Tag Archives: oregon

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Redefining “reporting” – the erosion of journalistic integrity by Metro

Metro is misusing the term "reporter"

Metro is misusing the term “reporter”

Traditional journalists have long been defined by their independence and integrity, beholden to no one but the public, producing the news without fear or favor.

But lately, with trust of American media already at an all-time low, media are being complicit in their own decline, undermining their authenticity and trustworthiness by allowing publicists to pose as reporters and blurring the line between editorial content and paid advertising.

One of the more egregious abuses of the journalism standard is at Metro, the Portland area’s regional elected government, where a former Hillsboro Argus news writer pretends to be a “reporter” providing “objective, written news coverage” of Metro. Metro created the position in 2010, insisting that the new hire would provide “objective, written news coverage” of the agency. The “reporter” would get style, spelling and other editorial support, but could decide what topics to pursue and would not have his or her work edited for content.

The eventual hire, Nick Christensen, came from the Hillsboro Argus, where he had covered Metro and western Washington County. Pror to that he served as managing editor of the Summerlin Home News near Las Vegas and as a reporter at the Las Vegas Sun.
Now reporting to Metro’s Communications Director, Jim Middaugh, Christensen is referred to as “Metro News editor” and as a “news reporter” for Metro on the agency’s website.

Access by a true reporter to the inner corridors of power can translate into aggressive, groundbreaking, fiery media stories, but it’s not likely that Metro’s in-house “reporter” will produce such stories. It’s clear from a review of his prosaic, process-oriented writing to date reveals that he’s not going to be a Woodward or Bernstein exposing seamy government practices or, for that matter, an investigative reporter in the tradition of the journalists at Willamette Week who exposed Neil Goldschmidt’s rape of a 14-year-old babysitter.

Instead, Christensen’s stories are carefully crafted press releases masquerading as independent news reporting. Metro even asks, “In the interest of disclosure to readers”, that media attribute content from Christensen‘s (stories) to him and identify him as a news reporter for Metro.
Making things worse, local media, including the Portland Business Journal, Willamette Week and the Portland Tribune have bought into Metro’s ruse, frequently citing Christensen’s comments as those of a reporter. This even though Middaugh has admitted that Christensen’s work is “definitely public relations”. Middaugh has justified Christensen’s identification as a “reporter” on the basis that government has a responsibility to keep people informed in the face of public cynicism, apparently unaware that misleading the public feeds that cynicism.

Christensen’s stories are, let’s be honest, the equivalent of advertising disguised as news. In that respect, he fits right in with the deliberate blurring of the divide between advertising and editorial content that’s going on across the media landscape, eroding public trust in journalism.

In case you haven’t noticed, digital and print media are increasingly featuring sponsored content, or “native advertising” created or developed by a business or special interest seeking to influence viewers.

In a prominent case, The Atlantic magazine found itself in the middle of a reputation debacle in January 2013 when it featured a native advertisement package submitted by the Church of Scientology which, though identified as “sponsor content,” looked otherwise like a regular story.

The Internet exploded with negative comments, some criticizing The Atlantic for promoting the controversial Church of Scientology, but more for allowing paid advertising to be subtly disguised as editorial content.

To put it simply, the news business is slowly being corrupted by practices like native advertising and media’s willingness to go along with things like Metro’s attempt to pass Christensen off as a reporter. If it isn’t controlled, readers’ trust will be lost.

So, let’s all get on the same page here and call a P.R. guy a P.R. guy. For Metro, that would be good P.R.

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Woodfold Manufacturing redefining business success

Some businesspeople want to do more than just build a successful enterprise; they also want to be a force for good.

In Forest Grove, the leaders of Woodfold Manufacturing believe in the capacity of business to do more than just produce jobs and profits.

Founded in 1957, Woodfold has continued to thrive as an employee-owned and operated company that’s a leading supplier of custom-crafted accordion doors, roll-up doors, hardwood shutters and bookcase doors for residential and commercial installations.

Woodfold has also become a company dedicated to the idea that true business sustainability considers the relationships between the environment, community and people.

Over the years that has meant big reductions in electricity and natural gas use, increases in recycling, achievement of a Forest Stewardship Councilcertification, and even providing free gardening space for a local charter school.

Setting higher bar

On May 14, 2013, Woodfold took a further step by becoming a Certified B Corp. “We became certified because we have always held certain core values at Woodfold, such as working for the long term and measuring things in regard to the triple bottom line,” said Justin Norman, Woodfold’s vice president for business development.

A company’s B Corp status is conferred by B Lab, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, on business entities that meet certain criteria. A certification means the company’s policies and practices have been verified to be sustainable through a rigorous process called the B Impact Assessment.

“Woodfold’s first commitment is to our people and doing the right thing,” said the company’s CEO, Mark Lewis. “It just so happens that a commitment to those to things makes it pretty easy to meet the B Corp certification standards.”

A company can become a B Corp regardless of its legal structure so long as it scores well on B Lab’s assessment and verification process. There are currently 894 certified B Corporations in 29 countries.

By voluntarily meeting higher standards of transparency, accountability, and performance, Certified B Corps are distinguishing themselves in a cluttered marketplace by offering a positive vision of a better way to do business, B Lab says.

Simply seeking B Corp certification can have benefits, too. “Despite scoring relatively well on the certification, we still have a long way to go, as do almost all B Corps, because neither us nor anyone to my knowledge has ever attained a perfect score,” Norman said. “Since we are big into continuous improvement, it would not make any sense for us to stand still and not try to keeping improving things here at Woodfold, which in turn will lend itself to a higher score down the road.”

There are also rewards to just participating in the B Lab review because companies become more aware of evaluation standards and can set goals for improvement.

B Corps vs. Benefit Companies

As we begin 2014, Woodfold faces another decision: whether to also become a Benefit Company. B Corps and Benefit Companies sound similar, but they are quite different and the difference goes beyond semantics.

A state law permitting businesses to become Benefit Companies took effect in Oregon on January 2, 2014. Securing a B Corp designation is more a branding effort than a legal step. To embrace legally binding sustainability obligations, a business must register as a Benefit Company.

Benefit companies write into their governing documents that management is permitted to pursue social and environmental benefits alongside shareholder interest. That means they can are make business decisions that run contrary to maximizing shareholder value, putting purpose over profits.

According to the MIT Sloan Management Review, this goes beyond traditional corporate social responsibility, where companies support social and charitable programs that improve the corporation’s image. It is, instead, about managing and holding organizations accountable for performance targeted at optimizing a combination of financial, social and environmental outcomes.

“We want to make sure that things play out as expected before we go for Benefit Company status in Oregon,” said Lewis. “One of the things we try very hard not to do at Woodfold is whipsaw our people by constant course changes. The first thing we wanted to do is use the B Corp standards to test our management philosophy. We will explore the pros and cons of becoming a Benefit Corp and make a decision on that later in 2014.”

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Tigard man is enthralled by tin toy trucks

By Bill MacKenzie

It all started, as so many good things do, with his father.

John Venheim’s father, Georg, a decorated veteran of World War II, came to the United States from Norway in 1945 to marry his 17-year-old sweetheart from New York. When Venheim was in kindergarten, his father brought home a 1955 Tonka Metro van he’d bought at Goodwill. Venheim was hooked.

In 2010, the year his father passed away, Venheim bought his first Tonka tractor-trailer set on Craigslist, followed by the purchase of several collections of Tonka parts from which he crafted some trucks. When he sold an orange 1958 Tonka flatbed truck carrying a bulldozer for $300, he knew his hobby had taken a turn.

“I realized I had to get organized,” he said, “so I put together a complete shop in my garage in 2011.” The cluttered 480-square-foot garage is now packed with a raft of tin toy truck-making equipment, including a sandblaster, woodworking tools, a painting cube, a Thumler’s Tumbler machine that shines chromed parts in vibrating corn cob grit, a metal polisher and a wood jig used to make identical wooden stakes for a Tonka Farm Stake truck.

In a corner of the garage are 7-foot-tall wooden racks with shelving. One rack contains already painted projects, another a collection of parts, a third a jumble of supplies. A fourth rack is used to dry newly painted projects at a constant 80 degrees. In another corner is a large metal rack filled with old tin trucks and parts acquired over time.

On a shelf is a collection of original, colorful crate labels found on the Internet that he uses to adorn the sides of trucks. “Minton’s. Choice Bartlett Pears packed by C.D. Minton Inc., Forest Grove, Oregon, U.S.A.,” read one.

by: JONATHAN HOUSE - John Venheim refurbishes vintage pressed-steel toy trucks that he then sells through his Custom Tin Toy Trucks business.by: JONATHAN HOUSE – John Venheim refurbishes vintage pressed-steel toy trucks that he then sells through his Custom Tin Toy Trucks business.

For the past three years, Venheim has been busily building, repairing, buying and selling tin toy trucks and parts made not just by Tonka, but also by Buddy L. Wyandotte, Nylint, Structo and others. He said he spends about 10 hours a week in the garage immersed in his hobby, but with his non-stop enthusiasm, it’s probably much more as he builds his business, Custom Tin Toy Trucks.

He buys and sells on eBay and Craigslist and on specialized websites such as tonkapartsandsupply.com.

“You can buy just about anything connected with old Tonkas online,” he said, “including whole trucks, grills, hubcaps, headlights, truck tailgates, and tires, which are real expensive.”

His most recent acquisition, a red Texaco Fire Chief fire truck made by Buddy L. in the 1960s, was purchased on eBay for $40

Venheim also seeks out deals at garage sales. “Lots of people with tin toy trucks have no idea what they have,” he said. At a garage sale he encountered a woman selling a 1955 tin toy truck for $10. He told her the truck was worth much more and bought it for $80. After he fixed up and polished the truck, he sold it for $127.

Some online sellers buy old model trucks online, strip them down and sell all the parts individually. “Most people selling these old trucks don’t realize that if they took them apart and sold the parts, they could get three times as much,” he said.

The truck Venheim got the most for was a worn vintage unrestored Steelcraft Streamlined City Trucking Co. truck. What made it special is that it was designed by Viktor Schreckengost, a legendary American industrial designer often called “the American DaVinci.” Venheim sold the truck on eBay for $600.

by: JONATHAN HOUSE - Once finished, John Venheims custom tin trucks bring back the nostalgia of these old toys.by: JONATHAN HOUSE – Once finished, John Venheims custom tin trucks bring back the nostalgia of these old toys.

Some people only want to buy completely original vintage trucks, which tend to cost more. An original 1958 Big Mike dump truck with snow plow and dual hydraulic in mint condition with its original box can go for $1,000 or more. Other collectors are fine with new toy trucks. For them, there are companies like Smith-Miller Inc. of Lake Havasu City, Ari., which sells handmade scale trucks in miniature. A 41.5-inch-long, 21-pound Navajo Freight Lines Hauler is for sale on its website at $1,295.

Venheim’s trucks cost considerably less. That’s partly because he hasn’t built a solid reputation yet. It’s also because his creations often have added parts or parts that are different from the original. Once in a while, he even does whimsical add-ons such as a tiny spotted owl he placed on a logging truck.

As much as he’s able to make a little money from his tin trucks, he wants to keep it as a hobby and hold down a steady job for a while. “It’s an avocation now,” said Venheim, 55. “Hopefully, it’s going to be an established business when I retire.”

At that point, he expects to concentrate on mass-producing a highly sought after type of model gas turbine toy truck. “My intent is to get businesses like breweries to buy 10 or 15 of them, put their label on the side and then use them for promotional purposes,” he said. “That will be my bread and butter.”

In the long term, Venheim’s goal is to create a legacy. “My intent behind this company is that 50 years from now people will see one of my trucks and say, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a Custom Tin Toy Truck.”

Bill MacKenzie is a former congressional staff member, newspaper reporter and communications manager for a Hillsboro company.

Originally published in the Hillsboro Tribune,  Dec. 5, 2013

 

View a video, Custom Tin Toy Trucks with John VenheimImage

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Sometimes it pays to go with the crowd

By Bill MacKenzie

It seems like nearly everybody is trying to raise money for their personal use through online “crowdfunding.” It’s clearly not just for start-up businesses.

Crowdfunding — funding a project by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people — is exploding in Hillsboro, throughout Oregon and across the United States.

Even Caroline Channing, the tall blonde in the TV show “2 Broke Girls,” is a believer. In a recent episode, she went on a crowdfunding website, gofundyourself.com, in an attempt to raise $1,500 for a new pair of pants.

If you believe in the wisdom of the crowd, the Internet is bursting with opportunities to join others investing in people.

Keith Merrow of Hillsboro recently sought to raise $15,000 on a crowdfunding website, Indiegogo.com. His band, Conquering Dystopia, wanted to use the money to record an album.

In just 45 days, his campaign raised $35,320, more than double his goal, from 792 contributors, some as far away as Australia.

Typical of arrangements on Indiegogo, contributors got no financial return on their investment, but could pick a gift based on the amount of their donation. A $10 donation spurred a digital download of the album; a $500 donation earned a VIP dinner with band members at the Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle.

Matt Peterson of Hillsboro tried to raise $3,000 on another crowdfunding website, GoFundMe.com, so he could go to a 28-day intensive wrestling camp. He reached $1,750 from 16 people in six months, then secured the rest from family.

At GoFundMe, participants usually raise money for themselves, a friend or a loved one for purposes such as medical expenses, education costs, volunteer programs and youth sports. Fundraisers can keep every donation they get or get the donations only if they reach a pre-set goal.

A different approach is offered by the crowdfunding website pave.com, an online funding platform that allows individuals to support promising high achievers. Pave claims it’s “a new investment option, not a donation.” If the investees achieve financial success, they agree to share that with their investors.

Oren Bass, who co-founded Pave in 2012, said his motivation was basic: “To provide people with what I consider a better financing option than debt — one that allows risk-taking plus the collaboration and support of the community; and to build something with both social and macro-economic impact.”

At Pave, the percentage of income an investee commits to sharing with investors varies depending on the amount of funding raised, along with how much the recipient is expected to earn.

Stephanie Walker, an engineering student at Oregon State University, recently launched a campaign on Pave. She hopes to raise $50,000 to pay off her student loans so she can pursue a career in sustainable engineering and product design with a focus on creating sustainable materials.

Close to 30 prospects have already raised over $400,000 through Pave, and a few have started making payments to their backers.

Though crowdfunding is gaining wide acceptance, there is reason to be cautious.

To guard against fraud, Pave does extensive checks to verify identities, review credit histories and check any “structured data” a prospect supplies, such as college attendance, GPA, and work employment history.

GoFundMe is much looser in its oversight.

“With hundreds of thousands of campaigns, it’s not feasible for GoFundMe to investigate the claims stated by each campaign organizer,” reads an excerpt from the GoFundMe website.

I’m not sure what motivates people to give money online to complete strangers. Maybe a lot of people who have had good fortune want to pay it forward. Maybe it’s just a charitable impulse.

But you can’t check the veracity of a lot of crowdfunding proposals. Some are the equivalent of the infamous Nigerian email scams where mass emails promise great riches to potential victims. The entire personal crowdfunding platform relies largely on trust, something scammers have always known how to exploit. So prudence should be the watchword.

 

Bill MacKenzie is a former congressional staff member, newspaper reporter and communications manager for a Hillsboro company.

Originally published in the Hillsboro Tribune,  Nov. 15, 2013

 

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Turning unemployment into self-employment

By Bill MacKenzie

Ronald Reagan once wisecracked, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

But sometimes, the government gets it right.

Julie Thomas knows that. Thomas recalls with sadness when her beloved black lab, Barney, had cancer. Wanting desperately to ease Barney’s pain, Thomas, an employee at Intel’s Hillsboro site, studied small animal massage and began treating her pet. When Thomas learned she was going to be let go by Intel, she decided to take a risk and change careers to work in canine water therapy.

But how could she get the business off the ground while unemployed? Oregon’s Self Employment Assistance Program (SEAP) came to her rescue.

The regular Unemployment Compensation program requires unemployed workers to be actively seeking work to get benefits. SEAP allows unemployed people to collect allowances equal to their benefits while devoting all their time to starting a business, rather than looking for another job.

The program was created in 1993 after passage of federal legislation championed by then-U.S. Rep. Ron Wyden. SEAP is now active in seven states, including Oregon. In 2012, legislation sponsored by Wyden — now Oregon’s senior U.S. Senator — provided for $35 million in grants to states to improve administration and promotion of the program.

With the economy still struggling, SEAP offers a lifeline to some entrepreneurs.

“It seemed a perfect fit for me,” Thomas said.

Thomas opened her business, Doggie Paddle, in Portland in October 2010.

“I’m not making the money I made working in a corporation,” she said, “but I’m doing something with animals, something of service, something for which I have a passion.”

Thomas is just one of several thousand Oregonians who have taken advantage of SEAP, including 55 now enrolled from Washington County, with seven of those from Hillsboro.

With SEAP support, Dave Crosswhite of Tigard started Oregon Backflow Testing, which tests backflow prevention devices that help to prevent hazardous materials from entering drinking water. He said SEAP was a huge factor.

“It took the pressure off of needing to produce an income right away and allowed me to focus on building the business and not having to job search in order to receive benefits,” he explained.

Glen Wagner and Steve Bauer signed up after they both lost their technology jobs. They decided to start a company called Open Lore in Beaverton that would deliver assisting technology to people having difficulty reading English, primarily those with dyslexia.

“Unfortunately, with multiple kids in college and still relatively young, at least at heart, we did not have the complete means to meet our family obligations and the capital expenses of starting a new technology business,” Wagner said. “With SEAP, we could put our heart and soul into the business.”

But SEAP is not without its weaknesses.

Key SEAP performance data is based only on surveys returned by program participants, but a lot of participants don’t return the surveys. For example, a recent Oregon survey sent out to 356 SEAP participants got only 78 replies — a 22 percent return.

So the state doesn’t know how many people sign up for SEAP, exhaust their benefits and end up with no business and no job. Some of those missing may be in worse shape than when they started.

Another glaring weakness is, success in Oregon hasn’t been determined on the basis of how many SEAP participants start and maintain a successful business. Rather, success has been judged by how well the state promotes SEAP and how much money is distributed to participants. Only government could think that way.

In addition, although SEAP requires that potential participants fill out an application scored to determine the feasibility of their proposed business, there’s no real follow-up. That means no assurance participants will take advantage of the array of support programs available to help grow and sustain a business. Failure may too often be the consequence.

Only about half of all new businesses survive five years or more, and only about one-third survive 10 years or more. To improve their odds, SEAP-related businesses need continuing guidance. After all, although new businesses create new jobs, it’s only when they succeed and expand that real job growth occurs.

Bill MacKenzie is a former congressional staff member, newspaper reporter and communications manager for a Hillsboro company.

Originally published in the Hillsboro Tribune,  Sept. 13, 2013

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Hillsboro reaches too far with investments

By Bill MacKenzie

When others are playing with bright and shiny things, it can be tempting to bend the rules to join the game.

A case in point — the city of Hillsboro’s decision to succumb to the allure of venture capital investment.

In 2009, some local investors began advocating a city of Portland fund that would make venture capital investments in local startups.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams and the Portland Development Commission(PDC) were enthused by the idea, but the Oregon constitution prohibits cities

and counties from investing directly in for-profit companies. As the saying goes, however, “where there’s a will there’s a way.”

The PDC came up with an end-run — have Portland’s contribution go to a fund created by the non-profit Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN). Then pick a firm to manage the money as the Portland Seed Fund and make OEN a limited partner in the fund. That way, any return on investment in startups would go back to OEN, not the city of Portland. In 2010, Portland announced it would make an initial contribution of $500,000 — later expanded to $700,000 — and a search began for additional donations and investments. One target — the city of Hillsboro.

In January 2011, officials with the Hillsboro’s Economic Development Department brought the concept to the Hillsboro City Council. The fund would provide seed capital to entrepreneurs, they said, helping to fill early funding gaps for new companies and increasing the job creation prospects for startups.

The officials said their department had already budgeted $250,000 for the seed fund, with the money to come from fees generated by the city’s Enterprise Zone program.

Because Hillsboro was subject to the same prohibition on investing in for-profit companies as Portland, Hillsboro would follow the same circuitous route. Its money would go to the Portland Seed Fund and investment decisions would be left to the fund managers.

“The city of Hillsboro is interested in supporting entrepreneurship and business growth in the Portland region and in Hillsboro specifically,” the officials told the city council. “We anticipate that the proposed seed fund will ultimately generate considerable business investment and job creation in Hillsboro.”

The city council approved the seed fund donation without public discussion.

Venture capital has played a major positive role in innovation, but if its intent in this case was the fertilization of some startups in Hillsboro, the results have been dismal. Of the 36 startups receiving money from the seed fund so far, only one was located in Hillsboro.

That company, Good Works Now, Inc., was developing Cloud-based tools for non-profits to modernize how they manage fundraising, boards and online reputation. In late 2012, the company collapsed, and the seed fund wrote off its investment.

Looking forward, there are no guarantees Hillsboro will see any direct benefits from the seed fund. That’s because no investment recipient is obligated to invest in Hillsboro, and there is no guarantee that any startup supported by the fund in the future will do so.

Hillsboro also won’t get a payoff if a startup becomes wildly successful.

A venture capital fund stands to make money by owning equity in the companies it invests in when the companies are sold or go public. But Hillsboro’s $250,000 was a donation, not an investment in the fund.

Other American cities, including New York and Philadelphia, are heading down the same venture capital route, but not to universal acclaim. Critics assert that private venture capital firms will find promising startups without government interference.

“The question is whether it’s justifiable for government to be involved,” Gary Kunkle, founder and CEO of Outlier, a research firm focusing on innovative approaches to nurturing and retaining high-growth companies, told Inc. Magazine recently. “Markets take care of themselves much more efficiently than governments want to give them credit for.”

Portland economist Bill Conerly agrees.

“Portland would do best creating a good business environment for all companies, big or small, startup or established …” he recently told me. “The idea of city money for seed capital is simply corporate welfare done in small pieces.”

In 2009, Brad Jones, an executive of the Redpoint Ventures investment firm, wrote to President Barack Obama’s economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, questioning the wisdom of the government’s $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, a solar cell manufacturer.

“I can’t imagine it’s a good way for the government to use taxpayer money.” Jones said.

“I relate well to your view that gov. is a crappy v.c.” (venture capital investor),” Summers wrote back.

In 2011, Solyndra went bankrupt.

The Portland Seed Fund is now raising money for a second round of startup investments. The city of Hillsboro should sit this one out.

Bill MacKenzie is a former congressional staff member, newspaper reporter and communications manager for a Hillsboro company.

Originally published in the Hillsboro Tribune,  May 3, 2013