Meth Watch

[March 29th, 2006] While the Portland daily itself chose not to respond in its own pages, managing editor for enterprise Steve Engelberg did send a lengthy response to the Poynter Institute's website, calling WW's story a "sloppy attempt to smear a competitor." Poynter's senior online reporter, Jim Romenesko, posted it here: www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=11245.

In addition, here's the link to a November 2004 letter to The Oregonian from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which had problems with the paper's original "Unnecessary Epidemic'' series: www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr110404.html.

The letter, signed by DEA Administrator Karen Tandy, says that series used "outdated, incomplete data." The Oregonian did not publish the letter.

Meantime, here is a sampling of comments posted on the WW website, at the bottom of the "Meth Madness" story (www.wweek.com/editorial/3220/7368/#readComments):

Keep up the good work. Any newspaper that can't support their position with data and facts deserves intense scrutiny.

Posted by "Okie"

Talk to some of the victim-advocate volunteers and police officers who are dealing with the gawdawful effects of meth on small children and their families before you start throwing stones at The Oregonian. Talk to the abused women and sexually assaulted children; and to the ER MDs and nurses and dentists who see the victims on a daily basis.

Posted by "Patty D"

Just a great piece of reporting, research and legwork. It's a sad fact that hysteria sells. And sadder that integrity doesn't, at least not enough to interest a major conglomerate. Thank god there's still a healthy market for truth, even if it's not a big enough market to interest The Oregonian. Great award-winning job.

Posted by "Tucker Parsons"

Meth not a big deal? You're nuts.

Posted by "Joe"

I read the O's response to your article on the Romenesko Web site Thursday, and I want to tell you that Steve Engelberg does a lot of shucking and jiving, but it's clear the O series is heading to the trash heap of confabulations written by Janet Cooke and Jayson Blair with this meth series.

At no point does Engelberg explain to Romenesko why the O withdrew from discussing their series with WW, or didn't make all reporters involved available. As I see other readers here have pointed out, they must be covering something up if they are not prepared to defend publicly every paragraph, sentence, comma and period in their stories.

Engelberg repeats what the stories in the O say, but doesn't address the central underlying issue raised by WW: how come WW can find a whole raft of evidence and people who sound like experts questioning the O's stories who weren't included in the O's series. Looks to be as if the O went into this series hellbent with blinders on, ignoring or dismissing the evidence that questioned their thesis. Journalism 101 teaches there's another side to every story. WW's story would not have had any relevance if the O had included this other side, and in many cases WW has clearly used the same documents used by the O to refute the O's conclusions...In conclusion, Engelberg needs to meet his confessor, open the newspaper's declining number of "news" columns to a wider public debate, and publicly admit the confabulations.

Posted by "Peter Rabbit "

Interesting piece. It seems from some of the comments that readers are missing the larger point. No one has said meth is not a problem, just that The Oregonian's claim that it is a growing epidemic is not based on solid facts.

I became aware of the issue from the Frontline piece and came away with the impression the country was on the verge of a national problem. Politicians in my community...have attacked the problem by making it harder to buy cold medicines that contain the ingredients to make meth. In that sense, the outcry over the drug has been effective, curbing potential problems in the future.

Thanks for digging into the hard facts. Meth is a big problem, but it appears not necessarily larger than the overall drug abuse problem. Angela Valdez, the author, will take some unfair criticism, but the article stands for itself. Hopefully you shall make The Oregonian take a closer examination of its reporting.

Posted by "Ted Jackson"