Oregon Media Insiders

Not so much Facebook as a site but some Facebook members.

Last week, WW published Trial by Facebook. Today, Matt Davis caught a new Facebook group dedicated to dissing the journalist who wrote the article.

Matt also wonders why no one has started a Facebook group devoted to hating on him. Matt, all you have to do is mail a copy of your "meat" articles to the Food Fight people with the words "NOT SORRY" in cut-out letters from magazines. That oughta get something going.

Scott Moore is leaving the Merc and heading out for flakdom, landing with the Oregon Secretary of State. Scott says in email he will be commuting--by car. Though I would like to see him toodling down I-5 on his bike.

Wail! Who's going to flatter me and buy me chais now?

Over at Blogtown, Matt Davis reports that a media "conglomerate" including WWeek and the O has hired an attorney to force the city to release records in the Chasse case:

[The] conglomerate ... is understood to have hired an attorney, Duane Bosworth, of the international law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, to argue that Federal Court should force the City of Portland to release information publicly about the disciplinary records of the Portland Police Bureau Officers and Sheriff’s Deputy involved in the controversial death in custody of James Philip Chasse last September. [Matt, take a breath now and then, eh!] ...

Yesterday, Bosworth, whose services are extremely expensive, filed a motion to intervene in the case, on behalf of the local media conglomerate--arguing that the disciplinary records of the officers are not only crucial to the Chasse family’s case against the city and county ... but that the public, too, has a right to know about these things.

Steenson wants personnel, phone and medical records for the officers involved along with other information about the incident.

Ira Glass, host of the much-lauded "This American Life," is coming to Portland for a fundraiser for OPB. Sounds great, right?

Well, the folks at OPB insist that the only place big enough to host it is...New Hope Community Church, bastion of anti-gay sentiment and political activism. OPB is paying the church rent of $8,000 $1700. Rather ironic considering that one of the authors launched on This American Life" is the very gay and very funny David Sedaris--the show regularly deals with gay issues. More from the Merc, which has emails between OPB and former Basic Rights Oregon honcho Roey Thorpe and the latest from Glass's agent: He's asked for another venue.

[corrected rent amount. Thanks, John.--L]

Update: OPB VP Tom Doggett says the event is staying put.

Update 2, from comments: Apparently Mr. Doggett was overridden; it's moved to the Convention Center.

Three quick facts:

• Portland Mercury readers are very young.
• It is illegal to advertise tobacco to youth.
• R.J. Reynolds is the biggest advertiser in this week's Portland Mercury.

And for hardly the first week. Read the post. Does a free market trump civic responsibility? Is the Portland Mercury suspect when it criticizes a tobacco tax? Is this even a story worth reporting?

Update from Lynn: WW's Hank Stern writes in with this:

For whatever it's worth, our publisher Richard Meeker tells me WW refused the SNUS insert before it then went to the Merc, though one of these got into our paper earlier in the summer due to our inattention.

I'm also reminded that we rejected this insert on the grounds that it litters the landscape and is a public nuisance.

Nothing like a pile-on.

From PDX Pipeline comes news that local sexpert Malice will be bringing a QA-type column to WWeek (warning: not entirely safe for work picture):

Malice was doing a Sex-Advice column (That’s Portland–Go Ask Malice about S-E-X) at BlacklistPDX. ...

BlacklistPDX and Malice state that the column is no longer happening. Through (extremely) highly-reliable undisclosed sources, I found that the reason is:

The Willamette Week is bringing her on to do the sex-talk/Q&A over at their publication and/or website.

Yeah…so is the WW gunning for Savage Love? Looks like it…

What next? Zusman getting his eyebrow pierced? Or worse: Will the Merc start emulating WWeek? I just can't see Scott in a tweed jacket. Plus also? Vegan suede elbow patches: Hard to find. Matt might pull it off, especially if he starts smoking a briar pipe.

Good luck with the out-Savaging of Savage, WW. You'll need it.

Update: Relentless publicity hound Matt Davis sends me this photo, which he says he used when he was "The Lapin Bleu." Allegedly a food writer.

Yeah, I don't get it either. Must be a British thing. But hey: Briar pipe!

Update 2: Corrected the spelling of Mr. Zussman's Zusman's name. Apologies, I did it from memory.

No one at the O reads OMI.

That's clear, because even though I've asked a couple of times for info about the big restructuring, few have stepped up. Either that, or everyone's super happy about it and doesn't want to say anything.

Yeah, you're right, no one over there must read OMI.

ANYway, Scott Moore at the Merc knows one little bit of it, namely the fate of city hall beatsters/bloggers Ryan Frank and Anna Griffin:

Ryan Frank is heading to the business section to report on real estate and housing, and Anna Griffin will be doing more long-form pieces for the main news team. ...

Replacing them in the city bureau (on the first floor of city hall) will be Jim Mayer, an Oregonian vet who’s covered city hall and state politics in the past, and Andy Dworkin, a medical and health reporter. The changes apparently start this week, with the whole transition lasting a few.

Watch out for Scott, you two. He's that sneaky vegan on a bike.

Apart from that, I've only heard that Gabrielle Glaser, Don Colburn and Paige Parker will make up the new health team, after Dworkin's reassignment.

Sure would like to know more about it, doot-de-doo. *whistling*

Update: I finally got a copy of the reassignments. It's too much to go into in full but here are the highlights that I saw:

---The recently reprimanded Tom Hallman has been busted down to one of four city beat reporters under team leader Margaret Haberman. Just don't assign him any parking stories, Margaret.

--Helen Jung has been moved off the Nike beat to the Breaking/Daily Enterprise team. Brent Hunsberger moves to Nike.

--The entire Breaking/Daily Enterprise team is new in their positions.

--The new "Sustainability and Growth" team, headed by Len Reed, looks to have been assembled from the Northwest and various suburban Metro teams.

--Team most untouched: Investigations.

You know the old saying about the newspaper biz, "Don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel?"

The 2.0 version is, "Don't pick fights with people who buy snark by the barrel."

That's what WW found out when last week they decided to try their hand at Merc-style snark only to find out it ain't as easy as it looks. WWire editor Ian Gillingham now apologizes to everyone concerned, including Hallett, Waterhouse himself (for not being a better editor), and the readers:

Yes, I’ve done the math on the comments (both on our blog and the Mercury’s), and it adds up to a trouncing. What the hell were we thinking?

Frankly, we were thinking we’d play the Mercury’s alt-baiting game for once. Ben was struck by how much the Mercury’s fresh-off-the-press review of Floyd Collins resembled his own review a week earlier. He wanted to give Alison and the Merc a little jab, and maybe in the future get her to glance at earlier reviews before writing her own. And in my capacity as Web editor, I gave him the go-ahead. ...

I’m neither surprised nor bothered that two busy writers fell back on a similar approach for a short review of a so-so play. What was surprising was in how many ways they were similar—from argument sequence down to sentence structure and wording—even though Ben’s review had been out there for a week, giving plenty of opportunity to make sure the Mercury review didn’t tread the same ground. I figured Alison’s editor would give her a little verbal dope-slap (as I’ve had to do, on thankfully few occasions), there would be a little WW-Merc cross-blogging, and that would be that.

Obviously, it didn’t work out that way.

Obviously.

It's been painful watching WW try to adjust to the Merc's increasing presence over the last couple of years. Understand this: While I'm extremely, wildly fond of the Mercury and love them to bitty bits, I appreciate and respect WW's reporting a great deal. This town needs them both, and the rivalry has been generally nothing but good for journalism here. Not to mention the entertainment value.

But watching WW do the equivalent of piercing an eyebrow and sprinkling "sweet" (unironically) into their conversation has made me wince as much as if my 70-year-old dad were doing it. Which he wouldn't, because he's already too cool for that and he knows it. This isn't the first time trying to be hep cats has made WW look foolish, especially on WWire, beginning with its "not-a-blog" founding.

But there may be hope for WW yet:

[A]s a bonus to the Merc, searching for "Portland Mercury" and "plagiarism" will no longer return "Phil Busse" in the top results.

Now THAT's how it's played, Mr. Gillingham.

Speaking of our favorite dueling weeklies, they've both won awards for food writing this week. (Wonder which one will call copycat first?) I wasn't able to find it on AAN's website, but Cuisine Bonne Femme over at Portland Food & Drink Blog I consider reliable:

The Association of Alternative Weeklies announced their annual national awards last week. Portland snagged two awards, and both include food related writing. Matt Davis from the Mercury won 3rd place in the Best Blog category for three Blogtown posts; one of which is the excellent interview with “nose to tail eating

It's Thursday so it must be time for another snipefest between WW and the Merc (most of which I ignore, frankly, or that'd be all I'd have time for around here). Starting the fusillade this week is WW's Ben Waterhouse, who comes this close to calling the Merc's Alison Hallett a plagiarizer. No returning salvo from the Merc, but just bide a wee. I'm sure they're working on it.

Update: Alison Hallett asks, Am I a Plagiarist?