Oregon Media Insiders

The Big O does not rehabilitate people. I predict Hallman will be writing pet obits by late next week, then he'll quietly leave the paper to "spend more time with his lawyers" later this year.

Any bets?

Considering everything, it seems the punishment is as harsh as could be expected. Surely some of the penalties -- esp. the "can't represent the paper in public forums ..." -- have been considered for awhile? I've seen Hallman in action at one of those forums, and it's painful to watch; his stated methods raise red flags about his reporting habits, and his work of the past couple of years reflects poorly on the O's oversight of his reporting.

Many people would justifiably call Hallman a great writer, but readers deserve great reporters. He isn't one. (Funny ... it occurs to me that Rick Bragg fits the same description. Ick.)

If you know negative coverage is imminent, you do your damndest to blunt the negativity by getting your talking points included in the negative coverage. It's a bonus if you can do it without directly providing an interview or written statement, which would validate the story.

The O did this very effectively by "leaking" Sandy Rowe's staff e-mail to Willamette Week, excerpts of which are peppered throughtout the WW piece. It's easy to pick out the O's talking points in the WW piece:

-The problem was limited to Hall
-Hall will be disciplined
-Accepting gifts is not tolerated at the O

The result is clearly much softer coverage than if WW had simply broken the story and forced the O to scramble.

From a PR standpoint, brilliantly played by the O. Let's see what, if anything, they do now.

I don't know if it was brilliantly played by The O or by WW. WW had to know The O wouldn't give them a comment if they were just publishing a story. So they orchestrated the photo contest to bring the issue to light before the public knew about it, and that pretty much guaranteed some sort of internal communication would happen that could be leaked. That way, WW softened the blow by giving The O a litle bit of time, and they got a non-comment comment out of them.

at the O for some time: I understand the copy desk was under orders to fact check everything he wrote. If, for example, he said in a story that "the sky was blue on Sept. 14" the copy desk had to check the weather report for that day. It's also rumored that a few months ago they had to pull a Hallman story off Page One at the last minute and remake the page because of a major accuracy problem. It would seem, thanks to the O's star system, that he's never been held to the same standards as other reporters. In other words, the paper has been propping up its icon.

One question regarding the remark that the O is sending Hallman "back to beat reporting?" Has he ever DONE beat reporting?

Regarding Hallman and Weiderhorn, let's never forget that Mark Zusman of Willamette Week scored a bullseye in AJR when he referred to Hallman's endless, embarassing and laudatory profile of Weiderhorn as a blowjob. Perfect.

Willamette Week has made itself irrelevant over the last two years ... this is just more evidence that its only motivation is professional jealousy.

Hallman makes $90,000 and can't afford to pay for parking?

Makes you wonder how he spends his money.

The O has a long history of not vacating content producers - esp those with strong local ties. Think of Paul Pintarich & Ted Mahar. Mahar went from a top movie reviewer in the west to filing lost dog stories at the Oregon City desk. Mark Larrabee covers Rose Festival princesses. But consider how Hallman and his eds miscalculated the Mark Provo story - duped!

BTW, their web site still sucks.