After more than 22 years, Margie Boulé has closed her column with The Oregonian:

I wrote my first column for The Oregonian on Sept. 20, 1987.

This will be my last.

My first column began, "As a rule, people's beginnings and endings are untidy affairs. They're so often beyond our control. We cannot choose our birth dates; we cannot look ahead and know the day we will die. And in the intervening years, there are often exasperating gaps between the ends of things -- the day your true love packed his banjo and his softball glove and left for San Diego -- and the beginnings we wish to jump to -- the chance meeting by the Literature Fa-Fl shelves in Powell's Bookstore."

But Sept. 20, 1987, was a day of synchronicities. On that day I ended my career in television and began my career as a print journalist. On that day, too, my daughter started first grade, and my grandfather died. It was his 87th birthday. It was a day of beginnings and endings.

And so is today. Today I end my career as a columnist for The Oregonian and look ahead to something new.

She goes on to recount some of the most memorable stories ever told in her over 3,000 columns. If you haven't read it yet, do.

Boulé was among 37 staffers laid off from the paper last week.

After several cycles of buyouts, The Oregonian began laying off newsroom and other employees this morning, a move that had long been expected. The company's pledge to avoid newsroom layoffs expired earlier this month. Unverified names of those affected do not indicate a particular pattern, such as a rumored thinning of non-Portland reporters, though our list of names is, thus far, short.

A statement on The Oregonian's website measures the staff reduction at 37, primarily in the news department, leaving "more than 200" in the newsroom and a total of 750.

Said publisher Chris Anderson in a statement, "These layoffs are a painful but necessary part of our 2010 budget, which was developed to ensure financial stability for The Oregonian now and in the future."

UPDATE (11:35 am): Byron Beck publishes three names, none of which we've confirmed, and only one of which we've heard from other sources.

UPDATE (11:50 am): Matt Davis publishes 19 names.

UPDATE (12:25 pm): Hank Stern names a few that have already been listed.

UPDATE (2/25, 10:52 am): Publisher Chris Anderson tells OMC, "We have notified every person who is being laid off. We have no plans, no intentions and no thoughts of further layoffs."

Last week, we published a filthy article about the trouble one local playwright was having getting her show mentioned by The Oregonian. The problem with the play was its title: "Slap That Bitch," a hip-hop retelling of "The Taming of the Shrew." We proceeded to publish The Oregonian's own list of all the naughty words supposedly banned from the paper, as well as details of what colorful language had nevertheless made it into print.

Serious journalism, that.

Since then, The Oregonian did list the play online, minus its title. Instead, paper used the play's production company, "Fuse Theatre Ensemble," as its heading.

Then yesterday, a reader alerted us to an online-only review. The play's title was in the headline and appeared once in the article itself. But with nothing in Sunday's paper, we wondered if this was another example of the dichotomy between print and pixels when it came to certain words in The O. (Compare this online article with its print partner, for example.)

Today, however, "Slap That Bitch" was printed in a bold headline atop a short-form review. Paired with this online video from theater critic Marty Hughley, The Oregonian turned an initially cautious approach into a sort of bitch-fest.

As for the play itself, it "certainly has playfully, humorous moments," writes critic Richard Wattenberg, "but the piece could benefit from judicious cutting. It is itself in need of some taming."

Saturday’s Oregonian featured Robert Wagner and pdx.fm, a network of streaming radio and podcasts based in Portland, Oregon. Founded in September 2009, PDX.FM currently streams approximately thirty shows to about 10,000 unique listeners a day.

Maybe it's not all polite discourse, or close to the cultural mainstream. Portland calls itself the city that works, but it could as easily be the city with quirks.

But where is that spirit on the radio? That's what Robert Wagner, pdx.fm's founder and chief executive, couldn't stop wondering. And not just in Portland. Raised in Seattle, he spent endless hours in search of the latest sound on the radio. Once it was easy to find. But as the years passed and more stations fell under the corporate grip, the electric charge in the air evaporated.

"I got so tired of hearing the same generic disc jockeys saying the same stuff and playing the same 14 Rush songs," Wagner says.

The Oregonian vs.
the Portland Business Journal

The Oregonian, a 24-inch broadsheet, is considering a new shape.

In 1999, the paper shaved an inch off its width in a major redesign, and in 2007, it trimmed another half-inch. But according to employees at the paper, Publisher Chris Anderson has talked of the possibility of a smaller format closer to the size of the Portland Business Journal, which, like The Oregonian, is owned by Advance Publications.

It's unclear whether The Oregonian would use the same dimensions as the Journal, but the PBJ's measurements are 22.75 x 15 inches, while The Oregonian measures 24 x 22.75, both papers being unfolded. The PBJ's format is considered a tabloid, or, in parlance less evocative of the National Enquirer, a compact.

A reader of Jack Bogdanski's blog reveals questions they were asked in a telephone survey about the paper:

The big news is that the Oregonian is considering going to a tabloid format. The interviewer did not use that term but she asked if I read the paper on a table or by holding it in front of me. She also asked me to rate how well I liked:

-- smaller easier to hold format;
-- same or more pages;
-- pull out sections on sports, entertainment, business, local news -- depending on the day;
-- the sections being shaped like a magazine and stapled together;
-- color printing on nearly every page.

She also asked about my commuting habits regarding the various TriMet modes.

Another reader tells us that they have participated in a similar online survey.

Anderson has also discussed stapled pullout sections, according to Oregonian employees. The publisher declined to comment for this story.

The following story is not fit for a family newspaper, if The Oregonian's stylebook is any guide. But what is fit is an open question, as an analysis of the newspaper's archives finds that its rules on offensive material are not strictly enforced.

Local playwright Francesca Sanders would like her play, a hip-hop retelling of "The Taming of the Shrew," to be listed in The Oregonian. But theater critic Marty Hughley has warned her that it might not, due to its title: "Slap That Bitch." A final decision would be made by an editor.

That's because "bitch" is technically a banned word in The Oregonian, save for its application to female dogs. The paper's style manual also notes that titles in entertainment are not exempt from this restriction.

But in actuality, the newspaper's rules are not absolute. A search for "bitch" in The Oregonian's digital archive returns over 200 articles in the past 13 years. Included are stories about Bitch Magazine; "Bitch," a song; "7 Year Bitch," a band; and an infamous televised incident between Connie Chung and Newt Gingrich's mother.

Also in the archives is an extraordinary 1997 David Reinhard column titled "Smack My Bitch Up," in which the headline phrase is repeated a dozen times in a jeremiad against cultural decay.

Oregonian editors did not provide comment on the handling of objectionable content. One imagines that they may have a thoughtful explanation of the difficulty of balancing the nuanced contexts of a complex language with the evolving standards of a modern readership.

But instead, we're left to analyze The Oregonian's rather entertaining style guide entry for "offensive language":

In general, The Oregonian does not publish obscene or profane words. But we might use certain words or phrases in a quote. The key key principle is the word's newsworthiness or essentialness to the story. If a public official says a bad word in public, we will probably print it. If a bad word is in a quote from a regular person and doesn't add anything crucial to the story, we shouldn't print it. It is up to the LINE EDITOR to get an OK from a managing editor to use words that do not meet our standards. The slots on duty have the authority to make a judgment call on deadline.

Note:

• Avoid substituting words or using ellipses, if possible, even in quotes (try to use partial quotes instead, to avoid the profanity) and do not use placeholders such as "bullbleep," or "bull****". Don't use band or movie names that use obscene or foul language.
• The Edge column in Living has special dispensation to use: damn, suck, butt, ballsy, crap, f-word, fart/old farts, pee and dork. The dispensation is not absolute, however. If something seems particularly egregious, ask Greg [Mandel, "The Edge" columnist] to get approval.

Banned words:

• ass (OK in contexts meaning donkey, usually biblical)
• balls, ballsy, bollocks, cojones
• bastard
• bitch (OK for female dogs)
• bodily functions described in a crude way
• butt-load
• bullshit, BS, bs, b.s.
• crap, crappy
• Christ - banned as an expletive
• chrissake - banned (even in columns)
• damn - OK in direct quotes or if emphasis is needed. (Doesn't need ME approval.)
• dick (and other similar vulgar slang)
• fart
• freaking, fricking and frigging
• fuck (and related words: fucker, motherfucker, fuckin' A, etc.)
• f-word
• goddamn
• hell - OK in direct quotes if emphasis is needed. (Doesn't need ME approval.) Also OK as a location and when not used as an expletetive, so "war is hell," "heaven and hell" and "going through hell" are all OK but not "what the hell" or "go to hell."
• ho (as in whore)
• merde - French for "shit" -- as in Le Merde Lounge at Montage restaurant
• old fart
• pissed off
• pussy (and other similar vulgar slang)
• screw - screwed, screwed over, got screwed, all banned. Screwed up is OK. (Doesn't need ME approval.)
• sex -- lewd descriptions of anyone having sex, not the word "sex"
• shit
• sob, s.o.b.
• suck, sucks - In the crude sense, and even "This sucks!" is not OK. A vacuum cleaner sucking things up is OK.
• whore (can be OK in a quote about name calling, but don't use as a substitute for prostitute in a news story)

Not every word on this list is held to the same standard. A quick search finds that one can, in fact, print "fart" in The Oregonian, while other words are clearly banned.

"Fuck" appears nowhere in the newspaper's archives. A story last year about a local band changing its name from "Starfucker" to "Pyramiddd" uses the remarkable euphemism, "a tart colloquialism describing the act of intimately knowing a celebrity or two (or six)." Music critic Ryan White says that "tart colloquialism," playing on the double-meaning of "tart," was his idea. "Not even I think that band's old name should run in our newspaper," he says.

A provocatively titled children's play is reduced to "Poona the F-dog." Old movie reviews warn of "R" ratings for "the f-word," and an obscene remark between a vice president and a senator is documented in a David Sarasohn column as, "Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to perform an act which is not only biologically difficult, but a clear violation of senatorial courtesy."

An analysis by OMC, which in no way resembled a 13 year-old looking up naughty words in the dictionary, revealed that "damn" occurs roughly 50 times a year, while "hell" is several times more common. "Crap" is much more likely to appear than "shit," which, in the past 13 years, has only been used in a single quotation of a person in a deadly situation.

But the printing of "bitch" has declined over time. Gaining frequency in 1991, the term appeared in an average of 14 articles per year until local artist Meredith Brooks' 1997 hit of that name. Since then, the word has fallen out of favor and was reduced to just one story in 2009. Online content, including one blog reference to the word last year, was excluded from our analysis.

All that is interesting, but Sanders simply wants people to know about her play, and she'd like the city's largest newspaper to acknowledge its existence. Given that her first show is tomorrow, however, it appears that the fickle formula of what befits a family newspaper has not allowed that to happen.

The Oregonian's first A1 ad

The Oregonian has placed an ad on page A1 for the first time in its modern publication. Taking three column inches in the lower-right corner, the display ad promotes the Clam Cannery Hotel in Port Townsend, Washington. The words "paid advertisement" appear above the ad while a black border separates it from its surroundings.

A more prominent form of advertising, the spadea, has been wrapping front pages since last August. But while that format obscures half of the front page, then-Executive Editor Peter Bhatia pointed out upon its introduction that those ads have "no impact on the amount of news in the paper or the amount of space devoted to news."

American newspapers are increasingly placing paid ads on page one. Among the top five newspapers by circulation, only the Washington Post abstains from A1 advertising. The New York Times began the practice last year.

Amid a nationwide advertising recession and after repeated buyout offers, The Oregonian recently warned of its first newsroom layoffs. New publisher Chris Anderson recently said that the paper is "adjusting our expenses to match up with our revenue."

According to one narrative, The Oregonian is being ruled by a tyrant.

Over the weekend, "Yes on 66 & 67" Campaign Director Kevin Looper criticized The Oregonian's editorial position against tomorrow's ballot measures by telling The Portland Mercury that, with regard to the editorial board, "We had the majority of them on our side, before. We know that. But [now] they're all terrified for their jobs." He alleges that new publisher Chris Anderson is "bullying the editorial board around and making sure his reporters can't report his name."

Managing Editor Therese Bottomly responded Saturday that "nothing of the sort has been said to any reporters here." Today, editorial page editor Bob Caldwell told The Mercury that the "terrified for their jobs" comment was "pure b.s."

Initial contacts to Oregonian reporters and editorial board members found no claims to the contrary.

Looper also protested that The Oregonian would not allow the campaign to run ad copy that identified Anderson as the editorial change agent. The Oregonian's sales department called the wording of the ad "false and misleading. The publisher was not involved."

(In a June editorial now attributed online to associate editor Rick Attig, the editorial board wrote that a "fair, and mostly temporary, corporate tax package must be worked out." After the legislature passed a permanent corporate tax increase, the board this month published an editorial titled, "Wrong time, wrong tax hikes." Anderson was named publisher in October.)

Anderson himself sought to clarify his paper's editorial process in The Sunday Oregonian. He wrote that while he did "join in a conversation about our position on Measures 66 and 67; that meeting was an early sharing of various viewpoints several weeks before our first editorial on the subject." He adds that "Caldwell gets to have the final say, just as he did on Measures 66 and 67."

Anderson also responded to concern that Caldwell now reports directly to him and not to the editor: "It is common to have the editor and the editorial page editor reporting separately to the publisher," he writes, "with the rationale being that the news coverage is not then swayed by the editorial positions of the newspaper."

In a conversation with OMC last week, Anderson said that the change was to "simplify Peter Bhatia's job going forward." Bhatia became editor this month; his prior position of executive editor has been eliminated. "Some bloggers seem to think that is a big deal — that somehow the editorial page editor didn't report to the publisher previously. In a practical way, the only difference between Bob reporting to Sandy [Rowe, former editor] and Bob reporting to me is that we don't copy the editor on an email. When Bob was reporting to Sandy, I had conversation with him directly — we used to work together at the Albany Democrat-Herald, so we're long-time friends — and attended a couple of editorial board meetings where Sandy wasn't present (because she chose not be). So there's no skullduggery associated with the change in the reporting relationship. Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists."

Anderson calls himself "pretty apolitical" in his Oregonian note. He adds, "I always reserve the right as the publisher to determine our editorial position, but it hasn't happened yet."

We'll continue to survey Oregonian staffers for evidence of so-denied executive skullduggery.

"No on 66/67" spadea as it
appeared on Sunday

There has been no shortage of advertising in advance of next Tuesday's special election on tax measures 66 and 67. Some of that advertising has been controversial, but this week, the controversy has surrounded one of the media outlets that accepted that advertising.

On Sunday and Wednesday, The Oregonian's front page was wrapped by a spadea, a double-sided format that covers half of the front page and all of the "A" section's back page. Below The Oregonian's nameplate and a "paid advertisement" disclaimer are the large, bold words, "The Oregonian's editorial board urges voters to VOTE NO on Measures 66 and 67."

Pat McCormick, spokesperson for Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes, says his organization inquired about the spadea before The Oregonian's January 4 "vote no" editorial. At the time, however, the paper's advertising department told them that The Oregonian did not accept political ads in the spadea format. After the editorial, McCormick says lobbyist Mark Nelson had the campaign's media-buying firm make another effort to secure the spadea, which they were successful at doing.

But while The Oregonian's endorsement was what prompted the campaign's second push for a spadea, publisher Chris Anderson repeatedly stressed to OMC that the paper's decision to run the ad "had nothing to do with the endorsement — not at all."

Anderson says that he and then-president Pat Stickel decided in December to accept political spadeas in the current election, before they made an endorsement, and he says they made the decision without discussing their editorial position. He says he does not know whether there had previously been a policy not to accept such ads.

But Mario van Dongen, director of sales and marketing at The Oregonian, says that there was indeed such a policy, and that the policy was his own. He says that the sales department would have known of the policy if someone had inquired with them, but that it was not a written company position that the president or publisher would necessarily have known about. He says that Stickel received an inquiry about a political ad on the spadea while Van Dongen was away, so, after consultation with Anderson, the decision to accept it was made without him.

Van Dongen opposed political spadeas because "a political ad might take advantage of the placement and make it look like it's a newspaper statement." He says controlling the content of a political ad is difficult, because it can become a slippery slope toward censoring it. McCormick says the negotiations they did have included matters such as the placement of the "paid advertisement" disclaimer, as well as an agreement that The Oregonian's logo would only appear on pages that also included a summary of the paper's editorial statement.

In a publisher's note that ran in Sunday morning's opinion section, Anderson wrote that the paper is "willing to make the front-page spadea available to advertisers on both sides of these ballot measures, subject to our final approval."

Elana Guiney, spokesperson for the Yes campaign, says her organization is considering such an ad. But she says that, "especially in Sunday's edition, it was hard to tell at first that [the spadea] was an advertisement." The second spadea on Wednesday was similar, but "paid advertisement" appeared in bold, a change that Anderson says he specifically requested. The bottom of each page also included the words, "Paid for by Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes," a disclosure that only appeared on the back page of Sunday's ad. Van Dongen says that that change was also made for clarity.

McCormick says the ads were technically purchased by the Northwest Grocery Association as an in-kind contribution to his organization. Disclosures about who paid for an ad have not been required by state law since a 2001 change by the state legislature, and a spokesperson for the Secretary of State's office says the disclosure that did run is ok, regardless of who specifically made the payment.

Additionally, as of this year, campaigns no longer have to disclose who they advertise with or for how much, as The Portland Mercury reported after trying to find the price of the No campaign's spadea purchase. Northwest Grocery Association president Joe Gilliam says it is his organization's policy not to comment on their expenditures during a campaign, while Anderson says that his paper does not disclose its rate sheet.

Illustration of a spadea ad,
from The Oregonian

Oregon Media Central, however, has confirmed figures that were first reported by progressive political website BlueOregon: Sunday spadeas cost $24,950, while weekday spadeas are $19,750. Anderson says that the No campaign paid the standard rate.

Could that kind of revenue save some staffers from the intevitable layoff that Sandy Rowe warned about in a November memo, before she herself retired as editor in order to save the paper money? When the first front-page spadea ran in August, current editor Peter Bhatia wrote that "ads like these pay for the news staff." Anderson would only add that The Oregonian gets most of its revenue from advertising, and that "we are adjusting our expenses to match up with our revenue."

Tim Gleason, dean of the University of Oregon's School of Journalism, says that, while he has "absolutely no doubt" that there is no connection between The Oregonian's editorial position and the paper's decision to accept the spadea, he believes that the ad is a "symbol of the degree to which financial pressures are influencing news decision-making." He warns that "the credibility of any news organization is challenged when the line between advertising and editorial content is blurred," something he says he sees "in all mediums." He says that Sunday's spadea is "a very visible symbol of that trend."

While Anderson agrees that blurring the line between advertising and editorial content would challenge a paper's credibility, he does not agree that the No campaign's spadeas have done so. "Not when it's clearly marked as a paid ad." He says that the paper's willingness to accept spadeas from the Yes campaign is more evidence that that line is distinct. Anderson, who taught journalism ethics at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School in the fall of 2008, adds, "I think I'm informed."

The Oregonian will revisit whether to accept spadeas in future political campaigns. Anderson adds, "It would have been much easier if the first ad had been from the supporters."

UPDATE (1/22, 10:21 am): A pronoun has been changed to Van Dongen's name to clarify that it was he who was away when the decision to accept political spadeas was made.

Sportswriter and columnist Dwight Jaynes, 25-year veteran of The Oregonian and the Oregon Journal, is joining The Game (95.5 KXTG), the station has announced.

Jaynes, who, after The Oregonian, edited The Portland Tribune until 2008 and hosted a talk show on KPAM, is joining Gavin Dawson and Chad Doing as co-host of The Morning Sports Page. He's already been making regular appearances on the station, where he's known as "The Godfather."

The Game hired current Oregonian sportswriter Jason Quick as a contributor in September. Oregonian sports columnist John Canzano hosts afternoons, and Brian Wheeler, play-by-play voice of Blazers, hosts middays with Kenny Vance and Jay Allen.

The station, which has yet to have its second birthday, is the home of the Portland Trail Blazers, Oregon Ducks, Seattle Seahawks and Portland Timbers. Along with KXL (750), it was sold last year by Blazers owner Paul Allen as one of the first two stations of Alpha Broadcasting.

"The opportunity to get back into sports radio is a dream come true," Jaynes said in a statement. "Gavin and Chad are incredibly generous to share what was already a winning show with me."