Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Pamela Fitzsimmons's avatar

Last year, The Oregonian’s Therese Bottomly devoted an extensive investigation into the newspaper’s racist past (which, given the times, wasn’t any more racist than other papers). It gave her a chance to wallow in public and presumably cleanse her conscience.

The O may eventually disappear, but journalism won’t. A future journalist studying the demise of the state’s largest newspaper could point a finger at Bottomly’s news judgment in wasting depleted staff to such a questionable project and her engagement in “viewpoint discrimination.” (See the Supreme Court's 2017 decision in Matal v. Tam.) It’s a contributing factor to the paper’s weakness.

As Cheverton puts it, Portland as reflected in the local media is a “one-party machine-run town where the loudest megaphones are wielded by shape-shifting radicals, neo-racists, sexual-choice evangelists, cocktail-Marxists. …The megaphones are so loud that anyone who’s not on the progressive bus doesn’t have any idea that other opinions exist.”

That Jeff and Angela are not traditionally credentialed is historically in their favor. Maybe journalism is returning to its roots.

America has had some outstanding journalists who followed unconventional paths. One of them died last week at the age of 96 — Charles Peters, the founding editor of The Washington Monthly.

The New York Times described it as “a small political journal that challenged liberal and conservative orthodoxies and for decades was avidly read in the White House, Congress and the city’s newsrooms. … With no experience in journalism, (Peters) began with the premise that Washington worked poorly, and said his magazine would examine its culture ‘the way an anthropologist looks at a South Sea island.’”

The Times allows subscribers “gift links.” Here’s the one to Peters’ obit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/23/us/politics/charles-peters-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BE0.PZJS.EnJOXNVUYLm9&smid=url-share

Expand full comment
Joshua Marquis's avatar

Well said, Richard.

Another, yet un-noted departure was Dan Tilkin, one of the last real broadcast journalists to depart KOIN TV after 25 years. Already that station, which drove reporter Jenny Young out for her understated allegiance to Israel, is sounding more politically correct and thereby less trustworthy!

PDXReal is doing good Gonzo Journalism, but we need real, in depth quality fare like Portland Dissent, as the passing of Charles Peters of the iconic WASHINGTON MONTHLY shows is!

Expand full comment
8 more comments...

No posts