📼 Oregonian Public Editor
On January 27, 2025, I left a voicemail for the Public Editor of The Oregonian after being turned away at their headquarters in Portland. I never received a call back.
[00:00:00] I'm about to call the Oregonian public editor, uh, that was the number that was given to me on, at the front desk of the building they occupy
Oregonian: Public editor voicemail line of The Oregonian. Please leave a message explaining the reason for your call, and we will get back to you as soon as possible. If you are calling about a delivery or a billing issue, please call five zero three- Two two one eight two four zero. Thank you.
LMI: Hi, my name is Logan Isaac.
Uh, I emailed Therese Bottomly and Betsy Hammond, who are both editors at The Oregonian, uh, about attributing a [00:01:00] quote to the Portland Police public information officer by the name of Sergeant Pete Simpson. The Portland Police Bureau cannot confirm that the quote was uttered, but y'all put it in print, and there's a problem because there's no such thing as hate crimes in Oregon.
Um, in case somebody other than Bottomly and Hammond see this, um, in 2017, The Oregonian used language of hate crimes to defame, uh, Damien T. Rodriguez. Uh, you asserted through your paper, attributing it to the Portland Police Bureau, that he had been charged with a hate crime. Uh, that cannot be found in the Oregon Revised Statutes.
But more importantly, as I've pointed out to Hammond, hate crimes at the federal level are intended to protect veterans and service members from hate crimes, [00:02:00] which your paper has refused to write upon. So you have a bias problem that has affected the life of a career Marine Corps, uh, sergeant major, who is going to be my next phone call.
I'm speaking before the Oregon State Legislature tomorrow, Tuesday the 28th at 1300. If I don't get a confirmation or some kind of statement from you, the story I'm going with is that The Oregonian reporter Lizzy Acker attributed a quote to the police bureau falsely alleging that Damien Rodriguez had been charged with a hate crime, because he had not.
It was followed up, and hate crime was actually– I'll point that out. Hate crime was in the headline. So as there are no hate crimes in Oregon-
Oregonian: Thank you for your message.
LMI: Oh.
Oregonian: Goodbye.
LMI: Public editor my fucking foot, man.
