Yoo-hoo, Therese. You still there?

Lord knows, I’ve tried. I left her a phone message. I sent word through a mutual friend. And in the end I sent her an email – which I think you’ll agree couldn’t have been nicer or more polite.

Hello Therese,

I'm going to be writing more about the O's coverage of the Francke case and would like to talk with you about it. X [the name of the friend] certainly wants me to call, and I don't want you to get hurt either. So please give me a call and I'll tell you what I'm up to. Of course I'll also be happy to answer any questions you may still have about the case.

Best, Phil

P.S. If you haven't read my latest Substack piece ("Neil Goldschmidt in the Land of the Dead") you might want to do that first. I emailed it to you Monday.

Therese, you see, is Therese Bottomly, editor of the Oregonian, the largest newspaper in the state. I met her years ago in the late 80s when she arrived at the O, fresh out of the University of Oregon journalism school.

I was working as a columnist for the paper at the time, and I think she started out in the rather unglamorous job of copy editor. But her competence was soon recognized and she began to rise through the newsroom ranks and was made editor of the entire news operation about six years ago. I read somewhere that she’s been at the paper 43 years now.

The Oregonian as it looked back in 1948 when they moved into their new digs at 1320 SW Broadway. Following the last downturn in the newspaper industry, they sold the building in 2014 and now share space in a downtown high rise.

Of course there have been difficult moments along the way. In addition to the much ballyhooed Francke piece I’m trying to get her to discuss with me now, she was, for example, news editor for the infamous Goldschmidt “affair” story a year earlier.

And it would, in fact, be interesting to know just how much of either of them was her fault, or whether she was only doing the bidding of her boss, a well-known celebrity-sucker and social friend of the Goldschmidts by the name of Sandra Rowe.

But what we do know is that when newspapers screw up and make mistakes, even major ones, they can apologize – as Therese did a couple of years ago at the height George Floyd controversy, when she apologized –“unreservedly,” as she put it – for the racist sins of former Oregonian owner Henry Pittock and editor Harvey Scott.

And while this admission of corporate guilt may have been somewhat less wrenching because both men have been dead more than a century, I think it shows that she has a good heart. Which of course is why I continue to hope she’ll get back to me on this Francke thing.

So I sent another email, which I am sharing here as an open letter:

Hello Therese,

The computer says it’s been two weeks since I sent you an email asking to talk about the O’s coverage of the Michael Francke murder case – and if there’s a hangup, which there seems to be, my guess is that it’s probably that substack piece I sent along with the email.

You know, the one ending with my suggestion that the Oregonian will never be made whole again until it confronts its dismal coverage of the Francke murder case over the years. Particularly that front page article, published May 22, 2005, “Facts Dispute Francke Conspiracy,” which I described as “one of the most despicable ‘investigative’ pieces in the history of American journalism.”

And I’m not even talking about the fact – as we know now, having the benefit of two federal court rulings exonerating the patsy in the case, Frank Gable – that your reporters got just about everything wrong in it, including their conclusion that Gable was guilty as charged.

Which is not too surprising, I suppose, considering that their so-called investigation was little more than a rehash of the state’s now completely discredited case against Gable. And if you have any doubts about this, please read the searing opinion of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals.

But let’s put that aside for the moment. Because what I’m really interested in here is your take on how, in this very same piece, they attacked Kevin Francke, the brother of the murdered man, in the most personal way for raising questions about the official state police investigation. They actually tried to make him out as either crazy or a liar.

At one point, in true have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife-yet style, your reporters even got him to declare that he wasn’t crazy.

And of course, as it turns out, he was right. Two federal courts have since exonerated Gable, ruling basically that the Marion County DA’s office and the state police fabricated all the evidence used to convict him.

But that’s not the point here. Whether Kevin was right or wrong, as far as I know it’s not common practice for American newspapers to personally attack and attempt to discredit family members of murder victims for raising questions about the official investigation.

So Therese, here are some questions I would have asked you if you’d gotten back to me:

Did you actually read that long, front page story, “Facts Disprove Francke Conspiracy,” before it went to press?

Did it occur to you then – or has it even occurred to you since – that it’s highly unusual for newspapers to personally attack the member of a murder victim’s family for raising questions about a murder investigation?

In fact, can you think of even one other newspaper that’s ever done so?

I certainly can’t. Which is why I’ve called it perhaps the most despicable acts in the history of American investigative journalism.  

I know, that’s kinda harsh. But please let me know if you can think of a better word.