As the implications of Tuesday’s election slowly become more clear, I thought I would revisit the paper’s political coverage.
We received a letter (“Democratic rally story misrepresents facts,” ODE, Nov. 6) upset with our coverage of the Halloween rally featuring former President Bill Clinton. We struggled to cover this event fairly, but it was all Democrats, and where’s the balance in that?
The author’s first point was that our headline, “Scaring up votes,” (ODE, Nov. 1) could be interpreted negatively to mean that Clinton was using “scare tactics.” We did consider that. We chose to run the headline because the spread also featured Republican gubernatorial candidate Kevin Mannix, so we felt any inference would be nonpartisan.
Also, the common meaning of “scare up” — to produce quickly or with considerable effort — is exactly what politicians do in a campaign’s last days. And it was fun because the two stump events happened on Halloween.
I think the headline was a fine line to walk, as is all election coverage, but the boisterous political discussions in the office testify that no ideology was overrunning another in our news coverage.
Of more concern to me was the author’s implication that Jan Montry, our political reporter who covered the event, was purposely skewing the facts when he wrote, “unlike Kulongoski, Bradbury focused on personally attacking his opponent.” I saw Montry work to write the story fairly, and I spoke with him about it afterward. The story was his observation of the event, not a veiled political opinion.
Granted, observation is always open to interpretation, but what I heard from Secretary of State Bill Bradbury at the event was, indeed, much more personal in tone when contrasted to Governor-elect Ted Kulongoski’s speech. Perhaps Montry could have made that point with a bit more subtlety.
But I disagree with the letter writer’s opinion that Bradbury’s speech was “focused” on what he wanted to do for Oregonians. What I heard at Mac Court was constant repetition of the idea that the Republican candidates were not really moderates. That’s a fair message, if true, but it’s not focused on constructive ideas.
Finally, the Emerald does not decide who to send on an assignment based on political affiliation. Journalists should be able to cover any event fairly, and that’s one of the reasons there are multiple editors above a reporter: to be a check on balance and accuracy.
I think we did have fair election coverage, but I’d like to hear more from people who don’t agree. Given our time and space constraints, it was difficult to decide what races and issues to cover. We did make sure to give opponents in different races equal space and positioning. We also had every county in the state fax or e-mail their election results so we could crunch our own numbers.
I just wish there had been space to cover more issues in more detail. But I still fear that too much election stuff — like in this column — may make readers turn the page.
Michael J. Kleckner is the editor in chief
of the Emerald. Send your concerns
about Emerald coverage or content
to [email protected].