Oregon Considered, the local news show for which I’ve been filing most of my OPB feature stories since July, will be canceled at the end of the month.

As a reporter who wants to get on air, you’d think I’d dislike the decision. But, as a reporter, I also like it when people hear my stuff. And not enough people listen to local-only news anymore. They will listen to local+national, and thats the model we’re going for now.

WNYC, New York’s NPR station, and KPCC, LA’s big NPR news station, went to this model a few years ago, and it has been both successful and well-liked. So I think we’ll see how people really feel about the switch in a couple months.

With the writer’s strike kicking off today in Hollywood and New York, it got me searching around for other entertainment from alternative distribution.

The LA Times found a not-quite amateur Internet-only TV show, Clark & Michael, starring Michael Cera (aka George Michael Bluth from the late-great Arrested Development), with titles that say it all: “The Internet presents…”

The New York Times only seems to report a story on Oregon when its about how “funky” we are. Look at us with our cute spotted owls, our assisted suicides, and our bikes.

At least this week’s bike story focuses on some actual, tangible numbers. But you’d still wish the Times had mentioned the recent deaths of bicyclists (and the controversy surrounding it).

Podcasting + Blogging = Delightful Surprises.

My first year at Berkeley I lived on the 6th floor of Putnam Hall in Unit 1. A few rooms down lived a wiry, red-headed nut named Ethan Lindsey. He was taller than I was but probably half my weight, yet he talked as if everyone was 100 feet away and couldn’t hear him. He had an opinion on anything that would enter our floor’s discourse at the time, from Tribe breaking up to vacation planning in Belize to girls with big hands. He introduced me to Michael Antonioni by yelling at me for being a film major and not knowing who Antonioni was, and then promptly fell asleep while watching Blow-up in his room. He signed up to take a film seminar with me but only ended up flirting with the girls in the class on the few days he attended. When Wilkie moved in later in the year, he became Ethan’s roommate, and Ethan was one of the first to point out the buckles on Wilkie’s shoes and to start calling him “Wilma.” He never got up before noon.

I thought you were supposed to be getting a check for your work. Not giving it.

It’s not just incredible that someone would bid good money to intern in a supposedly dying industry. Whats incredible is that its with Harper’s Bazaar, which to me is most famous for its role in the David Foster Wallace short story, “A Supposedly Funny Thing I’ll Never Do Again.”

In the story he is on a cruise, and at dinner sits at the singles table. Which is populated by a gaggle of elderly women. He tells them that he is on the ship doing a story for a magazine. And they go ga-ga when he says he writes for Harper’s. Their response: Harper’s! Ohhh!!! We love the recipes!