Boycotting A News Council p.15

By: M.L. Stein

For the second time in five months, the Portland Oregonian
refuses to attend a Northwest News Council session at
which the newspaper's stories are found to be biased sp.

FOR THE SECOND time in five months, a Northwest News Council panel found bias in Portland Oregonian stories, and again the newspaper declined to appear at the hearing.
However, Oregonian executive editor Sandra Mims Rowe responded to the council with two letters that termed the latest complaint against the paper "ancient history" and said it appeared to be motivated by the complainant's political agenda rather than representing "any real complaint that the newspaper can address."
The basis of the complaint was a 1992 statewide anti-gay rights initiative, Measure 9, that was defeated at the polls.
The Oregon Citizens Alliance, which had sponsored the measure, charged the Oregonian with biased and unfair coverage of the election campaign.
OCA focused heavily on remarks made by Oregonian reporter Neena Baker at a National Gay & Lesbian Journalists Association conference in New York in September.
NNC executive director Oren Campbell said the council had received a transcript of Baker's convention remarks in which she allegedly said, "Polling a month before the (Measure 9) election showed there was a good chance the measure would pass but it didn't, and gay politicos say a major reason was the way our paper interpreted and analyzed the ballot measure and its sponsors.
"Gays and lesbians in the newsroom played an active role in coverage. But besides our own byline stories, gay and lesbian staffers suggested story ideas, pushed for cross-departmental meetings and did double duty in the consciousness-raising department.
"Some might say we walked a thin line between being journalists and being advocates, but I am comfortable with that because there is no other side to someone's basic civil rights, which is what was being voted on in Oregon."
OCA communications director Lor-etta Neet said Baker's comments went "far over the line."
The citizens group said it also found bias in Baker's story about the passage of an anti-gay rights initiative in Springfield, Ore., and an Oregonian article that purportedly linked the firebombing of a Salem, Ore., residence of a gay and lesbian to bigotry generated by OCA support of Measure 9. The two occupants died in the blaze, which led to the arrest of four suspects.
The vote by the three-member NNC panel was 2-1 against the Oregonian.
Campbell said the majority found that a "small amount" of the Oregonian's coverage of Measure 9 "showed signs of bias."
The panelists in the recent hearing were Cliff Rowe, a Pacific Lutheran University journalism professor; Frank Wetzel, a retired editor of the Bellevue, Wash., Journal American; and Betty Barrager, a Portland free-lance writer and former business owner, who was the public member.
Rowe and Barrager said they found several instances of what they deemed biased coverage in the 30 examples submitted by the OCA. The panel tossed out 18 of the offerings.
Wetzel said certain aspects of the Oregonian's coverage of the ballot measure were "flawed," but he did not label them as biased. The former newsman, who cast the dissenting vote, attributed problems with some clips to "herd instincts."
Barrager termed the Springfield vote story to be a "very inflammatory and biased article," saying it contained "nothing but innuendo."
She further said the firebombing story, which allegedly tied the act to hatred generated by the OCA, had "no apparent basis in fact."
The OCA was represented at the hearing at Portland State University by its director, Lon Mabon; finance director, Scott Lively; and Carol Patrone, assistant to the research director.
"We've gotten better and fairer articles from the gay press than from the Oregonian," Mabon told the panel. He objected to the newspaper's description of Measure 9 as anti-gay rather than anti-gay rights.
"We aren't against people," he declared.
In a Feb. 18 letter to Campbell, Mims Rowe said she could see "no useful purpose" in sending an Oregonian representative to the hearing.
"The Oregonian's coverage of Measure 9 is ancient history at this point," she continued.
"I see no point in getting involved in a verbal debate over work that was published long before I arrived in Portland."
The editor took issue with what seemed to her to be an OCA charge "that a personal opinion expressed by one of our 325 news staffers somehow adds up to a newsroom policy. I disagree. The test is whether the news organization goes about its business professionally and honestly. People are entitled to their opinions."
Mims Rowe further contended that much of the OCA's complaint relates to editorials and opinion columns, adding, "The ability to express opinions on issues of the day is at the very heart of a newspaper's role. We do not shrink from it nor do we apologize for it."
In a previous letter to Campbell, Mims Rowe announced that she had named Bob Caldwell to the newly created position of public editor, who will investigate and "impartially report on questions of fairness and/or accuracy arising from what we publish."
Mims Rowe said the OCA never filed a complaint with the Oregonian and said she wondered why it waited a year and a half after the election to bring its grievance to the NNC. She also noted that when the OCA held a news conference in December in front of the Oregonian building about its allegations against the paper, the paper covered the story at length.
The Oregonian story also quoted its publisher, Fred Stickel, as saying the OCA was trying to create a "tempest in a teapot."
In September, an NNC panel unanimously supported a complaint against the Oregonian by a Lake Oswego, Ore., woman, who objected to her letter to the editor being published in a column by the columnist her letter had criticized.
The news council, one of only three such bodies in the nation, was established in 1992 by two chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists to review citizen complaints against news media in Oregon and Washington state.