Our local media is full of sundry wonders and weirdnesses, which begs the question: are there real, sentient human beings in charge of the various web pages and fish-wrappers or have the robots taken charge and gone off their algorithms?
I vote for the robots.
Exhibit One: Keep it short ‘n’ sweet…
Here’s proof that OregonLive is suffering an editorial breakdown…
Someone left out the map.
Exhibit two: Mask up! The Oregonian needs the money…
The paper’s frantically-misedited web site ran a lengthy piece on the virtues of the N95 mask, along with a lengthy series of hotlinks on where to buy the nasty little Covid cure-alls.
It hung the story under the headline….
Restock your N95 or KN95 face masks, respirators as COVID-19 omicron BA2 variants persist: Best deals with fast shipping
…which didn’t sound much like a news story. Especially that “best deals” part.
The piece offered this chatty preface to the hard-selling…
In Oregon and nation wide, the N95 and KN95 medical masks that experts have said offer the best protection from the virus are well-stocked and available to the general public in stores and online. With some theatres, venues, schools, businesses, and eateries opting to enact restrictions again due to the rise this “stealth” variant, it’s a good idea to stock up on the kind of masks that will help best protect you and your family before event season is fully underway.
Hit that hyperlink and the FDA will tell you something just a smidge different…
It is important to recognize that the optimal way to prevent transmission of microorganisms, such as viruses, is to use a combination of interventions from across the hierarchy of controls, not just PPE alone.
…which interested the O’s Amy Leona Havin not at all. Nor did she include the fine print on the FDA’s web site that cautioned…
People with chronic respiratory, cardiac, or other medical conditions that make breathing difficult should check with their health care provider before using an N95 respirator because the N95 respirator can make it more difficult for the wearer to breathe.
As we reported here a couple days ago, recent research in Italy found that wearing even a flimsy cloth surgical rocketed CO2 levels far beyond the US occupational health risk-levels (5000 ppm, if you’re counting). In other words, you are self-poisoning when you slap on those masks.
As well as displaying your IQ.
But the Oregonian had something else in mind. And here we present the O’s fine print…
Let’s hit those hyperlinks! Baby needs a new pair ‘o’ shoes!
Exhibit Three: Does anyone in Portland media do arithmetic?
KOIN dumped a long, lugubrious piece on homelessness on the Tribune, which dutifully published it because they are “partners.” Which tells you all you need to know about competition in the news biz here in town.
The piece, true to form when “homelessness” is the topic, led with a heartwrenching little anecdote about…
A traumatic incident left Jeff Woodward homeless on the streets of Portland for years.
"I lost my wife tragically to suicide," Woodward told KOIN 6 News. "That kind of sent me on a journey."
Now he works with the Evolve Street Outreach Team of the Mental Health & Addiction Association of Oregon, which, along with Transition Projects and Central City Concern are the three nonprofits tasked with forming expanded outreach to the homeless. These Navigation Teams go into homeless camps and help people access services that will help them get out.
The headline hints that maybe—just maybe—things aren’t quite copacetic in the “house the homeless” game…
Understaffed homeless Navigation Teams 'don't feel helpless'
..and the story meanders to note that, according to official numbers (counted in the dead of winter) there are 3,057 people living on the streets.
Hmmm: that number divided by 5 equals…611.4 homeless people per Navigation Team member. A number that KOIN doesn’t bother mentioning, nor does it tell us how much this is costing, nor does it tell us how many tweekers and other assorted crazies have been taken off the streets by these five people—each of which would have to get two tweekers a day to go into rehab at a clinic which doesn’t yet exist. ( A big thanks to the people who voted for Prop 110!)
It does note, cheerily, that the Joint Office of Homelessness (whose bureaucrats are paid regularly no matter how many more homeless people clutter our streets) is going to shell out for…
…three groups with $1.7 million this year. That will allow the groups to expand from one Navigation Team of five people to seven teams of three people.
So, lessee: 3057 divided by 21 is…?
Don’t ask. KOIN certainly didn’t.
Exhibit Four: Party-hearty for the end of the world
Every media outlet in town took seriously the latest demonstration by high school kids who went on “strike” Friday to protest something that disturbs them enough to cause them to play hooky for a day. Why not? GuvKate and the Beagle Boys at the Oregon Health Authority were happy to shutter the schools for two years. And Covid, as we now know, did not wipe humanity off the face of the planet.
Too bad.
So, the kids marched. As we file this, there’s no word about whether or not the march would be co-opted by the kids in black, whose name cannot be uttered in our local media (let alone subject to investigation)…but the KOIN report dumped to the Tribune did note, at the bottom of the story…
Officials also told business owners to be aware of the access area around their business along with locking and securing dumpsters, along with removing A-frames signs and furniture in front of businesses.
It wouldn’t be a proper Portland march/riot if it didn’t wind up at Revolution Hall and a par-tay! at something called the Portland Climate Festival. Where speeches by high school sophomores and other agitators-in-preparation will be heard and then the boy-meets-girl-meets-gender-fluid-meets… will get down to business.
The media reported, without a shred of evidence (or amazement) that the kiddies have now identified the local entities that are set on destroying the world…
Those on the list include NW Natural, Zenith Energy, the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Portland Business Alliance.
OK, kids: tell mom and dad—no more heat and don’t let me drive a car!
And don’t, puhleeze! bother me with any climatologist who says this stuff is horse-pucky. KOIN and the Trib and the O and Willy Week sure won’t!
Let's Ride the Media Merry-Go-Round
The real problem with Oregon media might be called "brain drain." If you're a really, really terrific journalist, you'll probably get out of a small-market town like Portland and move up the greasy pole. The bigger markets of SF and LA beckon...and you might just make the cut for the big-time in NYC or DC.
After our riot-year, Covid lockdowns that decimated the cute small biz, and general uniformity of what gets covered as "news"--plus the evident low quality of newsroom leadership...well, this isn'rt a very alluring place to sink any roots.
Comes down to a simple question: would you rather work long hours for lousy pay under Therese Bottomly or at the pinnacle under Baquet (or his colorless successor)?
To paraphrase, the first step is to admit that you are the problem(s). Instead our leaders go tromping about like Oedipus determined to locate the cause of the Theban plague. And, like Oedipus they needn't travel further than the bathroom mirror. Alas.
This bumnav biz reads lucrative. Wish I had dreamed it up and were getting a slice. Puts me in mind of Maxine Waters living in the 37th District while "serving" the 43rd. When you fully decode her text you find that it is a cookbook. She's gotten a good living keeping down those who inhabit the 43rd. Skimming cream, not only gets you rich but gets a reputation as a helluva swell guy or gal. Keep your boot on the throat of an underdog and charge admission while you skin 'em for the pot.
All you need to know about local journalism is that they burned Packwood for getting drunk, squeezing his eyes shut, puckering into fish lips, and going for a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey smooch. Goldschmidt goes full Polanski and gets a pass for a quarter century plus. Mark Hatfield, well Hatfield....we don't want to talk or write about that.
The busting out of school racket is a good one, too. Look at all the trouble Bueller had whereas these kids just hold hands and skip right on out the door. Ferris inserted himself in the parade but our kids are the parade. Progress.
I've watched over the years as university professors stood and turned their backs at commencements or speaker's events when they did not agree with the speaker. The student's following their lead often behaved much worse and are sometimes coached to disrupt anyone who dares present a POV disagreeable to their pure minds and rigorous reasoning.
Here's an anecdote demonstrating how an adult approached the problem back in the old days. I was YouTubing a 1973 Dick Cavett show (Robert Shaw was a guest). The stage conversation was disrupted by those who disliked a Cavett guest and were becoming raucous. Watch fey little Dickie Cavett's eyes starting at 1:45. He doesn't like the audience participation one bit. This is his show and it is intended for serious and open minded adults. Juvenile bad behavior can go make history elsewhere, right now we're going to hear what his guest has to say. He gets control of the matter. The section to which I am referring runs from about 1:45 to 5 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJxXH_Gysrs
The full clip concludes with Shaw making a rather prescient criticism of the author's prose.
Shaw was an award winning author and as a playwright his Man in the Glass Booth was a commercial success in London and New York. The boy could scribble.
Finally, here is a Spectator piece on Oregon's version of civilization and democracy:
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/oregon-nasty-woman-tina-kotek/