This morning (early this morning!) I pretaped some comments about the Executive Session story for OPB's Think Out Loud program. Starting at 9AM on your OPB station, they'll be discussing "Who is a Journalist?" Appearing in studio will be the mayor of Lake Oswego, the head of the Media Bloggers Assocaition, and the Dean of the Journalism School at U of O.
If you haven't been keeping up as this discussion has built interest in the professional media, the most recent piece at LO on the subject covers the Lake Oswego Review story done last Thursday.
Tune in (here's the online streaming link), leave a comment at the accompanying blog at OPB (linked above), and come back here to give your thoughts...
On balance I think they're a very good thing for public discourse, but there is a creeping corporatism that kinda freaks me out about PBS these days. With another $100 million in funding they could get rid of those ads disguised as "messages of sponsorship," and for another $100 million we wouldn't be subject to pledge drives every quarter. So it's through the embarrassing art of begging that PBS gets by in the first place, and I feel some empathy. But there's a limit to the importance I place on public broadcasting, and they may have found it:
February 7, 2009
Dear Loaded,
On December 11, 2004 more than five million people in Bangladesh joined hands to form a human chain 652 miles long - a record-breaking achievement.
We want to break some records too. It's the first day of OPB?s Winter Membership Campaign. With your help, we can break our first-day record and raise $100,000 today!
With your contribution, you make possible unparalleled election coverage? expanded local news? unique Northwest music? and first-rate public radio for everyone who listens.
It won't take five million Bangladeshes for our chain to work --it just takes you.
Yes, the oft suffering, dirt poor people of Bangladesh joining together in the cause of protest against a corrupt government, fearing arrest for their outspokenness but setting a record for peaceful assembly--it won't take their courage and determination to achieve a bold statement for justice and peace. It will just require $49 made out to Oregon Public Broadcasting, or now use PayPal! Your choice of tote, umbrella, or Dead at the Avalon album!
Colin Fogarty of OPB throws a nice media softball right at Senator Gordon Smith, who was ready at the plate with his corked bat. The central gist of Fogarty’s clip is clear: Gordon Smith is so moderate, he has elected Democrats in the family that he considers ‘brothers’. Hell, Smith’s part of a family dynasty that has its grip on government, so why even try ousting him?
It’s interesting to see that Fogarty, one of OPB’s sharpest analysts in the news department, has been relegated to the bureau of warm human interest pieces. To wit:
Following the meandering branches of most family trees is inevitably complicated. And in Mormon families polygamist marriages were common several generations back. So figuring out who’s related to whom can be even more complex. [. . .]
Having three Udalls in the U.S. Senate would be unprecedented. But it would not be out of character for a family dynasty that is full of so many state legislators, government officials, and state Supreme Court justices. The family is considered the Kennedys of the west.
Fogarty foretells the prospect of a political power family winning three Senate elections without even coming close to spelling out the process or likelihood of that happening. And that’s either sloppy or outright favorable coverage of Senator Smith.
...
Read the rest, including more on Mo Udall, at beaver boundary!
Man, we're reaching Gary Hart "Prove I'm a cheating sleazebag" territory here. Two more articles (one unfortunately behind the dratted subscriber firewall) have appeared in state media, as outlets continue to ask Gordon Smith (and now Greg Walden) about his actions and responses to the Klamath fish kill story.
The one I can't link to is from the Bend Bulletin, notoriously conservative among state media but covering what has now become serious news. In a piece published yesterday and headlined "Smith reverses course on salmon die-off," he tries to color previous remarks by fibbing further about what he said, while his spokesperson claims he's not reversing at all, and Democratic challenger Steve Novick nails exactly what he's doing. Check it out below the jump...
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