Be Nice to a Reporter.

I try not to complain about the work of a reporter too often. It’s a fun job, outside of two small aspects: the first being Voice of the People and the second being the fact that everyone’s a critic. 

The latter has only been magnified by the introduction of the Lewis County Buzz, the Chronicle-sponsored online forum. 

One of my favorite time-killers lately has been to check out forum topics about a particular story I’ve written and see what the masses think. 

A few weeks ago one of those topics popped up on whether or not The Chronicle had run the top students information from Rochester High School. The first post asked the question, while the next few offered opinions as to why The Chronicle wouldn’t run the info. 

Here’s a few samples:

“MMM...have you noticed things are a bit one sided at the chron?lot’s of gay pride crap. GO ROCHESTER GRADS!”

Yeah, our education coverage is now strictly limited to any stories that further the GLBT agenda. A few weeks later we ran a story on the Miss Sturgis Girl search at the Junction (about a few short miles from Rochester High School), complete with photos of a scantily-clad girl named Barbie Buckles dousing herself with champagne. We favor alternative lifestyles, alright. 

Another gem: “...guess Rochester needs its own newspaper. Or maybe the local papers just need enough people to drop subscriptions to get their attention.”

Posts like this might be warranted, unless someone would have just typed “Rochester Valedictorian” into our archive search and saw that we actually ran the info in question on June 7, during the same two-day span we ran the rest of the top students’ info I had received. Or, even better, called the phone number printed every day on page 5 for the education reporter (yours truly).

That thread paled in comparison, however, to the controversy stirred up by our coverage of the Centralia College GSA’s Pride Event. The Buzz heated up with dozens and dozens of pages of bickering, fighting, and arguing about everything from our “poor” or “negative” coverage and “inappropriate” photos of two men, who looked like they might be thinking about a kiss, to what the Bible would have done. During these posts The Chronicle’s (more specifically, my own) coverage was called into question, with even a member of the sponsoring club (who invited Aaron the Reporter) allegedly complaining at one point. 

One side said we gave it too much coverage by reporting on it at all, while the other claimed we focused too much on the negative, by reporting on raunchy jokes and cross-dressers at a gay pride event (among other details). 

Here’s the way I see it. Let’s say you go to the zoo. (Prepare to roll your eyes.) There’s 10 tigers in a cage, and one of them jump out of the pit as you walk by, mauls a happy couple visiting from out-of-town, and exits the premises. 

What are you going to tell your friends when you get home? Are you going to whip out your phone on the spot, tell them that 90 percent of the tigers you’ve seen are perfectly safe, and leave it at that?

If a drag queen named Polyester from Montesano is lip-syncing a Carrie Underwood song, wearing a purple strapless dress, at a gay pride event under the Diversity Project clock tower at Centralia College, I’m going to mention it in my story. That’s something that definitely gives readers who weren’t there a feeling of what kind of event it was.

Which brings me to my latest Buzz-ing: a complaint about the Cowlitz River Hatchery story. 

“During the rebuild, the hatchery is not open for tours. Reporters should check their source before reprinting outdated data. Everyone at the hatchery knows they are not giving tours for a while...” 

Check our sources? Nowhere in the actual story does it say that the hatchery or the visitor’s center is open. On a sidebar, pulled DIRECTLY from the hatchery’s Web site (maintained by Tacoma Power), it lists the typical hours of operation and a phone number to call FOR MORE INFORMATION. That outdated data has been up, courtesy of Tacoma Power, since the rebuild started two weeks ago. If the workers at the hatchery know, maybe they should let the public know.

Anyway, back to The Buzz.

It’s a great world when a company sets up a free forum with a special section for people to anonymously complain about a free service. In that light, I think I’ll go down to the Goodwill and argue about the prices and selection, right after I defecate in the community pool and tell them I want my $2 back because it’s dirty. 

Aaron's Late Look at the NBA Finals

Basketball Shorts: Aaron’s “Experts” Pick Boston

Note: This was written on Tuesday, June 17, just a few hours before Game 6. I realize the series or, at least, the game, will be over by the time most people see this, but I don't like to let a series of pointless conversations go to waste.

I’ve always been a pretty big basketball fan. With that in mind, I decided to take a “closer” look at tonight’s game 6 of the NBA Finals, with the Los Angeles Lakers taking on the Boston Celtics at home. (Boston leads the best-of-seven series 3-2).

Rather than just kick out my own ill-informed opinions, I asked a few people who, by some measure, may be considered “in the know.” Here’s what I came up with.

Nonfiction

First off, the two stars of this Finals series are, without a doubt, Kobe “The Black Mamba” Bryant and Paul “The Truth” Pierce.

Since I don’t have a phone number for either, I checked in with the closest person I could find: Chronicle web guru Rick “Nonfiction” Pierce.

Rick said he’d been paying a little bit of attention to the series; enough, at least, to know that his surname-sharing swingman was injured in some capacity. He would most definitely be playing through the injury, I said.

“Well then, I’m going to go with the Celtics,” Rick quantified.

Are you and Paul related, Rick? Maybe, for example, cousins?

“There’s no way to determine, as far as I know,” he said with laugh. He did admit, at my prodding, that he probably couldn’t beat the likely NBA Finals MVP in a pickup game.

Score: Celtics 1, Lakers 0

Farmer’s Inaction

The Los Angeles Lakers employ a backup point guard, and sparkplug off the bench, named Jordan Farmar. The fleet-footed Laker has no ties to Lewis County, as far as I know, so I called my younger brother, who studies farming at Washington State University (organic agriculture, to be exact).

It came as no surprise that Alex, when I reached him, was working at the Community Farmer’s Market in downtown Chehalis.

How’s the market, Alex?

“I’m selling asparagus,” he said. “It tastes delicious.”

Farmers and Farmar apparently don’t stick together, because Alex had his money on the Celtics. He had also, surprisingly, watched Game 1.

“It looked like a basketball game,” he said, clearly more interested in peddling his organic vegetables. “I was expecting Larry Bird to jump out in short shorts, but it never happened. That’s why I don’t watch basketball.”

That’s what they all say. What do you like better: basketball, or selling asparagus?

“Asparagus selling,” he said, not missing a beat. “People are happy when they buy asparagus, and it supports farmers — plural, instead of just what’s-his-name Farmar.”

The Farmer’s Market also featured live banjo music, my idealistic brother pointed out, further swaying him to the side of the vegetables. Rehashing the conversation, I’m pretty sure he only picked Boston because of the green connection.

He did, however, admit that there would probably be more people in attendance at the game than the Farmer’s Market.

“But if they wanted me to sell asparagus at Game 6, I would have no qualms,” he added.

Score: Celtics 2, Lakers 0

Cash is King

Pro basketball is all about money. So, after speaking with state labor economist (and generally upbeat dude) Jim Vleming about the local unemployment rates today, I asked him about the series.

“I think the Celtics have got ‘em whipped,” Vleming said. “It’ll be awful tough to win two in Boston.”

The economist appeared to have kept himself more informed on the Finals than my other two “experts,” enough to where he knew that the last game (in L.A.) ended with a questionable move by the officials.

“They shoulda called Kobe for that last foul, anyway,” he added.

Score: Celtics 3, Lakers 0