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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 28, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Wednesday, March 28, 2018 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW #DeleteFacebook Across the world, the hashtag #DeleteFacebook has been trending on Twitter, Google and, most ironically, on Facebook itself. It is in immediate response to the news that Facebook allowed companies to steal data from its users (as many as 50 million), which was then fed to disreputable political groups with the aim to manipulate Facebook users and elections. Facebook has plenty to answer for in this case. They knew the data was stolen years ago, but told no one — not even those users who had been compromised. They kept it quiet until the story broke publicly. But the problem is bigger than dumb actions that failed to secure our data. Facebook must also answer for the online atmosphere they have created. Their company culture is to move fast and break things, then go back later to see what they must do to clean up the mess. And that culture has trickled down to the user experience. What used to be an online space for sharing life updates and baby photos has become a space for anger and vitriol, fake news and product placement. Trolls run amok. The most awful responses engender the most responses. It’s a continual loop that builds anger and division. As a media source with a robust Facebook following, it sometimes feels like we’re feeding the rotten system. We have long ago stopped posting crime stories, where comment sections often spiral out of control, to our page. But we pledge to do more. Or, rather, less. We know that media has lost a lot of ground to Facebook. We feel it here at the East Oregonian, both in our advertising and newsroom departments. On the ad side, we know that online advertising is now an $83 billion a year enterprise, but Google and Facebook gobble up almost 60 percent of that pie. Traditional media of all kinds supply the nutrients that the online community feeds on, but the middle men get the bulk of the benefit. From the news side, more than half of our website visits come to us via Facebook, which means that’s where most of our social media resources are spent. Twitter accounts for little more than 1 percent of our daily visits. (Incidentally, Kathy Aney’s 2015 story about the former Rajneesh camp turned into a Young Life retreat property has been one of our top read stories of the last month. It is linked to the Wikipedia pages of Young Life and the Rajneesh). We’re not the only ones pulling back on Facebook. Elon Musk, a notable naysayer of Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, shared the #DeleteFacebook hashtag. He deleted the Facebook pages for his many companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX. He said the company gives him “the willies.” Unfortunately we’re not rich enough to pull off such a brash move, cutting the cord with an important but troubled driver of traffic. But we do plan to reduce our reliance on Facebook as an audience generator. We will limit our posts this week on the site, and post fewer and fewer stories as the weeks go on. We think it will be better for our bottom line, and also for the mental health of our readers. All our Facebook fans know it is no longer a place to have a civilized discussion. It has been dominated by the loudest, meanest, snarkiest, angriest voices from all sides of the political and social spectrum. And it’s clear that the more time you spend away from Facebook, the happier, more productive, and better informed you are. But to help support your mental sanity and our bottom line, we’re asking you to visit www.eastoregonian.com more often and sign up for our daily newsletter. Our print readers get all the goodies delivered to their mailbox each day, but others who just scroll on Facebook miss the majority of our work. And if we are posting there less often, we don’t want you to miss even more. In our newspaper and on our website, we hope you find the news you’re after and none of the bullies and trolls you encounter on Facebook. Of course different opinions will be welcome. Our letters to the editors section remains vibrant both online and in print. Your thoughts are welcome and your feedback on the job we do will always be heard and considered. But you can rest safe in knowing that you can read and comment on news without anyone sucking up your data, following your every move or harassing you on every post. Because the crux of being alive in the modern world at this moment is that each time you use Facebook — or for that matter products from Google or Amazon or Apple — you are giving away your personal data. You are giving away a piece of your liberty. Remember: If you don’t pay for a product, you are the product. OTHER VIEWS In praise of privilege I YOUR VIEWS Mixed messages from Pendleton City Hall Evidently Pendleton City Hall is not pleased with the way Pacific Power is maintaining the streetlight system. Rather than require PP&L to use their considerable expertise in energy conservation to address the problem of high power consumption, it has been suggested that the Public Works Department purchase the streetlight system. Since the department is presently borrowing millions to upgrade water and sewer lines, it seems apparent they are ill-equipped to maintain this system. An Adopt a Streetlight Program, much like that established by the Parks Department, seems to be the only solution. Volunteers would be entrusted with monitoring their neighborhood lights, replacing those that burn out with new LED bulbs, relieving Public Works and PP&L of any responsibility. The savings could be used to buy more streetlights, or essential items like a plaque honoring those responsible for moving the Eighth Street Bridge to Main Street. To pollute or not pollute, that is the question. The introduction of animal feces into the Umatilla River by dogs, goats, and some overenthusiastic Round-Up volunteers has finally led to some action by city hall. They have decided to appease the riparians by donating the parcel of land at the bottom of Northeast Seventh Street as a wildlife refuge. Though originally envisioned as a playground for neighborhood children, the idea gained little support and was revised to place environmental concerns as the primary emphasis. Killing two birds with one stone, they’ve retained their playground and enlisted a nonprofit to maintain it in perpetuity, as the city manager put it. Those city hall folks seem easily fooled. If they were truly interested in keeping it in its natural pristine condition, it was suggested they post no trespassing signs. Maybe that’s coming next. Both the Pendleton School District and city hall are always asking for more funding. New sources of revenue are needed. Disposing of city property that’s sitting idle, some for several years, and providing no property tax revenue has been suggested as a possible source. Unfortunately, attempts to date have been feeble at best. The Seventh Street property, the old DMV building, and the old police station are some examples. The two buildings continue to sit empty and deteriorating. Soon, the old fire station will join, contaminated with cancer-causing carcinogens. Can the city unload that one with a clear conscience? Perhaps razing both buildings would make the property more attractive for development. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. Rick Rohde, Pendleton have to say, I loved the gun-control connotation. In those parts of society, march I observed Saturday in history is not seen as a shared debate over Washington. The crowd was good- how to pursue a common ideal. Instead it is hearted, gracious, diverse and welcoming. seen as a zero-sum power struggle between At a time when trust in democracy is oppressor and oppressed, and America waning, everybody kept underlining their is not a distinct and special place but just faith in our democratic system, that voting another country where the powerful stomp is the way to make change. There was no the vulnerable. culture war nastiness, no hint of resentment. This prism is an understandable David Hunters and farmers and vets were Brooks pedagogical tool. It’s a way to show celebrated. There was no ill will toward students the reality of injustice and Comment anybody but the NRA. inequality. But as several writers, including Of course some of the student speakers Phoebe Maltz Bovy, have argued, this were grandiose and pretentious. Most of us were concept of negative privilege doesn’t seem to lead like that when we were 18. But for all their talk of to productive social change. “revolution,” at its heart, this march was about a The negative-privilege mindset usually begins series of sensible, practical and moderate reforms: with a privilege call-out. Somebody accuses restricting assault weapons, expanding background someone of not checking their privilege. This leads checks and similar measures. the accused to respond that in fact my group has Recently, it has seemed like the country is also been marginalized, and that if anyone is the gyrating out of control, that extremism on one oppressor, it’s some other group more privileged side is generating extremism on the other. But the than mine. This leads to an ever-higher-decibel- march I saw was not extreme. It was a responsible level identity war that sucks up everybody’s good moral answer to right a very specific wrong, gun will and doesn’t actually lead to social action. violence. It struck me as a very characteristic burst It’s the perfect exercise for the social media of American moral passion. age because everything happens on the level of The march passed what I have come to think of display. The result is a bunch of divisive bickering as The Privilege Test. One of the great privileges that leaves everyone feeling offended and morally of life is to be born an American citizen. We superior. Saturday’s march reminded me that are the lucky inheritors of the American Creed, it’s still possible to practice a style of politics built around freedom, equality, opportunity and that doesn’t send us down that recrimination democracy. There’s no such thing as the French psychodrama. Creed or the Italian Creed but there is an American As Samuel Huntington used to argue, the key creed. As Richard Hofstadter famously put it, “It fact of the American Creed is distrust of centralized has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies, authority. So moments of creedal passion are almost but to be one.” always about opening up the system, expanding Furthermore, we’re the lucky inheritors of the participation, decentralizing power. They are about system Madison, Jefferson and Hamilton built to new groups previously outside the system busting reify that creed, the words Lincoln, King and others their way in and taking possession of the great used to expand it. We’re the inheritors of not just privilege to be American. philosophical generalizations but of a very specific Saturday’s march reminded me that often we historical struggle — the legacy that Crispus behave better than we talk. Sometimes I think the Attucks, Nathan Hale and Sullivan Ballou left by decimation of American history in the schools has left a generation ignorant of the creed and ungrateful dying for the creed; the legacy that Eugene Sledge, toward our ancestors’ heroic sacrifices that Frances Perkins, Bayard Rustin and a million brought it down to us. When I look at the Twitter immigrant ancestors left by suffering for it. commentary of the march I see out of context insults All we have to do is live up to this privilege of being American, to take our turn narrowing the gap that distort the reality of what actually happened. But the deep inheritance isn’t so easily blotted between the American Creed, which binds us, and out. Saturday I saw people motivated by idealism the American reality, which always disappoints us. and humbled by gratitude. Do some people have The rally in Washington, which took place against benefits they haven’t earned? Yes, and some a lot the symbolic and literal backdrop of the U.S. more than others. But none of us has earned the Capitol dome, seemed squarely in that tradition. great privilege we share together and which is the You’ll notice that in the preceding paragraphs furnace of most reform. I use the word “privilege” in a very positive way. ■ The sense of American privilege fills us with David Brooks became a New York Times gratitude and humility. That privilege unites us across division and disagreement. It calls forth great Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He has been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, a energies. contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic There are, of course, some parts of society Monthly, and is currently a commentator on PBS. where the word “privilege” has a very negative The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
