I'm in the know by any means but judging by the utter lack of meaningful content they produce, I suspect it the latter. Desperation and grasping at straws.

Good bad or otherwise, nearly all newspapers rotate beats. This is most noticeable, to me anyway, at the NY Times. I suspect there's a fine line between being on a beat so long that you know it better than anyone else and being on it so long you're jaded, playing favorites or have nothing new to say.

Hank Stern and Scott Learn were doing a fine job as the O's city hall reporters and they booted them for Anna and Ryan. Seems the O just likes to keep churning folks around.

I hope Anna Griffin will still keep writing for the In Portland section, even if not as the City Hall reporter. I've really enjoyed her work there.

It reminds me of how organiztions rotate outside auditors. By the time someone starts to understand an organization, you shuffle them out the door. It helps keep them from asking too many difficult questions, as they get to understand where the bodies are buried.

I'm sure glad that Hank Stern's at Willamette Week; maybe Ryan and Anna will go too? They would certainly have a force of inside knowledge greater than anyone else at the O.