Joel, you are right on. I've sent a few emails to the BOO list, but am
not sure anyone has seen them. So, I may repeat some things.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for your comments. We definitely need to
hear more about the people of Harney County. My husband and I lived
and worked (federal employees) in Burns for 24 years. We retired last year
and moved to the Willamette Valley, but still have a home and friends in
Burns. We are currently in Burns and in just the couple of days we've been
here so far it has been an emotional roller-coaster. The people of Harney
County need a voice. By far most people are extremely angry at the militia
and want them long gone. There are always people who have personal gripes
against the government and it won't be hard for the media to find them.
But there are many people here who believe cooperation and partnerships.
Unfortunately federal employees are strictly forbidden to talk during
events like this (of which there are distressingly many). That's why I was
so thrilled to see the letter from MNWR staff. And yes, much more on the
Paiutes. The desecration of their sites and artifacts is right out of the
old, lawless west.
The one thing really dividing the community is still the Hammonds. They
have friends here. I wish there would be some good reporting on what they
really did (there's a reason they accepted a plea bargain!!)
Pam Keller
503-334-7345
On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 10:08 AM, Joel Geier <joel.geier@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'd just rather see less "oxygen of publicity" for the occupiers,
particularly any publicity that continues to help them spread their
warped ideology. Malheur NWR is the scene of ongoing criminal activity.
The main focus of responsible reporting should be on the damage and
impacts to people who are being affected, not the viewpoints of the
criminals.
Even if 97% of the people who read their rants end up laughing at them,
the Bundy Boyz are still being allowed to pose as heroes for the small
percentage of wing-nuts who cotton to their warped ideology, and are
susceptible to being recruited to the cause. The Oregonian (aka
www.oregonlive.com) has been far too willing to serve up a daily ration
of the Bundy shenanigans.
With this last one, I suppose it might have seemed like good news that
only one wannabe rancher showed up for the photo opp -- if you were
seriously expecting any real, established ranchers to cotton to Bundy's
half-baked scheme. But by my count, this doubled the number of occupiers
who claim to be active ranchers (the only one previously was LaVoy
Finicum).
The main good news that I've gleaned from recent reporting was Amanda
Peacher's (OPB) tweet:
Media is def dwindling. Prob 10-15 now? @LesZaitz and I have our
own standoff. Who stays longest?
— Amanda Peacher (@amandapeacher) January 23, 2016
The national media are now giving this practically zero attention,
focusing on the Flint MI water crisis and the East Coast snowstorm.
International media stopped paying attention after the first week of
January.
Jamie, I've read *all* of the coverage by the Oregonian and on OPB's web
site. There has been a smattering of coverage of perspectives but it's
still heavily slanted toward the topics that were on Bundy's agenda. My
suggestion is that it's past time for the ratio of coverage to tilt in
the other direction.
Yes, I did see the one Oregonian article (Jan 6th) that covered the
Burns Paiutes' press conference where they told Bundy to "get the hell
out," plus a couple of brief paragraphs mentioning their concerns about
artifacts on Jan 15th.
But the Oregonian is still missing a golden opportunity to run a
full-length feature on the Burns Paiute: At the very least, show a map
of the area that they formerly occupied, their traditional culture and
how they wound up on a reservation near Burns (and then were displaced
from most of that).
There is a very deep vein of history to mine, see here for example:
http://burnspaiute-nsn.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58:treaties-and-reservations-created-&catid=37:history&Itemid=57
and further links under the history tab on this page:
http://burnspaiute-nsn.gov/
I ran across parts of this while browsing books in the Corvallis library
last year, but I'd wager that most of this story is unknown to 99% of
Oregonians -- and also still highly relevant to any discussion of
land-use rights in Harney County.
These are among the type of topics that I'm suggesting we should be
urging journalists to cover.
Joel
--
Joel Geier
Camp Adair area north of Corvallis
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