'Mercury' Tries Spin-Doctoring The Busse Letter
As Long As This Is Just About 'Questioning'...
In today's edition of The Portland Mercury, Phil Busse attempts to offer his own characterizations of his March letter regarding the nomination of Willamette Week for a Pulitzer Prize. Those characterizations fail to reflect the approach he took in the letter itself.
For the most part, one example nicely illustrates the disconnect between Busse's letter and his more recent attempts to distance himself from its clear intentions. Here's part of Busse's note in today's Mercury:
According to Jaquiss' own reporting, one of the original foudners of Willamette Week, Robert Burthchaell, was actively involved in "handling" (more precisely, "silencing") Goldschmidt's victim. The question of Burthchaell's alleged involvement in the cover-up -- and how this should relfect on WW -- is a question I believe should be asked.
In fact, in today's Mercury, Busse tries to frame his March letter as simply a matter of asking questions, rather than anything more severe. But here's how Busse addresses the same issue regarding Burtchaell in the lettter itself:
... Moreover and more damning, Robert Burtchaell, one of the Willemette Week's founders, was also the man assigned to "handle" (as in silencing) the woman that Goldschmidt raped. The "handling" and cover-up were happening at the very same time that Burtchaell was helping to set up the newspaper. It is unnerving that one of the pillars of the newspaper was apparently simultaneously and intimately involved in this story's cover-up. How can a Pulitzer be awarded to a newspaper that had the cover-up right under their very noses, if not within their officers?
You'll note, first of all, that in his March letter Busse makes no note whatsoever of the "[a]ccording to Jaquiss' own reporting" bit that he makes sure to put in today's Mercury. Rather, in his letter, Busse conveniently omits that bit, giving the appearance that WW and Jaquiss were somehow pretending that aspect of the story didn't exist. He then goes on to make it pretty clear that what he's really questioning is the nomination itself -- despite later claiming the lettter wasn't "against" it.
The overall intent of Busse's note in today's Mercury is to argue that all he's doing is questioning. "After all," he writes, "wasn't the failure -- and the fear -- to ask probing questions for 30 years the reason that the Goldschmidt rape remained hidden?"
But the March letter isn't merely a set of questions -- it's a rather obvious attempt to convince the Pulitizer folk to re-examine their nomination.
Had this letter been written in precisely the same manner, but by a politician, Busse of all people would look at it and see it for what it is, not become an apologist for that politician when he or she, after the fact, tried to claim the lettter wasn't "against" the nomination.
Busse is quite right that the Goldschmidt scandal persisted unexamined for as long as it did because of a lack of questions. But for some reason, now that it's come to light that Busse himself went out of his way to inject himself into the story at such a late date, by insinuating that the nomination might not have been warranted, he himself is reacting to those questioning him with the same sort of after-the-fact obfuscation which he so hates in others.
April 07, 2005 at 12:44 PM
Busse is a self serving prick. Yet you endorsed him for mayor, B!x. Care to re-assess?
April 07, 2005 at 01:34 PM
Funny how this issue of the Mercury doesn't seem to be online yet. Perhaps because Busse knows he'll have to face the scrutiny of the blogger nation and he's not willing to blink into those spotlights. Busse, give up. You lost. You're a loser. And a liar. WW caught him in yet another lie this week when he gave a totally different answer to a reader about his fake restaurant review.
April 07, 2005 at 01:35 PM
The Mercury is trying to its spin out on the street with the coffee baristas. I've already had two bring up the subject (it just so happened they had the Mercury in their coffee shops and no WW.) Both told me that Mark Sussman had political aspirations 10 years ago and therefore didn't go with the story. I thought, "Hmmm. Two different baristas in two different parts of town telling me the same story, both of whom have a stack of the Mercury sitting in plain site with no WWs."
Whoever is delivering the Mercury to those places is feedin' the spin.
April 07, 2005 at 01:47 PM
Geez, Sid, you must be wired by now with all that coffee!
April 07, 2005 at 02:24 PM
As someone who gave $100 to Busse's mayoral campaign, I would like to publically recant. Of course, I post anonymously, so it's not very meaningful. But I know Busse reads this, so at least he'll get the note.
Me For Liar: That article is definitely online.
April 07, 2005 at 02:39 PM
Yet you endorsed him for mayor, B!x.
I think you may be confused, Sir Willups Brightlymore. When it was all said and done, I do believe that b!X endorsed Potter.
April 07, 2005 at 02:46 PM
Uh...in the primary, when there were SEVERAL choices available, B!x endorsed Busse. Later in the general, B!x endorsed Potter. That's not really a choice, per se -- either you liked Jim F. or you didn't. But when he had the chance to endorse Potter in the primary, he did not.
April 07, 2005 at 02:46 PM
And here's the link:
http://communique.portland.or.us/04/03/endorsement_phil_busse_for_mayor.html
April 07, 2005 at 02:57 PM
And we endorse Phil Busse to be the next Mayor of Portland.
I sit corrected ---- and disappointed.
April 07, 2005 at 03:44 PM
Busse is probably right about the need to look into the unanswered questions. That he has advocated that pursuit in such a way to make himself look like a jerk is no one's fault but his own.
Instead of writing that letter (or *any* letter) to the Pulitzer board, he should have just quietly begun work on uncovering the answers. If there is a lot of muck about WW to be raked, he would have come out a hero when he found it. If not, he could have quietly let it die. As it is, he's painted himself into a corner where, no matter what he finds, he's still gonna look like a jerk.
As for b!x's endorsement of Busse, so what? If it was easy to spot aspiring politicans who later turn out to be jerks, the world would be a much different place than it is.
April 07, 2005 at 06:01 PM
Indeed, I did endorse Busse in the primary last year. I'm not going to retract it because that would be rather silly and irrelevant. Based upon what I knew at the time, and what I felt at the time, I'm not going to apologize for the endorsement.
Would I endorse him again? It doesn't seem so, no. But I'm not going to go through some bizarre motions of wishing I had endorsed someone else at the time.
April 07, 2005 at 06:41 PM
Are you kidding me?!?!
Phil Busse whining about the integrity of a former editor to his rival paper 30 some-odd years ago?!
Bloody hell, he should talk! Everett True, Brendan Fraser, Mark Lindquist, Dan Savage..
Let alone Kathleen Wilson, Sean Nelson, and Charles Mudede...
You say these guys have not engaged in what might be construed as less than integrity-filled behaviour?
Come on! PDX, don't let the wool get pulled over your eyes; Mr. Busse's own employer has had many an editor doing many a bad bad thing.
April 07, 2005 at 09:16 PM
Sir Willups,
What, you only drink one cup of coffee a day? And, yes, I was wired when I posted that comment. I guess I shouldn't post comments when I've had two cups of coffee because they don't make much sense, especially when I do it in five seconds.
But the point of my comment was that the people who are delivering the Mercury around town are also delivering a bunch of spin against the Week.
I find it distasteful when I hear people speaking negatively about their competition. It's just kind of icky.
April 08, 2005 at 12:27 PM
When I learned of WW's personal ties to the Goldschmidt scandal I became alarmed. The Pulitzer is one of the most distinguished awards in journalism. Receiving such a prestigious award for "uncovering" something that you (or your organization) had a direct role in burying (in the first place) diminishes the value of the Pulitzer and further blurs the line between reporting the news and making the news.
I guess I don't understand why everyone here is attacking Phil Busse. Personally, I applaud him for being brave enough to ask the questions in the first place and I wonder why no one else is asking them? Critiquing Busse for asking questions seems misdirected.
April 08, 2005 at 07:03 PM
In discussing Robert Burtchaell's involvement with Willamette Week and the victim, Mr. Busse takes liberties of time that bring to mind the Gotham restaurant. Willamette Week was founded in 1974. The story reports that Mr. Burtchaell was involved with Governor Goldschmidt and the victim in 1978, not "at the very same time that he was helping to set up the newspaper" (Mr. Busse's words.) And he was gone from the newspaper by 1983, when its present owners bought it, and as far as I know hasn't been back since.
April 10, 2005 at 02:05 PM
I wouldn't wipe my ass with the Mercury. It sucks and so does Busse.
April 11, 2005 at 02:14 PM
Busse's a guy with a lot of ideas, some of them WAY better than others. B!x can be forgiven for endorsing one of the few generators of ideas in the last election. of course, being mayor is about more than having lots of ideas, but still...
Busse's idea that WW doesn't deserve the Pulitzer because someone once important to the paper helped Goldschmidt out? That really doesn't hold up, unless current WW editors or writers knew about it and refused to follow. But then WW's sanctimonious tone after the story entered the public arena hasn't been especially savory either.
The "meaning" of the G. case is complex, beyond the clear and simple "wrongness" of it all. Still, it would've been nice if some press outlet had tried to tackle some pieces of it instead of playing gotcha. in the record as i've read it, only The Oregonian's Randy Gragg attempted anything remotely like that, when he wrote about the affect of the G. scandal on the city's planning community.