January 14, 2004
Tell OPB To Air More 'Editorial Board' Programming
The following is from the sidebar to the Willamette Week endorsement of Measure 30 in today's edition:
Ever wanted to be behind the scenes when newspaper endorsements are made? Well, you're getting your chance anyway. On Dec. 30, WW's editorial board met with proponents and opponents of Measure 30. Instead of grilling them in our conference room, we gathered in a studio at Oregon Public Broadcasting, which taped the proceedings. Excerpts from that meeting, as well as our follow-up reporting and the discussion leading up to our yes vote are included in "Oregon Territory: Inside the Editorial Board," an hourlong special produced by OPB.
That special is airing at this moment, and in the absence of the cancelled Seven Days program, it puts me in mind of an idea: Oregon Public Broadcasting should air a semi-regular series of editorial board programs such as this one, on various topics, and with different editorial boards from across the state.
Rather than a typical roundtable program where the more or less same crew weighs in week after week (like, well, Seven Days), OPB could advance the state's political discourse by inviting viewers into editoral board discussions of newspapers and other media from every region of the state.
This would not only give us debates on a particular issue or set of issues (like tonight's on Measure 30), but insights as well into the perspectives of local media outlets to whose work (and the communities their work represents) other parts of Oregon are often not exposed.
So, contact OPB and express your support for such a series of public affairs programming. You can also contact the Oregon Territory program directly.