Abounding apathy - true or false?

Testing reader interest in local politics

By James Walling

Mayor Pollard won his widely publicized bet with Portland Mayor Tom Potter regarding a recent fundraising challenge hands down - was there ever any doubt that he would?

The mayoral pair wagered on gentleman's terms to see who could raise the most money for Operation Santa, an organization devoted to dispensing funds to families of veterans experiencing financial hardships. The loser - Potter - had to eat some serious crow, venturing north of the Columbia to publicly announce at Monday's city council meeting the "15 best things" about our city and put himself on the record via a tongue-in-cheek assertion that Vancouver is his "new favorite city."

The event was carried off in good faith, and ultimately Operation Santa was the real winner.

But beyond the philanthropic merit of raising money for veterans, the contest was also an effective PR coup. All the major news organs- TV, radio, and print - covered the occasion, effectively lionizing both men for their efforts on behalf of veterans.

Pollard obviously knows his business!

Most Vancouverites don't seem to get too stirred up about the ins and outs of local politics or the ups and downs of our local politicians, but when it comes to human-interest stories, our region's readers can't seem to get enough.

Take local headlines for example. As has been noted in previous editorials, our local daily papers are notorious for trumpeting the inane and the trivial over the truly momentous.

With some notable exceptions, that is. When a roadside bomb in Iraq raised the death toll of American soldiers to at least 4,000 recently, The Oregonian and The Columbian both broke form and selected news from the front for their lead stories instead of the usual trivial nonsense. In a bit of a gaffe, however, both newspapers purchased the exact same Associated Press story by Robert H. Reid and oriented the story on their covers with nearly identical bold headlines. The days when regional newspapers could afford to produce original reporting on international affairs are obviously long gone, but one wonders what - apart from the basketball scores and police blotters - is to be gained from perusing the pages of our local dailies when it has become so easy to sample one of the nation's major wire services (Associated Press, McClatchy Papers, Reuters, etc.) more directly online?

The prioritization of reports on lost ducklings and high school sports over matters of national security and civil liberties by area press (see The Elephant in the Room) is regrettable in the extreme, but area publishers might be forgiven for intermittently glossing over local politics.

Having published our own humble newspaper for over a year, I've come to sympathize with the market forces that compel the competition to print gushy garbage in lieu of rigorous reporting.

In fact, I've begun to formulate a theory.

When we set out to establish our editorial vision, we were struck by the public's lack of general interest in the details of local politics. We selected the apparent vacuum in legitimate arts coverage - film, theatre, music reviews and more - as our primary target for journalistic improvement.

Vancouverites, we posited, just aren't interested in the minutiae of city politics. The rabid interest in the recent Camas mayoral race was one notable exception, but, sadly, it seems to be one of those exceptions that prove the general rule.

Last month, we decided to test the theory again.

The massive uptick in turnout for the Washington presidential caucuses gave us reason to suspect that there might be an upsurge in local civic involvement, and we decided to sharpen our focus on a few key aspects of state and local politics in an attempt to gauge reader interest.

Well, the results are in - and apparently nobody cares.

Adam Stewart followed the lead of area cyclists and concerned citizens regarding the passage of mandatory helmet ordinance and we didn't receive so much as a mild shrug or raised eyebrow from any of our readers.

I myself opined on the desperate state of health care in Washington - and the efforts of State Rep. Jim Moeller to call attention to it - and again, crickets chirped.

I'm telling you, people, we've received more letters in response to restaurant reviews and pans of local plays!

I'm not sure why this is.

For the most part, SW Washington is a much more conservative community than our politically agitated neighbors to the south in Multnomah County, but that doesn't explain the apparent lack of interest in local politics.

Mayor Pollard is able to grab headlines galore with calculated stunts like the one detailed above, which is all good and fine considering the Mayor's record on important issues like sustainable development and combating global warming. And yet, how many Vancouverites can tell you exactly what his stances on those issues actually are?

Perhaps I've got it wrong. If so, fair readers, it's time to pony up and prove it. Flood my inbox with demands for more in-depth coverage of local politics and give voice to your heretofore under-reported opinions on the wide array of issues currently under consideration by city government.

If you don't let us know you care, Vancouver, we'll never know.