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Posts published in “Day: January 30, 2008”

The Edwards portion

January 30, 2008
John Edwards

John Edwards

Of the recent dropouts from the presidential race, the one with the largest contingent of "name" support would be John Edwards, the Democratic former North Carolina senator.

Before wrapping up his role in the presidential - which entails the highly pertinent question of where his backers go now - we should point out that Edwards had a support base worth the pondering. Not so much in Idaho, to be sure, and significant but not especially high-profile in Washington. But in Oregon, the list is significant.

Both major Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate, House Speaker Jeff Merkley and Portland activist Steve Novick, were Edwards backers. Others include state Senator Margaret Carter, D-Portland; Portland attorney Robert Stoll; Peter Bragdon, a major Democratic political figure now with Columbia Sportswear; developer Homer Williams; Beth Bernard of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association; Jesse Cornett, vice chair of the state Democrats; and Kari Chisholm of Mandate Media. Among others.

The push and pull, Clinton and Obama, must already be underway.

Crafting an appearance, shielding reality

January 30, 2008

Imagine a candidate for office, maybe one seeking a newspaper's endorsement, saying something like this: "No, I'm not going to tell you what I really think about that hot-button topic. I'm a politician. So I'm going to craft a stance that artfully straddles the issue to avoid offending anyone, while carefully dodging any disclosure of my real thinking. That bit of truthiness is good enough to pass, right?"

And of course it wouldn't be: Reality is what's important to journalists, not just image, right?

Well, tell that to Seattle Times news management, which is (not that this is unusual among American newspapers) discouraging news employees, especially those having anything to do with political coverage, from any political activity which might go public and indicate - gasp! - what personal opinions they might have.

The Times' political editor, David Postman, writes that Executive Editor David Boardman has posted a memo which begins: "Our profession demands impartiality as well as the appearance of impartiality." And goes on, "Staff members should avoid active involvement in any partisan causes that compromise the reader’s trust in the newspaper’s ability to report and edit fairly."

Let's rewrite that unkindly: "We all know you guys have opinions, at least we hope so, since if you didn't that would indicate you're not informed or smart enough to be here. The reading public is obviously aware of that too. We just don't want to level with the public; we'd rather pretend that you've all somehow managed to deaden the opinion-making parts of your brains."

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