New SE in Oregon

Here is the story that I was given....This new SE, who thought running a sports department had more to do with fan-writers and fan blogs than what it actually involves, tried to set up some kind of flash mob to coincide with the start with the start of the Trail Blazers' season. It turned out to be a complete bust. But rather than admit to the stupidity of the idea, he told his bosses that his wife decided that she didn't want to move to Oregon.

 

So basically it was that one event that turned him into an SE that wouldn't work out in Oregon. Niiiiiice.

 

A flash mob or a "news mob" - if the O didn't want a news mob for the Blazers season opener I have no idea why he was hired. It isn't like his new bosses didn't work with him before.

 

He did the "news mob" thing again?! God damn, what an idiot.

 

What the heck is a "news mob"?

 

When he was a Team Leader (Angels, Lakers) for OCR, he ordered up the "news mob" for Angels opening day and the editor swallowed it. Everybody on the staff, not just sports, every writer and photographer, did some sort of coverage, ranging from the game to ... well, it was all too ridiculous to remember. One newsside writer wanted to get the home addresses of every player and hang out at their houses. One staffer was assigned to do a feature on the pregame talk-show host, who happened to be Sharon's neighbor or high school buddy or something like that.
Even after this failed, they ordered it up again a few months later for the opening of Cars Land at Disneyland. Equal failure.
How did he get the Oregonian job? Well, it's the OCR way to promote the friends/ass-kissers of the editors. The Oregonian publisher and editor came from the OCR. Over the past decade, there were at least five newssiders who were given sports Team Leader positions who had no idea what they were doing. One was co-sports editor.

 

The Oregonian leadership is a bunch of foofs who can be swayed by any big journalism talker. They fail time and again in the execution of journalism, but man can they talk the fuck out of it.

It's the kind of place where Robert California could have become the boss. Which he kind of did, it sounds like.

 

And I thought Oregon folks hated Californians. A friend of mine from Southern California got hired to be assistant fire chief in Salem. When he came into town, he stopped for gas. The guy refused to sell to him when he saw the California license plate. My friend backed the guy up against a wall, got in his face and said, "Listen, if your fucking gas station catches on fire, I'm going to be the one here trying to put the fire out, so sell me some fucking gas."

 

Don't Californicate Oregon. I grew up there. Tom McCall was governor when I was in grade school.
http://www.opb.org/artsandlife/article/former-governor-tom-mccall-message-visitors/

 

Most Oregon folks came from California. Same thing happened to me at a gas station when I tried to pump my own gas. I realized I had been "Oregon-ized" when I was visiting my folks in California and sat in my car for a good five minutes waiting for the attendant before remembering it's all pretty much self-serve in California.
The odd thing is - for a state very much known for do it yourselfers, Oregon is one of only two states that bans self-serve gas stations. I guess we need to save some jobs for the Native Oregonians.

 

I don't know about "most" -- but this NY Times graphic shows 14 percent of Oregon residents were born in California. The only state with a higher percentage of Californicators is Nevada.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/upshot/mapping-migration-in-the-united-states-since-1900.html?abt=0002&abg=1

 

Only 12 percent of Idahoans born in California? Surprised it's that low.

Up here in the Panhandle, just about every obit I put on the page is: 1. a veteran, and 2. someone who was born in/grew up in California.

And needless to say, once all those Californians move here, they immediately begin to bash on Californians for moving here.