Toledo Starts Pulling For Fire Victims

by Alan Searle

The apartment fire at 711 N. “A” Street that displaced about 20 Toledo residents early Sunday was still burning full force when the first neighbor reached out to a victim. I was standing in Toledo’s Park and Ride lot early Sunday watching firefighters try to knock down the stubborn blaze. Two men stood nearby. One of them said to the other, “You have a place to stay – with us.” The community had just begun to help. Toledo police, including off-duty personnel, were on hand making sure areas around the fire were secure, offering assistance, opening their conference room for Red Cross volunteers to assist those affected. Nearby were a small group of people watching flames and smoke consume perhaps everything they owned.

One of the victims was concerned about his neighbor who had been taken to the hospital. Officer Jeff Wagner promised he would find out how the man was doing and come back with a report. Police also opened the lower level of the Toledo Public Library as a warming area with a restroom. A volunteer walked around the neighborhood with a carafe of hot coffee.

Late Sunday afternoon, Laura Myers, owner of Cobblestone Pizza announced on Facebook she will host a meeting at her restaurant at 1:00 p.m. Monday to “brain storm ideas to help these families.” She is asking anyone interested to email her.

Earlier in the day, I had emailed someone on another matter saying the Wavelength “is not in the prediction business.” So it is ironic to write now that I expect come Monday, the neighbor-to-neighbor outreach will grow, as Toledo works to make life a little easier for some of their neighbors who may just have lived through the worst night of their lives.

If you can assist, have ideas, or can share information on relief efforts, please post them on our Facebook Page, or email us.

(Update 7:45 p.m.: Liz Fox at Newport High School is asking students if they would like to collect items to help the families).

Read more fire coverage here.

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Oregonian News Network Adds Lifestyle Component

The Oregonian News Network (ONN) is rolling out the second phase of its online partner program. The Yaquina Wavelength is one of eight pilot partners who began working together in April, 2011. Three other sites have joined since then. The original ONN program includes independent local news sites like the Wavelength who allow their local news content on the OregonLive.com website and share content with one another.

The ONN expansion brings aboard more than 50 community blog partners – people from around Oregon and southwest Washington who “blog regularly and authoritatively about their passions,” according to a statement on the ONN site. They include award-winning authors like Laini Taylor and Bart King; gossip maven Byron Beck; travel writer Chris Guillebeau; food writers Kathleen Bauer and Deena Prichep; gardening guru Darcy Daniels; and cartoonist Matt Bors.

A ONN statement continues: “We’re excited to present this collection of unique and interesting voices. You may already share a common interest like birding, literature or parenting. Or you may want to explore a new topic like urban foraging or Portland’s geek culture. Either way, we invite you to join us as we make the most of this new partnership. The community blog partner program is all about making connections. By sending more readers to websites they might not know about otherwise, we aim to help build audience for our partners while serving as an online town square.”

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Regarding the YW Comment Policy

This goes out to the person commenting as “Anonymous” but is also for anyone who wants to post comments on YW.

While our policy allows for you to remain anonymous, we ask all commenters to give us an email address in case we need to make contact to explain we didn’t publish your comment, and to resolve any problem. We wish to encourage as much public discussion as possible.

The most recent comment offered by “Anonymous” is one of these instances. If you enter an email address along with your comment it will not be published or shared. Or you may contact us directly at inbox@yaquinawavelength.com.

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Disclosing Minor’s Identity Causes Conflict

We debated this week whether to report the identity of a teenager involved in a traffic accident that seriously injured a passenger. We moved to Oregon from a state where the identities of minors were closely protected. A minor’s name could be reported only if the minor were charged as an adult. Oregon law considers the minor’s name to be public information in many cases. Local law agencies include the names of minors, incident descriptions and what they are charged with, even before determination of guilt or innocence.

As journalists we are in favor of maximum reporting of appropriate information. However, we are troubled by the seemingly casual approach to thrusting children into the public eye while they, their families, and appropriate agencies manage the situation. We personally believe it is bad public policy and that it does not help children or their families heal from traumatic events. We think it is appropriate to shelter children from media and public scrutiny as well as embarrassment in their school and neighborhood wherever possible. Sure, young people sometimes make bad decisions and need to face consequences, but do they need to do so in the public eye? Their family and those hurt by an incident already know who is involved.

What do you think? What is the best approach for our community? What should our policy be? It seemed coy to not report this information when it is publicly available, and yet doing so creates discomfort in the Wavelength office. We want to have a sensible policy, and would appreciate your comments.

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Who is FKB? Who Cares?

We have received a number of emails recently wondering why “FKB” and others are allowed to post anonymously on the Wavelength website. Here’s the deal.

Comments on a website are not Letters to the Editor. A letter is an editorial from a reader to the community, and must have a name and address attached. That’s our policy, and the policy of every news operation we have ever heard of. Comments are also opinion, but less formal. Our comment policy encourages respectful conversation. But because comments are moderated, writers may remain anonymous. We only ask that commenters be civil and to the point. We ask for an email address in case we need clarification on anything, but we don’t publish it if asked not to, and don’t require it. Why not? Because it can stifle dialogue, and make our site less useful.

There may be many reasons why people want to remain anonymous, and they are none of our business. That being said, there have been many comments we have refused to publish because they were abusive, mean-spirited, potentially libelous, or otherwise inappropriate. For the record, “FKB” has not offered anything of that nature.

In fact, “FKB” asks intelligent, legitimate questions which are worth public discussion. We have been in contact with “FKB” from time to time in private email correspondence. Whether we know the identity of FKB is irrelevant. If we do, we would protect FKB like any other source. If we don’t, who cares? Some sites have an “anything goes” comment policy and the result, in our opinion, does not serve the public interest. Is our stance a little old-fashioned? Perhaps. But it does serve our editorial mission: “We are independent, and will always strive to operate in the public interest.” Have we set ourselves up as arbiters of what is “in the public interest?” Frankly – yes we have. But that’s how it works under the First Amendment.

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