De-pressing news


Yesterday was a rough day for those old-timey media outlets that used to be called newspapers. Particularly here in Oregon.

First and foremost, presses are being shut down and staff is being laid off at several smaller-town papers around the state.

The media group that owns a dozen newspapers in mostly rural areas of Oregon and southwest Washington is cutting 15% of its staff and consolidating its print publications.

EO Media Group told staff Monday that 28 of the company’s 185 employees are being laid off this month, and 19 more will see their hours reduced in July. The family-run media firm owns the Bulletin based in Bend, the Rogue Valley Times in Medford, the East Oregonian in Pendleton, and others....

Starting in July, the company will stop print editions for the La Grande Observer, Blue Mountain Eagle, Hermiston Herald, Wallowa County Chieftain and the Baker City Herald. Subscribers to those papers will instead get a copy of the East Oregonian, which the company said will include news from the communities losing their print editions.

Yuck.

And the "big city" of Portland isn't immune from journalistic turmoil, either. Bob Pamplin, the timber heir who at one time had a pretty sizable media empire going here in town, just sold the whole kit and kaboodle to an outfit from – I am not making this up – Mississippi.

Pamplin has sold Pamplin Communications, which includes the Portland Tribune and 23 other Oregon newspapers, to Carpenter Media Group, a Mississippi publisher that owns 180 papers across the U.S. and Canada. The transaction, which closed June 1, was first reported by the trade publication Editor & Publisher. Terms were not disclosed.

The folks at the Weed, who have always been pretty nasty toward their competition, are delighted to keep their spotlight fixed on Pamplin's financial woes.

Pamplin raided The Oregonian for talent and hoped to knit the suburban papers with the Tribune and radio stations into a media giant that could compete with The Oregonian’s then highly lucrative hold on local and regional advertisers. The strategy never worked.

As WW has reported, Pamplin has resorted to selling unused industrial real estate, including Ross Island itself, to his firm’s pension fund, in dozens of unusual transactions that experts have said may violate federal pension law.

Wouldn't you love to see the Weed's financials for the last five years? Maybe they'd be a little less smug.

On a smaller scale, right up the street from here, the latest monthly issue of the Hollywood Star News shopper reminds us that that paper is still listed for sale. If a savior is coming for the Star News, he, she, or it is not coming quickly.

And on the other end of the spectrum, the executive editor of the Washington Post has abruptly resigned rather than see her newsroom chopped into thirds by the corporate suits who run the place. This in the middle of a Presidential election campaign and a crisis of confidence in many of the nation's key institutions.

We talk about the Fourth Estate being a noble calling, but at its core it's a business. And right now that business is in trouble. Money talks, and usually it doesn't say such nice things. Meanwhile, the fake news is flourishing. It doesn't sound like a recipe for a strong country. 

For all the flashy tools at our disposal, ferreting out the truth is going to be harder work than ever in the years ahead. Let's hope the smart kids have the resolve to do it.

Comments

  1. “Ferreting out the truth”, was once an objective for writers, editors and producers working in the fourth estate. Bias seems to have obliterated that noble cause.

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  2. A copuple of Google runs at Carpenter Media Group reveal nothing about it's politics. The recent trend with the purchase of smaller media outlets has been overwhelmingly conservative. Seems unlikely that a Mississippi-based company isn't right of center, but it's surprisingly hard to figure out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You could try reading a few of their publications

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    2. Of course, lots of options, but it's hard to believe that with that large of a portfolio that there's no readily available sense of their place on the spectrum. Almost as if the algorithms are manipulated . . .

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  3. Whenever I go camping in eastern Oregon, I pick up the local paper. Hyperlocal issues, news and events. Hope the EO doesn't completely eliminate this, though I doubt they will be able to continue with the significant layoffs.

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  4. Playing whatabout with the Weed's financials is fun and all, but what Pamplin did with his pension fund is felonious. Dudes have had extended vacations in Sheridan for less.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bobby doesn’t do important things without legal advice

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  5. Internet killed the newspaper star.

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  6. The leading sources of fake news are the biggest media outlets. The NY Times (the toilet paper of record) led the charge on Weapons of Mass Destruction- whereupon the US destroyed an entire country based on lies. The Russian Collusion story was completely fake (created by the Clintons) to hide all the illegal stuff going on with those grifting criminals (as exposed by Wikileaks). And this is just recent history- they have always been pushing fake news.

    It is a shame that local rags can't make a go of it with paper, but times change. Sears had a tremendous chance to get into the online shopping business, but couldn't see the future before the wave overwhelmed them into obscurity. IBM were idiots. The list goes on and on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No wonder you posted this garbage as anonymous. Russian Collusion was completely fake? Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

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    2. Wikipedia is the most untruthful source out there- talk about fake news. It has lots of great information, but current events are whole different story. People that try to correct their own reference page, get it edited back to false BS within minutes. Wake up!

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    3. Ok fine. Are all of these "fake news" as well?

      https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/russian-interference-in-2016-u-s-elections

      https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN25E2OY/

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/17/truth-about-russia-trump-2016-election/

      https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/903616315/senate-releases-final-report-on-russias-interference-in-2016-election

      https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl

      https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-election-security-findings-first-volume-bipartisan-russia-report

      Nice ironic touch with the "wake up" when there's mountains of evidence that you're wrong available with a Google search.

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    4. Good grief. Links from 5 years ago? Weak sauce my friend.

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  7. I think the shifting of the deck chairs at the Washington Post had a lot to do with the seventy million dollars in red ink.

    ReplyDelete

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