctions followed. In 2004, Hank was the only citywide journalist/spouse to provide first-person coverage of San Francisco’s historic gay marriages with the approval of editors. In 2006, features from the site were adapted for a GPS-guided tour on the streets of San Francisco, with the visitor behind the wheel and Mister SF as the storyteller. Determined to protect his effort and the rights of all independent writers and artists, Hank successfully sued a San Francisco Librarian/author for plagiarism after Hank’s personal stories appeared as the author’s own in the 2006 book “Celluloid San Francisco.”

Since 2008, Hank’s has been named among “Five Helpful Web Sites for San Francisco” by Fodor’s in the publisher’s San Francisco guides. As the only site named that’s maintained by an individual, MisterSF.com stands proudly next to sfgate, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, SFist and SFStation. Hank lives with his husband, Jeff, in San Francisco, where they enjoy a fun, dramatic life.

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	SF Chronicle, 02/02/04 Emcee: World Premiere, “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” Lumiere Theatre, 02/05/04 Baltimore Outloud, 02/20/04 Associated Press, 03/12/04 Marina Times, March, 2004 Presenter: Brian Copeland Day in San Francisco, The Marsh, 04/17/04 Nob Hill Gazette, May, 2004 Marina Times, May, 2004 SF Examiner, “Body Politic,” 05/24/04 KGO Talk Radio 810 NewsTalk, 05/25/04 SF Independent, “Alleys and Avenues,” 06/08/04 San Francisco Magazine, August, 2004 The War Between the State (ISBN 1-57061-378-8) Emcee: St. Francis Hotel Employees Reunion, 08/15/04 2004 SF Bay Area Publicity Club Nominee: __ Best Newspaper Columnist __ Best Web Site __ Best Print Feature SF Chronicle, 08/24/04 SF Downtown, November, 2004 Celebrity Waiter: Music in Schools Today “Stars on Staff” Benefit, Ana Mandara Restaurant, 11/13/04 San Jose Mercury News, 11/25/04 SF Chronicle Sunday Magazine, 01/02/05 Marina Times, January, 2005 Nob Hill Gazette, January, 2005 San Francisco Call, 01/18/05 Bay Area Reporter, 03/03/05 Inductee: Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels, March, 2005 Co-Host: “Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco,” September, 2005 Los Angeles Times, 04/18/06