PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon's local news landscape is heading for another shakeup, as two major media companies undergo sales and cutbacks — resulting in layoffs for journalists and five newspapers cutting their print editions.
On Monday, Pamplin Media Group announced that it had been sold to a Mississippi-based company called Carpenter Media Group. Pamplin owned newspapers serving communities across the state, including the Portland Tribune, Beaverton Valley Times, Hillsboro Tribune, Gresham Outlook, Newberg Graphic and the Madras Pioneer.
Most of those papers published once or twice a week. According to Pamplin Media, they collectively brought the news to more than a million readers every week, employing about 200 staff.
The company was owned for 25 years by Dr. Robert Pamplin, Jr., but he said that he decided to sell due to age and health reasons. He's 82 years old. Pamplin said he hopes Carpenter Media Group will carry on the tradition of old-fashioned balanced journalism.
Carpenter now owns about 180 newspapers nationwide, having recently bought a group of 10 newspapers across the south. They said they intend to serve communities with "excellent local journalism."
"Dr. Pamplin and his colleagues have made an indelible impact on community journalism and the communities in this region," Carpenter CEO Tim Prince was quoted as saying. "We take the responsibility of continuing their work seriously and will strive to uphold the high standards he has set for all of us in the industry."
Many of Carpenter's newspapers are in small communities and maintain a focus on local issues, politics and features on interesting local figures.
Just hours later Pamplin Media announced it was sold, another major Oregon media company said it was making significant cuts and going up for sale. EO Media Group owns 12 papers across the state, including the Bend Bulletin, the East Oregonian, the Blue Mountain Eagle and the Astorian.
EO Media had actually expanded its reach within the last few years, including the opening of the Rogue Valley Times in Medford — a paper they hoped would fill the gap left by the closure of the Mail Tribune. In six months, they'd expanded their staff and launched some significant investigations, doubling the size of the paper.
But a year later, the Rogue Valley Times is shrinking. The paper is cutting down from three print editions a week to two. Other EO papers are also downsizing their print presence; some won't be printing at all, transitioning to online-only.
A few EO papers are consolidating: All print subscribers of five smaller papers in eastern Oregonian will only receive the East Oregonian, the only paper left in all of Oregon's northeast.
EO laid off 28 employees across the state Monday, and another 19 will have their hours reduced next month. Now it's looking for a new owner.
Despite the company's recent attempts to expand, EO Media said it hasn't been immune to the longstanding problems facing the newspaper industry. The U.S. Postal Service has raised rates 50% since 2021, and another increase this summer will bring it up to 60%. Health care costs have gone up more than 200%, and advertising revenue has declined by 40%.
Can local news be saved?
Those issues aren't confined to EO Media; local news outlets across the country are facing the same problems, and they have been for some time.
Nonprofit "Rebuild Local News" works to develop public policies in an effort to save local news organizations across the country. According to company president Steve Waldman, the current environment is not trending in a good direction.
"There's sort of this tidal wave of bad news and forces going on," Waldman said. "Local news is collapsing around the country. Thousands of newspapers have shut, the number of reporters in American communities has dropped by almost 60% in less than two decades. There are thousands of communities that have what are called 'ghost newspapers,' which are basically newspapers that are publishing, but there's hardly any local news in them."
Multiple studies have shown that when a community loses news coverage — whether through downsizing or closing altogether — it costs a community money, as there are fewer journalists keeping an eye on how taxpayer dollars are spent. It also leads to lower voter turnout, less civic participation and more polarization.
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People still get their information somewhere, but without reliable news they're likely to turn to places rife with misinformation, like social media sites.
So, what can people do to stop the bleed? "Subscribe to your local paper" is a common refrain, and Waldman said that it's a good start. However, it won't fix the problem on its own.
"Newspapers in other parts of the country that have cut back on their reporting staff and then asked people to subscribe are essentially asking people to pay more for a worse product," Waldman explained. "And that's not going to work either, you know? So I think news organizations need to invest in the publications to make them better cover the community. And then, yeah, the community should subscribe to it."
The public can also donate to nonprofit news organizations — and even for-profit news organizations are increasingly setting up philanthropic divisions, Waldman said. Small businesses can choose to advertise with local media in order to pitch in.
But on a larger scale, people can support public policy designed to right the ship. In 2023, the Oregon Legislature considered a bill that would've paid grants for local news. An early draft of the bill would've also provided a state tax credit for donating or subscribing to local news. The bill died in committee, never making it to a vote.
Waldman thinks these kinds of efforts can work, and they have elsewhere.
"Illinois and and New York just passed something that is very promising. It's a refundable tax credit," he said. "Really, it's a subsidy for newsrooms that retain local reporters or hire local reporters. The Illinois bill actually had a bigger tax credit for hiring and expanding local reporting staff. So that creates a good set of incentives ... You get more if you're expanding your coverage of your community, you get less if you're contracting it.
"Another idea is tax credits or grants to small businesses that advertise in local news. It's a really interesting bankshot that is supporting both sides of the, you know, kind of contract that supports local news. You're helping small businesses, restaurants and grocery stores, but you're also helping local media."
Meanwhile, news organizations that are nonprofits from the ground up have been gaining some momentum.
"Unlike a newspaper that's owned by a big chain, they don't have to generate 20% profit — they just have to break even and serve the community," Waldman said. "So that makes it easier right from the start. And the other thing they have going for them is that they can supplement the traditional revenue streams of advertising and subscriptions or donations with philanthropy, with grants from foundations or donations from philanthropists. And that is often enough to put it over the top if you're running it as a well-run business."