It is becoming increasingly difficult when picking up an Oregonian not to wonder about editorial decisions.  But the questions are sort of scatter-shot, not following any particular line of progression — if I had to guess, my most common thought is a pained shaking of the head at whatever they decided would be on the first page upper fold.  Beyond that, the one thread that I can think would cover my questions is a theme of how a newspaper ought to adjust to the changing market and changing world of 24 Hour News sources and the Internet.  The answer has generally been, across the country, a resignation and shrinkage — which is obviously not the answer to an adjustment.

But if it is.  Today there was a campaign news “Analysis” feature which puzzled me a bit.  I think if the Oregonian were physically twice as long, or if their Election Campaign coverage ran a much longer gambit it might belong as a bit of a Curio, but as it were this article was featured prominently as a top campaign article, a sort of “Obama” half of a page for Obama campaign article and a Hillary Clinton article.

I swear to God, it was an article surveying a White Nationalists Conference for their opinion on this election.  Of all the article the Oregonian was going to pick up for their rather limited scope and coverage, they chose the one that tell us what the crucial voting block and influential thinking of the neo-Nazis, the White Supremisists, theoretically some of them might think of themselves not so much as White Supremisists as sort of “Separate But Equal” Racial Separatists.

Really?

In case you were wondering, there is thought that Obama — who is black, by the way, may be the lesser of two evils than McCain — Immigration and War.  Also, it is important for them to note that Obama is not 100 percent black, but here the conflict within this group rages, because good god there oughta be a law against this race mixing, as there was in some states when Obama was born.  Also, there is a good contingent of Ron Paul supporters amongst the group.   It may be a sign of the impending collapse of the Hillary Clinton campaign that the White Nationalists were not recorded as saying anything about her… she, being White, might be preferable.

An interesting article.  But I just don’t think it’s the best use of limited resources… you know?

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.