The Oregonian stumbles once again

It’s clear that the people producing The Oregonian think of themselves as a national and regional powerhouse–and one can’t ignore the seven or so Pulitzer Prize awards the newspaper has won since 1999.

The most recent was for breaking news reporting for its coverage of a family disappearing in the southern Oregon woods and their father’s desperate attempt to save them. Sure, all of the reporting was great, hanging perfectly on the walls of The Oregonian, but according to most Oregonians–they think the big O is not a good newspaper at all.

Last year I took a News Writing course at Portland State. It was a class that was supposed to be taught by Matthew Kauffman-Smith, who used to be a reporter for the Statesman-Journal. Instead, the class was taught by David Austin, a news reporter at The Oregonian at the time.

The class had various assignments, lectures about how to properly use information, and how to add quotes to support your stories.

The class also included an in-depth tour of “where everything happens” at The Oregonian building itself. It seemed like a legitimate place–nothing overly interesting. This made me think the hard work and dedication news reporters put in at Oregonian was useful, and that the newspaper is underrated for being terrible. But I thought wrong.

Not even a year after I thought The Oregonian was a credible source; nearly everything about it changed my mind after reading it as an average Portlander, rather then a student being taught by a news reporter.

I began to question how many people actually like The Oregonian or read anything besides the comics and solve the crossword puzzles. I wondered all of this because the “skills” I was taught to use in the class by a reporter are not entirely used at The Oregonian itself. One of them being using legitimate sources and quotes.

On Sept. 13 of this year, Gosia Wozniacka wrote an article titled, “Slavic parents lose control of their Americanizing kids.” Followed by a picture of two Slavic teenagers, Aleks Kirichenko and Layma Ektova, both originally from Lipetsk, Russia, dancing at Santorini night club in Beaverton.

Wozniacka reported, “Many churches in the Slavic community forbid dancing and drinking, but such rules are contributing to a clash as Americanizing Slavic teens increasingly rebel against their parents and churches.”

The article emphasizes that Russian-speaking parents need to understand how important it is to have a relationship with children instead of being strict–and I agree. This is why events such as The Russian Speaking Youth Leadership Conference (RSYLC) happen.

The RSYLC promotes student leaders and helps them pursue higher education. In 2006, I had the ability to host the 10th annual RSYLC and work with Eric Kaganov, an executive director of Slavic Youth of America–the largest organization for Slavic youth in Oregon.

But my concern isn’t about the fact that the estimated 100,000 evangelical Christians from the former Soviet Union living in the Portland area are becoming “Americanized”–a term that is just an excuse for bad parenting skills in my opinion.

And I am not concerned about the fact that The Oregonian article not only stereotypes Russian, Ukrainian and Slavic communities, as it is as equally common for any teenagers to become “Americanized” and refuse to attend churches even if they are not refugees. My concern is that the interviews used to write this article were from two years ago.

Pavel Yuzko, who worked as a Multnomah County health educator with Slavic families until his position was cut last year, was quoted in The Oregonian saying: “The Bible doesn’t teach us to force things. It’s important to explain, to give advice, to talk, otherwise kids will just lie and do things behind parent’s backs … If you have a good relationship with your kid, it works better than just laying down the law.” Although the quote was a legitimate addition to the article, which added support to what the writer wanted to say, Yuzko told me that The Oregonian interviewed him two years ago, and that no information was provided to Yuzko about how they were going to use the quote, and that did he didn’t even know about it until members of the Slavic Community called him with concern. Don’t you think that’s unethical?

Aside from the fact that The Oregonian delivered the racist DVD, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, which targeted distrust toward Muslims. I thought it would be surprising enough if The Oregonian used an article other than from the Associated Press. But I guess that is not the only groundbreaking thing they know how to do–they also know how to use false information to support stories from their own region.