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Lalita, Simon and Robert Ham. Despite popular opinion, music journalists do have lives.

01/01/2015

Robert Ham: (Best of) Coffeeshop Conversations #5 the life of a music journalist

By TOM D'ANTONI // He's the top music journalist in Oregon and one of the best in the country.

Robert Ham is the top music journalist in the state of Oregon and one of the best in the US of A. Now, I could be saying that to curry favor and get him to write more for us, but I'm not, although that would be a goal. Hell, I'd hand over the keys to the store, if I could afford it and he'd make a better OMN editor than me.

One thing I've always liked about our relationship is that even though we've been in competition for the same dollars from various publications (the Oregonian, for instance), I have never felt a shred of competitiveness between us. That's a rare thing in journalism, especially given the shrinking marketplace and minuscule amount of money to be made compared to ten years ago.

He's a splendid fella. We talked at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th and Glisan, where all of our Coffeeshop Conversations take place.

Listen:

Originally run January 1, 2015

When our new site went up a few months ago, many of our old stories got...well, lost due to IT error. We are restoring many of them, including all of the Coffeeshop Conversations.

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