Charter Fuel

Ugh. I wasn't aware of the union-busting angle. Why doesn't the Legislature fix it?

"At some point, Jeff’s wife had heard about [it and] they decided to just check it out, but they never seriously considered sending their son there."

Matt, I'm a proud graduate of Oregon public schools. You must think we're pretty dumb...

Ask any teacher at a Portland charter school how welcome they are in the teacher's union. Ask PPS why they retain 20% of the funding provided to charters instead of allowing charters to pay it to their teachers. Trust me, charters WANT to pay there teachers as much as they can.

This is just another example of Beth Slovic's one-sided agenda against charter schools. Honestly, it's becoming a little lather, rinse, repeat, Beth. I'd love to see you interview some charter school teachers or administrators. Where is there representation, here?

And seriously Ruth Adkins, how many kids in PPS attend Charters? PPS has shot itself in the foot with school closures and open transfers, stop using Charters as a red herring.

Is it there or their?

Do charter schools teach that?

No surprises here. Labor union's despise competition. Why...might you ask....? OEA is obviously okay with the 40% dropout rates of African Americans in this state. Shame....shame....shame.

Show me one monopoly that has ever benefited the customer! Keep in mind...the other established players in K-12 don't like competition either (OSBA, ODE, COSA, OSEA, the Democratic Party)....

This is the WW's third attempt now to Swift Boat Jeff Merkley -- and it's getting tiresome.

First they interviewed dozens of tenants of buildings Merkley owns to find one or two disgruntled whiners -- unhappy that the rental management company hired by the busy Merkley didn't fix everything immediately to their satisfaction -- and tried to paint Merkley as some uncaring slum lord. Of course, he's been a great advocate for affordable housing in Oregon, and used to lead Habitat for Humanity. Swift Boat #1.

Then WW and Nigel Jacquiss opined that Merkley was awol on mortage reform, and misrepresented Gordon Smith's efforts on the behalf of the private mortgage insurance industry. Merkley has been a strong advocate of helping working class folks get into a house without getting screwed -- he helped create IDAs in Portland. He just passed a mortgage reform bill in Salem by going across the aisle, in the face of heated lobbying by the mortgage industry, and getting three Republican votes. Merkley's been one of the strongest advocates for consumer protection in Salem, taking on the payday lenders last session. Jacquiss tried to paint Gordon Smith as the saint, when in fact Smith's legislation to make private mortgage insurance tax deductible arose at the behest of the insurers themselves, who were losing market share and profits following the increase in 80-20 or 80-10-10 combo loans (any possibility that Gordon Smith's former chief of staff from 1996 to 2002, Kurt Pfotenhauer, who then spent six years as a senior vice president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, influenced that policy?). Swift Boat #2.

And now Rob Kremer and charter schools, and digging into the most personal and difficult decisions parents have to make. Every child is an unique individual, and parents struggle to make the right decision, and place that child in an educational environment that matches their needs. That appears to be all Merkley did. Is Beth Slovic familiar with the unique personality and educational needs of Merkley's own kid? Why do we need to go there? At the same time, without question, Merkley has compiled a stellar record of support for public schools in Oregon.

Take a look at Merkley's personal story (you can find a surprisingly good profile of Merkley in the Portland Tribune, a week ago Tuesday -- funny, a fair profile of Merkley in a paper owned by Robert Pamplin, while WW keeps slamming Merkley...to find out something about Merkley -- which you won't find out in WW -- go to the link www.portlandtribune.com/news/story....). You can dismiss his personal bio if your jaded and cynical -- but how about a reality check. He came from a working class family in southern Oregon, then attended David Douglas High in Portland when his family moved here (after work dried up in southern Oregon). His father didn't go to college. Merkley is where he is because of the educational opportunities afforded to him -- and it appears, thankfully, that he hasn't forgotten that, and does all he can to make those same opportunities available to any child in Oregon. Swift Boat #3.

Didn't this same paper give Steve Novick a full-on cover feature, with pages and pages inside in Novick's own words -- a free platform to announce his candidacy? I think it's guarenteed that WW will endorse Novick in the May primary -- they haven't written one word of criticism of Novick, or delved into his personal life.

Perhaps WW should make the same offer to Merkley they gave to Novick, and let Merkley have a cover feature with photos, and several pages inside to lay out who he is and why he's running against Gordon Smith. Instead of this sophomoric, sloppy journalism, we'd at least get a fair shot of hearing what Merkley is all about. How about it Mark Zusman? Have you got the guts? I'd like an answer right here, please.

Readers of WW: if you want a fair hearing for both candidates for U.S. Senate in the Democratic May primary, let the editor of WW know.

Somewhere back in DC, riding around in his collection of Ferraris, in his French designer suits, with his million dollar golf clubs, and his $4.4 million in campaign cash in the bank, Gordon Smith must be laughing his head off at Portland's "progressive" newspaper.

Bad Kari. BAD KARI! No more "anonymous" for you!

Vicky...who the hell is Kari? Obviously, I'm not Kari. And I don't care who you are; I'd like to hear some reasoned argument or response.

When I posted comments on the initial WWire version of this story, Ms. Slovic suggested I was engaged in some "sockpuppetry."

Why can't you all respond to the message instead of falling back on attacking the messenger?

For the record, the only sockpuppetry I care for is Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Let's remember Triumph's approach to Karl Rove at a post-debate spinzone event: "That's Karl Rove! That's Bush's brain!....I expected a much smaller man." Or his quip to an attractive blonde-haired flack, repeating by rote the same talking point over and over: "Have a safe trip back to Stepford."

Ah, if only Triumph were here now, he'd say: "Willamette Week is a great newspaper....for me to poop on!"

I've asked for two days for a defense of WW's bias against Merkley. None has been offered. Slovic didn't have one; she went with the sockpuppetry line. Can't deal with the message, go after the messenger. Seems analogous to the pseudo-journalism WW is pursuing here: they can't produce fair, thorough journalism examining Merkley's overall record and positions, so they engage in trivial pursuit of his personal life.

Since last summer, when Merkley joined the race, have readers of WW learned anything of consequence about Merkley's record and positions on the real issues facing us? The war in Iraq? The squeeze working folks are in as the economy slows (that was the Federal Reserve Chairman today on tv saying that some banks may fail)? How to provide health care to the 1 in 6 -- including countless children -- who don't have it? (If WW has done so, and I've missed the coverage, by all means enlighten me. I've also not seen a single item criticizing Novick in any way in WW -- if anyone can show me something WW has published slamming Novick comparable to their blasts at Merkley, I'd really like to see it.)

Those are the issues front and center for voters in the presidential primaries. Yet here at WW, we haven't learned a thing about a major candidate's views on those issues.

Ask yourself this, all WW staffers and WW readers: if a panel of experienced journalists and journalism professors held a seminar to examine WW's coverage of the U.S. Senate race so far, would WW pass the smell test?

I think WW's bias in this race has been painfully transparent, and after three blasts against Merkley, I'm invoking the "three strikes and you're out" rule.

And, just curious...Rob Kremer has his own blog, in which he notes that he told Nigel Jacquiss of WW several months ago about Merkley's application to a charter school. Why didn't Jacquiss or WW report that story on WWire several months ago? Why did it come out now, a couple weeks before the OEA will endorse a Senate candidate? What's WW's agenda here?

Mr. Zusman: let me know when you've finished writing your endorsement for Novick. I'll be happy to comment.

And here's a wager: if you endorse Merkley (which will never happen), I'll run butt-naked through the park blocks shouting "Gordon Smith's a slimy toad!"

Bring your videocameras....

I want my country back,

First let me say I am a Republican so I really don't care about Jeff or Nick, but if I did the WW is the last place I would look for fair reporting.

I love the WW and read it weekly but I don't read it to be educated I read it for entertainment. WW is not a "NEWS SOURCE" it is just a fun way to kill some time.

Nobody at WW thinks their paper is a real news organization so you should not either. It is just for FUN.

I think you are worried about Jeff not being fairly reported on for nothing. Anybody with a brain does not live or die by what the WW prints.

The Pulitzer committee disagrees with you, jes, as do I. We take our work very seriously at WW.

With Gore winning a "peace prize" you argument holds very little water. Awards are awards....Papa Murphy's was voted best pizza chain in the country, and guess what, their pizza is not that great.

Look the fact of the matter is WW is a lot closer to The Enquirer than it is to Newsweek.

I am not saying that your paper is trash but it is very opinionated....and that is okay....It is what makes the WW what it is. It is the same reason that the WW is not a real news source. It is closer to being a giant editorial page that only lets one side in. Other wise give me the facts and only the facts and leave the personal commentary out of the stories. I will make up my mind on the subjects all on my own.

And again I love reading your paper.

Aah, the grammar comment. Last refuge when you know the commenter is correct, no? It's okay comment #5, it's not your fault you have nothing better to stand on than attacking a simple grammatical error that many people inadvertently make.

Merkley also had a chance to STOP Child Molester Teachers this month, he did NOT! Smith would.

Merkley had a chance to STOP identity theft by requiring Employers to check that S.S.# of their Employees, he did NOT! Smith would.

Merkley has interest in putting his Child in a Charter School, only one reason why, He must think it would be a better School for his Child.

Smith supports YOU, the Taxpayer, having a CHOICE, as you should with YOUR money.

Is the country you want back the U.S.—founded upon principles that included a free and independent press—or the old Soviet Union, where the press existed to parrot the propaganda of the ruling party?

Let's look at the three stories you characterize as "Swift Boating" Speaker Merkley.

1. WW reported Merkley owns a lot of rental property and tried to determine whether he's a good landlord.

Given that nobody had previously reported that the mill worker's son is now a reasonably substantial property owner, Merkley's holdings are news. A logical question to ask is how he treats his tenants.

(And you've mentioned Smith's "collection of Ferraris, in his French designer suits, with his million dollar golf clubs,"—shouldn't an examination of Merkley's assets also be fair game?)

2. WW reported that prior to the legislative session, leading Democratic pols, including the Speaker, had not expressed much interest in implementing new protections for borrowers.

Speaker Merkley does indeed have a strong record on poverty and consumer protection issues (including payday lending) which is why I found his pre-session reticence on the issue puzzling. He did take up the issue of borrower protections when Westlund's bill stalled in the Senate (as I acknowledged in a story this week) but contrary to your claim, he did not "pass a bill" in the sense many people would recognize. That's because after getting through the House, his bill died in the Senate. And as he acknowledges, borrowers are no better off today than they were before the session, despite his admirable effort.

3. WW reported that Merkley and his wife explored putting a child in a charter school.

One question worth asking about any politician is whether his actions are consistent with his votes and publicly expresssed positions. Unlike Novick, Merkley has served in the legislature, so he has a voting record against which to measure his actions.

Finally, regarding your concern that WW gave Novick a cover, let me refresh your memory. At the time we did so—last January—no candidate of substance had stepped forward to challenge Gordon Smith. Not Blumenauer, not DeFazio not Kitzhaber and not Merkley, who was just beginning the 2007 session.

Novick was not a candidate then but had produced a prodigious amount of research into Smith's record in the hope of convincing one of Oregon's leading Democrats to challenge Smith. Again, none of them wanted to do so. We provided Novick a forum to help stimulate a conversation. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think citizens are having that conversation.

Good lord, Nigel, I'm a commie! Forty-eight hours of dissent, and I'm already being labeled a red. Sorry mom, if you're up there.

Is this how you respond to anyone who criticizes your paper?

They say patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Go ahead and wrap yourself in the red white and blue and dial up the rhetoric. I ain't buying.

Let's start with your Novick cover story. I liked it. Novick did a fine job. Someone needed to make the case for removing Gordon Smith from office. I want him removed. He's voted for Bush's agenda 90% of the time, and it should be apparent to you, Nigel, from my other posts, that the last thing I want in this land of freedom is a press parroting the propaganda of the ruling party, which happens to be a bunch of incompetent neoconservative ideologues and their corporate cronies.

So kudos for providing Novick a forum to help stimulate a conversation. Now, the tough question: what's become of that conversation?

Are we talking about Gordon Smith's record -- his actions in the Klamath Basin that led to the largest fish kill in the Western U.S. in history -- or are we talking about a couple of disgruntled tenants in buildings Merkley owns? Which is more important, Nigel, to talk about?

Are we talking about how the national debt has doubled again under Bush, as Smith has voted for his oil war and his tax cuts, depleting the Social Security Trust Fund, forcing significant cuts in social programs -- or are we talking about Mr. Merkley's kid?

What happened to the conversation, Nigel?

I don't use the term Swift Boating lightly. It's a technique to undermine the strongest merits of the targeted candidate, create doubt in voters minds, and throw that candidate off message into a defensive position.

One of Merkley's merits: he appears to be a strong advocate for affordable housing, and helping working class families get into their first home, without getting screwed. Did WW go out and interview dozens of people familiar with Merkley's leadership at Habitat for Humanity? What do they say about him? Or is that not a story?

Instead you scoured dozens of tenants to find one or two to gripe about the rental management company providing maintenance for Merkley's properties. Whooptidoo...a little sound and fury about nothing, in my book. A non-story. I should think even Novick finds such reporting a bit embarrassing.

On the second story -- mortgage reform -- I'll give you credit for acknowledging now what wasn't to be found in your initial story: Merkley has a strong record on poverty and consumer protection issues, and his efforts in Salem this last month were "admirable" -- it's a shame a few Senators, Democrats too, didn't bring their spines with them to Salem. So thanks for coming round.

Your initial article painted Merkley as awol, and made a trite effort to say look at all these Democrats, supposedly on the side of working folks, ignoring the crisis in the mortgage industry, while good old Gordon Smith is helping them out. It's a clever way to tweak noses. But your info on Merkley was weak and incomplete, and your portrait of Smith was just plain misleading.

You guys have a fact checker down there at WW, right? When you claim Smith's legislation is helping "millions" of homeowners, does that claim get checked? He helped the private mortgage insurance business: applications for PMI dropped by half earlier this decade (and so did their profits). Smith did their bidding, and his legislation was aimed at increasing their market share. Explain how he helped "millions" of homeowners as you claimed.

You made Merkley out to be awol, and Smith out to be the good guy; I'm not sure Karl Rove could have planted a better story.

And now this wonderful conversation we the citizenry have been invited to partake in by a free and noble press concerning -- Merkley's kid. Here's a guy with an outstanding record on education -- hell, if it hadn't been for Merkley's leadership over several sessions, helping the Democrats retake the House, education would still be an underfunded after-thought in the hands of Karen Minnis. So let's undermine Merkley's standing with the teachers. Brilliant.

From Rob Kremer's blog, it sounds like he calls you regularly, Nigel. And that he told you months ago about this charter school application. What makes news "news" at WW? WW didn't write this one up until Monday -- and the reason seems transparent (here comes that OEA endorsement!). Why did you sit on it till now? Is this really the conversation you hoped to stimulate by providing Novick a forum last January?

I don't expect to see any investigative reports into Novick's personal life in WW (and I really really don't want to see any such reports -- I mean that). I also don't expect to see any criticism of Novick to appear in WW, based on your track record so far. (No answer to that challenge, Nigel...has there been any criticism of Novick in your paper?) I do think it's a foregone conclusion that Novick's got your endorsement sewn up.

It would be nice, as I've pointed out before, if you -- the principled and free press -- could get around to informing the public where these two candidates are on the issues that matter -- spare us the grumpy tenants and inquiries into candidate's children. Alas, I'm not holding my breath.

And spare me the sanctimonious commie stuff. I don't think you're part of the right wing Republican propaganda machine...only misguided.

You have written that WW has "Swift Boat"-ed Jeff Merkley and that we are biased against him.

I would respond by asking you to judge our campaign coverage in the next 2 1-2 months and judge it in its entirety after the primary. But you're obviously free to comment as many times as you want between now and then.

And I would also ask you at least to consider this: Beth, Nigel and all our reporters write under their actual names. This enables readers to scour their body of work, as you have done, to judge for themselves whether reporters and editors are biased.

On the other hand, we get anonymous criticisms all the time - on the phone, in emails and in this comments section. That's fine - we're big boys and girls here - and the vast majority of the criticism, anonymous or signed, does make us think about ways to improve. But in the instance of your anonymous criticism, I do think it would help readers to know your name so they too could judge the source and learn if it's somebody who works for the candidate or the OEA, or is just somebody who's very interested in this race.

To be clear, the challenge is not to describe yourself, but to put your name behind the very specific charges you have made against us. The challenge is not designed to "attack the messenger" but is designed to let readers decide for themselves how much independence you bring to this issue.

Sincerely,

Hank Stern

Managing news editor

Willamette Week

"One question worth asking about any politician is whether his actions are consistent with his votes and publicly expressed positions."

Hear, hear! When Jeff Merkley votes to ban robo-calls and yet starts his campaign off with such, he's not being consistent. When he attacks the Iraq war* and yet votes to recognize the "courage of George W. Bush," he's being inconsistent.

It's apparent that Merkley and his surrogates are frustrated that his Hillaryesque coronation didn't go off as planned. But if it's positive free press that he's after, there's been plenty of it on BlueOregon.com, courtesy of the campaign's media staffer (not to mention the echo chamber of blogger.bots he has assembled).

*We are forced to take the Speaker at his word that he "attacked" the war. He has referenced on multiple occasions a column that he wrote maintaining that "using military force is a terrible way" to deal with Iraq, but this article doesn't appear to be available to the public.

Let's see, Hank. One of your reporters called me a sockpuppet. The next one suggested I'm partial to Soviet era communism. And now you want to know my name. Forgive me, but I had to take a shower -- a long shower. I at least gave it some consideration, as you asked; I also considered sharing some references to textbooks on suppressing dissent, but let's get back to the issue.

Why not explain why your paper sat on a pseudo news story about one candidate's kid for months, running it when it was most likely to damage that candidate, and benefit the candidate your paper will be endorsing?

I'm a native Oregonian, with a memory. Willamette Week got a lot of mileage out of chastising the Big O back when they sat on the Packwood story in the 1992 Senate race (yeah, remember the parody of the Oregonian's ad campaign: "if it matters to Oregonians, it's in the Washington Post). WW couldn't get enough of tweaking the Big O's nose over that one. Just a shame these days to see WW pulling the same crap.

Tell me, based on your own reporter's account above about the mortgage reform story...what were the "facts" your reporter gathered? He talked to the speaker before the session, and the speaker was "reticent" to talk about or take on mortgage reform. That's about it, right? Maybe the speaker was realistic about what could be done with a 31-29 majority, or maybe he doesn't like divulging to reporters every detail of his agenda for an upcoming session -- whatever the case, he was "reticent."

So how did Merkley's "reticence" -- in your own reporters words -- wind up in the published article as the grandiose assertion: "Merkley has been AWOL on mortgage reform." What facts did you see, as an editor, to go with that line?

If that copy crossed the desk of an editor at the Washington Post or the LA Times, it'd wind up right back on the reporter's desk. Unfortunately, the journalistic standards at WW aren't quite up to par, and the line between "reporting" and "editorializing" has been blurred.

I've heard nothing yet on this series of articles criticizing Merkley to change my mind -- there's a bias at WW against the rival of a candidate WW favors.

I'll give you the next two and a half months to show me something else. I'd appreciate seeing something relevant to the issues facing the country about each candidate -- where the conversation should be.

And, FYI, whichever one comes out of the primary, I'll be supporting him to replace Gordon Smith.

Thanks for "responding."

Cheers,

Hank

Heckuva job, Brownie!

I want my country back, and I want it now...

...And I feel so strongly about it that I hide behind a pseudonym.

You're no John Hancock. In fact, I bet you have a real name we all recognize.