I admit it, I am spoiled. After living in (at least) two-newspaper cities for almost ten years, I expect a lot from my news sources. Mostly in that I expect a lot of news. Yes, it’s true that the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the Seattle Times often run the same stories. And we all get a big laugh when their front pages occassionally look identical. But at least I feel like I’m getting two slightly different perspectives. And, once in a while, one paper will run something that the other one doesn’t.

Reading two newspapers every day takes a significant chunk of my morning. Even if I’m just skimming them online, it’s a good 30 minutes to get through them both. Longer than that if there is a story that is interesting or relevant to work, which is pretty often. But because I do regularly find some work-related article, I feel justified doing it at the office.

Living in Portland and paying attention to its news has been an interesting challenge for me the past few weeks. First of all, since I grew up in SW Washington, I knew more about goings-on in Oregon growing up than I did about what was happening in my own state.

(Demonstrative side story: in eighth grade, we took a field trip to Olympia, the state capitol. As we were walking the halls, our teacher yelled at us to halt. We had just walked by Booth Gardner and no one had recognized him. If we’d walked by Neil Goldschmidt, Oregon’s then governor, we would all have gawked. But not one of us could have picked Booth out of a lineup.)

What’s more bizarre is that many Portland TV stations have the same news anchors and reporters that were on when I was 10. Tracy Barry? Are you kidding me? So it feels like a bit of a time warp to watch Portland news.

Plus, news in any city other than your own always looks a little funny. GTB and I argue about whether Seattle’s or Portland’s newscasters are more ridiculous. It kind of a toss up. Besides, anywhere you go, the news looks cheesey and a little overly dramatic.

So I’ve been sticking to just trying to read the newspaper. And I gotta tell you, the Oregonian’s website is just plain retarded. I can’t get into it. It’s not at all user friendly. It looks like there isn’t really that much going on, news-wise. I have no sense of what is a local story and what is a big, international story. I can’t even FIND the weather and traffic section.

So, until I get used to this idiotic site, I’m continuing to read the P-I before I read the Oregon Live website every day. At least if there is some big story breaking, I won’t have missed it because it’s hidden underneath an article about cows in Eastern Oregon.

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