At the Oregonian, bleach cycle at touch of a button
The editors at the O can be a heavy-handed bunch, and we suspect they're behind this little gem. Here's how the reporter originally wrote the story:
Here's how the story was rewritten a couple of hours later:
Do you think that whitewashing change was her idea, or did the new spin come from up the newsroom chain of command? It's a familiar lameness from Portland's moribund daily newspaper. Pulitzer is spinning in his grave.
| Posted at 5:49 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (9)
News titles and captions are written by copy editors so this was most likely not Maxine's idea.
I also think it telling that KGW.com, KOIN.com, and PortlandTribune.com all have this incident featured (with a photo) as their top story this morning.
The only local news that buried it as a text-only link underneath a sub-section on the site by 6:45am? Oregonlive.com
Posted by Gene | July 1, 2011 6:46 AM
It reads as if this is the first time PPB ever wounded a suspect.
The headline I would have written:
"Officer fires shotgun five times at man with knife, nearly misses"
Posted by Mister Tee | July 1, 2011 6:56 AM
Pulitzer gave up on the O a long time ago, as have many of the rest of us.
I notice that Mayor Creepy is on the scene trying to look thoughtful and involved. What a sham! I bet the cops wish he would stay in his office.
Posted by portland native | July 1, 2011 7:42 AM
After listening to a police Lieutenant last night this isn't a mistake, it's a huge F**k up and that's what the news agencies should of changed the headline to.
Posted by Darrin | July 1, 2011 7:46 AM
They didn't just change the headline and caption, they changed the lede as well--originally she wrote that the officer "shot a suspect" and in the change the offer "fired live shotgun rounds at a suspect." Perhaps a subtle change, but intentional--"shot" tells you unambiguously that the guy was hit, whereas "fired...at" tells you only that the cop aimed and fired.
Posted by Dave J. | July 1, 2011 9:40 AM
News titles and captions are written by copy editors so this was most likely not Maxine's idea.
The first two paragraphs have been changed as well. I think the headline and article were changed to reflect new information that was trickled out by the PPB (note the " . . . Portland Police announced about seven hours after the incident.")
If anything, I think the second headline and article make it clear what a clusterf**k this ammo mixup was (the officer should be thanking his lucky stars he was such a poor shot). Other police departments mark their less-lethal shotguns with brightly-colored paint to keep this very sort of thing from happening. Clearly someone at the PPB f**ked up big-time, as there are three possibilities as to why this happened, none of which reflect well on the PPB: a) live rounds were loaded into a shotgun marked for less-lethal use; b) the PPB does not mark its less-lethal shotguns or have some equivalent procedure to prevent this error; c) or the officer simply messed up big-time and almost killed someone.
I think the revisions change the emphasis from the whacked-out dude threatening people to the police screw-up, which is probably appropriate. Sadly, these days in Portland, a whacked-out dude threatening people is the mundane, non-newsworthy, "dog bites man" story.
Posted by Eric | July 1, 2011 9:47 AM
"The Oregonian"? They're not approaching obsolescence -- they're propelling themselves into obscurity. Go by bullet train!
Posted by Mojo | July 1, 2011 3:49 PM
How does a cop fire 5 shotgun rounds and the dude lives???
That's one lucky dude and the cop is a lousy shot! He needs back to the basics training.
Posted by Mcinor | July 4, 2011 11:32 AM
This is from Portland Indymedia:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2011/07/409178.shtml
Sorry if this posted multiple times - it said that there was a posting error, so I tried again.
Posted by D. T. | July 4, 2011 8:16 PM