Saving native journalism isn’t at all times easy, as a turnabout in Oregon demonstrates.
Two newspapers in Linn County nearly failed after they had been offered to a former worker. However veteran house owners and neighborhood help jolted them again to life this month.
I wrote in November that selling local newspapers to employees needs to be an possibility for house owners who would possibly in any other case shut them down or promote to parsimonious chains.
The objective is to protect unbiased newspapers, which accounted for a majority of newspaper closures and mergers over the past yr, in line with information gathered by Northwestern College’s Native Information Initiative.
However there’s no single — or easy — resolution to make sure the survival of America’s 5,400 or so remaining newspapers. Many approaches are wanted, together with neighborhood and public help, to maintain these important native companies.
Workers turned house owners are doing properly on the Sunnyside Solar in Central Washington and the Idaho County Free Press in Idaho.
It’s too dangerous staff weren’t given an possibility to purchase and save The Pittsburgh Publish-Gazette, a every day whose house owners introduced final week that it’s closing May 3. That’s most likely wishful pondering, for the reason that shutdown was prompted partially by a protracted and bitter labor dispute.
Nor did promoting to employees work out for the Oregon papers in Linn County, east of Corvallis, however they’re nonetheless having a constructive consequence.
Scott and Miriam Swanson offered their publications in Lebanon and Candy House to former worker Chris Chapman in mid-2023.
The Swansons had printed The New Period in Candy House since 2005 and began a month-to-month paper in close by Lebanon in 2016.
Chapman modernized methods and made enhancements however struggled to make a go and the information employees fell from three to 1, as reported by the Albany Democrat-Herald.
Reasonably than see the papers die, the Swansons ended their early retirement and resumed possession late final yr. That they had carried Chapman’s mortgage and the association ended after 18 months. Chapman couldn’t be reached for remark earlier than my deadline.
In December, Scott Swanson wrote an editorial explaining the papers’ dire situation and requested the neighborhood to help. People may assist by subscribing, companies may promote and anybody may donate to maintain the operation afloat.
The folks got here by way of. With their help, the Swansons on Jan. 1 relaunched the publications as a mixed weekly newspaper, The New Period, serving each Candy House and Lebanon.
“It was on the snapping point and the neighborhood actually donated 5 figures … that’s some huge cash in our world,” Scott Swanson mentioned.
That infusion will hold the paper going lengthy sufficient “to get issues again on monitor, advertising-wise,” he mentioned.
The paper relies in Candy House however rising civic and sports activities protection in Lebanon, an evolving timber city with a medical faculty and Veterans Affairs facility.
The Swansons’ month-to-month paper in Lebanon was competing with a weekly owned by Lee Enterprises, an Iowa-based chain that publishes dailies in Corvallis and Albany.
Lee is now being taken over by a Florida billionaire, David Hoffmann, who told me last year that he plans to grow to be the nation’s largest newspaper writer.
We’ll see if Hoffmann can revitalize Lee and restore its protection of far-flung communities. A sequence of cuts gutted Lee’s Oregon papers and it stopped publishing its Lebanon Categorical in early 2023.
“We have now an excellent native radio station however as soon as we misplaced the Lebanon Categorical, that was actually exhausting on Lebanon,” mentioned Rebecca Grizzle, a former Metropolis Council member who now leads the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce.
Grizzle mentioned native reporting dwindled within the Categorical earlier than its closure “however the Swansons have been wonderful, a minimum of attempting to fill that void.”
Scott Swanson mentioned The New Period has round 2,000 subscribers, which is nice for a mixed market with round 25,000 folks.
“We’ve had fairly quite a few folks coming within the door telling us that is what they’ve been ready for,” he mentioned.
The New Period ought to be capable to develop as a result of residents admire the Swansons’ dedication, mentioned Laurie Heib, government director of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Affiliation.
“I feel that neighborhood is in love with them,” she mentioned. “You recognize, they’re simply in it. They see him round city, they cowl the sports activities, they cowl all of the neighborhood info, and I feel they very a lot take pleasure in it.”
Swanson mentioned the newsroom is as much as two folks, plus freelancers, and he goals to rent extra journalists this yr.
“We’re slowly constructing issues again to the place they should be, to maintain us from working 60 hours per week,” he mentioned.
The evening earlier than we spoke, Swanson, 64, lined a swim meet and two evening basketball video games.
“Properly, I took photos of them, and I’ve three or 4 tales to jot down,” he mentioned.
It’s a well-known beat to Swanson, who landed a summer time job as a teen protecting sports activities for the family-owned newspaper in Grants Cross, Ore.
“I used to be 18 years previous. I may wash dishes in a restaurant or I may go to baseball video games and receives a commission for it — superior!” he mentioned. “That’s how I bought into journalism.”
Let’s hope extra youngsters catch that bug and discover alternatives to assist hold unbiased, native journalism alive. It gained’t work out each time however there are nonetheless loads of publishers and communities prepared to offer them an opportunity.
