Reporting the Pacific Northwest: An Annotated Bibliography of Journalism History in Oregon and Washington by Floyd J. McKay

Abstract

toPresident FranklinD. Roosevelt during World War II to protest her exclusion from the local union because of her race. The volume is further enhanced by nine photographs and one drawing.Additional pho tos ofwomen prominently mentioned in the text should have been included. The footnotes that accompany each essay, the editors' biblio graphical listing, and the index are all useful. One distraction is thatwhile some articles are totally freeof typographical errors,others are replete with them.This indicates thattheeditors left proofreading up to the individual authors.A final, close reading of the entiremanuscript by the editors undoubtedly would have corrected several of thesemistakes. Reporting thePacificNorthwest: AnAnnotated Bibliography of JournalismHistory inOregon andWashington By Floyd J. McKay Oregon Historical Society Press, Portland, 2004. Illustrations, bibliography. 80 pages. $15.00 paper. Reviewed by Philip Cogswell Salem, Oregon AN UP-TO-DATE SCHOLARLY HISTORY of Or egon andWashington journalism has yet to appear, although, as this book docu ments, much has been written about one piece or another of the region's newspaper tradition. Knowing about that tradition is important for understanding the region itself. As Floyd J. McKay notes in his preface, "The study of journalism history is essentially the study of thenation, state, region, or city that is covered by a newspaper or broadcast outlet. Journalism cannot be separated from the people and the issues itcovers" (p. xv). For any futurescholar in thefield, thisbib liographywill be a true asset.McKay, building on his doctoral thesisat theUniversity of Wash ington, lists books, articles, reminiscences, and scholarlyworks on the region's newspapers, as well as a small amount on broadcastmedia. Each chapter opens with a summary of the relevant scholarship and bits of history to give context to the source lists.Stephen Ponder, an associ ate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at theUniversity of Oregon, provides an interestinghistorical overview in his foreword. The bibliography is impressive in itsscope. It listsnot only published works but also relevant dissertations, theses, and oral histories. Along with mainstream newspapers, italso covers the specialized, immigrant,and advocacy press, such as suffrageleaderAbigail ScottDuniway's New Northwest and earlyAfrican American papers in Seattle and Portland. The reminder that these publications existed is one of the book's unexpected values. It iscertainlyunfair to judge awork bywhat itdoes not purport todo, but thisbook's useful ness for general readers ? and maybe research ers also, for that matter ? would have been enhanced had the chapter introductions pro vided more historical detail about the region's journalism.The slighthistorical discussions that are presented are interesting and sometimes enlighteningbut sketchyatbest.Moreover, some importantnewspapering individuals ? such as Robert Chandler inBend and J.W.Forrester in Pendleton andAstoria? are overlooked, while Reviews 325 considerable detail isgiven on others. That dis parity,though, may reflecttheunevenness of the available historicalmaterial. There is some intriguing trivia, however. McKay teases the reader with briefmention of two unrelated shootings by editors: James W. Connella, a pioneer Everett editor "who was run out of town afterhe shot a prominent citizen" (p. 13); and Llewellyn Banks, aMedford editorwho "shot and killed the constable who came toarresthim forballot theft"(p. 27).On a more substantive note, itwas revealing to learn thatRobert Ruhl's Medford Mail Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize in 1933 for opposing Banks's radical faction. McKay has a good background forthis work. He himself is a part of the region's newspaper history as a respected reporter in Salem and then a television commentator inPortland be fore leaving for academia. He now is emeritus professor of journalism at Western Washington University and has made a fine contribution to scholarshipwith his recentbiography of the late Charles Sprague, an influential Salem newspa perman and Oregon governor. McKay makes another contribution here. In all, one can only imagine thepainstaking effort required to round up all thesedisparate sources and thegratitude thatfutureresearcherswill feel for the result. Mapping Identity: The Creation of theCoeur dyAle?e Indian Reservation, 1805-1902 By Laura Woodworth-Ney University Press of Colorado, Boulder, 2004. Maps, notes, bibliography, index. 243 pages. $31.95 cloth. Landscape Traveled byCoyote and Crane: TheWorld of theSchitsu fumsh(Coeur dAlene Indians) By Rodney Frey, in collaboration with the Schitsu'umsh University ofWashington Press, Seattle, 2001. Photographs, maps...