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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Media City Hall Shakeup At The Oregonian

Posted by Scott Moore on Tue, Jul 17 at 1:40 PM

As part of a larger “reorganization” of Oregonian reporters, my colleagues/competitors over in the O’s city hall bureau have been reassigned.

Ryan Frank is heading to the business section to report on real estate and housing, and Anna Griffin will be doing more long-form pieces for the main news team. At first, I was scratching my head about why the paper would cycle Ryan and Anna—both top-notch reporters—out of city hall. But, now, it makes sense. Ryan’s best stories have been about housing issues, especially how city money is accounted for in developments, and Anna excels at long-form news stories.

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Replacing them in the city bureau (on the first floor of city hall) will be Jim Mayer, an Oregonian vet who’s covered city hall and state politics in the past, and Andy Dworkin, a medical and health reporter. The changes apparently start this week, with the whole transition lasting a few.

Not ever having worked at a major daily paper (knock on wood), I have no idea what it means when a newspaper shuffles its entire editorial staff. Is that typically a sign of evolution and taking calculated risks—or desperation and grasping at straws? Anybody have any insight?

Comments

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.

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