Some Oregon Reporting Questions to Ask

A chainsaw whines in the distance. I have come to loathe that sound. It means death to trees and tiny woodland creatures and also signifies the ongoing tale of human extraction and expansion.

Lately, I’ve been pondering at great length on the stories the mainstream Oregon media (did I actually use that phrase?) aren’t reporting. There are so many questions reporters aren’t asking. They don’t know enough about Oregon to ask them. Or their editors don’t want the questions asked. It’s also possible there aren’t any real reporters left in Oregon.

If I was a reporter for a mainstream Oregon media outlet, here are the questions I would be asking and I would seek to answer them through my reporting:

What is the point of a second term for Kate Brown?

Why is it not called Boardman cheese instead of Tillamook?

Who are the people who are renting studio apartments in Portland’s Sellwood neighborhood for $1800 a month with no parking? What do these people do for a living?

Will the pot business in Oregon go largely the way of the craft beer business, and have some of its biggest, coolest producers sell out to the Budweisers of pot and then finance Republican Party ventures in Oregon?

How does it square in Oregon that Phil Knight has donated 1.5 million dollars to the Republican candidate for governor of Oregon? Why aren’t progressive athletes on Nike’s advertising teat saying anything?

Why does someone want to live on the streets or in the woods in a place where it rains 80 inches a year?

What really goes on with probation in Oregon’s 36 counties? (I can already answer that one.)

Who are the newest Oregon members of the great new quiet internal American diaspora?

Why would any high school student spend their junior and senior years in high school when community college at that level is free? Prom?

Why isn’t someone interviewing the biologist who shot 2500 cormorants to death to protect fake hatchery salmon?

Who is still playing tennis on public courts?

What goes on at the last drive-in movie theater in Oregon?

Why has there been an exponential increase in the use of umbrellas in urban Oregon?

Why are primates at OHSU still being tortured for research to extend human lifespan? Who are the credentialed researchers who torture them?

I have a lot more questions. But these will do for now.