Columbian doesn’t value quality journalism
Since Goldy’s scoop about The Columbian making a donation of $5,000 to a campaign committee supporting Initiative 920, the estate tax repeal, I’ve been besieged by ones of people demanding that I come out of blog hibernation and address the burning issue: What is The Columbian’s problem?
Frankly, I’ve gone back and forth on this over the years. There are some decent reporters at The Columbian, and despite its rather low market penetration it remains the only locally owned media of any size.
It’s the paper of record for Clark County and all that.
We could speculate endlessly about whether publisher Scott Campbell, who keeps a pretty low profile and is rarely even mentioned in the media in Clark County or Portland, is more of a rich guy trying to buy himself some peace by caving in to the wingnuts or is, in fact, a wingnut himself. And we would get nowhere. He ain’t saying.
A recent news story, or more accurately the lack of a local news story, combined with a fawning editorial column, tell us pretty much everything we need to know about The Columbian.
Earlier this month, Americans United filed a lawsuit against The Northwest Marriage Institute over its use of federal money to promote Bible-based counseling. The “institute” is housed on the east side of Vancouver, in an area dominated by strip malls, fast food joints and such. You can have breakfast with The (Burger) King and then save your marriage through The King, so to speak.
The lawsuit made pretty big news. It was even in The New York Times. (Warning! Times Select required.) I don’t know enough about lawyerin’ to say if the case will become a landmark, but it does seem like a potentially significant challenge to the Bush administration’s “faith based initiatives.”
So I was more than a little surprised on that day earlier this month that I could not find an article about the case on The Columbian’s web site.
I asked a friend who still subscribes to the print version whether it was in that edition, and she could not find an article.
I always hesitate to claim that a newspaper did not cover something, because it can be easy to miss stories, even for dedicated news junkies.
So I’m not going to state categorically that they didn’t run a story, but if they did, I didn’t see it that day. My friend, a dedicated subscriber who usually reads the paper cover to cover, didn’t see one either.
What can be stated is that, upon searching The Columbian archive a few weeks later, the best I could come up with was the AP story everyone else carried, which looks like it moved on the wire the night before.
Which appears to mean that they buried or did not print an AP story about their own community, a story that even ran on The Guardian Unlimited.
Now, I can be sympathetic to the time pressures and workloads newspaper reporters face. Campbell isn’t known for paying well. But instead of assigning a reporter to look into the local angle, The Columbian said nothing.
To be accurate, the newsroom said and did nothing. After all, east Vancouver is as much as eight miles from their office, and it might as well be on another planet. Plus dialing those phones is hard work.
In rode none other than editorialist Elizabeth Hovde, who was hired away from Jeff Kemp late in the last century to provide the op-eds with a suitably pro-conservative slant.
Hovde penned a column the next day singing the praises of Bible-based counseling groups, without actually stating that the groups she is promoting are religious.
Did Hovde actually mention the AU lawsuit? No. Did she allude to it? No. Without any mention of the timing, Hovde simply promoted religious groups. She did, near the end of the column, mention churches again.
(And it’s worth noting here--I’m not arguing that Hovde may not promote religious groups, I’m arguing that being deceptive about it is a huge journalistic sin, editorial page or no editorial page.)
And as an added kicker, Thriving Families describes itself as “a community partnership with Families Northwest.” Which is, of course, the outfit run by Jeff Kemp. Small world.
So here you have an alleged journalist who is still carrying water for an organization she left around a decade ago, working for an alleged newspaper that can’t or won’t do accurate reporting in its community even when national news organizations are reporting about a newsorthy event in Vancouver.
I know journalists get sick and tired of hearing the “bias” charge, but just because the right made a blood sport of it does not justify discarding basic notions of completeness and fairness. Passing things off as something they are not, as Hovde did, amounts to a calculated lie.
Ignoring or downplaying legitimate news stories, especially in a peculiar media market that receives mostly news about a state they can’t vote in (that would be Oregon, BTW,) is a severe violation of the public trust. I talked to more than one dedicated Columbian reader who knew nothing of the AU lawsuit. We can't have political discourse if things are deliberately hidden from the public.
What’s wrong with The Columbian? Elizabeth Hovde, for starters. The editors, for another. It's sad that Vancouver doesn't even have a real newspaper.
UPDATE: David Postman of The Seattle Times, who has been following the newspaper donations in support of I-920, noted how The Columbian ran a pro-920 column written by Don Brunell, the president of the Asssociation of Washington Business. The column ran on Sept. 19, as Postman notes, the day after The Columbian made the $5,000 donation.
Brunell defended himself in Postman's comments by stating that his column appears every Tuesday in The Columbian. Guess we should start monitoring the business section, too... which reminds me. Where do they put the Labor Section? Does Rick Bender have a column in The Columbian?
Frankly, I’ve gone back and forth on this over the years. There are some decent reporters at The Columbian, and despite its rather low market penetration it remains the only locally owned media of any size.
It’s the paper of record for Clark County and all that.
We could speculate endlessly about whether publisher Scott Campbell, who keeps a pretty low profile and is rarely even mentioned in the media in Clark County or Portland, is more of a rich guy trying to buy himself some peace by caving in to the wingnuts or is, in fact, a wingnut himself. And we would get nowhere. He ain’t saying.
A recent news story, or more accurately the lack of a local news story, combined with a fawning editorial column, tell us pretty much everything we need to know about The Columbian.
Earlier this month, Americans United filed a lawsuit against The Northwest Marriage Institute over its use of federal money to promote Bible-based counseling. The “institute” is housed on the east side of Vancouver, in an area dominated by strip malls, fast food joints and such. You can have breakfast with The (Burger) King and then save your marriage through The King, so to speak.
The lawsuit made pretty big news. It was even in The New York Times. (Warning! Times Select required.) I don’t know enough about lawyerin’ to say if the case will become a landmark, but it does seem like a potentially significant challenge to the Bush administration’s “faith based initiatives.”
So I was more than a little surprised on that day earlier this month that I could not find an article about the case on The Columbian’s web site.
I asked a friend who still subscribes to the print version whether it was in that edition, and she could not find an article.
I always hesitate to claim that a newspaper did not cover something, because it can be easy to miss stories, even for dedicated news junkies.
So I’m not going to state categorically that they didn’t run a story, but if they did, I didn’t see it that day. My friend, a dedicated subscriber who usually reads the paper cover to cover, didn’t see one either.
What can be stated is that, upon searching The Columbian archive a few weeks later, the best I could come up with was the AP story everyone else carried, which looks like it moved on the wire the night before.
Which appears to mean that they buried or did not print an AP story about their own community, a story that even ran on The Guardian Unlimited.
Now, I can be sympathetic to the time pressures and workloads newspaper reporters face. Campbell isn’t known for paying well. But instead of assigning a reporter to look into the local angle, The Columbian said nothing.
To be accurate, the newsroom said and did nothing. After all, east Vancouver is as much as eight miles from their office, and it might as well be on another planet. Plus dialing those phones is hard work.
In rode none other than editorialist Elizabeth Hovde, who was hired away from Jeff Kemp late in the last century to provide the op-eds with a suitably pro-conservative slant.
Hovde penned a column the next day singing the praises of Bible-based counseling groups, without actually stating that the groups she is promoting are religious.
One local effort, Thriving Families (www.thrivingfamilies.org), is working with the government, churches, businesses and community leaders to make an emphasis on marriages commonplace.By acting as a clearinghouse for marriage-strengthening and marriage-saving resources in the area, Thriving Families is hoping to see an increase in happy marriages, fewer divorces and more kids anchored in homes with their married mom and dad.Notice how quickly the word “churches” flies by?
Did Hovde actually mention the AU lawsuit? No. Did she allude to it? No. Without any mention of the timing, Hovde simply promoted religious groups. She did, near the end of the column, mention churches again.
Many area churches also have resources available for marrieds and remarrieds those in sickness and in health.Why, the churches have resources to help your marriage, in addition to the organizations the churches fund! So even though the entire column is promoting Protestant Christian religious organizations, churches only come up as partners and added resources.
(And it’s worth noting here--I’m not arguing that Hovde may not promote religious groups, I’m arguing that being deceptive about it is a huge journalistic sin, editorial page or no editorial page.)
And as an added kicker, Thriving Families describes itself as “a community partnership with Families Northwest.” Which is, of course, the outfit run by Jeff Kemp. Small world.
So here you have an alleged journalist who is still carrying water for an organization she left around a decade ago, working for an alleged newspaper that can’t or won’t do accurate reporting in its community even when national news organizations are reporting about a newsorthy event in Vancouver.
I know journalists get sick and tired of hearing the “bias” charge, but just because the right made a blood sport of it does not justify discarding basic notions of completeness and fairness. Passing things off as something they are not, as Hovde did, amounts to a calculated lie.
Ignoring or downplaying legitimate news stories, especially in a peculiar media market that receives mostly news about a state they can’t vote in (that would be Oregon, BTW,) is a severe violation of the public trust. I talked to more than one dedicated Columbian reader who knew nothing of the AU lawsuit. We can't have political discourse if things are deliberately hidden from the public.
What’s wrong with The Columbian? Elizabeth Hovde, for starters. The editors, for another. It's sad that Vancouver doesn't even have a real newspaper.
UPDATE: David Postman of The Seattle Times, who has been following the newspaper donations in support of I-920, noted how The Columbian ran a pro-920 column written by Don Brunell, the president of the Asssociation of Washington Business. The column ran on Sept. 19, as Postman notes, the day after The Columbian made the $5,000 donation.
Brunell defended himself in Postman's comments by stating that his column appears every Tuesday in The Columbian. Guess we should start monitoring the business section, too... which reminds me. Where do they put the Labor Section? Does Rick Bender have a column in The Columbian?
