Wednesday, October 22, 2008

We'll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there, murders of great men, murders of little men, just to show we make no distinction!

While we were enjoying the beauty of the Oregon coast the jackasses that call themselves the Editorial Board at the state's one and only news daily the Oregonian were embarrassing themselves again by endorsing Gordon Smith's re-election to the U.S. Senate for a third term.

I assume this goes to the Oregonian's continued warped sense of "balance" since they had endorsed Barack Obama the day before. Objectivity requires splitting the baby right down the middle. They have readers in the blue and the red part of the state after all. Except they really don't...

Like most states Oregon has concentrated population areas around big cities surrounded by larger tracts of rural, sparsely populated counties and towns. The urban area of Oregon stretches down through the Willamette Valley from Portland to Eugene. This is the area of the state viewed with derision by many rural Oregonians because it's generally more progressive and tends to favor Democrats. It also happens to be the area where the bulk of the Oregonian's readership resides.

When the Oregonian pulls one of these bone-headed stunts such as endorsing George W. Bush over Al Gore or, more recently, publishing the anti-Islamic "Obsession" video and now endorsing Smith they're directly insulting their readers. They're saying to their readers that those that run the paper are smarter than those that pay to read it.

What business can survive by insulting it's customers in such a direct manner and on such a regular basis? If you went to a deli where you were told you couldn't have the tuna because "people who eat tuna are morons" would you go back to that place?

As the readership of the Oregonian continues to decline I'm sure they'll have all sorts of excuses as to what's killing their business. They'll blame the rise of cable/ satellite. They'll finger the Internet. They'll claim it's the rise of progressive partisanship made it impossible to sell papers.

The answer will be much simpler. They simply aren't catering to their customers.

12 comments:

Randal Graves said...

If you'd have watched Obsession, you'd know that the army of Muslim scribes has taken over newspaperdom (is that even a real word? I better go ask the pretzeldent).

They're everywhere man, why, even YOU might be one!

Don Snabulus said...

The Oregonian = meh!

The Obsession DVD thing was much worse than endorsing El Gordy. That was just hate mail there.

Gordon Smith is merely a very rich person who is a standard GOP Congressperson no matter how much he tries to pretend otherwise. With that said, he compares rather favorably against the Mannix/Erickson types now polluting the upper echelons of Oregon GOP-dom.

It is going to be hard to do much about the urban/rural divide until the people who think there is should be one pull their heads out of there bottoms.

Overdroid said...

"Hey kid, do you have a paper?"

"Nope, just the Oregonian."

Dean Wormer said...

randal-

Muslims are like pod people. Ewww.

Don-

Maybe, but Smith's also a far cry from the Goldschmidt/ Hatfield mode of Oregon Republican with a true independent streak. I am never forgiving that jerk for his vote to impeach Clinton. Pure, partisan wingnuttery. We should've dragged him out of the Senate at that moment.

Overdroid-

Tee hee!

Ubermilf said...

So Dean "Hussein" Wormer doesn't like his paper to endorse real Americans?

What a surprise.

You're a commie. And/or a gay.

Dean Wormer said...

You're a commie. And/or a gay.

Do I have to pick one or the other because they both sound delicious.

Life As I Know It Now said...

you are a commie for sure to suggest that the masses of humanity might be given a voice at all rather than just listen and repeat after their republican overlords ;)

Lockwood said...

I just can't take endorsements seriously- they seem to be for people who won't or can't think for themselves. And I do count on the Oregonian for my Oregon news. I don't know if you've ever had the "pleasure" of looking over the Corvallis GT- it brings a tear to my eye; all those trees dying needlessly. And the editorial board- hoo boy! Of course, only the Oregonian has David Rheinhard... so... yeah.

Dr. Zaius said...

I think that you should contact J. Jonah Jameson.

Swinebread said...

meh part 2

The oregonian is lame, I've known it ever since they endorsed Bush and that Perv Packwood

pissed off patricia said...

Happily the Palm Beach Post endorsed Obama but they did enclose that dvd in their paper a few weeks ago. I think they are so hard up for money that they would do almost anything. The paper is about a third the size it was a year ago. Sad really.

Dean Wormer said...

liberality-

It is a crazy idea, no?

Lockwood-

Reinhard is joke. Not because of his righty views but because his righty views are totally unoriginal. I believe he sits on the Board as well so there's at least one vote for crazy.

As for the Corvallis paper I think it's got the same problems as the Eugene RG. It's sad that the best newspapers in Eugene and Corvallis are actually put out by students at the colleges.

zaius-

I think that you should contact J. Jonah Jameson.

I tried but all he did was yell at me that my photos of Spidey weren't front page material. If he only knew...

swine-

They're not lame they're the lamest.

pop-

It sounds like the same "screw the customer" business model that the Oregonian has going. They're only hurting themselves.