Mayor Channels Inner Wonk in 7½-Hour YouTube Speech

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is living up to his chatty reputation with a 7½-hour state-of-the-city speech—on YouTube. The mayor, who is averse to speaking with the city’s board of supervisors and enamored of policy, will release the detailed address in 45-minute chunks. Why watch, wonders the Chronicle? “The good news is no one has to,” Newsom says. “For those that don’t want to, don’t.”

“We have a lot we want to share, but it gets filtered. To do an address that’s unfiltered, what better way to do it than on YouTube?” said Newsom, who’s exploring a run for California governor. And he’s not oblivious to the humor in all of it: “My critics will say, ‘It’s 7½ hours—typical.’” (More Gavin Newsom stories.)