Pros
Content is very minimally edited. Editors seldom suggest topics. This isn't a good business model, but it provides a lot of creative freedom. Pre-Clint Reilly Acquisition, the staff was mostly pleasant to work with.
Cons
Carly Schwartz was the editor in chief in my time here, and she had broad influence over the company as a c-level executive. She champions herself a survivor of her own depression and addiction issues, and she lets you know about it in social media posts and writings. Her career history boasts about projects she appears to have all started and then departed: a newsroom at Huffington Post, Google, a program in Panama, and editor-in-chief at SF Examiner. Save for the latter, she won't hesitate to let you know some work mentioned in this illustrious career history was carried out while depressed and under the influence. She has overcome, and she needs you to know.
This wouldn't have been so disastrous as a personality affect, except that instead of editing stories, she simply cut them from publication and then fired the freelancers. This did happen with me, but also nearly everyone else I heard about during the company's transition. The newspaper had recently been acquired by Clint Reilly Communications, and in its defense: It very much feels normal practice to replace a current team with one you trust instead. In Carly's reign, however, this was done with exactly zero warning and one "thank you" emailed by a subordinate. She would later tell me my writing wasn't good enough. Getting a critique is never the worst thing, but having someone lie to you as that being the reason for termination is, well... you're a special human being, Carly. Lest we forget the title includes "editor." I feel like actual editing and mentorship are skills this person never acquired.
Admittedly I'm putting two stars here because I enjoyed the editorial team pre-Clint Reilly acquisition. They weren't perfect by any stretch, and the pay was abominably bad. But they also kept their heads down and simply tried to put out a good newspaper. They communicated when there was time to do so.