Covering Moscow News

[Don Coombs <dcoombs@uidaho.edu>]

If you think it's desirable for people to know what's going on in town,
you're interested in how the news is covered. Moscow used to have 3-1/2
agencies covering the area: The Daily News, the Lewiston Trib, KRFA and
KWSU (the WSU stations) and -- in a half-hearted way -- the Spokesman
Review.

The WSU stations dropped out some years ago, when their reach was extended
to Port Angeles and Bellingham; they couldn't afford to cover or find
air time for news of dozens and dozens of towns. What they could
afford was seamless classical music, and the national news shows.

The Spokesman Review now and then covers Moscow, and Friday the paper got
out in front and looked good. On the front page of the Idaho edition, the
Spokesman had "Washington State auditors say the administrator of Moscow's
Gritman Medical Center violated laws and breached ethics while
(in his previous job) overseeing a hospital in Western Washington." And
Andrea Vogt, the reporter, put together a long story which jumped to page
9.

The Lewiston Trib whiffed on the story, which means there will be
opportunity Saturday morning for the Trib to cover the story in its own
way or to pretend that it's not really news and ignore it. The Trib has a
reputation for not taking that last, easy, route.

The Daily News, with all morning to cover the story after the Spokesman
broke it, chose to use portions of the Spokesman story (which is perfectly
legal because both newspapers belong to the Associated Press) and add
nothing of its own. In other words, the Daily News ran heavily edited wire
copy on a story in its own town. The Daily News also changed the lead so
that instead of identifying the person (Tom Stegbauer) as the
administrator of Gritman Medical center, it identified him as "A Port
Angeles hospital administrator." In the third paragraph, it got around to
reporting his present employment at Gritman.

Nobody should judge on the basis of one day's papers, but the Spokesman
definitely did better than the Trib in covering Moscow on Friday.

While the Trib sports section was guessing who the strongest
candidates were to replace Chris Tormey as UI football coach, the
Spokesman sports section -- even though it had an earlier deadline than 
the Trib -- reported that three candidates had withdrawn, including Scott
Linehan, who was one of the Trib's two "strongest candidates."
(In its defense, the Trib's information appeared in an opinion column, not
a news story.)

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On a personal note: I can be persuaded to keep observations like the above
to myself. All it will take is one or more people letting me know they
prefer to judge papers by how much "good news" they print. (I tend not to
communicate when I'm depressed.)

Don H. Coombs