Opinion
4A
Saturday, March 13, 2021
From the Editor
Reinventing how
we cover sports
A
daption is the constant in this pandemic.
Like all other businesses and organi-
zations during this crisis, The Observer
newsroom has adapted how we operate, with
reporters working remotely at times and covering
meetings online or over the phone.
And now sports are in full swing and we’ve
barely scratched the surface of what’s happening
there. I want to explain to our readers why.
The Observer’s newsroom has been small for
years, but now we’re down to me, reporter Dick
Mason, newsroom clerk Lisa Lester Kelly and
multimedia journalist Alex Wittwer, the newest
member of the team.
We don’t have a sports reporter, nor a sports
editor. We had to cut back a little on how many
hours news staff work per week. We’re not
allowing reporters to work overtime. We’re trying
to fill a reporter position, but that person will not
exclusively cover sports. Some sports, sure, but
also plenty of news.
So our newsroom has fewer resources avail-
able than in years past, no one we can dedicate to
sports and we’re still following COVID-19 proto-
cols. Sending a reporter to cover one game of any
sport now is a serious commitment of time and
resources.
This scenario says to me we cannot cover
sports like we used to. Full game recaps, for
example, are a time-intensive practice we cannot
afford to provide. Even calling a round of coaches
post game for quick comments could be a stretch.
But then, I’m not a big fan of long game recaps
and lists of statistics. And if there is any time to
reexamine how we cover sports, this is it.
I’m keen to turn Alex loose and see what
he can do to tell a game or a drive or match in
photos without long write-ups. We also are going
to experiment with Alex conducting and vid-
eoing 1-2 minute post-game interviews with stu-
dent-athletes about key moments in a game or
match from their particular point of view. Why
did that wrestler make the move she did? How
did that wide receiver know he had the coverage
beat? Those simple questions could lead to some
interesting firsthand insights. I think we could
call those segments “The Breakdown.”
They would be web only. But then, a lot more
of our sports coverage is likely to be there. Our
press time for papers is 5 p.m. the day before
delivery. We’re not breaking many sports stories
and scores, then, in the print edition.
Profiles of athletes and coaches are another
way we can cover sports, along with bigger looks
at the ongoing pressures from COVID-19, such
as how teams revamped their training and prac-
tice for the pandemic. We also can look at what
is happening — or is not happening this season
— on the periphery of sports with school bands,
cheerleaders and such.
I’ve asked our tech folks to look into the pos-
sibility of a “portal” so spectators, coaches or
players might have an easy way to send in photos
or quick comments about games and events. If
something comes of that, we’ll let you know.
Until then, you can submit photos and infor-
mation to our Facebook page via Messenger.
We might be able to run some submissions in
print, and more will live on our website, www.
lagrandeobserver.com.
These are not the only ideas, and not all of
what we attempt will work out. But failure is a
good teacher.
We also will listen to suggestions from readers.
If you have ideas about sports coverage, please
share them. Probably the best partnerships we can
have in covering local sports is with our readers
and the community.
Letters to the editor
EOU funding:
KEOL vs. athletics
I was quite taken aback when I
read Zachary Cahill’s comments in
The Observer’s March 6 article “Dead
Air” that the Eastern Oregon Univer-
sity radio station should be defunded
because radio may become obsolete,
and then the inference that a college
radio station would not help prepare
students for careers.
There are 1,168 public broadcasting
stations in the United States, including
our own award-winning Oregon
Public Broadcasting station. The Cor-
portion for Public Broadcasting’s mis-
sion is to ensure universal access to
non-commercial, high-quality con-
tent and telecommunications services
that are commercial free and free of
charge.
I fail to see how a college radio sta-
tion is not relevant in preparing stu-
dents for this important work. EOU
spends hundreds of thousands of dol-
lars on athletic programs, but how
many students will have a career in
professional sports?
Teresa Gustafson
La Grande
Leave partisan politics out
of redistricting
In 2019, Sen. Michael Dembrow
made the following remarks about
the GOP walkout protesting cap and
trade: “We know that the voters want
us to be creating this program. Every
legislator that was in a contested race
in 2018 ran on this issue. The gov-
ernor ran on this issue. We picked up
seats in both chambers in part over
this issue.”
In 2018, Democrats won 38 House
seats and 11 Senate seats. In 40 House
seats, Democrats had a voter registra-
tion advantage over Republicans at an
Write to us
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Other columns, let-
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average of 9,357.13, while Republicans
had a voter registration advantage in
just 20 House seats at an average of
5,160.5. Fourteen House seats had a
Democratic voter registration advan-
tage greater than 10,000, versus just
one House District with a Republican
voter registration advantage that size.
House District 43 had a Democratic
advantage of 31,000.
Decades of partisan redistricting
created a system where the majority
party picks and chooses voters.
Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek
and Senate President Peter Courtney
have used the power of their office to
deny nonpartisan redistricting pro-
posals. Oregonians deserve a system
that allows voters, not parties, to
choose the candidates who best repre-
sent their communities.
While the authority to draw dis-
trict maps remains with the Legis-
lature, legislators must look beyond
their electoral interests and ensure all
possible districts are equally divided
between Republicans, Democrats
and Independents. Voter registration
advantages should be in the dozens,
not tens of thousands. This is the
only road forward to unity and honest
policymaking.
Alex McHaddad
La Grande
Understanding legislation
takes effort
Maybe you say, “The govern-
ment is making too many regulations
that interfere with running my busi-
ness the way I want.” But really, who
makes those decisions?
First, we voters vote for the politi-
cians who we believe will work for us.
We contribute to their campaign funds
and write to the winners. At the same
time, corporations and organizations
also contribute campaign funds; how-
for brevity, grammar,
taste and legal reasons.
We will not publish con-
sumer complaints against
businesses, personal
attacks against private
individuals or comments
that can incite violence.
We also discourage
thank-you letters.
• Letters should be no
longer than 350 words and
must be signed and carry
the author’s name, address
and phone number (for
verification only). We will
ever, with their money, they can hire
lobbyists to influence legislation for
their benefit. (This is what “Citizens
United” is about.)
Much of the time, the lobbyists
construct bills and hand them to the
legislators who submit them for the
decision process. Do you think the
lobbyists are promoting and writing
legislation that benefits everyone? No,
they propose and write legislation
to benefit their employers. Do these
employers and lobbyists stop to think
about the effect their legislation will
have on others? Who will benefit if
their bill is put into law? Who will be
hurt?
What about the bureaucrats, those
who work for the government and do
the “grunt work” to enable the deci-
sions made by the politicians? Do they
make too many decisions? For whom
do they make decisions? My experi-
ence as a former state bureaucrat is
that my job was to do what the pol-
iticians assigned me to do. Almost
every assignment was unpopular with
various segments of the population
because people have differing needs
and expectations.
My advice to anyone who is
unhappy with a regulation is to find
out who influenced the passing of the
bill that included the problem regu-
lation, who it benefits and why was
the regulation included in the imple-
mentation of the legislation. What is
your representative’s position? Did
you follow the legislation, and did you
inform your representative of your
point of view? And why did you vote
for or against that representative, and
did you vote? So you see, it all circles
back to the responsible parties — the
voters.
Being a responsible citizen
is not easy.
Evelyn Swart
Joseph
not publish anonymous
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Writers must provide a
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Like letters to the editor,
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SEND LETTERS TO:
letters@lagrandeob-
server.com
or via mail to editor
Phil Wright, 911 Jefferson
Ave., La Grande, OR
97850