worldwide pablo

To blog is divine, to journalize is ...

A lot has been written in the last week or so about the worthiness of blog reporting as opposed to mainstream media reporting, especially as it relates to the source of the funding that makes either reporting possible.

One one hand, there's all kinds of kvetching at the area's hottest new blog, PDX Media Watch, aka PDX Media Insider [where media types and others weigh in regularly about modern evils of the mass media], over the degree to which local broadcast journalism has been subsumed by the advertising- and ratings-driven corporatism that propels the vision of nearly every television and radio newsrooms these days. [This is new?]

On the other hand, there's an unwelcome and poignant shrinkdown slowly unfolding over at Portland's favorite newsblog, Portland Communique, authored by The One True b!X. Turns out the latter is a case of not enough money.

One wonders: When is enough money enough? When is too much money too much? And for that matter, is there really any difference?

Give that man a raise

Props to Willamette Week and investigative reporter Nigel Jaquiss, who won a Pulitzer Prize today for uncovering and reporting the 30-year secret of Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of a teenager while he was mayor Portland.

This must be mildly galling news for the folks down at 1320 SW Broadway, past Pulitzer recipients themselves and a contender this year for its coverage of the current methamphetamine scourge. Since the Goldschmidt scandal broke, evidence has emerged that many city insiders, including some at The O, knew bits and pieces about the sexual abuse but never moved on it, getting scooped by the smaller and more agile Willamette Week. [It's the not the first time The O has dropped the ball; recall the Bob Packwood story?] The fact that The O went on to disgrace itself immediately after the story broke only makes its shame all the more complete.

Interestingly, The O's usually worthless website had the Pulitzer story as its lead article this afternoon. But no, the The O did not send a reporter; it ran wire articles.

As aside: While accessing the online article, one is confronted with an ad for The O's new underwhelming "weekly newspaper. Such a contrast: this or this? [Memo to Sandy: Save yourself the newsprint. No one's biting.]

Voting for dummies

This week's issue of the Portland Mercury, on newsstands today, is headlined with what might be the most incisive summary of the political failings of the Oregon gay-marriage lobby. File this under the "WWP wishes he'd written this himself" department. Read it here.

One of the notable observations is that Basic Rights Oregon is attempting to shift attention away from it various failings by arguing that voters were confused by the ballot measure and simply voted "the wrong way" -- and astonishingly, more to the measure's success than failure:

Certainly, every election has a percentage of voters who, for whatever numbskull reason, vote against their wishes. On some of the more confusing ballot measures, that number can reach 20 percent or more, which would be well within the Measure 36 point spread of 43 to 57. Unfortunately, political experts and basic logic dispel that theory: this mistake can cut both ways, with the same number of people mistakenly voting "no" to counter those who mistakenly voted "yes."

But [BRO spokesperson Rebekah] Kassell claims that, based on pre- and post-election polling, the people who mistakenly voted "yes" represented 80 percent of the "wrong way" votes. If that figure is accurate, it doesn't reflect well on the intelligence of the liberal voting population. Regardless, Kassell ultimately blames the confusing nature of the ballot language--which BRO tried unsuccessfully to make clearer before petitions were gathered. Curiously, the confusion only increased as Election Day drew near, at a time when the campaigns should have already solidly informed their constituents which way to vote. In the last couple weeks of the campaign, "No On 36" was forced to redirect their efforts in order to clear up the confusion.

While it might be reassuring on some level to believe that Oregonians have more problems with reading comprehension than equal rights, Kassell wouldn't say the confusion was enough to sway the election-- only that it could have. And even if BRO's belief in the 80 percent number could be proven, the information would, at this point, be utterly futile.

That's right: Oregon isn't filled with bigots -- just idiots.

Mountain madness

Pretty much as meteorologists and geologists anticipated, there was an eruption today at Mount St. Helens [or Lawala-Clough or Loowit, for those of us who prefer the original Klickitat names]. And pretty much as expected, the local media had its own eruption — of frenzy. Judging from the anxious tones of the local TV news at noontime, Armageddon cannot be far behind. [Film at 11?]

To WWP’s eye, today’s rumble doesn’t qualify as much more than geological hiccup, or best, a really big burp. Only a few hours after the mountain let out its little belch, and as this post was being written, things looked pretty darn calm up at the mountain. [K's Quill even refers to it as an "anticlimax."] Basically, there's no comparison to the events of May 18, 1980, despite the local media’s efforts to portray it otherwise.

One unsettling similarity between today and 1980, however, is the tourism factor. In 1980, just three of the deaths in 1980 were inside the so-called Red Zone [a safety barrier that in hindsight turned out to be woefully undersized]. Most of those killed outside the zone were campers and visitors — tourists, basically — all caught off guard by the unforeseen cataclysm to come.

Today, KGW reports that the mountain is once again drawing tourists:

Camcorder in hand, Sheri Ray stood on Johnston Ridge — named for a man killed when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 — and waited impatiently for the volcano to blow again.

Forest Service interpreter Anna White stands in front Mount St. Helens while giving at Johnston Ridge, at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, Wash.
“I thought I was going to feel earthquakes,” she said, frowning. “I'm mad.”

Intensifying rumblings from the nation's most cantankerous mountain had geologists saying Thursday it could erupt any minute. But hundreds of curious, excited and apprehensive visitors to the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument couldn’t feel a thing.

Ray, a 28-year-old bartender from Vancouver, Wash., and her husband, Dustin, called in sick to work to spend the day hoping for an eruption — just not a big one.

As Chuck Currie points out, WWP has heard that story before.

[WWP's original posted can be found here.]

Rather not

Given the blog world's uproar over Dan Rather's indiscretion of the past two weeks, one might be tempted to think no greater issue prevails upon the republic today than documents ginned up to fake out a major news anchor. Not-so unexpectedly, the venom is especially vile in the ever-unsubtle neo-con universe, but the vitriol everywhere else is utterly confounding.

By dint of a lowly cow-college journalism degree, WWP has had more opportunity than most to toil in low-brow news organizations only to witness the circulation- and demographic-driven push for the "news gotcha" mentality that is the lifesource for such organizations, and which also vivifies the newscasts of Rather and all of his contemporaries. Peter Ames Carlin, one of the Daily O's rare shining lights [naturally, NOT online, per course America's worst website that is The Oregonian], gets it right when he says that the affair has nothing to do with politics, but instead ... er ... rather ... with ratings.

Gunga Dan's political leanings hardly seem the point. Over at the Faux network, where political views are worn as stripes, the lies and spin continue hourly without a peep of such Rather-like opprobrium. [And which is worse: the lie that comes to light, or the one that gets widely whispered without reproach?]

As one who has a foot in the worlds both of journalism and blogging, it's a major disappointment to witness the fawning wannabes of the latter to lay false claim to the higher ground. If anything, the "Memo-gate" affair seems more like an every-day indictment of the failings of traditional media than a bouquet to the overweening and overstated reach of the ambitious, so-called new media. WWP would be convinced otherwise would the "blog media" be more attributive, and less distributive, or for that matter, additive rather than subtractive. That is to say: Could the blog media survive without someone else to carp upon? Almost assuredly not. Other than b!X and Matt Drudge, who else on the Internet really adds to our knowledge, instead of merely offering facile commentary? Bottom line: Lotsa folks commentate, few report.

Oh, there's a role for subtractive media: Thomas Paine and his radical revolution pamphlets are an early example of this. But given the reach and power of the electronic resources available today that Tom Paine could have only dreamed about, and the unfortunate ratings-driven and highly charged atmosphere that attends to the same, it's a wonder we have any Common Sense at all.

Stylin'

Of only a handful of reasons to subscribe to the Daily O is to see what mistake it will make next. WWP is rarely disappointed, and today The O provided the latest answer to this quest.

It came in the form of a supplemental section called "PS " -- as in "personal style" [whatever that means]. Apparently, to the sages on Broadway, "personal style" means nympho-waifs draped over irrelevant but obvious Freudian setups in sex-objectively poses in the aim of merchandising thinly veiled advertiser-supported products in breathy, wispy advertorial tomes that bear not one mention of their obvious Advertising Department roots.

Lame skirts. "Unmentionable" lingerie. Cheap photo shots of hip-but-low couture. Bedside-wannabe items a la Target. Not one shallow valley is left unentered: Between the ersatz "We know we're Walmart but we wish we were Cartier" mentality and the models-cum-Playboy motif [oh, but except that they have clothes on -- barely], it leaves one to wonder what the O thinks it is reaching for.

Thankfully, the Valley Girl editor, who gushes unhelpfully about having her "dream job," helps us out:

Trend spotting is actually a very painstaking, arduous ... oh, who am I kidding? It IS fun and games! But lest you get the wrong idea, let me assure you: We, the PS staff, are enduring the constant frivolity for your benefit." [Emphasis added]

For this, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitition were ordained, no?

It leaves WWP to wonder: What of other "PS Styles"? How about "Prison Style," which might feature the latest haute couture a la Prison du Sheridan or as modeled by her royal design highness, the Diva de Kmart? Or what about "Po' Style," a venture that might highlight the travails of Portland street people as they wander the paths of Portland's marvelous and hobo-friendly Pearl District? Or perhaps it's "Parahomosexual Style," which might chronicle the loving relationship between Oregon's not-heterosexual population and, oh, all those other less fortunate folk who are separated sadly from the the Almighty's chosen and more fortunate livestyle?

Oh, the possibilities are endless. It almost merits a postscript.

Unless, of course, you are an "urban pioneer" and give a green light to the excrement-on-newsprint that is "Portland Style."

Mary McGrory

Worldwide Pablo grew up in a household with lots of newspapers: Both Seattle newspapers were a regular part of daily life, as well as a myriad of newsweeklies, the Sunday New York Times, newspapers and magazines too countless to recall or recount here -- they all graced the evening dinner table and often were grist for the evening discussion. [And folks wonder why WWP entertained a journalism degree, and a website.] So, consider, that is the world WWP entered and was reared in.

A great part of that was reading the words and reporting of Mary McGrory, who for 50 years set a standard of what it means to be independent and fierce. Who can ever forget her relentless "dis" of the faults of two admistratitions? [Nixon and Reagan, in case you forgot.]

Fortunately, WWP's work is done for him tonightl. Check out Chuck Currie's website for more on the incredible Mary McGrory.

A noose for news

Meanwhile, over in the parallel universe that is Fox TV, the local affiliate’s lead items on the website this afternoon were “America’s Next Top Model Search” and “Britney spotted shopping in Portland.” [Complete with “exclusive home video.”]

And it’s not even sweeps month, for crying out loud.

Well, maybe next year

Because you asked, these words
from Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music":

Isn't it rich? Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.

Isn't it bliss? Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.

Just when I'd stopped opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again with my usual flair,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want --
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother, they're here..

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Well, maybe next year.

Out from the shadows

After a day or two of being offline, KATU's gay marriage poll has mysteriously come back online. You don't suppose the delay was meant to confound the nonbelieving "interlopers" who might otherwise taint Channel 2's normally hyper-evangelical base, do you?

Nahhhh, that would never happen...

Would it?

[Be sure to vote now. Spread the word.]