Media contact list

This is the bare-bones beginning of a list that should include folks FG has talked to in the past and other people we know who might like the cut of our gib. Pete suggests we work with grunt freelancers and interns, which is a good idea; I think we should also get names for beat science and tech reporters where applicable. I'd also like to see a brief summary of past coverage or contacts, where applicable, or notes on why Media Outlet X should be interested in us. I don't know as many media people as I used to, but think we should include that information where necessary. So dump what you know and we can tweak it later.

There is a list of past media coverage [1] of Free Geek on the main site. Updated through January; Oso, Pete, Christen will work to get it up-to-date. (See "discussion" page for ongoing work on this...)

• National Media
  • Christian Science Monitor, Elizabeth Armstrong Moore. Wrote a piece 5/2005 about Portland as an Open Source leader. We should establish contact with her in case she follows up. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/28/tech/main1077376.shtml
  • Before Xen was hired by Free Geek, she tried to sell Orion, a national environmental magazine, on letting her cover FG for their Blueprints for Change section. No dice, but I still say they'd totally love the cut of our gib. Will hassle them again.

• Local daily press contacts
  • The Oregonian
  • The Associated Press
    • Bill McCall, the business editor of the AP Portland bureau, came to Free Geek with a photog at the end of September for a piece on e-waste, and mentioned following up with a more FG-specific feature. Oso talked to him. Xen will contact him about that followup.

• Local broadcast radio stations
  • KBOO
  • KPOJ
  • KOPB

• Nondaily press contacts
  • Portland Tribune
    • HalfAss Pete worked there 4 years. All the good FG-friendly reporters have moved on. Some contacts but no great ones. Connie Pickett, Managing Editor. Jacob Quinn Saunders, news reporter. Todd Murphy, education reporter.
  • Portland Business Journal
    • Andy Giegerich, reporter. Good friend of Halfass Pete, has written of FreeGeek before and is very pro-FG.
    • Shelly Strom, reporter. Pete knows her. She has written of FG in the past.
  • Willamette Week
  • Portland Monthly
    • Ben Jacklet, reporter. Good friend of Halfass Pete, very pro-FG. Pete might have advertising contacts there too.
    • Sylvan Goldberg, reporter. Working on Open Source story. Pete will contact.
  • The Portland Mercury
  • New Connexions (New Agey thing - they are trading ad space for hardware with us and they want me to write about FG as a community space for them)
  • The Alliance (workers' collectives)
  • The Southeast Examiner

• Student and community newspapers
  • Many student papers have science news departments, or at least one designated science reporter -- likely to cover both environmental and tech issues. This section should include the publishing schedules of said papers, since they usually don't publish when students are on break. Turnover at these papers is naturally very high, but we should keep basic contact info on file. Different student bodies are going to be interested in us for different reasons, so I'd like to include relevant information about the character of the school in each section.

• • Community Newspapers, Inc.
  • Chain of papers (under same ownership as Tribune) mainly weekly community papers on the west side, also Gresham, Sandy, Estacada.
  • Merry MacKinnon, freelance reporter. Friend of Pete's. Very much a progressive, into recycling and all that. Very non-technical.

• • OSU Daily Barometer
    • Editor in Chief DD Bixby
    • 541-737-3191 • editor at dailybarometer dot com
    • Advisor Frank Ragulsky
    • Why they should know about us: OSU is host to Open Source Labs and has a decent environmental science program, and the Barometer historically has at least one designated science or tech reporter (at times they have had an entire science section). We have occasional tie-in events (OSU Open Source Day, hardware donations, etc.) that should occasion a press release to the Baro. Also, Christen knows the current editor and the advisor.
    • When they can write about us: The Barometer publishes five days a week during OSU's regular academic year and is weekly during the summer.

• • PSU Daily Vanguard
    • Production schedule:Xen swears up and down that in her day, the Vanguard wasn't a daily, and feels old. Academic-->production schedule likely mirrors the Baro.
    • Contact/history: Near the end of November, Xen, Phil, Clout and several others spoke with a Vanguard reporter named Nate McKee about the Geek, the digital divide and the Unwire Portland project.
    • A search of the Vanguard archives shows no story about this yet. He did share the fascinating and press release-worthy tidbit that FG's site is one of very few (with the others being local government type sites) that would be free under the terms of the current bid. Go team Geek!