More self-flagellating babble from the Lazy C on the "journalism" is "vital" scam.

For whatever the reason, Greg Jayne forgot to step away from the bong before he broke his own arm patting himself on the back over the fact that he thinks newspapers/journalism is important.

There is a reason that Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” (Yes, he actually wrote this, according to Monticello.org — unlike most of the Internet quotes attributed to Jefferson).

As you might expect, given the incompetence and bias of the newspaper, a selective quote from Jefferson, a self-serving pap, if you will, is not terribly surprising.

What Jayne left out was the WHOLE quote, shown here, with the missing piece boldfaced:

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”
– Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787

I share, in exactitude, this Jeffersonian observation in boldface (above):  I STRONGLY believe that "...the basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right."

Many in government and obviously the media, do not share that view: the clown that deliberately butchered this quote, for example, works for an organization that has long since ceased engaging in any realistic form of journalism on issues of policy and government.  Most every effort is published through a filter of their bias and their agenda... to the extent that news is frequently inaccurate, slanted, biased and the product of at best, overt laziness and at worst, outright incompetence.

Those in government such as County Chair Marc Boldt, Senator Ann "Gas Tax" Rivers and democrat Rep. Jim "My political career will be over in a few months" Moeller who ignore the tenet of the people's opinion mattering... are chronic examples of those who ignore that right whenever they chose to sell us out for their own personal reasons.

Left out from Jayne's self-flagellating screed was this quote, also from Jefferson, written somewhat later in his life:

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”[2]

Those giving themselves a BJ for working at a newspaper by using Jefferson as some sort of source about their self-proclaimed semi-divinity ALWAYS leave out the entire quote because of their laziness and because it interferes with their meme... and they NEVER include later Jefferson quotes where he assigns value to the sordid efforts of rags like the democratian.

To the extent there is a need for journalism, I heartily agree as long as it is the right KIND of journalism, as submitted by a commenter under Jayne's lazy, underhanded nonsense, then in fact it is necessary:

John Burke  Vancouver, Washington

·You can believe this...

The MSM are truth-tellers,
Yes we know,
Because Greg Jayne tells us so.

Or you can dig a little deeper...

Yes, the media _can_ be truth-tellers, but only if they:

* obtain _all_ sides of a story,
* understand _all_ sides of the story, and then,
* _accurately_ convey _all_ sides of a story to their readers.

But the MSM typically, and massively, fails at all three tasks.

Yes, diminished resources is part of the problem: obtaining, understanding and then accurately conveying _all_ sides of a story takes more time, and $$, then just parring down what-passes-for "news" to what fits a given publication's editorial pre-conception.

But the bigger problem is arrogance -- the conceit that you are a true-teller because you want to believe you're a truth-teller.

The MSM's diminished resources are a recent phenomenon. Their arrogance has been the long-standing and pervasive problem. People don't like being manipulated. When the manipulation is passed off as "truth-telling" they like it even less. It makes them stop listening/viewing/reading the MSM, and to seek out alternative news sources that they regard as less manipulative.

Such is the problem of the MSM in general, and the _Columbian_ in particular: They have alienated non-progressives by selective, undiscerning, and twisted so-called "news" coverage. This causes them to lose that non-progressive audience, which diminishes their resources.

The MSM _could_ do what any other business does when they lose "market share" -- improve their product so as to recapture the lost audience. But their arrogance prevents them from doing that. If you believe you're a truth-teller, then no one can tell you any different, right?

Therefore, the MSM -- and, locally, The Big C -- seeks to double-down on their bias, in order to hold the loyalty of (what used to be a portion of their readership, but which has become the predominant portion of their readership that are) progressives.

And then they label themselves as "truth-tellers", and they call it good.

Recently, I was the basis for a Columbian story concerning Sen. Ann "Gas Tax" Rivers' PDC fraud where she over-reported her campaign donations by $175,000 for over a year.

The final version of the story is the version that resulted from my efforts to correct it.

The story was written, you see, without interviewing me.  I didn't even know it was going up until it was up.

But the end result is different than the beginning effort in a couple of crucial areas that made the entire basis for the story change.

Initially, the story indicated that I had filed a complaint BECAUSE the number was dropped by $175,000.

The truth is that my complaint is the reason the number dropped.  The Columbian got it backwards,  instead writing “Big drop in amount of money listed prompts conservative blogger to raise questions.”

I had contacted the PDC over 6 months before the number was cut... 

That was followed by this line:

Rivers filed a handful of amended reports last week that ratcheted back the campaign contribution amount after Kelly Hinton, the blogger, filed a complaint.

Wrong again: Rivers' amended complaints did nothing to change the number: the number was actually changed by the PDC unilaterally since they were sick of waiting for Rivers to do anything about it.

I provided an actual copy of Rivers' last amended PDC form that clearly showed she was STILL claiming $255,000 raised when the reality is she hadn't raised $80,000.

The reality here is that Rivers COULD have fixed all of this by either contacting the PDC to ask for their help about the overage when it happened, or by filing an amended C4 accounting for all of the overage and reducing the offending number herself.
She did neither.

But no one reading that story will ever know that.  Because the reporter didn't put it in there.

Initially, the story made Rivers look like she had acted to resolve the issue herself... by "ratcheting back the campaign contribution amount."

She did no such thing.

I use that story because it was recent, showed the bias the Columbian is known for, and because it perfectly illustrates a lack of the 3 main points Burke made above:

* obtain _all_ sides of a story,
* understand _all_ sides of the story, and then,
* _accurately_ convey _all_ sides of a story to their readers.

Nobody bothered to obtain MY side by asking me.  all it would have taken was a simple email.

Clearly, the reporter had no feel for PDCs, showing a lack of understanding of the system, and she failed to accurately convey all sides of the story to her readers.

So, was what took place with the Rivers' story "journalism?"

Did the people reading it understand Rivers' deliberate fraud?  Did the reporter reinforce the idea that Rivers knew the number was wrong FOR A YEAR?

Nope.

When you consider the inaccuracy... which wasn't explained, but simply removed from the story without explanation... how "vital" was this effort from the Columbian?

You decide.  And this story is a PERFECT illustration by John Burke of what he meant when he called out the newspaper here:

Such is the problem of the MSM in general, and the _Columbian_ in particular: They have alienated non-progressives by selective, undiscerning, and twisted so-called "news" coverage. This causes them to lose that non-progressive audience, which diminishes their resources.

The MSM _could_ do what any other business does when they lose "market share" -- improve their product so as to recapture the lost audience. But their arrogance prevents them from doing that. If you believe you're a truth-teller, then no one can tell you any different, right?

Therefore, the MSM -- and, locally, The Big C -- seeks to double-down on their bias, in order to hold the loyalty of (what used to be a portion of their readership, but which has become the predominant portion of their readership that are) progressives.