Journal of a Working Boy

I believe that a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch is a terrible way for a baseball game to end.

Monroe sophomore infielder Adam Opoien stepped into the batter's box in last Friday's state quarterfinal in the classic hero-making situation: Bases loaded, two outs, tie game, bottom of the last inning. The Dragons loaded the bases with no outs, but the next two hitters failed to produce the game-winning run, which had stood just 90 feet away for more than five minutes now.

Every young baseball player's dream was one swing of the bat away for Opoien. The Santiam Christian defense, behind a strong pitching performance, was one out away from avoiding the threat and retaking the game's momentum after already coming back from two down to tie the score heading into the seventh.

Pitch one: Strike one.

Monroe coach Bill Crowson was already thinking about what pitcher he would use during extra innings.

Pitch two: Beanball.

Opoien's dream came true – he drove in the game-winning run during the state quarterfinal game, earning his team a spot among the state's final four. But this could not have been how he had ever envisioned his time to shine. All ballplayers know the term “taking one for the team,” and most are more than willing to do so. But what kind of sick individual would dream of this inadvertent, career-defining accomplishment? Crowson said that the occurrence caught the team, as well as the home fans, by surprise for a moment. Of course it did.

A batter getting plunked is simply a disturbing way for a baseball game to end. It's certainly not the least likely or the most embarrassing (See: Bill Buckner, 1986 World Series photo) but this game's joyous post-game celebration almost certainly was accompanied by at least a degree of remorse. Most competitors don't take a lot of pride in winning by default. And what of those poor ballplayers on the other side? The collective stomach of the Santiam Christian team must have sunk so low after that 0-1 pitch bounced off Opoien. The defense then had to walk to its foul line and shake hands with the confusedly delirious Monroe team.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't have inched a little closer to the plate, knowing the stakes of Opoien's seventh-inning at bat, because I would have. I'm not saying that I would have tried, at all, to get out of the way of that pitch, because I wouldn't have. But I believe that the pain of that pitch's impact was must less than the pain of witnessing a baseball game end in such a heart-wrenching manner.

The University of Oregon J-School is one classy entity. Approximately 50 people gathered Friday for the presentation of the school's Payne Ethics Awards in the Knight Library Browsing Room, a semi-formal room with a fireplace and large map of Oregon in the background of the podium, which featured an official J-School banner.

The seventh annual Payne Award ceremony honored The Spokesman-Review (Spokane) for its ethical decision-making process during an investigative series on Mayor Jim West's possible involvement in illicit sexual behavior and possible abuses of power. The Spokesman-Review eventually hired a detective to stake out Internet chat rooms in order to positively identify West. Editor Steve Smith accepted the award on the paper's behalf. Smith explained his appreciation for the J-School's Payne Ethics Award because of the the heated debate surrounding the newspaper's actions.

The Payne Award for "Individual Journalist" went to New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald for his decision to assist the main source in a child-pornography story during and after his involvement with the story. Eichenwald and The Times assisted this individual, then 18, during rehabilitation and the eventual prosecution of participants in the porn ring that he had been involved with. Eichenwald discussed how the Internet is creating new challenges for journalism, many involving ethics, that the industry has never confronted.

But first, Eichenwald commented on the shiny, book-sized Payne Award which opens to reveal an engraved mirror. As he read the inscription, he mentioned that the award was figuratively "a very accurate representation of what we went through" during the reporting process.

The recipients, as well as family members of Ansel Payne and other guests, were honored by the ceremony. Enough so that Eichenwald flew to Eugene from Houston during his coverage of the Enron trial to accept the award.

The University of Oregon School of Journalism does things right - from the nationwide committee that selected this year's Payne Award winners largely because of their concerned involvement with contemporary journalism issues to the lustrous awards themselves.

It's definitely an honor for me to be part of the Oregon J-School, and I fully expect doors to come swinging open moments after I mention my affiliation with the university to the professional journalism world. If not, I'll be forced to call Dean Gleason and have him explain how professional and fancy we Ducks are.

I found David Shaw's column regarding journalistic protections to be slightly spiteful and Jack Shafer's response to be even more so.

Shaw argues that bloggers do not deserve the same constitutional protections as journalists because bloggers aren't trained in the complexities of valuing sources and verifying facts during reporting. While possibly a fair claim, Shaw leaves out the many bloggers who are conscious of these complexities and who absolutely need the same protection as journalists in order to maintain their information-seeking ways. Shafer derides Shaw's stance in a response dedicated to harshly discrediting the LA Times media critic. While I generally agree with Shafer, he and Shaw need to tone it down a notch before they sound any more like bickering responders to a controversial political blog.

When it comes down to it, bloggers deserve the same professional protections as any other publishing medium. Even if 99 percent of bloggers use their media for self-involved anecdotes or flat-out rumor spreading, there's one percent that can be considered journalistically credible. If the state doesn't recognize that with today's technology reporters don't need a publication to back them, then the very foundation of citizen journalism will be threatened. Who is to say what publication is credible enough to produce journalism?

I appreciated Philip Meyer's comparison to feudalism: Journalists work for a company which protects them from the courts. And just as society graduated from the feudalist state, the information gathering process has graduated from the formality of company association. Even if self-publishing bloggers demonstrate few of the basic journalistic skills, they are still performing the same basic task: gather and present.

As an industry, we don't have to respect bloggers as if they're credible journalists but we should protect them as such - just in case.

Whether or not a newspaper should allow its reporters to utilize blogs is a difficult question. On one hand, the almost casual interaction between reporter and audience is welcoming – it can help build a more personal relationship that will lead to greater trust. This can be a very good situation for both parties. More insight into the reporting practice will lead to a more understanding audience when mistakes are made. Reporters can back stories up with background information that couldn't fit into the news story. The reporter's extra work will be appreciated by the readership.

But there's a fine line that the reporter-blogger must walk. He or she must be careful not to use the blog as a soapbox if these personal feelings could possibly alienate readers. A political correspondent, unlike a columnist, should never give away party affiliations or candidacy support. A sports reporter or entertainment writer probably shouldn't do it either. Such issues are too personal and volatile these days for the audience to overlook inherent biases even if the reporter does his or her best to be impartial.

Reporters' blogs are extremely beneficial when the reporter is careful not to alienate the readership. Educating the public about reporting techniques and ethical dilemmas is one way to connect with readers but, more importantly, a blog can allow far better coverage than the daily newspaper could ever imagine. There's no deadline for a reporter to file a blog post in order for the readers to find all available information at once. There's no limit to the amount of additions the reporter can make, often directly connected to responses from readers. Readers can debate among themselves, with the reporter acting as the moderator and fact-checker.

In order for this interaction to peacefully occur, reporters, as blog writers, must censor themselves. There is no room for political bickering and judging in the newspaper blog world and it's up to the reporter to ensure a peaceful blogosphere for the newspaper's beloved, but often outspoken, audience.

Dear James Frey,

Thanks a lot for making me think that you are a hilarious, quick-thinking badass, strong enough to will your way through a most debilitating combination of addictions. Your book, "A Million Little Pieces," is a wonderful story. I enjoyed your honesty as you reflected upon your existence and took responsibility for your problems. I found your love story with Lilly to be thoughtful and sincere and your tendency to value friends' honesty and character to be noble and intelligent. I looked forward to the book every time I picked it up, despite the slight inaccuracies and fabrications that I believed had merely allowed the narrative to take its course. But when I read the The Smoking Gun's investigation, "A Million Little Lies," I pretty much became disgusted with you.

The story is so good that, for me, it would have worked as fiction. I guess when the publishers don't agree, then you have to make tough decisions regarding the manuscript. But I must say, Mr. James Frey, that it is rather despicable for you to have rehashed these tragic stories, some of which you had nothing at all to do with. Your police record is laughable, according to the investigation, and your ability to graduate from your expensive, private, liberal art college during the worst of your addictions is a most unsatisfying anecdote (I guess that's why we don't find it in the book).

The respect that I gained from your consciousness and brutal self-criticism is now an ill-tempered parasite, which constantly eats away at my heart. You disrespected grieving families, fabricated gruesome and depraving acts, and made yourself a hero to millions of individuals who suffer more from one addiction than you ever have with yours. You're a rich kid, a smart ass, a liar and a phony.

Have fun living in your million-dollar New York City condo you jerk.

When I left Scott Maier's "Power Journalism" class Thursday, I found myself slightly annoyed.

Steve Suo, a reporter for The Oregonian, visited good 'ol Power Journalism class at the University of Oregon Thursday and walked us through the information-gathering process of his award-winning series, "Unnecessary Epidemic," an investigative series that found that the U.S. government could alredy have stopped the epidemic that is quickly racing from west to east. The two-year research process led Steve from his office in Portland to meth "super labs" in California and to a total of 12 states searching for records of meth-related statistics. After the series was published, those two years became ongoing international travel. Steve now explains his findings and his techniques to journalists and law enforcement agencies around the world.

Steve's process of figuring out what the U.S. government probably should have already known sounded exciting and fresh. His comparisons of dips in meth treatment cases, posession arrests, potency and ID theft (which, in Oregon, is largely associated with meth use) showed that the entire meth market was susceptible to control - and that the government had already seriously affected the market twice, without knowing. Steve then found out what methods had worked on the large scale, and also offered solutions more specific to local and regional problems. Who wouldn't want to embark on a sociological, detective, statistical investigation like this?

My question is this: Why is it up to journalists to figure out how to stop meth use? Shouldn't there be a profession dedicated to following the thought process that Steve did and offering the world answers to such problems? The U.S. government's War on Drugs seems more like an episode of COPS than a concerned, pharmaceutical-questioning research organization.

Perhaps journalists posess a unique set of professional tools that allow us to investigate law, sociology, government, business and drugs all at once. We don't have a vested interest in any party we might find guilty and we are largely uncontrolled by the corporations that, at the end of journalistic investigations, are often found to be rediculously irresponsible.

But during a time when journalists are called out by the public for the most insignificant, honest mistakes, we are also taking on numbers of thankless, fruitless investigations that none of the "experts" have the drive to do.

Learning about Steve's experience was motivating on the journalistic level but it was also kind of frustrating, for me, when realizing that our government and even society's priorities are shaped more by beurocracy than by public need.

Here's a link to part one of the five-part series.

"Miami Township..." Benoit Denizet-Lewis said, and before he could finish the sentence with "Ohio," I was already shaking my head. Lewis was introducing a story he wrote titled "A Road Sign By Any Other Name..." in which he travels to the small Ohio town to visit residents of Gay Street. Growing up in Cincinnati, I used to go to the batting cages in Miami Township, which is located about twenty miles north of Cincinnati, near the Indiana border. I knew that something unsettling was about to be revealed.

Apparently the residents of Gay Street had petitioned to have the street name changed to "Green Apple Road," due to the "unpleasant repercussions" of the name Gay Street. Lewis read the story as it appeared in Out Magazine, much to the amusement of the audience, at the University of Oregon's Gerlinger Hall, which had gathered to hear Lewis' speech, "Hot Type: Writing about Sex and Sexuality in America."

Lewis was respectful of the Gay Street residents, many of whom were skittish when disussing the potential for living among homosexuals. Because Lewis didn't fit the part of the stereotypical gay man, the residents spoke frankly to Lewis about how unfriendly the neighborhood actually is to homosexuals. What struck me was that Lewis' writing never showed judgments of the people. He sometimes poked fun at the childishnes of worrying about gay jokes, but he generally portrayed the characters as small-town inhabitants with good intentions. I thought that Lewis showed a lot of class in overlooking their ignorance and telling an acurate story rather than an all-out mockery, which the situation might also have deserved.

Lewis' characters shared common perceptions of the world with many greater Cincinnati area residents. When I wrote for the Unversity of Cincinnati's student newspaper, I reviewed a book called "487 Indisputable Truths... for people who are not un-American weasels, hypersensitive PC types, or humorless bores," by Jack Klinger, a suburban Cincinnati man whose sexist, racist and homophobic judgments pervaded this disastrous work of literature. In my story (which you can read here), I ripped the book and the hypocrisy behind many of his statements. I felt emotionally involved in the story because I was so offended at the book's content. Having listened to Lewis read his own story, which dealt with issues sensitive to the reporter, I have learned a valuable lesson about reporting: It is not necessarily my job to attack the dominant culture's biases. It is my job to tell the stories that will allow readers to make that decision on their own.

Lewis was tactful and creative, drawing comparisons of the residents' "unpleasant repurcussions" of living on Gay Street to the repercussions of actually being gay. I'll definitely consider this lesson when I'm supposed to be reporting impartially. But as far as the book review goes, I think that, as a reviewer, I was justified in taking the liberty of editorializing. The worst stuff came out of his own mouth anyway.

Check out Lewis' work by clicking on these words.

Here's Klinger's website if you're interested.

During the summer of 2003, I moved from Cincinnati to San Francisco. You know how it is – junior year ends, you find yourself with no obligations and jump at the first opportunity to do something interesting. The three-month endeavor was largely a success. I worked at a giant downtown record store called The Virgin Megastore, met a number of lovely individuals from all over the world and found myself blogging about my adventures regularly.

But you see, being so far from home had a devastating impact on my social life. The natural progression from “acquaintance” to “friend” was far too slow for me to rely on my new San Franciscan roomates for the attention that I crave on a semi-daily basis. The Internet offered enough of the comforts of home – the sharing of daily reflections and the narratives of juvenile delinquent-ism – to keep me from feeling lonely or isolated.

For myself, blogging allowed me to document the exciting, if somewhat immature, proceedings of that rain-free summer. It also allowed my friends back home to relate to my experiences and whatever feelings I could articulate to them.

Since then, my blogging technique has changed a bit. Serious political discussions have been known to grace what one was a smart-alec documentation of youth. Today, the forum is still used for descriptions of humorous situations and stories of accidental failure (Everyone adores the lovable loser).

If you asked me whether or not I plan to continue blogging, I’d say, “Yea, I’m totally into it.”

Often, following the broadcast of a sporting event, a local radio station will produce a talk show that attempts to lure the game’s audience into a few more hours of airtime. The host will comment on the game, offering the audience a forum to comment on its concerns surrounding the team. Blogs are allowing the same thing to happen in print. Blogs have become printed talk radio – an open interaction between a host and his or her audience.

The Cincinnati Enquirer recently set up blogs for nearly every beat that the newspaper covers including sports, politics and entertainment. In the sports world, fans area all over it. The instant interaction between the newspaper’s respectable and credible reporter allows readers to find breaking news throughout the day. Sometimes the news is as mundane as the evening’s starting lineup, but you can bet that if the starting center fielder is on the bench, the audience will have an opinion on the matter. This interaction is good for the news organization not only because it sells advertisements on pages largely written by venom-spewing baseball fans, but for the instant gratification it allows the readership.

In addition, the beat writer, who normally exists as a faceless scribe, becomes a relatable character. Like a columnist’s relationship with his or her audience, the blogger becomes an individual who jokes with the audience and accepts criticism and teasing as well. The Enquirer’s blogs give the newspaper a constant presence rather than its drab existance as a morning publication previewing evening events from 18 hours beforehand.

People are reading newspapers’ blogs and the reporters seem to be enjoying the process. The Cincinnati Post’s C. Trent Rosecrans took the time after each University of Cincinnati basketball game he covered to “empty out the notebook,” releasing any interesting statistics or quotes that didn’t make it into his morning story. New readers continue to compliment him on his coverage.

For the daily newspaper, and perhaps even more so to the weekly, blogs have become a valuable tool for maintaining the audience’s attention and allowing the news organization to become a more personal part of its readership’s lives.

For more information, check out these Poynter Institute articles comparing journalists and bloggers.

What journalists can learn from bloggers:
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=75383

What bloggers can learn from journalists:
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=75665