My I-5 feature in The Oregonian prompts editorial… in The Columbian

Oh, the irony. This article I did on April 13, culminated about ten months of reporting dating back to when I still did work for the Oregonian’s hyperlocal team.

I basically went to cover a community meeting in August and a year later wound up with this sprawling transportation piece that encompassed the Washington DC-like gridlock mentality that has recently seized the region.

The article prompted an editorial follow up, which can often happen after large enterprising stories, but the editorial ran in The Columbian, the newspaper in neighboring Clark County, not the Oregonian. Perhaps the O will write an editorial about Vancouver’s Bus Rapid Transit coverage.  We’ll have to see.

FROM OregonLive

The I-5 Broadway/Weidler project is generating controversy, though it’s overshadowed by the CRC. (The Oregonian)

Local freeway commuters know the spot where traffic grinds to a halt almost every day. It’s where Interstate 84 ends its 773-mile long journey from Echo, Utah, to Portland by slamming headlong into Interstate 5. And it’s where northbound and southbound I-5 travelers find three or four lanes of traffic slimmed down to two.

The city calls it The Gateway of Portland’s freeway system. Combined with the chokepoint a few miles north at the Interstate Bridge, it creates regular backups that can send gridlock deep into city streets.

During the past two years, as the region’s public officials, voters and activists have clamored over the fate of the $3.5 billion Columbia River Crossing, a plan to address Rose Quarter congestion has slowly inched forward like so much rush hour traffic.

The I-5 Broadway/Weidler Plan may be the biggest transportation project most people have never heard of. In December, the Oregon Transportation Commission approved a plan that aims to both alleviate I-5 traffic and remodel neighborhoods near the Rose Garden with new surface streets, a cap over the freeway with a possible park, and new bike- and pedestrian-friendly improvements.

READ THE REST at OregonLive

Perhaps the bumper sticker should say, “Keep Portland White”

Photo by Severen Sadjina http://www.flickr.com/photos/sadjina/

Post appeared on George Rede’s blog RoughandRede, August 31 as a part of his Voices of August guest post series. It appeared under the headline “Oregon’s Unique Racial History.”

They say that those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. So, it’s always been a little alarming to me how few people know about Oregon’s unique racial history.

I think many who live here view Portland as a progressive place governed by thoughtful public policy. Portland likes to think of itself as home to innovative and inclusive creative residents. Given that most people know that Portland is very white. At 78 %, it’s one of the whitest major cities in America. Its core neighborhoods are actually getting whiter (topping the nation at 74 %). Yet few I’ve met seem to see an inconsistency in the city’s lack of diversity and the rhetoric of “celebrating diversity” we often proclaim.

“Why would black people even want to come here?“ a young creative type (and a fellow reporter)  once asked during a conversation about Oregon’s pioneer history and the lack of early black migration to the area.

“They came looking for opportunity just like everyone else,” I said. “But they were told that they weren’t allowed to live here.”

Oregon was the only state to enter the Union with a constitutional exclusion on African American residents. Less than 65 years ago The National Journal of Social Work declared Portland the most discriminatory city outside the Deep South. The state did not ratify the Fifteen Amendment (giving blacks the right to vote) until 1959.

Freelance: In St. Johns, the volunteer Foot Patrol is resurrected and cops walk the beat, too

THE OREGONIAN May 27th, 2011

Members of the St. Johns Mainstreet Foot Patrol walk through the community's downtown during the program's first night.

On a rainy Thursday night in April, three volunteers with the St. Johns Mainstreet Foot Patrol clad in yellow vests — and armed only with cellphones, flashlights and a digital camera — made their way through the town center.

Crime in St. Johns has fallen steadily during the past four years, but recent events have some people feeling a sense of relapse to the years when the area was know for little other than neglect and street drinkers. The neighborhood has been hit hard by the recession, and graffiti, prostitution and vagrants have returned.

And while some signs of economic recovery are taking hold, the community’s civic pride hasn’t fully recovered from the 2008 closure of the Police Bureau’s North Precinct. Combined with a recent spate of gang shootings citywide, many simply don’t feel safe downtown at night.

So when the foot patrol volunteers made their way past bus stops and shops, they received an almost heroic welcome from the neighborhood.

Local merchant Randy Plew of Plew’s Brews on North Lombard Street wraps a volunteer in bear hug as the patrol passes.

“Thank you,” gushes 34-year-old Angela Cobb, who says she’s frequently harassed by men looking for prostitutes. “This (foot patrol) means a lot to me.”

The patrol’s impact is reaching even beyond residents and local merchants. Portland police were so impressed they decided to support the effort by doing something they haven’t done in years — walk the beat themselves.

“They are really motivated people,” says Stephanie Reynolds, of the type of gritty volunteers who typically make up such foot patrols. Reynolds, program coordinator for the city’s Crime Prevention Program, helps support the dozen or so foot patrols in Portland and but had never heard of one getting the police to walk the beat.

But she’s not surprised. “They are the type of people who want to get things done.”

Read the rest of the story at OregonLive.

Official J-Lab project blog launches, program to give cash to bloggers

cash-in dearie

This week we officially named the J-Lab project The Oregonian News Network.  Yes, yes, the acronym is ONN, which makes me think of the Onion News Network, but nothing’s perfect. There’s a new official ONN blog, where I’ll be posting program updates and announced today that we’ll be awarding the first seven Pilot Partners $2,500 a piece to take part in the program.

“The ONN will first work to organize a strong and consistent group of initial partners. To help do that, we are awarding $2,500 to up to seven Pilot Partner bloggers.  These Pilot Partners will be a combination of hyperlocals and beat bloggers from around the region and state. The cash will serve a number of purposes. First, it’s part of J-Lab’s mission to support existing indie news producers.  Second, we’ll still be working out the kinks on the program, and Pilot Partners will be live beta testers. Lastly, we’d like to have the freedom to do something experimental, a-la Pipeline, at later stages in the program. So if that put some demands on partner time, we want them compensated.”

The program is moving along merrily. I hope to have things in place next week so we can start working with our very first pilot partner.  I’ve been at the job a month and we’re only now getting a pilot partners up and running. Things sometimes move  slowly at the O. It’s a large organization and one of the largest papers to try this J-Lab experiment. Still everyone is very nice and easy to work with. The reporters seem supportive of the project when I get the chance to explain how it will actually work.  In general, folks are very cool, even if you do have to wait behind this guy if you want to get something in the break-room.

The Oregonian to play nice with local bloggers and independent news site.

 

 

In this Post

Cornelius gets a new job

What is J-Lab?

Working at the Oregonian

Burying the lead: what’s in it for me, how to get involved

A new job

Greetings from the Death Star!  I’m sitting at my new desk inside the largest newsroom in the Pacific Northwest: The Oregonian. Yes, that’s right. Cornelius Swart: scrappy publisher, reporter and master of the pan-flute, has taken a job with The Man!

 

Well more of a contract than a job to be exact. A few weeks ago I came on board as the new project Coordinator for The Oregonian’s Networked Journalism Project. Over the next year I’ll be working to create partnerships between The Oregonian/OregonLive and hyperlocal, beat and topic bloggers from around the state. The program will attempted to get bloggers and the paper working together in a cooperative and mutually beneficial way. To do that the program will promote hyperlocal and beat blogger stories through the OregonLive website as well as provide trainings aimed at sharpening journalism  and business skills. There could be other ways to work together. The program is just getting started. Personally, I’m pretty excited about working with the indie community that I’ve known for so long AND the incredible news professionals here at The Oregonian (the biggest newsroom in the Pacific Northwest , did I mention that all ready?)

What is J-Lab?

The Networked Journalism Project  is part of a national effort funded by American University’s J-Lab Institute for Interactive Journalism and the Knight Foundation. It’s a one year pilot program. Last year J-Lab funded Networked Journalism projects at the Seattle Times, Charlotte Observer, the Miami Herald and in Asheville NC and Tucson AZ. This year, The Oregonian, SF public radio station KQED, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Lawrence Journal World (Kan.) all received grants.

It’s a big opportunity for me in particular. For several years while I was publishing the hyperlocal paper The Sentinel, I was also involved in a non-profit think- tank called Portland Media Lab.  In 2008, PML published a list of recommendations for improving the local news ecosystem  (see items C-F). We tried to implement some of the ideas at the Sentinel, but never really had the resources (read: time and money) to get anything significant off the ground.

So I was excited when I heard The Oregonian had stepped up to the J-Lab plate and put its considerable audience and “resources” into the project. For me, its a chance to put some of PML’s ideas into action.

Working at The Oregonian

The folks here at the O have been really nice to me. I’ve gotten to meet quiet a few people already. It’s been reassuring to see that when it comes down to it, journalists are all journalists, whether they work in huge newsrooms or from their laptops in coffee shops. The folks here are well aware of the paper’s old reputation as “The Death Star” and that some independents may be wary of working with them.

Freelance: The rise of debtor’s prisons?

WILLAMETTE WEEK December 15, 2010
Is Washington County part of a national return of jailing people for debt

Winford Parish never imagined his $1,800 in outstanding court debt to Washington County would land him in prison for two years.

In 2007, a judge convicted the 39-year-old man of manufacturing marijuana. Judge Gayle Nachtigal gave him a second chance and suspended his 28-month sentence to five years’ probation.

But on Oct. 25 of this year, sheriff’s deputies hauled him into Judge Kirsten Thompson’s court for consistent failure to pay court-ordered financial obligations as part of his probation.

When the unemployed father told Thompson he could not pay fines for things such as court-appointed attorney fees, prosecutor Jason Weiner told Parish he could have recycled soda cans for money. Parish is now in Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville.

Some say Parish is an extreme example of a judicial practice in Oregon’s second-largest county of leveling court fines and fees against homeless, unemployed and poor people—then incarcerating them when they don’t pay.

“Court fees are crushing people who are already struggling in this economy,” says Dean Smith, Washington County office chief of the nonprofit Metropolitan Public Defenders. “People get on probation that have no hope of meeting the conditions.”

If that all seems straight out of a 19th-century debtor’s prison, there’s an Oct. 3 report by the American Civil Liberties Union that says such practices are increasingly common nationwide and that they violate the U.S. Constitution.

“Day after day, indigent defendants are imprisoned for failing to pay legal debts they can never hope to manage,” according to the report “In for a Penny: The Rise of America’s New Debtor’s Prisons.”

Read the story at WWeek.com

Freelance: The Defense of Parents Act

THE JUST OUT: November 19th, 2010
Courts look to conclude same-sex parenting case after four years of legal drama

Many applauded when the Oregon Supreme Court ruled last year that same-sex couples who undergo artificial insemination have the same parental rights as married ones. The court stated that when a lesbian couple decides to inseminate, the non-birth partner is a legal parent of the child(ren), in the same way that a husband who consents to insemination is also a legal parent. Groups such as Basic Rights Oregon and the American Civil Liberties Union held it a clear victory for equal rights.
On November 17 two women returned to a Multnomah County courtroom in what both hope will be the final act in a legal drama that’s played out for almost four years. While the courts have determined that in some cases lesbian couples can be treated like married ones, they haven’t determined if this lesbian couple can be. Meanwhile, the fate of two children is at stake. As far as the kids are considered, the civil rights war may have been won, but the battle between Sondra Shineovich and Sarah Kemp isn’t over yet.

A question of blood and intent
At the heart of the issue are two children, who for the purposes of this report will be called Paul and Agatha. Their biological mother, Sarah Kemp, and Kemp’s former partner, Sondra Shineovich, were together for 10 years. During that time they conceived two children through artificial insemination. Or did they?
READ THE ARTICLE