= UPDATE = == Dave replied back == Seth - I took your posted comment as a snarky, personal attack and I responded in kind. I apologize for getting personal in response. Here's what I should have said: Seth, you said "Please say it ain't so, Dave." It ain't so. I've gone back and looked at the article you commented on. It was eight paragraphs long. It described the biggest contributors to the secretary of state and treasurer candidates. I did not have room to mention contributors who gave less than $20,000 each. You're not taking raising large amounts of money for your candidacy, therefore I did not mention you in the article. When I've spent much of the past five years or more trying to spotlight how much money is in Oregon politics and the influence associated with that money, I take it personally when someone suggests that not mentioning them - or any other topic, for that matter - is somehow an indication that now I or The Oregonian believe everything is hunky-dory when it comes to campaign money. That is not a fair or accurate characterization of where I or the newspaper have been on this topic for years now. Anyone can go back and read the articles that have spotlighted this issue again and again. From your note and your website, it sounds to me like we both want the same thing - more attention to the impact of money on Oregon's political system. I wish you nothing but success in that regard. Sincerely, Dave Hogan == And I replied == Dave, Yes, that's what I'll interpret you meant with the first response. :) I had written before I edited it out, "You could have just said what everybody else says, 'I didn't have room.'" But I didn't because I still think it's important to highlight both the positive press with the negative press and room should be made, as that's what the comment I made really is about. But I understand that from the reporter's view, there really isn't room and editors don't really give them leeway to stray off very specific topics to go editorialize on positive aspects, particularly on a candidate their editorial board didn't even want to talk to. I hope you have a good rest of the day, Seth = END UPDATE = I wrote a comment to Dave Hogan's article in the Oregonian: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/secretary_of_state_race_draws.html = My comment to Dave Hogan's article = It probably would have made sense in your "race draws big money" article to point out that one candidate, myself, Seth Woolley, the Pacific Green Party nominee, is not taking anybody's legal bribes from big money. Surely that's newsworthy. It's startling to see that you characterize this race as a battle of proxies for special interest groups (unions and timber companies), as if that's somehow expected behavior of a race, despite the fact that a candidate on the ballot is specifically opposed to that special interest dealing, is campaigning to end such legalized bribery, and isn't taking such bribes himself. Maybe you can do the public a favor by actually mentioning, you know, one sentence about that. If you do not, it leaves your readers with the impression that special interest proxy candidacies are exactly what the Oregonian is perfectly content with in our election system. Please say it ain't so, Dave. Dave Hogan replied: = Dave Hogan's reply = Seth - I'd be a lot more inclined to mention a candidate who demonstrates he's been paying attention to the issues he claims to care about. Open government? Campaign finance limits? Initiative law? Major party control of Oregon's political system? I don't know how many times I've written about those in the last five or six years, but I would guess it's been dozens of times, if not hundreds. Anyone who suggests that "special interest proxy candidacies are exactly what the Oregonian is perfectly content with in our election system" isn't paying attention. If you're going to run for a statewide office, how about getting your basic info straight instead of suggesting that somehow we're trying to keep things the same by taking the time to report on campaign contributions? Dave Hogan = My comment to Dave Hogan's Comment = Dave, First, thank you for your response, although I wasn't expecting a personal attack. I've broken my response into two sections -- the first about my experience so far with the Oregonian in regard to my campaign -- and second about your specific response == My experience with the Oregonian == I come to every article with the expectation that since I'm on the ballot, I should be covered fairly. The Oregonian wrote an article that discussed "both" candidacies. http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2008/10/have_you_heard_3_are_vying_for.html The first half of the article talks about just the two major parties with words like "both", phrases that the two, "have waged a low-key, civil race for the office of secretary of state", etc. Then there's two breakout boxes with extensive information on the other two candidates. I get about 11% coverage at the very bottom of the article and no photo. Even the one comment there (I have no idea who JMStargazer is) says: 'What a lame story. It should've been titled, "HEY LOOK THESE TWO ARE RUNNING PAY ATTENTION TO THEM and oh yeah so's this other guy."' That type of coverage only makes sense if special interest support is what should determine coverage, not whether or not a candidate qualifies for the general election ballot under state law. But at least Janie called me at the last minute. In your case, you didn't, although to be clear, in your article, ORESTAR has all the info you really need. It still would have likely improved the article to have a quote from me saying, "A million dollars of legalized bribery certainly does affect the outcome of our elections, indeed, even some media outlets use it in criteria for their own coverage, possibly because this money goes indirectly back to them for campaign ads." I got a phone call after Janie's article from a frustrated subscriber who was an attorney who pushed the idea of requesting his money back and suing in small claims court for violation of warrantee because the paper says it prides itself on accuracy and fairness. We'll see if anything happens there. To even get in the Oregonian online voter guide, I had to beg multiple people for the access code to type in my answers. My first email went completely unanswered, despite it being the one the voter guide says to contact. Later, another candidate told me which underling was actually running that section so I could get the necessary code. In the meantime the website said I had refused to respond (same with all other third party candidates). == My response to the Dave Hogan == But back to your article where you failed to mention my candidacy at all, despite my calling Brown and Dancer out in debates and events for raising lots of special interest money. You'll note that I did say, "the Oregonian", not your name. I did that because I've called reporters before and they read to me what their article did say before it was edited and explained that the editors often chopped up the article and introduced awkward bias later. So I've learned not to ridicule the authors right away. In this case, I called out the lack of mention of my candidacy. You could have ridiculed my candidacy in other ways, specifically by pointing out my supposed ignorance of campaign finance, government openness, initiative law, etc. That all would have been fair game. Certainly pointing out ignorance does voters a favor. It could have looked like this: "While Woolley is not taking legalized bribes, he's also an ignorant baffoon because he's simply wrong about X, as he mentioned at Y." If true, how could I complain about that? I've written a lot all over my website, plenty of information a reporter could ridicule, in theory. What started out as a run because of my extreme dissatisfaction with Bradbury has turned into a great learning experience for me. I've started with what I believe and I've modified my views in the process as more information came in. I'm a strong believer in the scientific method of hypothesis and falsificiation. Politicians these days fail to lead with hypotheses and fail to listen to falsification. So if I'm ignorant, I'd gladly be educated. I'm still young and have a lot to learn, but I believe I know enough to move the office forward rather than backward. Your point of disagreement of X, though, is that the Oregonian doesn't like special interest money in our election system. I actually said that leaving my candidacy out of the article "gives the impression" of X. That kind of context implies that it's for this one case only, not for your own context, which you mention, and rightly so, as I even asked for it with, "Say it ain't so". You could defend the Oregonian by pointing out the context of your articles, which you have done in private. So I invite you to publicly defend the Oregonian (perhaps with a comment on the page). And I even invite you to ridicule my knowledge as you have done in private, although you can leave that part out if you agree my statement was actually specific enough to avoid your criticism as I state above. Seth