Anybody who knows a professional print journalist — and I know a few — knows that there is a growing sense of panic in the industry. Readership is in a death spiral, along with ad revenue. Owners of big city dailies — mostly large conglomerates now — are reacting by slashing newsroom staff. Our own local daily, The Oregonian, announced buyouts this summer for at least 100 full-time employees (a story I broke here, later picked up by Willamette Week and Oregon Media Insiders, and much later reported in The O itself).

In the throes of this existential crisis, it’s easy for journalists to blame the Internet. That’s where all the classified ads went (Craig’s List), and it’s also where readers, especially young readers, go for 24×7, up-to-the-minute news coverage and analysis. Who wants a pile of dead-tree paper on their porch with yesterday’s news?

Big city dailies like The O have been slow to adapt to the new media landscape (you may notice that I’m not linking to any Oregonian stories here, for the simple reason that they don’t provide online access to their archive), but even those papers with great Web sites are struggling. That’s because there is a revolutionary change afoot, well beyond the shift of medium from print to electronic.

This shift is every bit as important as the introduction of movable type was, and in much the same way. The difference is in scale.

Now, almost anybody in an industrialized nation can own or borrow a digital printing press. The implications for democracy are stunning, as evidenced by the sudden and lasting impact of Web-based organizations like MoveOn.org and the online fund raising and network-building efforts of insurgent Democratic candidate Howard Dean in 2004.

In the realm of information dissemination, bloggers have created an echo chamber for issues of concern to them and their candidates, keeping stories alive that would otherwise die in a 24-hour news cycle. But until recently, they mostly acted like aggregators, not reporters, simply repeating and amplifying news gleaned from traditional sources.

But the trend now is toward doing actual journalism, albeit with a well-defined point of view.

People who have faith in objectivity in journalism take umbrage at this, but objectivity is an artificial construct. Every story you read in every newspaper has a point of view, whether or not it is obvious. (Eric Alterman covered this issue in more depth in the New Yorker last March.)

Mainstream news gathering organizations have built-in biases, largely a result of their advertisers and their proximity to the powerful; their pretension to the contrary just makes things worse. Prime examples from Oregon’s biggest daily include sitting on the Bob Packwood and Neil Goldschmidt stories, certainly two of the biggest stories of modern Oregon political history.

Especially regarding issues of social justice, pretending to give “balanced” coverage is absurd. There is no point in giving equal time to proponents of injustice.

Which is why I find the emergence of ProPublica refreshing.

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that will produce investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work will focus exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We will do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.

ProPublica is setting a standard higher than current mainstream dailies, something it can afford to do with its private, independent funding. With its emergence, the death of traditional dailies is easier to take. After all, classified ads, obituaries, comics and lifestyle sections don’t do much to advance democracy.

Investigative journalism in the public interest does advance democracy, and it’s something the dailies long ago cut way back on.

But most blogging doesn’t rise to the level of ProPublica. Instead, at its best, the blogosphere offers the opportunity for citizen journalists to report on narrowly defined vertical topics — like a local school district, for example. While most bloggers in this realm, myself included, don’t do it full time and thus can’t do the in-depth reporting, they can offer a constant attention to issues that keep professional journalists focused.

As a citizen journalist in Portland, I’ve had productive relationships with professional journalists at the Portland Tribune and Willamette Week on issues concerning Portland Public Schools. We frequently feed off of each others’ stories, and together produce a body of work that has a clear point of view on one hand, and also a firm basis in factual reporting.

My relationship with reporters at The Oregonian, though, has been much more arm’s length. Their extreme caution in covering public schools belies a clear bias against challenging the status quo. So in their attempt to show no bias (i.e. by refusing to do significant investigation into actual, ongoing, documented injustice), they show a significant bias.

They also assure the continued demise of their newspaper.

At the end of the day, the new media landscape means that “what is news” is no longer determined by middle-aged, middle class white guys behind closed doors in a downtown office building. They’re no longer the only ones buying ink by the barrel, and they can no longer suppress news that goes against the interest of their friends and advertisers.

Now that digital ink is virtually free, Democracy is better served. Women in particular, who for ages have been treated like second-class citizens by the dailies (look at the resources poured into sports coverage), have flourished in the blogosphere. There’s something out there for everybody, which only makes the anemic efforts of the dead tree newspaper to appeal to women less relevant.

The big city daily represents an outmoded mindset, delivered in an environmentally destructive form. As long as organizations like ProPublica are around, along with the traditional journals of opinion like The Nation, alternative papers like Willamette Week, and a healthy blogosphere, I’m cautiously optimistic that the death of the big city daily is not necessarily a bad thing.

The professional journalist will not only survive, but become stronger and more respected, happily co-existing in a symbiotic relationship with the citizen journalist.

Note: The Society of Professional Journalists of Oregon and Southwest Washington is hosting Building a Better Journalist 2008 this weekend at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication in Eugene, with an emphasis on the Internet. ProPublica managing editor Steve Engelberg is the featured speaker. I am also on the program (to the shock and surprise of some journalist friends), taking part in a panel discussion on blogging, along with Bike Portland’s Jonathan Maus and Loaded Orygun’s Mark Bunster, moderated by Willamette Week news editor Hank Stern.

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Oregon ballots are in the mail and voting has begun. I’m honored to have just cast a historic vote for Barack Obama for president. Down ticket, things aren’t as clear-cut, especially on the ballot measures, so here’s my usual two cents worth on things, from the top.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Mr. McCain brought his campaign to Florida on Friday, a state that he must win but where he has been losing ground to Mr. Obama in recent polls. Campaigning with him was Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who tried to appeal to Cuban-Americans in the audience by trying to say “Joe the Plumber” in Spanish.

From the New York Times.

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I’ll be a special guest blogger over at Willamette Week for the presidential debate, starting at 5:45 PST.

Comments are taken, and published within the live blog stream at the discretion of the editor (not me), so come on over and join the fun.

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From our good friends at Willamette Week, where you can download a high resolution, printable PDF of the above image.

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With the Winter Hawks starting their biggest road trip of the season in Spokane tonight, the WHL board of governors is meeting today to decide the fate of our local major junior hockey franchise. Kamploops Daily News sports editor Greg Drinnan, who initially broke the story of Calgary oil man Bill Gallacher’s bid to buy the Hawks, says “all indications are that the sale will proceed.”

That means, in all likelihood, by the time the Hawks come back to town on November 5, they’ll be under new ownership, new management, and, if the rumors are correct, new coaching.

It will also be interesting to see what player movements happen.

The three-year reign of New York barkeep and real estate horse trader Jim Goldsmith and his partners has nearly driven the team into the ground. We expect five-year cycles in junior hockey, but this ownership group has taken the Hawks so far down, it’s hard to see the upside — even with a darn good crop of youngins in the system. Attendance is at an all-time low, from what I can see, with average “crowds” well below the 3000 mark (you don’t have to go back more than three years to see averages around 6000 at this point of the season).

There’s no question Goldsmith and his crew have been doing the bare minimum to operate this team with the sale pending. And there’s no question Portland hockey fans will be happy to see them go.

Gallacher’s ownership also signals the end of the “three amigos” era in Portland hockey, with general manager Ken Hodge expected to be replaced. He’ll probably ride out the season in an advisory role.

Hodge, along with the late Brian Shaw and trainer Innes Mackie first introduced Canadian major junior hockey to the US in 1976 when they brought the Winter Hawks, previously the Edmonton Oil Kings, to Portland. Hopefully Gallacher will treat Hodge and Mackie with the kind of respect they deserve, and they’ll get a nice send-off (and retirement package).

The WHL is holding a press conference at 2:30 PST, presumably to announce the sale.

Update 3pm: The sale has been unanimously approved, and the long Winter Hawk nightmare of Jim Goldsmith and crew is over.

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First noticed on Huffington Post (with a little shout out to this blog), from Lynn Zinser’s New York Times Slap Shot blog. Also read a round-up of coverage of the event on E & P Pub, with some humor regarding Rangers’ center, former Winter Hawk and Alaska Native Brandon Dubinsky.

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Funny stuff from Sarah Silverman and The Great Schlep (definitely not appropriate for work).

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With Obama’s advantage in the polls widening, the McCain/Palin campaign is starting to whip its supporters into an ugly mood.

Now McCain’s starting to say the right thing, but he’s still running ads linking Obama to terrorism, and Sarah Palin’s still playing up that angle.

There seem to be a lot of things lining up to scare the shit out of conservative white folks, and the prospect of a black president with a funny name seems to be pushing them close to the edge. This could get seriously ugly.

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You probably don’t have the inclination to watch an hour and ten minutes of Amanda Fritz and Charles Lewis taking questions from the editorial board of Willamette Week, so I’ll break it down for you.

At the end of the interview, the candidates are asked if they have any nicknames. When pressed, Lewis came up with “Bruiser,” from his high school football glory days. (Fritz gave “OK Mama,” from way back in the days of CB radios.)

Bruiser is kind of ironic; Lewis has reinvented himself since the primary. Gone is the angry young man looking to settle scores with the Portland Development Commission (PDC), the city agency that snubbed his non-profit in favor of a glitzy new theatre complex for Portland Center Stage. (I noticed the new, non-combative Lewis at the City Club debate.)

When pressed on his past beef with PDC, Lewis allowed that “I had some issues with them.” But now? “I’m really excited about some of the things that are happening,” he said. “Downtown Portland is a vibrant, bustling city in large part because of PDC and the efforts that they have put there.” (Starting at 51:18.)

Sheesh, don’t tell his number one fan, Jack Bog.

But that’s not all. In an attempt to differentiate himself from Fritz, he’s suddenly fully on board with another bugaboo of BoJack: “…the east-side streetcar, you know, it’s something that I am in favor of seeing; I want to see that investment,” says Lewis. It’s “something I believe we should have….” (Starting at 27:55)

Well, with Chris “Streetcar” Smith out of the race, I guess somebody had to pick up that moniker. And it sure wasn’t going to be Fritz, who has been steadfast in her insistence on funding basic infrastructure first.

Lewis also seeks to differentiate himself from Fritz on the city’s bio-fuels mandate. “I ran my amphibious bus on 100% biodiesel,” says Lewis, “I think it’s important to have a wide variety of fuel sources… I understand the impact on food prices….”

Fritz wants to re-evaluate the mandate “in light of the impact on food prices, in light of the fact that we cannot grow our way out of burning fuel for recreational or other uses,” she says. “We need to be focusing as well on conservation and on alternative modes, including … rail, pedestrian and bikes.” (Starting at 33:17)

An issue that came up during the City Club debate was Lewis’ unconditional support for the local option Children’s Investment Fund, which is up for renewal on next month’s ballot as Portland Measure 26-94. Both candidates support the measure, though Fritz has consistently questioned whether the city is the correct jurisdiction for this. She has already reached agreement with county commissioners to lobby the state legislature to obviate this local fund.

“Essentially, we need to be getting music programs back into the schools in the school day for every child in every county in Oregon,” says Fritz, “and by funding after-school programs, particularly for enrichment, we haven’t lobbied at the legislature as hard as we might otherwise have done….”

Fritz notes some of the good things this levy funds. “If those programs are cost-effective in Portland, they should also be provided in Prineville and Pendleton,” she says. “And we need to have the city of Portland playing at the state level and … have the same sense of urgency which I believe has been lacking because we’ve chosen to fund some of these very, very worthy programs … locally rather than insisting on statewide solution with the appropriate jurisdiction providing the funding.” (Starting at 35:25)

Lewis, whose non-profit receives funding from this levy, thinks the city is the proper jurisdiction for funding these things.

Perhaps the most significant difference that emerges in this interview is on the drug and prostitution exclusion zones that recently expired, and that Lewis would like to see reinstated.

These zones, which an old friend referred to as “Martial Law Zones”, gave police extra-judicial authority to prevent freedom of movement and association. Citizens arrested for certain crimes would be excluded from these zones, regardless of whether their cases were ever heard by a jury.

“That’s part of livin’ in a civilized society,” says Lewis, “that the community can make rules on where people are allowed and not allowed to go, with the prime example being if somebody is, you know, criminal, you can say, ‘you’re goin’ to jail, and that’s the only place you’re allowed to be,’ and so I think we do have that right.”

Never mind those sticky bits about due process, presumption of innocence, or a jury of your peers. If a cop says your 86′ed, your 86′ed.

Fortunately, Fritz gets it.

“Civil rights and the constitution are very important,” she says. “We can solve that problem without infringing on people’s civil rights and without doing things which are possibly unconstitutional.” (Starting at 37:38)

(I’m sorry they didn’t get into a discussion of zoning adult businesses, something that clearly contributes to vice in areas where they are concentrated. Rather than the libertarian approach of letting de facto red light districts sprout along strips like 82nd Ave, regardless of the location of schools, we have the ability — even within the strong free speech protections of the Oregon constitution — to zone adult businesses. If they can do it in Tigard, we can do it in Portland.)

In the end, there is no doubt that Fritz is the stronger candidate. Of course anything can happen, but Lewis’ puzzling shifts since the primary, along with his lack of experience make him appear a very risky choice for city council.

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