Take a Ride on the Media Merry-Go-Round
...media memes, misadventures, misfires, missed opportunities
Of all the major institutions in this town), one of the most important is never held to account by the media.
That’s because the media never covers itself.
But we do…
The Oregonian plays catch-up, drops the ball
Golly! Getting beat by WillyWeek’s Sophie Peel must have really smarted…so the O fired back with a scandal of its very own! An outrage! A wet squib! The headline was the first hint that something was a bit….well, tenuous in the revelation…
Prominent liquor store owner ‘promised’ Pappy Van Winkle to lawmakers during pivotal session, record shows
…noting those tell-tale quotes, when a headline writer hedges a hit piece, you know there’s trouble below.
The piece ran inch after inch, purporting to show that Betsy Johnson, former state senator, gubernatorial candidate and hell-raiser, was, well…a crook. Who sold her votes for a bottle of esoteric bourbon? And made sure to cinch the case by letting readers know that Betsy wouldn’t come to the phone when the O’s reporters called to put the final touches on the smear. Shame on Betsy!
If you could figure out the story’s pitch, it revolved around a murky memo written in 2021 by one Saleem Noorani, the manager of an obscure Albany liquor store, who stupidly wrote…
“Please also note that I had promised several legislators during the session, including Betsy, access to Pappy when available…”
The O’s sleuths figured out that—gosh! There was only one “Betsy” in the legislature. Ergo: she got a payoff! (In this case, the bottle of bourbon…which makes Shemia Fagan—see below—look like a champ).
But then, buried deep—really deep—was this…
Noorani said he hoped to provide lawmakers with liquor to thank them for their support. He said the bottles remained in his inventory until this year, when he donated them to a charity that he did not identify.
…which begged the question. Did “Betsy” actually get the bottle?
Rest assured: none of the O’s battalion of editors asked the question.
Meanwhile, colleague Pam Fitzsimmons Tweeted that Betsy gave the bottle to charity…just like Noorani said.
Whatta scandal!
Will anyone bother to follow the money?
OK, WillyWeek is doing its victory lap on its takedown of Shemia Fagan, and everyone from the Oregonian to local TV is feasting on the political corpse, but, waitaminute!
Where did all that money, spread like aloe butter around every nook and cranny of the Democratic party machine, come from?
Supposedly, from a creepy pair of arrivistes running under the La Mota trademark, living high (rental mansion, leased supercars) and—as colleague Pam Fitzsimmons pointed out—neglecting to pay $7-million in taxes. Some fat cats!
But where did they get the dough—which looks suspiciously like a classic cut-out (which Oregon non-profits have honed to a high art).
Who knows?
This is where journalism gets tough. “Follow the money” might require buying a ticket for a reporter to venture to Miami. Or, perhaps Guadalajara. It would certainly help if they spoke Spanish. And wore a bulletproof vest.
And, for that matter, where did the first tip-trickle (which Ms. Peel turned into a gusher) come from? And why?
The corpse is on the slab. Think anyone will do an autopsy?
How to bury the lede…
We’ll bet you never read one of the most incredible stories in the local media this week—again in our local semi-daily newspaper of record. That’s because it was buried deep within an otherwise routine story by one of the few survivors of the Oregonian’s relentless layoffs, cop-shop reporter Maxine Bernstein.
It was headlined…
Sinaloa drug cartel tied to murder in Oregon over $90K drug debt
Bernstein reported on a US federal court sentencing of a low-level cartel soldier…
Investigators say drug trafficker Marcos Alonso Castillo-Bernal, 48, dumped the body of Ricardo Corral-Moreno early April 14, 2019, after he had been kidnapped from Washington and beaten to death at [the defendant’s Molalla] ranch….
Castillo-Bernal got a 26 year jolt from federal court…
…for conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death, conspiracy to possess drugs with intent to distribute and for illegally re-entering the United States twice following prior removals.
Hold in your mind that Mr. Castillo-Bernal was not convicted of the actual kidnapping; nor for the killing of the dealer who thought he could get away with stiffing the Sinaloa cartel for $90-grand.
It took another 14 grafs for Bernstein to drop this…
Based on police reports, warrant applications and other documents, two other men kidnapped Corral-Moreno three days earlier: One was a drug dealing associate of Castillo-Bernal’s and the other an informant “working with the Portland Police Bureau…”
Huh?
Bernstein tripped lightly—note the verb below—over the informant’s role in the deed as he and the “friend…”
…took Corral-Moreno from Washington to an apartment in Woodburn in early April…
…and was quick to note…
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Narus told the judge that the police source “did not understand” that Corral-Moreno “would be killed upon being brought back to Oregon.”
…and…
Prosecutors said the police source wasn’t involved in the beating or dumping of Corral-Moreno’s body and that police have not paid the source…
Cross our hearts, your honor! We never paid him—which must prove something! (And leaves open the question: did anyone else pay the creep?)
So a low-level Sinaloa soldier takes a big fall for dumping a dead body…while the police “source” walks, having kidnapped the victim at the behest of the Sinaloa cartel and then transporting him to a remote ranch. One wonders: did the nameless dude ever watch “Breaking Bad” or “Better Call Saul?”
Might we speculate that the unfortunate Mr. Corral-Moreno might have been tossed around by his kidnappers in that Washington state snatch? Did they have help?
After all, as Ms. Bernstein noted in the depths of the story…
…the Sinaloa cartel had sent two “muscle” people and two “cholos,” or Mexican gang members, to Oregon from California to deal with Corral-Moreno and his debt…
Just to put any nagging questions to rest, Ms. Bernstein noted…
As of Wednesday, the source hadn’t been paid by police and was not a documented confidential informant, according to a law enforcement official close to the case who did not have authority to comment. Portland police referred questions to federal prosecutors.
…more of the “didn’t get paid” stuff, while the sentence takes the prize for qualifiers. Which, in olden times, was catnip to investigative reporters.
Times have changed.
Will we ever hear anything more about the Portland cops’ relationship (unpaid, we remind you!) with the Sinaloa soldier-informant?
Who committed a felony known as kidnapping?
Who, if you read the story carefully, didn’t actually rat out the cartel, certainly not in time to keep hapless Mr. Corral-Moreno from being taped up “so he couldn’t breathe.” And killed in the famous Sinaloa way.
Or who didn’t sing in time to bag at least a couple of those imported Sinaloa “cholos?”
If dumping a dead drug dealer’s body gets you 26 years, what about grabbing and transporting the live drug-dealer in the first place?
How come the “friend” never got busted? How about an informant who never informed?
What’s so damn special about this guy? And is he still working (or whatever) with the Portland cops? Whose record in breaking up high level drug gangs is, shall we say…mediocre.
What about a call to Mayor Wheeler who, after all, runs the police bureau?
Does anyone out there want to talk about the Sinaloa cartel itself—or any others in competition for sales territories in wide-open Oregon? (Not likely; it took reporters from a Louisville, KY newspaper to write about the cartel’s muscling in on coastal Oregon towns.)
So: don’t hold your breath. As of this writing, Ms. Bernstein has been busy with other stories, such as the capture of the dog that tried to chew up a jogger and new courses at the state police academy.
How did they miss…?
This just in…
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced that it has launched investigations into major clothing brands such as Nike and Adidas for allegedly selling products made from Chinese slave labor.
Read or watched anything about that around here?
Bye-Bye
Nordstrom just pulled out of downtown San Francisco, for the usual reasons. Can Pioneer Square be far behind?
Is he on to something? No, he can't be, besides he's a creep. Maybe he's on to something:
https://www.takimag.com/article/shirkling-the-drain/
As to the big O, they're a joke. I got into an email disagreement with Therese a few months ago, and it was interesting. LOL... she's so tedious and desperately WOKE. She loves to smear decent people, if they don't cow-tow to her tree hugging, hysterical, hand wringing liberalism. She agreed to the smear campaign that the big O directed at author and former Oregonian columnist Phil Stanford and turns out Phil was right about everything he ever claimed about what happened to Frank Gable. Great article, I learned a lot.