Oregonian Public Editor -- still spinning.not covering DSM

[kaitykaity]

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/public_editor/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1118484370150942.xml&coll=7

Readers pillory press for lagging on memo story
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Five weeks after a British memo shed light on prewar discussions, readers won't let the story die.

Hundreds of them have focused on The Oregonian in recent weeks, flooding the newspaper with phone calls and e-mails, even demonstrating outside, asking why the newspaper hasn't devoted more coverage to the documents.

The importance of the story can be debated, but three lessons from the noise should be heeded: The newspaper ignores Web conversations at its own peril. The world is smaller, and its news can reach homes without the help of newspapers, so readers can become their own editors. And the political polarization of the country remains as wide and deep as it was last fall, which demands more of newspapers.

...more


My response:

Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Just off of the top of my head, two glaring omissions -- on purpose or are
you really that uneducated?

1. Remember the 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union?
"British intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa"?

Now that we know that the Brits were cooperating in "fixing" intelligence
so that Bush could get the war he wanted so bad, wouldn't that scandal
merit inclusion in your list if excuses? Does this not put that lie in
a whole new perspective?

Bush tells the Brits he wants a war, wants intelligence to help his case,
so then the Brits help him with this uranium story? Hello? Wake up
over there.


2. You mention the "stories and books" about how Bush wanted to go
to war as early as November 2001. What you failed to mention was the
thorough trashing by the Republicans and their handmaidens in the media
of people like Clarke, O'Neill, Wilson, Plame, et. al. The Plame leak
in and of itself shows the lengths to which the Bushies were willing to
go to destroy anyone who tried to tell the truth.

Why did you not mention that? Was it because this also destroys
one of your many excuses?

Or is it because it's "too partisan" of a truth? You afraid of what the
screaming jackals on the Right will do to you next?


What a joke. Glorified stenographers, the lot of you.

[Straight Shooter]

1. I haven't bought the Oregonian in a long, long time.

Why bother? This world moves too fast for paper, unless they want to get with the program and actually cover the important news.

[kaitykaity]

4. It's a kick giving this guy a ration of shit.

When I first hit him over the head with this, he
got defensive and snippy with me, so I know it
bugs him.

[depakid]

6. Yes, I think maybe I should pile on

You've made it too tempting, Kaity- and this guy really is a weasel. He deserves some smack-

[kaitykaity]

7. Alll Riiigghhttt!!! Ha ha!!!

My job is done. Lol.

:evilgrin:

[rodeodance]

2. well, maybe oregon is passing the line from blue to red?

[kaitykaity]

3. No, the paper's red despite it's home county being 75% blue.

The paper endorsed Bush in 2000, has been trying
for years and years to turn us red with no success.

[sam sarrha]

5. Only when people start canceling the paper they will change...

[depakid]

8. People have been!

They've been hemorrhaging circulation for several years and are pretty much considered a laughing stock, at least in professional and academic circles-

They aren't locally owned- they're part of the Newhouse conglomerate and their publisher, Fred Stickel, could give a damn about what the community thinks. He, like their editor Sandra Rowe, are more interested in spewing Republican propaganda and pandering to the local powers that be than they are in delivering semi-objective news.

[Safe as Milk]

10. Maybe it's the old "Follow the Money" routine...

I wonder what other business ventures Newhouse or Stickel are involved with. Perhaps they can afford to be nonresponsive to the local culture because they're getting subsidized by the GOP/Bushies in other business ventures (tax cuts?) in return for keeping the propaganda fresh and flowing. So maybe if the Oregonian is operating at a loss due to low circulation, it still benefits the corporation because of politically-favored gains elsewhere.

[newyawker99]

13. Hi Safe as Milk!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[grasswire]

12. Sandra Rowe's a transplant, too

She's from Virginia Beach, I think. Or Norfolk. Somewhere down there.

Oregonians are funny about outsiders trying to run their institutions. It always surprised me that Vera Katz was elected mayor. Oh, and wasn't Bev Stein from the east coast, too?

And don't get me started on the new editor of the food section!

[NABNYC]

9. Downing St. - What did Democratic Sens. Know

Notice the relative silence from the Democratic Senators re the Downing Street memo. They are political animals. Why are they not all over this?

One explanation: at least some of the top Democratic Senators knew the truth about Iraq long before the U.S. invaded; knew the intelligence did not support war; knew the American public was being lied to about the war; yet kept quiet. Think how smart it would have been for the top Republicans to invite in a few of the top Democratic likely presidential candidates for 2004, to woo them, to seek their counsel, to confide in them, etc. Then come election time, if the war went poorly, the Democratic candidate would not be able to say much since he'd known the truth, and never told the rest of us.

Think back to Kerry's position on Iraq during the campaign: he would have sent more troops. Why wasn't he screaming that Bush had lied to him and had lied to the American public? One possible answer is that Kerry knew the truth long before the U.S. attacked Iraq. Who else would have been involved in these top-level discussions? Check committee assignments. Biden? Lieberman?

Why would John Conyers be pushing the issue if the Senate did not want him to do so? Remember the 2000 election when the historically all-white Senate refused to a person to stand up with the Representatives and object to the denial of voting rights to black voters. Wouldn't this be sweet revenge?

Note the only comment (I could find) re Kerry's statement on the Downing St. Memo. First, it's not him - it's a "spokesperson" from his office. Next, it's vague - it does not say that Bush lied - it just says the Bush administration needs to explain to the public. Where's the outrage from Kerry? And does the absence of outrage suggest a coverup by him?

We need each Democratic Senator to go public about what they knew before the war. Anyone who knew the truth needs to fall on their sword. Otherwise the Democratic party will be in a continued choke-hold, unable to protest the war because they are just as dirty as the Republicans.

And why was Tony Blair meeting with John Kerry early this year? To discuss the fact that the DSM was coming out, and find out what Kerry planned to say about it? Curious timing, curious meeting - maybe someone could explain.

[kaitykaity]

11. Talk about a red herring.

Bush is the one who wanted war. Bush is the
one who lied us into a war. Bush is the one
who needs to be impeached for high crimes
and misdemeanors.

Why this nonsense and speculaton about this?
Trying to spread the blame? Sorry. Ain't
gonna work.

[stevedeshazer]

14. I despise the Oregonian

Their coverage of national and local politics has been, is, and will remain abysmal.

The Oregonian is the paper who ignored for DECADES a story about former governor Neil Goldschmidt's raping of a 14 year old girl, which the Oregonian eventually termed "an affair". When Willamette Week, a Portland weekly finally made known that they would scoop the O, they printed verbatim on their front page as fact Goldscmidt's teary apology well AFTER its editorial and news staffers learned that they were going to have their asses kicked by an alternative weekly in their own home town.

This is also the newspaper that just a few years ago covered up the Bob Packwood sexual groping and molestation story until the week AFTER Packwood was re-elected (and was subsequently driven from office in abject shame humiliation, thanks to the Washington Post.)

This is the same newspaper that paid a firm several thousand dollars in an effort to publicly minimize the enormous size of the anti-war marches in Portland in the runup to the illegal Iraq War after months of refusing to cover the news of thousands of protesters marching RIGHT OUTSIDE THEIR CUSHY OFFICES in Portland.

They can go to hell. :grr:

[stubtoe]

15. Go get 'em, Kaity. n/t

[doubleplusgood]

16. I read the oregonian periodically

just to check on what stories they AREN'T covering, like DSM, etc.

The people who run the corporate media just don't get it. Or worse, they DO get it and are willing to sacrifice truth and the bottom line for their own ideology. Millions of people are dropping newspaper subscriptions & turning off the CNN's & MSNBC's...we are hungry for REAL news, not runaway-bride or missing-white-girl-du-jour crap.