No government budget or policy, from the military to public housing, is sacrosanct.

If you don't ask the right questions then it doesn't matter what the answers are.

Yet another newspaper, The Portland Tribune, and another reporter, Janine Robben, have tried to play catch up and tell today's version of the Housing Authority of Portland's Columbia Villa remodel story, http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=17765 . HAP says this, some opponents say that, blah, blah, blah, same old, same old. If you just want to state the party line send your readers to HAP's Internet site, http://www.hapdx.org/inititives/hope6.html or an alternative view, http://www.goodgrowthnw.org

[Janine, unless you studied under Ari Fleischer at the Tricky Dicky school of journalism you didn't learn to use a year old quote from one party, me, as if it were a response to a current statement from another party, HAP. Your editor might benefit from a refresher course as well.]

Buried within the word NEWS is its root and the essence of reporting, NEW. In order to tell us something NEWsworthy you must ask NEWsworthy questions to get NEWsworthy answers.

Reporter Aimee Curl and Willamette Week recently did a major front page story, http://www.wweek.com/flatfiles/News3694.lasso a short time ago. The Oregonian, with some exceptions, has pretty much done what the Portland Tribune just did but more frequently in smaller segments. Apparently all of these reporters went to the same easy does it "print the press release he said she said" school of journalism. Enough already! We're way beyond "Introduction to traditional interview writing techniques 101."

So the question arises for our Oregon community, which includes both professional journalists and professional politicians, Do we want to know the answers to the following questions now or after the Villa remodel is so far along that it can't be stopped? Do we believe that no one will ask these questions ever again once the bulldozers arrive in North Portland? Of course there are many more legitimate and important questions but let's start with a just a few fundamentals.

1. How many clients does HAP serve and where are they located by neighborhood?
2. Will the Portsmouth neighborhood still have the highest number of low-income HAP qualified clients in the City of Portland, Multnomah County and the state of Oregon after the proposed Villa remodel?
3. What is the difference in cost to house similar clients in HAP owned housing versus section 8 vouchers?
4. What is the true market value of the property and the land HAP plans to demolish and sell at Columbia Villa?
5. Does everyone agree that HAP's plan to sell public land below market rate is a good idea?
6. Why hasn't HAP, a taxpayer supported quasi-governmental institution, voluntarily offered this basic accounting information a long time ago?
7. Why hasn't anyone in the Oregon press corps asked any of these questions directly to HAP or to any elected official responsible for giving HAP funding and support?

Press Bias
Not long ago David Sarasohn, Oregonian columnist, did a piece casting doubt on the premise that the press was heavily weighted toward the bleeding heart liberal side. I thought he made a very good case. But as I have closely watched the press write about this story for more than the last two years I am feeling more inclined to challenge Sarasohn's perceptions. I have gradually come to believe that the so-called liberal bias in the press may in fact be true. How else can evidence of the press's abysmal failure to legitimately probe and challenge a bastion of left wing dogoodism about a massive social engineering experiment be explained? When even Willamette Week, our local pit bull, puts on its muzzle and takes a paws off approach to investigating HAP then it's time for David Sarasohn to take another look around. On the other hand, maybe it's simply incompetence, laziness or mediocrity. Certainly no Oregon journalist or newspaper is going to win a Pulitzer or any other prize for coverage of the HAP Villa remodel story.

We understand that the electronic press is not part of this conversation but what about those of you who think and write for a living? I'm sorry and disappointed that the Portland Tribune has missed an opportunity for journalistic leadership. Is it not the fiercely guarded and revered domain of the press to investigate and challenge public institutions? Isn't that one of the bedrock motivations of a "free press?" Isn't that why we went to Iraq?

Exposing how we govern ourselves to readers has been and remains a vital and essential element of the Fourth Estate. Our community deserves better.