Column on local industry was a pleasant surprise | Letter to the editor

Springfield police investigating theft of Israeli ‘remembrance flags’ as possible bias crime

Thefts of Israeli flags at a Springfield church early Wednesday, Oct. 7, are being investigated by Springfield police.

LCC board delays decision on tweaks to public comment policy

The trustees also asked staff to look into issuing a revenue bond to help cover PERS costs and welcomed a new student trustee.

How South Eugene football is learning to tackle, to win and, perhaps, to endure

Freshman Trae Ford and a group of underclassmen will help determine whether efforts to rebuild the Axe’s football culture will pay off in seasons to come. 

Why does Oregon still support standardized tests that are failing our students? | Letter to the editor

The recent Lookout Eugene-Springfield article about local school district test scores reveals the sobering news that our local public schools are well under 50% — and most under 40% — of students achieving proficiency in reading and math. What? Really? Well below half of our students succeeding? The article doesn’t go into any analysis for […]

A word on word choice when covering labor negotiations | Letter to the editor

Last week’s story in Lookout Eugene-Springfield on the tentative union contract agreement repeated language that I have long thought the media should be careful about using in labor negotiation stories. It said, “Workers had been demanding higher cost-of-living wage increases …” The typical next sentence, which did not appear in this story but very often follows in U.S. news coverage, goes something like this: “The administration had offered XXX …” When I taught copy editing, I used to engage my students in a thought experiment, asking them to flip around the verbs. “The administration (management, owners, etc.) demanded and the union […]