(Posted earlier but updated to include comments from Amy Ruiz).
My former colleague Amy Ruiz (nee Amy Jenniges) is, as many Stranger readers already know, currently a sustainability and urban policy advisor to Portland Mayor Sam Adams, lately in the news for lying about his relationship with an 18-year-old legislative assistant named Beau Breedlove. Ruiz came to Adams’ office after six years as a staff reporter at the Stranger and two years as news editor at the Portland Mercury, the Stranger’s sister paper. Ruiz, along with her co-news editor Scott Moore, had pursued the Adams story in 2007, but dropped the story after the reporters were unable to substantiate the charges (and after Adams lied to them, twice, about the allegations.) This week, Nigel Jaquiss, a reporter for Mercury competitor Willamette Week, broke the story that Adams had lied about the relationship. Jaquiss’s story strongly implied that Ruiz was unqualified for her position, and that Adams had hired Ruiz to take her off the story. It also raised the question of whether Ruiz had stopped working on the story to increase her chances of getting the job.
Before I go into why I think that scenario is unlikely, let me say that the idea of Amy sitting on a story to get a job is preposterous. The fact is, sometimes your competitor gets the story; in this case, as Merc editor Steve Humphrey notes, the Mercury didn’t have the goods. The alternative —running a story alleging the mayor had been sleeping with a teenager without evidence or on-the-record sources—would have been irresponsible and unethical.
But the fact that Adams hired Ruiz—knowing that he had lied to her about his relationship with Breedlove, knowing what it would look like if the story ever came out—raises some obvious questions, including whether Ruiz was qualified for the job. In comments on Slog and the Mercury, as well as posts on Gawker and the Poynter Institute, observers have concluded that Ruiz was unqualified and called for her to resign0; “Amy Ruiz is NOT, I repeat NOT qualified for her position at all. Adams needs to resign NOW, and Amy needs to resign now or be fired!” one typical Mercury commenter says.
I can’t speak to the specific qualifications for this particular job, because I wasn’t at the interviews and don’t know what the rest of the applicant pool was like. What I can say is that journalists frequently go into government work, and that they often do well there. Writers—particularly writers at alt-weeklies like the Mercury, which was paying Ruiz about $42,000 for a management-level position—often decide they’d like to make more money, or work fewer hours, or have a job with less daily stress. Staying in journalism for the rest of your life is not a part of the journalist’s ethical compact. A few local journalists who’ve decided to move on to more lucrative pastures: Casey Corr; George Howland; Jean Godden; Marty McOmber; Alex Fryer; Jim Compton; Robert Mak; Sandeep Kaushik; James Bush. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Many more, certainly, have been approached to work on campaigns or in government positions and said no.
Politicians like to hire journalists not because we tend to have post-bachelor’s degrees or extensive policy experience, or because they think it’s a smart way to get good reporters off their backs, but because we know how to communicate to the media—what kind of communication gets good coverage, and what kind gets you ignored or mocked. It’s speculation, but a fair assumption, that Ruiz’s lack of urban-planning experience was eclipsed by her long experience as a member of the press.
In an email, Ruiz describes her job as follows:
Day to day, this is a job of translating Sam [Adams]’s policy objectives to the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and translating their land use and sustainability projects to council, staff and stakeholders – both explaining the details of the projects, and their relevance to the broader city. My hard skills—asking tough questions, synthesizing and analyzing information—are invaluable. And my prior working relationships from the staff level on up to council members helps me move Sam’s agenda forward.
What it comes down to is that I’m not writing land use code or rezoning the city—that’s what the planners in the bureau do. I’m the conduit between the political objectives and vision in the Mayor’s office, and the staff carrying out the great work.
The unanswered question, in my mind, is on Adams’s side: Leaving aside whether Ruiz was the most qualified applicant, why did he hire her, knowing that the story of his relationship with Breedlove might come out? Since Adams isn’t talking, we can only speculate: Maybe he was being nefarious, hoping to keep Ruiz off the story. If that’s true, then he would have been smart to also hire Jaquiss, Moore, and all the Oregonian reporters who were chasing the same story—and their editors, too, while he was at it. More likely, Adams hubristically assumed the story would never come out, or didn’t care what impact it would have on Ruiz and the rest of his staff. My guess is Adams was stupid or naive callous or all three; in any case, Adams, not Ruiz, is the bad guy here.
Sandeep—who left the Stranger in 2005 to work for King County Executive Ron Sims—offers his own take over here.
What happened to Josh Feit?
lol
He hired her for the same reason Gary Hart challenged the media to follow him as closely as they liked to see how clean he is. Or Bill Clinton or John Edwards or Eliot Spitzer. It’s the same old story with this kind of man: an unhealthy mix of power ambition and lechery.
Er, as opposed to a healthy mix of lechery and power ambition, whatever that would be. But this does show that the gays really are the same as anyone else.
Virtually all the journalists you mention (as well as David Postman and others) left for PR-type jobs, not a job such as “sustainability and urban policy advisor” that, from all accounts, requires knowledge and experience outside of journalism/PR — knowledge and experience Ruiz admits she didn’t have.
rjh – exactly
Well, ignoring that she can be fired, I think it’s humorous that the main slant is that the media is attempting to build up and create a story for their own benefit, something you butter your bread with, Erica.
my first question for Amy in the interview would be “please explain your experience in the sustainability and urban policy field.” And her answer would of been?
It’s clear to me that she was hired as a favor.
I am setting aside the issue of whether or not she qualifies for her current job.
From what I recall from Amy as a Stranger reporter and working in this community, she is a very attentive, thorough and professional journalist. If she made the professional call to not pursue a story, then she should be trusted.
As former colleagues, you are the best people to be speaking on this subject.
Not to blow smoke onto this already burning fire…But, the Amy factor cracked a few days ago and up until now, The Stranger has been eerily silent on the subject of Amy.
Had this been a former reporter at the PI, Times or Seattle Weekly I would generally assume that we would have heard A LOT more about this prior to this post.
AJ aka Alex Jon is into guys way older than him and thus identifies with this Breedlove person. It’s obvious that AJ is defending Adams out of sheer blind projection of his own situation.
I mean, come ON dude you’ve been vehemently posting in every thread. Go bad to sucking your 50 year old daddy’s cock and let those of clear mind handle this one for fuck sake.
@8: Ethically speaking, she could very well have been removing herself from a non-story that clumsy yellow journalists would love to latch on to and puff up for their own sake, just to avoid the blowback. Suppose she discovered that Breedlove had intimated to friends that Adams had repeatedly brushed him off until his 18th, but couldn’t get him to go on record about that? Knowing that Adams personally would not want to give the story traction, she would be stupid not to accept a job offer that would remove her completely from journalism, especially knowing that she potentially would have prevented a man who only lied about his personal life from rightfully obtaining public office and allowing an unscrupulous media-bought candidate to win the election.
Speaking on ethics, I think, should it bear out that Adams and Breedlove had legal relations and there was an element of culpability on Breedlove’s part in the initial decision to cover up their relationship, journalists who suggested otherwise should withdraw from their positions or apologize themselves, considering the primary spoken accusation is Adams being a calculated and manipulative liar. This, of course, is not backed up by history, with Adams having a string of lovers his own age and Breedlove having lovers Adams’ age.
Beyond that, I think ECB knows what’s wrong with the casual whispering of the Adams being a sexual predator slant without having legal fact to back it up.
@10: I post vehemently because I think Adams is well-qualified, not because I’d rock that boat faster than Katrina. And for the record, I think it’s flattering that you think I’m ashamed of my “own situation” so much that you have to nag on me like a jilted lover. Oh, and even if I was dating someone nearly 50, I still wouldn’t consider them “old” or “daddy”.
Any other questions?
why is this more interesting than who’s running for Mayor or City Council in Seattle?
Hey, I know, maybe you can do a SLOG post on Girl Scout Cookies … and why we all like thin mints … is it a conspiracy?
amy was hired because she’s the most intelligent person in portland making less than 50 grand a year. she’s talented, she does her research for absolutely EVERY topic and can communicate articulately with anyone of any background. Adams was extremely smart to hire her and lucky to have her.
There are two main problems with the Amy R. hire, which I highly doubt was any kind of quid pro quo:
-Apparent lack of professionalism of the job search, independent of Amy’s qualifications. She was personally alerted to the position by mayoral staff (Oct 24) before the formal announcement was made (Oct 27), the interview process sounds like a joke, and the decision-making did not appear subject to multiple opinions or significant scrutiny.
-Just as big an ethical lapse, however, is that Amy does not appear to have alerted her editors or the public that she had applied for a job with the incoming administration WHILE SHE CONTINUED TO WRITE ABOUT CITY HALL. She applied for the job on Nov. 3, and got it Dec. 22. That’s almost two months of inexcusable, blatant conflict of interest reporting that she cannot blame on Mayor Adams.
So for me there are multiple unanswered questions: What kind of friendship did Amy have with the Mayor and his staff (especially Miller)? Was her hiring process a pro forma exercise guided by a friend of Amy’s? And why did Amy continue to write about City Hall for the Mercury while her application was pending?
According to Adams’ chief of staff, Adams didn’t have the final say on who was hired to be his Sustainability Policy Adviser.
“Amy emerged, finally, as the strongest candidate for this position,” said [Adams’ Chief of Staff] Tom Miller, “and I shared my view with Sam, and he was surprised, but he had very good things to say about Amy, given her proven record as somebody who worked extremely hard, asked difficult questions, and above all had a clear passion for the wellbeing of the city.”
“Sam was enthusiastic about this situation but the decision [to hire Ruiz] was mine and mine alone,” said Miller.
Read more: http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blog…
Amy J, given the revelations @16, I’m sorry I implied you should step down or be fired. If you read this, that is.
“then he would have been smart to also hire Jaquiss, Moore, and all the Oregonian reporters who were chasing the same story—and their editors, too, while he was at it”
Really? He should have hired every reporter chasing the story — to positions for which none of them were qualified? Because then everyone would have forgotten about the story, when an entire handful of reporters were given jobs in the mayor’s office? Your argument is analogous to defending someone accused of skimming 5% of income with the argument “it makes no sense to believe this person was skimming 5% of the till — after all, if this person really was pocketing a portion of the till every night, why wouldn’t he have taken 100% of the till rather than 5% – after all, he’d make more money that way.”
Now @16 makes me feel like a dick for suggesting Amy J should resign or be fired. Hurrrrrr. Also, Adams is a bad bad man for supporting his Chief of Staff’s hiring decision. Bad Adams, bad!
AJ I’ve never met you (I wouldn’t touch the likes of your clique with a 10 foot pole)
I am the Internet, not a former lover.
AJ I’ve never met you (I wouldn’t touch the likes of your clique with a 10 foot pole)
I am the Internet, not a former lover.
Anyone who’s at all familiar with Amy Ruiz-Jenniges’ work–I very fondly remember her neighborhoods coverage for the Stranger–knows full well that she has very high ethical and professional standards.
This is beyond idiotic.
It’s weird how this situation has brought out the hysterical, nastiest side of some people, but there it is.
I hope I won’t be wearing a “Free Amy” T-shirt a few months from now.
@16 – Would you believe such a claim from GW’s (former) chief of staff? It seems odd that a mayor wouldn’t have the final say on hiring senior staff.
@20,21: And?
@15
“She was personally alerted to the position by mayoral staff (Oct 24) before the formal announcement was made (Oct 27)…”
So what? In the past I’ve been alerted by friends of future job postings at their companies so that I could have my resume ready when the job was announced. It’s not like she turned in her resume BEFORE the formal announcement.
“Amy does not appear to have alerted her editors or the public that she had applied for a job…”
Again, so what? When’s the last time YOU told your boss that you were applying for other jobs? I’m at work right now filling out an application for a company that is a direct competitor of my current company. Is it a conflict of interest? You betcha! Do I care? Not a bit!
@25
“at their companies”
Portland is not a company. There are strict rules to job offerings.
oh, and, sadly, @3 for the insightful win.
“normal” people rarely run for office.
Tom Miller is as ethically-challenged as his boss, and I hope he gets subpoenaed in the AG’s investigation of this. I don’t have the slightest doubt that once questions are asked, under oath, we’ll start to see some serious parsing of this “decision to hire was mine alone” statement.
Amy Ruiz’s Seattle neighborhood reporting experience is another plus for the job because Portland city government has a strong neighborhood association involvement system. The neighborhood associations can actually propose, prioritize or outright veto city plans! (I know, hard to believe, Seattle) A staffer would have to communicate the mayor’s plans to the neighborhood in neighborhood terms through alternative media outlets and credibly reach the 20-30 somethings jamming Portland who usually aren’t involved in politics. Or I guess they could have hired some old white male with about 90 years planning experience for the job.
You know, Adam’s partner (according to this article) is also a reporter. Is he being “bribed” too?
If anyone actually READ what the job description was, you might see that she WAS qualified. The position was for a glorified p.r./media flack, not to specifically MAKE policy.
@29: Excellent point.
@31: Yeah, the revelation that a “sustainability and urban policy advisor” is actually a writing gig kind of kills this story.
I’m sure everyone will keep commenting anyway.
It seems many people disrespect the Journalism profession. The abundance of blogs and “citizen journalists” plays into this. Since Amy was a Journalist, some people could not believe that she is talented and intelligent enough to take on a role in city government. Her skills are very valuable and applicable to her position. It is a good fit. I value my own degree in Journalism and apply it to my work and volunteer duties even though they are not directly related to the media.
ECB could you please post the job description.
This may be the one time The Stranger is defending a flak working for a predator — of course, because this is a friend of The Stranger.
Whenever the Stranger writers call themselves journalists, I just want to barf.
Erica, now you are a flak for Amy.
Yes, what did happen to Josh Fart? He working for Sarah Palin?
ECB has always struck me as the type who poses as a feminist, is easily upset by things that are even slightly sexist, and yet is the first to stab other women in the back based on little or nothing.
@ 22 I find it very surprising that the term “ethical” is being used in the same sentence as Amy Ruiz nee Jenniges. As I understand it, in Seattle there were people who stopped giving interviews to Amy because they got tired of her twisting their statements to fit the predetermined slant in her reporting – up to and including simply ignoring or failing to mention parts of statements people made that directly contradicted the positions she would present them to have. Selective interpretation may work well for a bible thumper but makes you stink as a journalist. On the other hand it may help you if your job is to spin the policy direction of elite developers and downtown movers and shakers into “something palatable” to keep the neighborhood nimby’s from easily understanding what your administration is trying to get past them.
Here’s another journalist who made the move to politics to add to your list, only the greatest governor of the 20th century Tom McCall!
The “observers” you cite are actually hatemongers who are spitting venom against anyone linked to Mayor Adams on various blogs.
I would like an opportunity to ask all these self-righteous critics of Mayor Adams a dozen questions on their sex lives for publication in local media. I am sure they would provide me with full and complete answers.
It is time to stop this orgy of hypocrisy.