The Oregonian Triages Eugene Area

Looks like the mainstay Oregon newspaper, The Oregonian, is pulling up its roots in Eugene and Springfield, and is to stop delivering dailies in order to save money on printing costs. I first heard about this from Newspaper Deathwatch, the reaper-like website that has been watching the fall of the industry of 'black, white and read all over'. As a journalism-major this is all a little less than reassuring.

The news came from my mother in a phone call.

Had I seen The Oregonian's letter announcing the end of daily delivery? Seems rising newsprint and distribution costs make it too expensive for The Oregonian to bring its papers to home or retail outlets in Eugene-Springfield on a daily basis, apart from Sunday.

My own letter from The Oregonian's circulation director lay in the unopened mail pile. Another busy day of leaving early and getting home late. I'd managed to start off right by reading the Register-Guard and Oregonian before leaving my house at 6:00 a.m., but hadn't opened the mail after rushing home that night.

The letter was kind. A model of strength-based reassurance. The Oregonian knows its decision to stop visiting my house every morning is a loss, for me and for each and every one of the readers. While the newspaper won't be found in retail outlets in Oregon's second largest metropolitan area, it will arrive on Sunday and web content is available 24/7.

Now all I want for Christmas is for The Oregonian to keep landing somewhere in my yard by 6:00 a.m.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/myoregon/2008/12/waking_up_to_a_morning_without.html

What Might Have Been

MORE POLITICAL FALLOUT IN THIS HOUSE!:

Fox News has gotten aboard the post-campaign secrets train, releasing information that Palin was about as dumb as a doornail. Apparently she was not only too much of a rogue for the Maverick, but she didn't know that Africa was a continent. And she was almost Vice-President!

While it is hard to say whether the as yet anonymously sourced story will turn out to be true, it certainly seems to have made the Republicans look a little foolish. But don't think that this is a sign that the ship is going down for good, this could easily be the RNC throwing her under the bus for its own survival, or even the first play by Republican favorite Mitt Romney for the 2012 election.

In other news, after a grueling race and a two-day count, the Oregonian is now predicting Democrat Jeff Merkley will take the Oregon Senator seat from incumbent Republican Gordon Smith, edging the DNC ever closer to their super-majority. While it is unlikely that Democrats will actually attain all 60 seats, Merkley's success signals an "exponential" increase in their ability to overcome the Republican filibusters that have plagued the Democratic party ever since their takeover of Congress two years ago.

In even more local news, Republican Rick Dancer, formerly a KEZI anchor, is trailing Democrat Kate Brown by 3,000 votes, while the latest results from Lane elections show a slight lead in the Eugene mayoral race between Democratic incumbent Kitty Piercy and conservative rival Jim Torrey. That race should continue on to tomorrow, as the Lane County elections suffered a several hour delay Tuesday after a system failed and they had to restart the count on a redundant system.

And in the closest race of all, liberal Rob Handy holds a nail-biting 113 vote lead over incumbent North Eugene County Commissioner Bobby Green (a margin of .03 percent, state law mandates an automatic recount if the margin is less than .2 percent).

Final results will come in tomorrow morning, and it would not be surprising if this 13,000 vote election comes down to a margin less than the number of write-ins (currently 77), never mind the under votes (people who turned in a ballot without marking a preference in the commissioner race - 3,754).

Journal Entry XIII

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class that I took last term. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 13: Crescent Village PR interview

While I waited for the firemen to get back from their call, I went over to the nearby Crescent Village to speak with the PR people and get the stereotypical tour. I figured it would be a good opportunity to get some basic pictures, and to put my toe in the door in case I needed to talk with people later, and I could get a feel for how the lease company was feeling about their media exposure.

In summary, once I got my message through the process went quite smoothly. I didn’t get anything I didn’t already know, but it was good to confirm a few little factoids (eg. Expensive housing, non-Eugene tenants, 2012 completion date) that I had heard earlier. I also got some renter’s literature, which might be useful if I need to throw out some official numbers from the developers.

This interview seemed to draw a lot upon the things that were talked about in the short story we read earlier in the class. The PR person, Julie, seemed a little rattled by my appearance, but I threw on my best smile and tried to appear pretty nonchalant. I left my notepad in my pocket, though I did get her permission to take photos of some of the rooms and the scale model of the village.

OH - BAH - MA!

Usually, I try to curb my enthusiasm for Barack Obama on this blog by keeping most of my gushing to my barackobama.com blog, but I have to mention the local campaign stumping that Obama did throughout Oregon. He swept through Portland, Salem and Eugene on Friday, ending with a late night rally at McArthur Court at the University of Oregon.

I managed to squeeze into the tightly packed rally in Eugene (10,000 in the building, and almost that many couldn't get in), and I was overjoyed to hear him speak. He's just so inspiring. I already wrote about it here, so I'll avoid repeating myself any further, but I did manage to find a short video where you can see where I was standing. The footage was shot from across the court, but when it zooms in you can spot me to the bottom right of the frame. I'm the guy in the green shirt who keeps on raising my arms to form the 'O' sign like I was at a football game or something. It was a whole lot of fun.

It was only after I visited family in Corvallis that I realized that Obama had dropped by my hometown too. He made a quick stop (well, as quick as a three bus entourage guarded by the Secret Service can be) at American Dream Pizza in downtown Corvallis. He said, "There’s something very metaphorical going on here," of the locally owned business. They are my absolute favorite restaurant, and I was amazed to hear that he went there. If only I could have been there when it happened. The local newspaper went nuts over the incident, and you can read more about it here.

Journal Entry III

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 3: Spot News

I got in contact with the Neighborhood Leader’s Council the other day, and found that they were having a quarterly meeting Downtown on 10th Street near the library, so I decided to attend. I stayed for only about 40 minutes, at which point I realized that my time could be better spent doing just about anything else. Not to say that it wasn’t informative going there, but once I realize how ineffective their bureaucracy was there wasn’t much more to gain from staying.

As I was leaving the building, I noticed that there were a couple of police cruisers flashing their lights in the parking lot across the street from me. Having my camera on me, I decided I’d pull it out and find out what was going on. It seemed that there were a group of red-shirted security guards, two cruisers, a bike cop, and one small forlorn figure.

As I took photos, I realized that this girl in question was clearly quite young, as well as clearly drunk and in handcuffs. Sensing good photos in the making, I wanted to get closer and get my flash going, because the light was quite dark. Yet, I couldn’t get myself to come near. This was not my first spot news, but I couldn’t justify further embarrassing the girl.

I continued shooting with my long lens, as the girl waited for her mother to take custody of her. After the girl had left, I spoke with the police, who said that she had been 14 years old and had been publicly intoxicated and resisted arrest. While the photos I took were of a much poorer quality than I could have got, I still think that I did the right thing. Though I’m sure I’ll argue that when my spot news assignment comes due in week eight.

Journal Entry 1

The following is the first in a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 1: Neighborhood Meetings

In following the neighborhood coverage, I have travelled all over the Cal Young Neighborhood in an attempt at finding out what made the neighborhood tick. I went from Coburg to the VRC, North to the tip of Eugene, and East – deep into what I consider Springfield but is part of the neighborhood. But in addition to my exploration, I made contact with the neighborhood association in an attempt to find out more about the concerns of neighborhood members. The association president invited me to a couple of their meetings, which I gladly accepted.

As I drove into the heart of Cal Young, I could not help but make comparisons between the neighborhood and that of my home town of Corvallis. The populations are very similar demographically, with a predominate white, liberal, upper-middle class. They are educated, many professionally, and are willing to get motivated for causes they believe in (often local issues). Corvallis has many of the same little streets leading to big houses, with few big roads but lots of cul-de-sacs surrounded by two-story houses with front yards. The houses are neither old, nor young, and tend to be guarded by children’s toys instead of iron bars. It is very different from my expectations of a divided-class neighborhood.