Oregon Media Insiders

Just got back from the Beavers game and fireworks, and what a show all round! Nutling #1 and I were there all night, and Cablenut and Nutling #2 joined us right after the 7th inning for the rest of the game and the fireworks. As it happened, that was the time to come: The Beavers batted a home run with bases loaded--first time I've ever been privileged to see such a thing at a live game. Pretty exciting.

The cordite smoke in our neighborhood is so thick it's obscuring the streetlights. hack, wheeze.

Hey Eugeneans! I hear a rumor that KEZI ran eight minutes of Olympic Trials highlights on Sunday night without permission from NBC. I also heard the bill came from NBC today, demanding a cool $240,000. Is true?

Who is nibbling on KOIN's house? Apparently owner New Vision. No, not new staff cutbacks; good luck finding anyone else to cut. No, not new technology; that would require money. This time, it's the building.

At a staff meeting this week, GM Chris Sehring announced that architects were coming to re-evaluate the station's space needs and that up to an entire floor might be vacated and sold back to the building for a one-time cash payment. The KOIN lease is something like $1 a year for 99 years currently; once that space is given up, it'd be hell to get it back. But hey! What's a little more strip-mining of an already-stripped out station?

Meanwhile, the sales staff is doing its best to pitch in on the space consolidation effort. Two top salesmen have quit in the last month, one moving to KATU and one, Ron Massey, opening his own agency. Rumor has it sales commissions were recently re-formulated to the sales staff's detriment.

I hear Dave Northfield is leaving the Ocho for a PR position. True?

From today's memo from the really rather overexposed on OMI these days Patrick McCreery, SM/ND:

I am very excited to announce the addition of two new Fox 12 newscasts on Fox 12 and PDX-49.

Starting September 8th we are adding a 5pm newscast on KPTV Fox 12 and an 8pm newscast on PDX-49.

These will both be one-hour newscasts making Fox 12 news the undisputed news leader in Portland!

Absolutely no relation to this being a year ending in a number that's divisible by four, I'm sure.

That makes it...lessee...not counting Better...I think eight hours of news a day? Which doesn't seem to me to be more than the rest do, but I may be counting on my fingers wrong; I got too much sun at Park Day. That's a lot of Dirty Dining in any event. I would think they'd go for at least a modest staff-up, but who knows. Work smarter, not harder? har-de-har?

Via PDXRadio, we hear of two deaths of note: Marilyn McKay, longtime KOIN finance gal who retired in 1997; and Ric Eljin, aka Rick Liljenberg, of KYXI, KOIN radio and KGAR among others.

[Edited to correct spelling of Ric Eljin's name. Apologies.--L]

Remember the rumors that Fox12 ND/SM Patrick McCreery was being groomed for the GM position at Meredith's Phoenix shop? Not so much:

Meredith Corp. today hired Edward L. Munson Jr. as general manager of its Phoenix CBS affiliate, KPHO. Munson most recently was vice president of sales for LIN TV Corp., leading the sales strategy for the group. His 17 years at LIN TV, working in...

blah blah blah who cares except his mom. So Patrick stays put.

We hear today that Annie Shooman of the AP is on open-ended disability leave. We met her at the April broadcast awards, and we hope she's doing all right. Our source wanted to know who would be filling in for Annie; the AP told us today that no one person would be filling her shoes, that they'd basically be taking up the slack as a group. That's a lot of slack.

If you see a tandem bike ridden by a jovial fellow with a Van Dyke beard and a fat little old broad in Converse sneakers behind him, wave, or at least look out: It's Cablenut and me! We took delivery of it on Tuesday and he's gotten it all spiffed up and road-worthy.

Yesterday was our inaugural ride to see if the four of us could make it from the OMI Anchor Desk at approx 30th and Division to New Seasons (Mirador, actually, didn't need to go to the market). That part is easy; it's hauling my fat hinder back up Colonial Heights that's the tricky part. I still can't do it by myself yet, and Lou was pretty pooped by the time we hit the peak--yes, I know we're wimps, we're geeks, not athletes, or at least I am, Lou's just 7. JJ's actually a pretty fair biker and rides a lot, and Josie is, too.

Riding as "Captain" Cablenut's "Rear Admiral" (I prefer that to "stoker"), I actually got a workout without wearing myself to a dangerous nub or stranding myself some place too exhausted to ride home. That's an honest fear; I caught that respiratory virus earlier this year and got so sick I'm completely deconditioned again and am having to start from scratch--disappointing after getting up to 30 minutes a day on the treadmill.

This morning we took off early by ourselves and rode to the Stumptown over on 34th and Belmont instead of walking to the OMI Caffeine Bureau on the corner. And I tell you, when we got home I was disappointed. That was the most fun I think I've ever had on wheels of any kind. I'm looking forward to the next ride, and that's a first for this devout non-athlete.

So, I'm hearing something about hot weather? Goodness me, I hope there'll be something on the news about it.

WWeek reports on Oregonian publisher Fred Stickel's rather ominous letter snail-mailed to employees:

The most interesting news in publisher Fred Stickel's letter, however, is a reminder of the paper's longstanding job-security pledge, which he writes "never was intended to apply to weekly publications or to distribution of content over the Internet. The Pledge's protection is tied to the daily publication of The Oregonian's current newsprint product — not the functions you perform individually."

The clarification appears to suggest that those employees who are part-timers, or who work for the website oregonlive.com or for the daily paper's other weekly publications may not have the security they might have previously assumed.

The Pledge is more than 40 years old; WWeek speculates that if the paper dropped one day a week--"say the lightly-read Monday edition"--that the Pledge might no longer apply and no one's job would be safe.

Reading the letter itself, that gloss, which WWeek itself calls "paranoid," doesn't feel that off the mark to me. To wit, the closing paragraph:

We also wish to make sure that the Pledge language is clear and unambiguous. The Pledge always has and will continue to protect the jobs of eligible employees unless our newspaper ceases to publish daily in its current newsprint form. The Pledge does not/will not apply to situations in which our newspaper ceases to publish daily in its current newsprint form.

I don't know about you, but I don't like the sound of that...

O people, what do you hear?