Brian Owendoff was–the operative word here–the head of a 70 person commercial real estate firm in Portland. He was a transplant from Ohio and had, in a short time here, ingratiated himself to the power brokers, liberatti and politicos of Portland. But in his private life, like thousands of people around here, he was a critic of Portland’s leadership. He would comment on stories on the Zero’s website and took a verbal shot at the publisher of the community paper, Northwest Examiner by calling him a “flea.” Allen Classen, the publisher of the Examiner, didn’t like it and set about to find out who he was and ‘out’ him.
Bingo. He did. And published it in a scathing story. And as a result, Owendoff lost his job.
CB Richard Ellis booted him because the story had made the company look bad. It’s understandable they’d be peeved about the press story.
However, in the flurry of media stories –and even a shocking editorial in the Zero, which appeared to glory in Owendoff’s misfortune–the discussion was mostly about uncivil dialogue by people in the blogs, comments et. al. The news media outed the man because he’s “uncivil?” This is news?
To me this appears to be a case of the ‘politics of personal destruction,’ which the left claims is anathema even as it engages in it. This is politics pure and simple but I’ll get to that in a minute.
Let’s play along with the ‘is this a real news story?’ game.
Is a grouchy commenter’s identity a news story? If so, why?
Will you be outing other commenters in the future? Why or why not?
Is the story that Owendoff is a closeted conservative?
Is he a well known public figure and worthy of the scrutiny?
Is the story that a largely unknown closeted conservative had a conflicting public life? Is this newsworthy?
Is this ‘outing’ personal score settling or is a political vendetta? In other words, why did you do the story?
Is ‘incivility’ by a private, anonymous individual news worthy? If so, why?
(The Victoria Taft Show producer, Eric Peterson, is in contact with the Poynter Institute for Media and Ethics and the Society of Professional Journalists to get reaction on this apparent vendetta. See what SPJ says below.)
Commenters on blogs and news sites aren’t held to journalistic standards. Some comments are more valuable than others, of course. Many commenters hew to higher standards of ethics and factual statements and don’t indulge in ad hominem. But comments largely lie within the realm of opinion. They fall into the realm of ‘who cares?’ Commenters sometimes fact check other commenters. Other commenters respond. That’s the rule of the wild west in the blogosphere.
But do newspapers investigate personal opinions of commenters? Why? In this case Allen Classen couldn’t handle the relatively tame comments written by the unknown commenter. He decided he’d settle a score and the Zero acted as cheerleader. Allen, I love your paper and read it regularly but criticism comes with the job. If you can’t handle it I have an asbestos suit I can loan you.
But there’s something more at play here. Pure politics. This was a collective hissing of a man who’d committed the sin of being a conservative in some insider circles in Portland. The liberatti, exemplified by Classen, collectively sniffed, ‘we can’t have THAT!’
Mayor Sam Adams gave up the game in a seemingly generous comment he made about Owendoff,
Adams, who met with Owendoff on Thursday, shrugged off the flap. “We all vent,” he said. “I like Brian. He comes from a city that is much more conservative. It’s taken him a while to get accustomed to the Portland process. I hope he stays on and remains involved.”
What Sam just said there was the Portland process is shut up, don’t you dare state your opinion, and suck it up. The Portland process. That’s hilarious.
It seems that Owendoff had pretty much taken the measure of parochial Portland. He made his comments anonymously. Until he wasn’t anonymous anymore.
There are differences in standards between a comment on a blog and news story, or should be. In this case the newspapers in question appear to have ceded their news coverage to the standards of the blogosphere. They’ve thrown in their ‘journalistic’ lot with the commenters. Was this a bold investigative piece? An insight into public process? Striking a blow for good government? No, it was score settling for no journalistic reason that I can think of.
It had its effect, however. It shut up a bunch of conservative folks in the business community.
Like a misbehaving puppy these news outlets rolled up their papers and slapped at the collective noses of the conservative business community.
A man, with a wife and two kids to support has lost his job because of it.
The Society of Professional Journalist’s co chair of the Ethics Committee, Fred Brown, initially told us:
I don’t think it’s unethical to name a gadfly who prefers to be anonymous. In fact, I’d argue that it’s unethical not to identify yourself when you’re commenting publicly and trying to stir things up.
UPDATE: On the program, however, Brown, a semi retired Denver Post columnist, noted he hadn’t actually read the comments made by Mr. Owendoff and that the newspaper bore some blame for allowing anonymous comments. He noted that Mr. Owendoff wasn’t a public figure and agreed that, while a mild curiosity, this story wasn’t particularly news worthy. Until Owendoff was retaliated against and fired, that is.
