Oregon Media Insiders

Washington County courts reporter Holly Danks took the buyout. The O closed its Hillsboro bureau and is apparently opening an office in Cedar Mill to handle coverage of the Northwest's fifth most populous county. They've also stopped going to Hillsboro city council meetings.

The O needs a new conservative voice. I regularly read and enjoy all of the opinion columns regardless of which way they lean. Contrary to some of the other columns, when I read Reinhard I rarely feel like I learned anything new.

Go in peace, but go. The Oregonian needs a conservative voice, but Reinhard's smug tone just reinforces the small-minded stereotype that, despite the fresh lathering supplied by Sarah Palin, is bringing down the Ground Old Party. Give us something to think about, not a print version of Lars.

All this ... and a new 75 cent newsstand price!

Staffers: Doing More with Less. Readers: Paying More for Less

Too bad about the cuts really.

Anyone else hear Kristian Foden-Vencil on NPR tonight?

Why do they have to go to Lake Oswego? Why not pick some more regular high school? Seriously.

Please oh please let it be Jonathan Nicholas!

I couldn't believe they truncated TV Click. The one thing the O provided that nobody else does is the local listings for the entire day. Now they just offer the nighttime listings, which already are IN the daily paper. As a late nightowl and an at-home-during-midday person, I miss the late and daytime listings. Just one more reason to consider canceling my subscription.

I understand saving on newsprint but that was a ridiculous thing to cut -- even in Portland where nobody admits to watching TV.

If you're gonna cut, cut the AP stories I read a day ago on the Web.

Over the years I've read a few columns by Jonathan Nicholas, and as far as I can recall they were nothing more than a waste of ink. I just did a quick look on oregonlive.com and oregonlive.com/oregonian and didn't find much. Is he still writing?

The bigger question is why does the Oregonian need generic columnists at all? If I want leftist drivel I can read Frank Rich or Maureen Dowd. Similarly, the NY Times keeps David Brooks around as a token right winger. Is there enough of a local angle for this stuff for a newspaper in the 22nd largest media market to keep its own pundits on staff? Sports columnists, yes, people want and will pay for the local angle. But do people really want to read any other kind of local columnist?

Maybe it made sense many years ago, before radio, before cable TV, before "the Internets". But now I have access to Fox News on the right, MSNBC on the left, and thousands of bloggers all across the spectrum. And Matt Drudge does a great job of filtering it all for me! :-)

So what is the point of The Oregonian having Reinhard on staff?

Phantom Gremlin

Jessica Bruder's byline appeared Sunday as "Special to..." in the Books section. The bio listed her as an adjunct at Columbia University in NY....She was in one of the metro bureaus...southeast? Only at the paper a couple years I think.

The week is up: who's in, and who's out?

State government reporter Dave Hogan is.

Hogan does good stuff. I hope it isn't true.

You don't keep a newspaper strong by letting people like Hogan and Walden leave. Hard to believe losing good people like this is what Stickel/Rowe/Bhatia had in mind when they formulated this plan.

Very sad days for the mighty O.

Interesting observations. I think a lot of these things are done for purposes of ego -- the bigger newspapers have had a tendency to do that over the years. Like sending reporters to far-flung places to cover events -- just so they could have a staff byline on the story -- instead of relying on the wire services. Another reason to do that was to win prizes, as if that's what really mattered. Meanwhile, not enough people were back home minding the store. But given the current economic health of the industry, those days are likely over. Newspapers will need to focus on what really does matter, and that's building local readership and advertising.
I still think there's a place for local columinsts if they are just that: local. Duin does a good job and, once upon a time, Doug Baker wrote a good column that was grounded in local material.
But the other stuff is, as you say, wasted ink and paper.