Typically my Saturday morning routine is to get up early, sit down in the backyard (weather permitting) with a glass of tea and read the Oregonian newspaper. With all of the breaking news alerts on your smart phones, Twitter posts, and web based news services, reading the paper for news may seem old fashioned to many, yet at the same time I have always enjoyed getting my news from the words I read in a paper that was in my hand at the time. There is just something about reading these stories, and the ability that the reporters and editors have to tell the story that makes print media just as vital and relevant as ever. Don't get me wrong, I love social media and believe in it as a communication tool, so much so in fact that Forest Grove Fire & Rescue was one of the first fire departments in Oregon to use sites like Twitter to get our message out; but how much detail can you really get out of a 140 character "tweet" compared to an entire column in the local paper.
I try and read the Oregonian every day at some point, but I always pay attention to the Saturday addition. For one because it's the weekend and I have more time to read, but mainly because on Saturday the Oregonian runs a special section called Community News that showcases local stories from the communities and cities in the Portland Metro Area. Last Saturday as I sat in my back yard and flipped through the pages I came to something that was suddenly familiar. It was our blog post about driveways and emergency vehicle access and it was listed as the "Blog Of The Week".
On behalf of Forest Grove Fire & Rescue, thank you to the staff at the Oregonian. Your staff and reporters have always been great to work with when they covered our emergency calls, they are always professional and do a first class job with the words they put together. Between the Forest Grove News Times, Hillsboro Argus, and the Oregonian we work with some pretty awesome print media reporters, photographers, and editors and we are always grateful for their coverage of our stories. There are also some great fire blogs out there, so we are especially honored by the selection as the Oregonian Blog of the Week.
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