And so yet another Portland journalist leaves for greener grass as a government flack. It's a disturbing pattern.

Right out of the fascist playbook.

Not to say this is a factor in every case, but maybe if reporters actually made a living wage, particularly in the print industry, the exodus would slow down.

That's on the news consumer, though, to demand from news sources that reliable reporters be retained and rewarded.

Is this truly the Nick that now writes for Metro?

Nick, no offense intended, but that presumption left me laughing for a solid three minutes. Anybody who has ever worked in the newspaper business, weekly or daily, will tell you that retaining and rewarding reliable reporters is the last thing management worries about. Good reporters not only start costing money to retain, but they tend to irritate the multiple layers of editors who seem to think that people read the paper for them. You have two absolutes in the newspaper field: publishers these days would rather set the whole place on fire than acknowledge the merits of top reporters, and they'd rather set the whole place on fire than get rid of the deadwood media critics and "humor" columnists hired only because they went to the publisher's alma mater.

Texas - That's exactly my point. If there's going to be this continued concern about the revolving door, then start talking about ways to keep it from happening.

Not saying this was the case with Clark's departure - he's been heavily involved in civic issues and I'm not surprised to see him go to a more directly community-driven role. But if people want to talk about the broader issue, this has got to be part of the discussion.

"... see him go to a more directly community-driven role."

The new euphemism for "sucking at the government teat".

A reader writes:

Mark Ross (formerly of KPTV 12) is one of the latest examples of how news reporters (who we once knew to bring us the truth) have benefited from playing Nerf Ball with governments and then landing high paid Flack jobs with one of those same governments.

Some have noticed that the old media is dying and some haven't.

The print media is around here is so lousy that I rarely bother with it. TV news is more convenient and works as background while I am doing other things. But what I have noticed is that the local TV media personalities all seem to be utter lap dogs of politicians. Not sure if it's station policy or if they choose to be like that but it certainly lowers their credibility and my trust of those outlets.