Am I racist?

Oregon news media edition

The Oregonian’s first printing press, a relic of a now mostly defunct news media business model. (Source, The Oregonian).

I am reticent to write newsletters about things people post on Twitter/X, but today I make an exception because the post is about me, or more specifically about something I wrote last week. I’m important to me, so here we go.

Julia Shumway, deputy editor for Oregon Capital Chronicle, Capitol press corps president and board member for the Oregon chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, took issue with last Friday’s story about the razor-thin margin in Oregon House District 22, the outcome of which will determine whether legislative Democrats are able to raise taxes without any Republican votes, by calling it “racist and wrong.”

In a subsequent post, Ms. Shumway clarifies the “blogger” to whom she refers is me.

My purpose here is not to argue whether my story was racist or wrong. If I thought it was either of those things, I wouldn’t have written it, let alone published it. You can read it for yourself here and reach your own conclusion.

(Note that the current count as of noon today, Monday, has Democrat Lesley Munoz leading Republican Tracy Cramer by 104 votes. As of last Friday, Munoz led by one vote; prior to then, Cramer led on all counts beginning on Election Day.)

Nor is my purpose to disparage Ms. Shumway or Oregon Capital Chronicle. I’m glad she and the Chronicle cover Oregon politics and government. I read her stories fairly regularly, and usually learn something when I do. I’m glad she reads my stuff. It’s clear from her reporting (and mine) that Ms. Shumway’s bias is different than mine. That’s fine. I have spent my adult life reading news stories largely written by people with whom I disagree. I’m used to it.

I do think, however, Ms. Shumway’s post provides what some folks might call a “teachable moment” about Oregon’s news media landscape, how it’s changed and what that means.

The thing is that the news business most of us grew up with no longer exists in our state. The subscription plus adverting model that used to produce big profits for news outlets now delivers big losses. Legacy outlets like The Oregonian, The Bulletin and others have severely pared back their offerings as a result of staff cuts. The result is there’s less news out there for Oregonians to read about what their government is up to.

Most everyone agrees that’s bad. I think it’s one of the reasons our state government functions so very poorly these days. It’s one of the reasons I write and podcast about Oregon government when I already have a day job or two.

As the old news business model has withered, a new model has caught on, one in which a nonprofit corporation uses donated funds to support news reporting. This is a model Ms. Shumway’s employer and I now share.

Oregon Capital Chronicle is owned and operated by States Newsroom, which calls itself the “nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, with reporting from every capital.” According to Axios, States Newsroom was “incubated originally via a left-leaning nonprofit called The Hopewell Fund before spinning out as an independent nonprofit in 2019.” The Hopewell Fund is a 501(c)(3) managed by the for-profit leftwing mega-consultancy Arabella Advisors, which serves as a kind of hub for various progressive nonprofit groups.

Along with The Hopewell Fund, Arabella supports The Sixteen Thirty Fund, a mammoth 501(c)(4) progressive advocacy nonprofit that helped fund campaigns for Oregon’s hard drug decriminalizing Measure 110 and gun control Measure 114. States Newsroom reportedly no longer has formal ties to The Hopewell Fund. It maintains a website on which it says it discloses everyone who has contributed $1,000 or more to the organization.

It will not surprise you that my foray into nonprofit support for this here Oregon Roundup is not supported by The Hopewell Fund. In fact, Oregon Roundup Foundation’s contributors are overwhelmingly likely to be conservative, or at least not progressive.

All of this is to say that the bias of news outlets is now more clearly correlated with their funding sources. I believe all news outlets have been biased forever, but their funding sources - mostly advertisers - did not necessarily share that bias. Now, some news outlets, including hopefully this one, are becoming a way for donors to encourage the type of coverage they prefer.

I wish I could make Oregon Roundup grow into what I think it can and should be without contributions, but I can’t. The best I can do is be transparent about what I’m up to. Anyone can read the stuff I wrote before and the stuff I’ll write from here on out to see if they think (hopefully) receiving donations from presumably like-minded donors affects my product.

Which brings me back to Ms. Shumway’s, uh, strong reaction to my article. Because she and I have very different biases that affect our respective reporting, this probably won’t be the last time we tangle. That’s a good thing. It’s a symptom of a news media environment that, increasingly, acknowledges the undeniable fact that people who cover the news have biases that affect their reporting. People with different world views are unlikely to agree on what’s important about a given set of facts.

That’s okay.