Re: Digest for wmtminvestigate@googlegroups.com - 1 Message in 1 Topic

[Miriam Widman]

I think I can make this.
Miriam

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From: "wmtminvesti...@googlegroups.com" <wmtminvesti...@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: "wmtminv...@googlegroups.com" <wmtminv...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:06:00 +0000
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Subject: Digest for wmtminv...@googlegroups.com - 1 Message in 1 Topic

 Today's Topic Summary
Group: http://groups.google.com/group/wmtminvestigate/topics

• March 1 meeting with other group / next steps <#group_thread_0>  [1 Update]
  

  
Topic: March 1 meeting with other group / next steps <http://groups.google.com/group/wmtminvestigate/t/f7e47d978c3734d5>
 

EHarris <eha...@opb.org> Feb 16 10:51PM -0800 ^ <#digest_top>
 
  
 Hello everybody!
 
You've all now seen (I hope!) details about the meeting Tony and I had
with the other group. Next steps:
 
Who would be interested in meeting with them? Their next meeting is
Monday, March 1 at Joe Smith’s house, 2211 NE 21st, at 7 p.m.
 
I will be going and can help with rides from downtown potentially. Can
anyone else? (I wouldn't actually be starting in downtown, but could
go thru there if need be.)
 
Can you let me know now if you think you'll be coming and would like
to continue to work on creating this organization? No commitment, just
a nose count.
 
Please find below their agenda and general comments from Ron Buel, as
well as his replies to some questions we asked about their group's
focus. And uploaded - click on files, I think - please find their
current mission statement, which will be discussed, probably amended,
and they hope, approved at the March 1 meeting. At the one meeting
Tony and I went to, we talked about incorporating some language from
our draft (thanks again Tony and Bill!!)
 
From Ron:
Our agenda will include a) revised research findings & report b)
amendments to values and mission statement  c) Report of board
selection and recruitment committee  d) business plan committee
report  e) creation of a new group coming out of our biz plan effort
to create a site mock-up with examples of our multi-media dexterity
for fund-raising purposes.   We could give you, and others in your
group, some time on this crowded agenda to ask the questions below of
the whole group, if your members feel a need to do that.  I know that
members of our group very much want you to join us.  Attendance at a
single meeting would not, of course, obligate anyone to join us who
doesn’t like what we’re up to.
 
If your members want to get up to speed, they can access our research
at (http://sites.google.com/site/wmtmnonprofit/home/research-papers).
 
Below, I offer my own personal comments on your three questions.  It
is, of course, not me, but the group by vote who will decide what our
recommendation is on these things to the new governing board of
directors we hope to create.
 
 
 1. Scope: the geographic focus of news coverage and audience should
be at least statewide, not limited to the metropolitan area
 
This is clearly an area where I am not totally in sync with our
group.  I am willing to yield to the group’s feeling, and I know that
several feel as your group does anyway, that we should say we want to
be about Oregon and not just Metro Portland.   I don’t see the new non-
profit doing superficial stuff with bureaus or stringers in Corvallis,
Eugene, Albany, Bend, Klamath Falls, Medford, Coos Bay, Pendleton or
Astoria.   Having edited a publication that I also started, I have a
sense that you can easily try to be too broad and lose a sense of
place, and with it the understanding you have about the community in
which you live and work, and that your journalism will then be thin
and flat instead of rich and deep.  Let’s say we are successful in
raising $1.2 million in each of the first two years on a blue sky
basis, which would be a remarkable achievement.  A staff of 15 then
might include ten journalists paid living wage – two editors and eight
reporters, say, a big freelance budget and an intern program.  There
might be an additional technical and design manger with part of the
freelance budget, plus an Executive Director, a Development Director,
an Ad Sales Manager and  an administrative assistant.  This is not
nearly enough reporters to provide “news coverage” for the fragmented
and diverse Metro Portland area on a daily basis and also do
investigative reporting, let alone think about “coverage” (Jim’s word)
of the whole darn State.  Yet I recognize that, if your main focus was
Metro Portland, and you were going where the news takes you – you
would be going to Salem and Washington D.C. and the universities in
Corvallis and Eugene, and the timber and agricultural economy, which
is not much in Metro Portland, and the environmental problems of the
Columbia Gorge, Mt. Hood, the Rogue, the Metolious and the Oregon
Coast which are only nearby.
 I also recognize that there may be fund-raising advantages in saying
we are about Oregon, and not just about Metro Portland, but this could
easily take a new organization in the wrong direction if it doesn’t
clearly understand the implications of what it is saying.   I have
been looking at a lot of these web sites and their work – The Voice of
San Diego is, far and away, my favorite.  I find “mission creep” in
the efforts of Crosscut to simultaneously be about Seattle and “places
nearby” such as Montana, British Columbia, Idaho and Oregon.   “Stick
to your knitting” is a phrase from In Search of Excellence that I
believe carries great import for us.
 
 2. Technology: they believe there is not in our group an
understanding of and appreciation for the importance of web
technologies and the importance of producing a dynamic web product.
Staffing of this effort should be part of the newsroom and sufficient
to present news in a visually interesting and communicative way (more
resources).
 
From our business plan meeting last night, we agree this needs to be
part of our business plan and budget.  It may be done with one full-
time technical and design manager and a series of freelance or
contract designers and programmers, rather than a group of full-time
employees.   We are planning a mock-up that will show our
versatility.  Our group is committed to multi-media, following the arc
of technology, and vivacious design.
 
 3. Political agenda: There is concern that our group is driven by a
liberal urban political agenda, reflected by histories of people in
our group and by the potential funding sources discussed (same old
liberal donors). Safeguards would have to be built in.
 
This is a red herring.  We have universal agreement in our group on
seeking truth, not power, AND on being totally non-partisan AND on
meeting our obligations as a tax-exempt 501-c-3 to serve the public
interest AND on building appropriate firewalls between the news and
reporting product and the business/advertising side, the board, and
the contributors and members.  No one in our group wants to be the arm
of any corporation, or public employee union, or progressive do-gooder
organization.   We believe in traditional journalism ethics and will
seek trust and credibility for what the new non-profit does.  We would
expect reporters and freelancers to be open-minded and willing to
challenge even their deeply held beliefs.  We may have an opinion
section, but I don’t think anyone expects us to endorse candidates or
have a traditional editorial page where the editors state their
views.   We do not contemplate magazine writing in which the writer
marshals facts to support a point of view.  We loathe Fox News and Air
America.
 
I am proud of having a personal political agenda, and having a history
of political activism over the last 40 years in Portland and Oregon.
And, while I hope to be a board member of the new organization, I will
consistently try to keep all politics out of this new organization and
its journalism.
 
Thanks and Regards,  Ron