What a pitiful disgraceful publication. I don't even open it when they do their free trial delivery to my door anymore. I used to like it for the Target and other store inserts, but you can get those at the front door of the stores now. Can't think of any use at all for this tired, sad tainted publication.

Now watch for the repercussions. If the Oregonian management is anything like the management of the Dallas Morning News (where, if the son of the publisher wasn't being busted for underage drinking and drug use, assistant editors were being busted for cruising park restrooms), you'll see a big eight-part series...on how we really need to do something about drug and alcohol abuse in poor neighborhoods.

Nice catch JB - Under normal circumstances I'd point out that Caldwell only blew a .10, I'd say, "Eh, mind your business.", I'd say the practice of outing people in the paper is dirty-pool. I'd go on to also point out he's an older guy, that times were different back then and one simply wasn't taking the risk then, that they are now. But these aren't normal circumstances, are they?

Did I say 'nice catch yet? 'Cause it was and I commend you.

This is probably going to slip under most people's radar. They're going to say to themselves, "What's the big deal?". Well, this is a huge deal. It's humiliating to have one's petty criminal exploits published in the local paper. I suppose this is the idea. Apparently though that humiliation is reserved for the public et al, and not the 'lords' and 'ladies' at the worst major-ish paper the west coast. Outrageous, really.

Now the folks who actually do end up with their mug in the mornin' paper need to turn around and sue the O into oblivion for being singled out in such a manner.

I spend a lot of time excoriating their Commuting, ahem, Blogger, (That's become journalistic-jargon for, "I don't have to follow journalistic paradigms.", I digress.) Joseph Rose. He's had occasion to whine about the impending demise of print-news, and like the rest, is fumbling around in a state of blind, abject, clueless-ness as to why. One day it's a conscientious society coming to terms with the waste of paper product. Then it's the declining ad revenue. It is amazing, actually, the number of things print-news is trying to blame this on.

All except for the truth of the matter of course. Which is: They suck. They've been exposed as irrelevant. There's amateurs like you JB, for instance, whom get it 'right-er', quicker, and sans a bunch of political BS. The 'politics' of the intra-office kind, the fiscally-driven kind, not necessarily of the Democrat and Republican kind.

Do you guys do the Daily Howler? I mean, Somerby exists to out one of our finest journalistic bastions for the frauds they are. He's smarter than a lot of the NYT staffers he picks-on, and he's arguably cut from a finer cloth where ethics, commitment, and honesty are concerned.

I see it time, and time again. Professional journalists getting kicked around like defenseless children in comment threads based on their own work. And the people whom do the kicking sometimes don't even have a Daddy degree, hell some of them haven't even graduated high-school.

The interwebs is the 21st century version of the printing press. At worst, it's precipitated a situation here like we had during the later part of the 18th century pamphleteering movement. Humanity is about to simply rip it's voice out of the hands of moneyed interests and it's utter hog-wash like NOT subjecting your staff to public humiliation, right along with the peasants.

With the Zero most of the time it's what they DON'T report that's significant, as we have just witnessed.

There are all sorts of stories they should be reporting to be informative but will not because they have backsides they feel compelled to cover.

A hearty second on the props for The Daily Howler -- he's really the George Seldes of this era. And a very down-the-middle guy -- he's as harsh on Rachel and Keith as he is on the faux conservative wolfpack. And he's positively withering on the so-called-liberals who decided that they'd rather have the chimp than Gore in the runup to 2000.

Sometimes investigative reporting at strip clubs puts you on morally shaky ground.

At least that's what I told my wife.

It's a shame that people are condemning this man for getting drunk at a strip club. Those girls ARE PUTTING THEMSELVES THROUGH COLLEGE!

He blew a 11.3%, then a 10.1% BAC around 1:30 a.m. 4-5 hours after he'd allegedly imbibed two glasses of wine with dinner. I don't know the equation, but you can bet he would have blown a higher BAC at 11:30 p.m. than 1:30 a.m.

The crash time is listed as 11:58 p.m. and it's unlikely he sat at Ruths Chris between 10:30 p.m. and 11:50 p.m. without having something more to drink.

Hear, hear, Anonymous. It's a perfect example 'cause Somerby is a one of those 'bloggers' whom exists solely upon the notion of keeping 'real' journalists in-line. He only exists because of the gaping chasm between what we see reported, and reality. At least part of the reason this condition is virtually pervasive is due to the fact many journalists lose touch with what it is they are doing, and whom they are doing it for. As frickin' evidenced by the double-standard implemented to avoid having to hold Caldwell to the same standard an ordinary citizen would.

If they won't do it to one of their 'own', what in the hell are they doing it to us for? Some o 'dat declining revenue, methinks.

Mister Tee - I must've missed all of that. Regardless of what Caldwell blew, he failed two, or was it three, field-sobriety tests; and that's alarming. This just keeps getting better. Of course I'm NOT over at the oregonlive.com site spamming their editorials for today with a link to this story. I wouldn't do that 'cause I'm a pussy-cat. No, never.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Mister Tee.

So Bob is eating animal flesh at Ruths Chris, tries to park near an establishment that trades in the exploitation of women for the sexual satisfaction of dirty old men, and does so while driving a 2002 Toyota Tundra pickup, a full size truck that averages 14-16 mpg. Talk about not giving a damn about your carbon footprint Bob.

I'd say Bob needs to go to the re-education camp for some retraining in how to live a politically correct lifestyle, the kind he preaches about every day on his editorial page. Oh yeah, I forgot - that's only for the little people.

Comment on an Oregonian story that'll leave a mark:

Posted by fwleonhardt May 26, 2010, 8:46AM

In light of The Oregonian's revelations on the Boy Scouts' history of protecting child sex abusers, isn't it time you released the results of Sandy Rowe's in-house investigation of the 1986 cover-up by top editors of Neil Goldschmidt's sex crimes?

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/05/are_the_scouts_shaping_up.html

whoa, those sex crimes have allowed lots of locals to profit i.e getting high-paying jobs and such just by what they don't tell.

I have to say "meh" to this whole story.

A drunk driving mistake by some editor should be splashed across the front page? Why exactly? I subscribe to the O and didn't even recognize this guy's name. Why should I really care what happened to him last weekend?

I don't need to know every time some minor pseudo-public so-and-so gets involved with the police. Unless it's a major crime. Drunk driving is a bad thing, but it's not rape or sexual harrassment or drug trafficking or the like.

I'm willing to accept that the O isn't reporting this because who really cares, besides the local alternative newspaper which is always taking shots at the O.

Snards - Yeah, I think you're missing it. It is precisely that the print edition has a section in Metro where DUIIs and other petty offenders are listed daily. Any arrest lands one, replete with mug-shot, in that column. Moreover, this is a decades old practice and is often criticized as everything from an invasion of privacy to a violation of the 6th and 8th amendments to the Federal Constitution.

I don't think any one is impugning Caldwell over his behavior. On the contrary, it's the fact he was singled out by the Oregonian to benefit from not having his mug-shot appear as would other 'civilians'. The point is that the Oregonian is exercising a double standard, not what duder did to obtain the benefit.

With all due respect and all.

I asked in the comment section of Bhatia's editorial about Oregonian and it's readership, a most respectful question about the reporting of this incident at the (paper) Oregonian and also at OregonLive.com.

Needless to say, my comment was quickly censored, even though it violated no Terms of Service agreement clauses.

Another reason why blogs and alt media are just crushing the dinosaurs. I feel bad for the dinosaurs, kinda like they must have felt for the buggy whip manufacturers back in the early 1900's.

Posted by fwleonhardt May 26, 2010, 8:46AM

"In light of The Oregonian's revelations on the Boy Scouts' history of protecting child sex abusers, isn't it time you released the results of Sandy Rowe's in-house investigation of the 1986 cover-up by top editors of Neil Goldschmidt's sex crimes?"
====

I believe that Fred's integrity around this issue rises head and shoulders above any other politician (either D or R) in the state of Oregon.

What he witnessed, and the cover up that followed by Roberts, Dave F., Kulo, Bernie, the Oregonian and all the other Goldschmidters, which Fred refused to participate in, shows a high level of integrity by Leonhardt that he has paid a high price for. For that, Fred is my hero.

Fred exposed Ted Kulo for what he knew. I wonder what John Kitz knew and when did he know it?

Okay Vance, I get it now. Thanks.

Wait, didn't the Mercury break this too?

Man they cannot catch a break (literally)!

Thanks, Harry(?). They censored my comment, also. I emailed Bhatia and asked him what he was afraid of. Needless to say, he hasn't replied. Kinda rude, considering the countless hours I've spent answering every question put to me by more than a dozen Oregonian reporters, columnists and editors.

I used to subscribe to the "O" for the daily and Sunday editions but stopped subscribing to it last year after years of reading it. (Throughout my childhood and my entire adult life.) I have absolutely no use for this type of newspaper now since it is so out of date with its' news coverage and its' editorial bias. My brother in law (Boston, Ma. transplant) likes to call the newspaper "The Boregonian" since it is so outdated and non newsworthy. I agree with him 100 %. Finally, I get occasional telemarketing calls from the
Oregonian Circulation desk to renewing my subscription but always let my answering machine do the talking for me. I have ABSOLUTELY NO NEED FOR THIS RAGSHEET with its" bias slant !!

you guys are all spoiled...you think you have it bad, trying to rely upon the columbian in clark county for local "news"...the o may be a 2 on the 1 to 10 scale, but the columbian is in negative territory...

About Caldwell's case, he told the police interview that he was drinking with his brother. That would be the Commander of the Oregon (National) Guards, maybe drinking to try to forget the hundred young Oregonians who have died for the worthless sake of Caldwell's 'heroic' mythology and for the bloodsplatter-seeking and violence-promoting Press and Massmedia's hot-selling 'war'-for-no-reason over oil reservoirs.

- -

Really, daily newspapers canNOT die, canNOT be left to die, but neither can they go on living 'now' in the manner to which they have become accustomed.

That 'now' being that 'private' news is supposedly owned by media-property owners, who then have a private 'right' and might set the (exploitative capitalizing greedy) price you have to pay (them) to be 'in the know.'

(And they shift / adjust / bias the price they charge advertisers to buy space, favoring 'certain' advertising and disfavoring 'certain' other advertising.)

So in conclusion: PUBLIC OWNERSHIP of NEWS(papers).

Nationalize the Press. As promised and protected in the Constitution for an unabridged flow of news. Like the gold-standard of 'free Press' which is funded by public taxes and fees: the BBC. (That was, until Thatcher 'partial privatized' the BBC 25 years ago, and began its slippery-slope slide downhill in a capitalism casket, to its much-compromised provenance today. Similarly, but by different funding 'leverage,' the UPI and Reuters and AP are dilapidated and marginal remnants today of their original missions and manifestation.)

So taxpayers (with property?) in the newspaper delivery area, each pay what?, 50 cents a month?, and every doorstep gets a morning newspaper. (Kind of like public schools or the Post Office, (two examples of socialism working best), where, for the collective good and "to promote the General welfare," every taxpayer funds the institution but not everyone has kids in school and not everyone sends or receives USMail.)

Public 'ownership' of (read: responsibility for) daily newspapers means:
public access to insert news (or correct mistakes) such as weddings, births, obituaries, village gossip;
public oversight of salaries for reporters, editors, operations of the newspaper 'utility';
free(?) classifed ads placements, (like Craigs List);
unlimited(?) letters to the editor (maybe? maybe not?);
and more, just, in general, it is public direction and assignment of reporters to find news and report what they find.

The details of socializing (public administration of) newspapers surely requires the application of today's young bright minds to enact it, once the concept is grasped. Saying, I don't know exactly how it goes but I know we can do it. Maybe start with asking how the City of Portland could buy out The Oregonian ...? and go from there . . . .

Newspapers (as we know them) began with a large public-paid subsidy where the government provided railroads rights-of-way land everywhere, (say, 'eminent domain' for 'manifest destiny'; say, 1840-1890), and telegraph (invented 1830) interconnection was built on that railroad land, and modern newspapers and 'the Press' was built on telegraph 'wire services'; (and is TOTALLY different from the Founders' meaning of "free Press" in the Constitution).

Just saying, if newspapers die, then civil and civilian governance dies taking you and me as fatalities in it.

- - -

BTW, if you like Daily Howler .com you probably would like MediaMatters .org (which is where Jack saw Joe Strupp's list of newspaper news items).

I thought you were dead, Tenskey...Where you been hiding?

The Oregonian has been less than an open source of news for decades. They killed a story about a pedophile priest in the 80s. At the time I heard about it from a relative of a victim. Victim later became one of the plantiffs in the suit against the local archdiocese. They did not want to offend a lot of Catholic readers or something. In the 80s, they also killed a story about cocaine dealing at one of the local car dealerships (big advertiser). The reporter who was a friend of a friend quit in protest. The O has refused to run Doonesbury strips over the years when they deem it too offensive. The Zero did a bad job reporting about Stan Peters (former union chief of PPB) and about the PPB's possum incident. And most famously was the Zero negligence in the Packwood scandal. Let the incumbent be re-elected first. Wouldn't want to upset his backers who are big advertisers. The O has never served the people of this city at least no while I have lived here. And lately they are nothing but rah rah boosters. I pretty much quit reading the rag long ago.

Tensky - That whole thing was a joke, right?

"(Kind of like public schools or the Post Office, (two examples of socialism working best)"

Really? Working most typically, maybe, but hardly "best." And do you seriously propose letting the City of Portland buy the Oregonian? They already attempt to get their dubious accomplishments more publicity by the various departmental flyers sent to all residents near election dates.

This blog, and many others, show that the barriers to entry in the news-delivery field have dropped to almost zero - if you think you have things to say that won't fit here, start a blog. State ownership of newspapers is a shortcut to hell, at least over here. (On the other hand, the concentration of media ownership since the 1996 act has been disastrous, especially for coverage of local political news on the radio, but that's another topic. I'm afraid we might agree there, which should scare both of us...)