I've been feeling left out. All my talk show comrades have a clever name for the Oregonian. Lars calls it the "Fishwrapper." Victoria calls it the "Zero.' I felt left out because I wanted my own nickname for the paper! Something that is both clever and as dismissive as an Ohman cartoon to a conservative.
Today, reading the paper, I kept laughing at what I read. The darn thing is so often actually funny because of how transparently agenda-driven their news reporting has become. So it struck me:
The "Funny Paper!" That's it! So from now on, that is my nickname for the Oregonian.
Well, there were a couple of terrific belly laughs in the "Funny Paper" today.
First, front page Metro, we read about a new "Report" that lauds the "new idea" that is Measure 49. Wow! Now there are objective outside onlookers researching this issue and giving us their findings! And they say M49 is terrific!
Duh. More made up news in support of the Funny Paper's agenda. The "report" comes from Henry Richmond, a long time land use gadfly in these parts. This guy actually founded the 1000 Friends of Oregon! Hardly an objective source. That his opinion on M49 should warrant front page above the fold Metro story is further proof of the shocking and shameful deterioration in their journalistic judgment and integrity.
I mean, come on. Do you think for one second if the Cascade Policy Institute had released a report by John Charles critical of M49 that it would warrant coverage by the Funny Paper? Not a chance. Yet a concocted report by a known supporter of Oregon's land use system is splashed across the pages as if it is some kind of surprising result.
Or, another equivalent: Imagine a report published by an Oregonians In Action non-profit spinoff, say, the Family Farm Association, that pointed out all the deceptions of M49. Do you think for one New Jersey second that The Funny Paper would tout it on the front page as a "report" critical of a "new idea?"
The fact is, The Funny Paper just unblinkingly re-prints press releases from organizations with a like agenda, And today, the press release was helped along by a companion editorial telling us all how "fair" M49 is to everyone. (They didn't mention how fair it was to tell 7500 M37 claimants that all their time and money was for naught, and they would have to start over from scratch.)
The Funny Paper. I'm starting to like the moniker.
Next, I flip to the editorial pages, which is always an excursion is Funny Paper mirth. We read a wonderful op-ed piece from Robert Everhart, some former dean at PSU, on how global warming requires not just minor changes in our behavior, but a "revolution."
Now, maybe it is just me, but I get a little bit nervous when 1960's era Marxists who spent their careers cloistered away in higher education find some new cause that they say requires a revolution. Their radical impulses, it seems, don't disappear - they just go dormant and resurface whenever they find some excuse to trot out their totalitarianism.
Everhart whines about how much trash we generate, blames our unbridled consumption for the melting glaciers, and then likens the green revolution to the American Revolution. What unbelieveable hubris!
And then the money line. I read his piece and kept waiting for it. At some point, I knew, he'd reveal himself. Sure enough:
"Each of us must look within ourselves [sic] and change our personal paradigms regarding consumption. And we need also to demand that governments at all levels change the way they approach the issue of climate change -- including forcing us, if need be, to act is if our future depends upon it."
There you have it. He wants government to force us to live the way he wants us to live. It's for our own good, you see.
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8 comments:
The Funny Paper is a tragi-comedy.
Do you think The Funny Paper is offering Yes on 49 lower ad rates than to No on 49?
The New York Times does it for their pet causes ... read about it: here.
Rob, you ought to demand that The Funny Paper come clean on this. The community deserves to know.
This is far worse than the usual.
From the last paragraoh of the article.
Richmond is the "founder and former executive director from 1975-1993 of 1000 Friends of Oregon"
1000 Friends is the number one opponent of M37 and supporter of M49. They are the arch enemies of property rights.
The single most extremely biased activists in this land use battle.
Although Richmond calls it his analysis of PSU data, this so called "Report", as echoed by our equllly biased newspaper is nothing but the heavily biased interpretation, spinning and manipulation of the PSU's M37 data.
This entire story, and the editorial accompanying it, are nothing but free Yes on M49 campaign propaganda of the worst kind.
Dishonest, shameless and completely lacking of any ethics.
The Funny Paper! I like it!
I am on the verge of canceling the Funny paper. I find that I hardly ever read it anymore in preference to the many blogs I read daily. I am also sick of reading about the damned bicycles.
I cancelled my subscription 3 years ago, and haven't missed it a bit. As far as I could tell at the time, they were purely a venue for advertising, with no interest in news.
They covered up in the Packwood debacle (though all he did was slobber on woment). At that time, their logo was "If It Matters To Oregonians, It's In The Oregonian". As the story was broken by the Washington Post, my bumper sticker read "If It Matters To Oregonians, It's In The Washington Post".
But that wasn't enough for them. They sat on the Goldschmidt rape story for years. Never a word about it until Willy Week cut things loose.
That's when I decided I wasn't going to pay another dime for The Oregonian. I could sort of justify the cost, back when I raised birds.
I was having a Scotty Burger in Forest Grove tonight with my son--who tells me that the Scotty Burger, while good, is a gut-bomb--and I came across a copy of the Oregonian.
I normally don't see it. Back in the '80's it was one of the best newspapers on the West coast. By 1994 it had degenerated into a cheap version of USA Today. I quit subscribing in October of that year.
Shouldn't have read it tonight. Did you read their article on light rail? I forget the reporters name, Sanchez or Sanji or something?
Here's a guy that never let an obvious question hit his lips, let alone pace time on a keyboard. So, the Feds want value for their cash. What asses. And some dillweed from East County is offended? Representative who? Edith Green would have creamed this chump.
It's about time the working members of the Democrat party took their party back.
What I like is when the reporter gives facts that conflict with the premise of the story. Or better yet when two articles conflict with each other on the same page of the paper.
I remember when the tram was in the news at the same time the Sellwood bridge was. Both articles quoted Sam Adams.
In one the tram wasn't a big deal becuase it used TIF bonds. Then the Sellwood bridge couldn't be afforded though it was close enough they could have drawn it into the SoWat URA. The Oregonian never asks - How can we afford everything else now but not the basics? They also never actually report opposition opinions to elected officials unless they are moonbats.
Think about this as well. The Oregonian consistently gets scooped by Wili Week, the Mercury, and blogs. That alone should tell you the effort their reporters make.
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