Over to the dark side
Here's some bad news for civic-minded Portlanders: Mike Benner, one of the smarter TV news reporters in town – a guy with a lot of street savvy – has left KGW and is the new flack for the Portland Police Bureau.
Man, that's depressing. Benner used to ask hard questions. Now he'll be giving out pat answers, when he isn't bending the truth, on behalf of the city's largely worthless (or worse) cops.
In a way, I feel bad for him. This probably isn't what he really wants, but the money and the job security are probably better, the hours are probably better, and the work may even be easier. A lot of good reporters go this route when they're tired of busting tail for crummy pay. Benner did the beat work for 15 years in Portland.
But dang, it's going to hurt watching him be the p.r. face of that sketchy police force, using everything he's learned to help the cops smear the makeup over their hideous flaws. It's a big loss for the city.
Sad to see him go.
ReplyDeleteFlack is a good word. I think it applies to a few reporters still on the Oregonian payroll. Kind of their side job to support the bureaucracies that feed them press releases.
It would be fun to see Phil Stanford have that job...
ReplyDeleteOne of these days I'm going to sit down and tabulate out how many flacks there across every Portland-area government agency—the city, Multnomah County, PPS, PPB (and its union), Metro, PCC—versus how many working journalists there are. I'd bet it's a ratio of at least 5:1 in favor of the flacks. Probably worse. It's a real challenge, but then, there's consistent taxpayer funds to support the flacks, and precious few interested in paying for the journalists. We get what we pay for.
ReplyDeleteFour television stations in town each have about fifteen reporters. The O has another forty-ish. Plus The Weed and the other one. Let's give them another dozen each. Oh! Plus OPB. Let's give THEM another dozen. We're at 140.
Delete5:1 would give us 700 flacks to find across local government. Looks like you've got some work ahead of you. Let us know when you've got your tally.
I don’t think there are very many journalists in Beans list
DeleteI think your numbers are a bit off. The Weed has 4, and I'd be surprised if the Oregonian has more than 15. OPB probably as 6-7.
DeleteThe "other one" has 4 or 5. The ratio may not be 5:1, but there are probably quite a few more flacks than reporters. Now, if you count the salaries and pension benefits of those people, I'd bet the ratio at least doubles.
Deleteit was astonishing to see how quickly benner’s kgw work was scrubbed from the internet.
ReplyDeletePublic employee retirement benefits are hard to beat.
ReplyDelete