Nov 13, 2008WWIRE from Willamette Week
Portland Public Schools is inching closer to talking about its high schools. The evidence? Local outfit Pyramid Communications recently won the bid to lead those discussions.
This news has been a long time coming.
Almost one year ago, Portland Public Schools started holding community meetings to discuss the state of the district's buildings. But school-district leaders [...]
Dec 17, 2007Oregon Media Insiders
When stuff happens at OPB, it really happens. I hear over the transom this morning that ace reporter Colin Fogarty is leaving OPB after 13 years to take a job at Pyramid Communications. His last day is Friday.
Advertisement:
Oregon Public Broadcasting's VP for news, Morgan Holm, tells WWire that the network has found a replacement for political reporter Colin Fogarty, who left for a job with Pyramid Communications in January.
Holm writes that "beginning the week of April 7, Kristian Foden-Vencil will move in to the Morning Edition host chair and April Baer [pictured above] will join the reporting staff. She'll be covering many of the political stories Colin used to follow. We still have an opening on our reporting staff that we will be posting in the near future. That's about the extent of my public comment on the matter."
Foden-Vencil and Portland Mercury reporter Matt Davis are perhaps the local media's most out-of-the-closet Brits. Of course, Foden-Vencil is known for his accent, whereas Davis is known for his singular charm.
Aug 6, 2008Loaded Orygun
Over at Steve Novick's real job--Pyramid Communications--he's put up a piece that dives into the concept of the "Steve Novick brand," and how it impacted his race for Senate. As you might expect, he's brutally honest about what worked and what fell short--but the bottom line is that even with a great campaign, being outspent 2 to 1 is a bitch. Hearing it from the candidate's mouth--perhaps contrasted with the smug Jon Isaacs post-mortem validating old politics--makes for some interesting reading. To wit:
Now, again, we lost, so apparently branding isn’t everything. But I think it’s fair to say that we did better than expected. As a first-time candidate running against the speaker of the State House, I was outspent by roughly 2-to-1, and lost 45 percent to 42 percent. Compared to other recent “progressive underdog vs. moneyed establishment candidate” Northwest races, that’s not bad. In 2000, Maria Cantwell outspent progressive underdog Deborah Senn in Washington’s Senate primary by about 2-to-1—and won the race by an even larger margin.
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Last month, when activist and attorney Steve Novick announced he'd won the endorsement of former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, a representative of opponent Jeff Merkley's camp offered these words:
"In the end, this campaign is not about big-time endorsements," Merkley spokesman Matt Canter said on March 3. "It's about building the largest grassroots campaign Oregon has ever seen and electing someone who will bring Democrats together to take on the special interests."
If those words ring true, today was opposite day on the campaign trail — with both the Novick and Merkley folks touting big-name endorsers to build momentum in their efforts to win the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
Today Novick got the nod from Colin Meloy of the Decemberists, Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini, Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam, Michael Stipe of REM, Britt Daniel of Spoon, Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie, Krist Novoselic of Nirvana and Flipper, Dave Dederer, pictured above, of Presidents of the United States, Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney and Rufus Wainwright. Rufus Wainwright?! Yes, Rufus Wainwright, whose name makes me think of three things: meth, chocolate milk, and Canucks, not just the illegal ones.
Meanwhile, Merkley got the thumbs up from former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), who will be stumping for Merkley in Oregon later his month.
I spoke by phone with Seattle's Dederer, 43, in California this afternoon about Novick, whom Dederer knows from their work together at Pyramid Communications, a consulting firm.
I asked him this burning que...
May 1, 2007Loaded Orygun
(
This is part one of my interview with US Senate candidate Steve Novick. Novick recently announced himself a candidate against Gordon Smith.)
I agreed to meet Steve Novick for this interview at a downtown Portland establishment of his choice. I made this decision consciously because I wanted to meet up with him in a place where he felt at ease. After having met him, I'm not sure there is a place where Novick
isn't zen with himself. Maybe that comes with spending your entire life with an obvious physical disablity in which people might stare or even ask questions. Or maybe that just comes with having lots of really smart and interesting people think that you're smart and interesting. Or maybe both.
Either way, Steve was a few minutes late so I had the opportunity to watch him walk into the room. He surveyed the room allowing his eyes to flicker over the crowded space (probably trying to figure out which person is me--this was our first meeting). He finally spotted me and started to walk my way, but not before being stopped by a group of folks seated at a nearby table. Steve stopped and proceeded to chat with this apparently well-heeled group, telling a story that I couldn't entirely hear but which greatly amused these obvious admirers.
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