Portland, Ore. — On Monday I visited the Corvallis Gazette-Times and then the Oregon SPJ pro chapter in Portland, getting my first douse of rain.

Corvallis Gazette-Times and Albany Democrat-Herald staff members discuss access issues Monday.

The Corvallis staff, along with reporters from the neighboring paper, the Albany Democrat-Herald, asked about access to police records, which seems to be a consistent theme on this tour so far. I’m amazed at the changes we’ve seen in 20 years. It used to be you could walk into a police department and flip through the incident reports left in a basket or on a clipboard. If you have a question you would ask an officer on duty or even call the officer who handled the report. Now, few agencies provide incident reports for people to look through, queries often have to go through a PIO, and agencies are encrypting their radios so people can’t even hear what’s happening. Talk about secret police!

Tip No. 6: Folks, it’s time to push back. We can’t allow the police to operate in secret. Roll back to the way it was. For the public’s sake. Do the then-and-now story. Look back 25 years in your paper and pull out a week’s worth of police blotters and stories. Compare the timeliness and details to a week’s worth of blotters and stories today. Show how news is less timely and contains fewer details today than it did 25 years ago. And this is the information age! Talk to citizens affected. Show why it matters.

Later that night the pro chapter for Oregon and Southwest Washington gathered at the Portland Business Journal for a session. Chapter President Tamara Kent and Treasurer Courtney Sherwood did an excellent job coordinating the meeting.

Coming Tuesday: Heading to Tacoma for a lunch session with the Western Washington Pro Chapter and Washington Coalition for Open Government.

Eugene, Ore. — Today I took some time to evaluate the evaluations. When SPJ does training sessions it tries to get feedback through the use of forms handed out at the end. The first week’s assessment looks pretty good.

Of the 71 people who filled out forms so far (out of 143 I’ve talked to so far – I forgot to collect forms at a few sessions), the average overall rating on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being best, is 4.8. Not bad! Great ratings for the handouts, presentation style and content. Response to some new “clicker” technology I’m trying is fair to middlin’ (so I’m making adjustments), but people like the handouts and presentation. Here’s a representative sample of the written comments:

• “Thank you for taking the time to come to our small town paper with this information. It’s very helpful to know where to turn for help with FOIA questions.”
• “Kept my attention the whole time. Very valuable information. Thank you for coming!”
• “Excellent information and presentation. We need this. A real shot in the arm.”
• “Motivational.”
• “Great presentation! Very engaging. I learned a lot, truly.”
• “Very informative and entertaining. Thank you!”

The sessions have been truly helpful to me, as well. I learn something new every time, and it’s a pleasure to meet journalists from different news outlets and backgrounds. This is awesome!