Cuts to Oregon’s newspaper trade proceed this month with the closure of two newspapers east of Portland.
I’m wondering if Oregon legislators remorse not passing Senate Bill 686 in June. The laws would have required tech giants benefiting from information to pay $122 million a yr to native information shops, with funds allotted based mostly on the variety of journalists employed.
Which may not have prevented the most recent closures however it might have stored different newspapers afloat and saved a whole lot of newsroom jobs.
The Sandy Put up and Estacada Information will cease publishing their print editions and merge with The Outlook in Gresham.
The papers have been ghosts, with a single reporter working for each the Put up and Information, in keeping with The Oregonian. It famous that The Outlook has one reporter.
All three have been bought final yr by Carpenter Media, the Southern newspaper chain that additionally acquired Sound Publishing and the Everett Day by day Herald. Its acquisition spree in Washington and Oregon was adopted by a collection of layoffs and cutbacks.
John Carr, writer of Carpenter’s papers in Oregon, confirmed the sale in an electronic mail however didn’t touch upon the newsroom head depend.
Carr wrote that the Sandy and Estacada papers “didn’t have sufficient circulation” to justify protecting them as stand-alone print editions.
“Additionally they shared nearly all of their content material with the Gresham Outlook,” he wrote, “so we merged the papers into what’s now referred to as “The Outlook, serving Gresham, Estacada and Sandy.”
Carr mentioned Portland space shoppers desire getting information digitally.
“We’re pleased to maintain a print product wherever the group can assist it sufficient to make it viable, but when the group prefers digital, that’s how we are going to ship their information,” he wrote.
Carpenter final month introduced plans to cease printing the Portland Tribune, the flagship of the Portland-area Pamplin newspaper group that it acquired final yr. It additionally laid off a minimum of 5 folks within the Tribune’s newsroom, in keeping with Oregon Public Broadcasting.
That follows layoffs final yr at Carpenter papers in Bend, Medford and Wallowa County.
Oregon’s newspaper trade employment fell greater than 80% during the last 25 years, worse than the 77% loss nationally, per OPB reporting in December.
Carr mentioned passage of SB 686 would have been unlikely to cease the Sandy and Estacada closures as a result of the invoice would take time to implement and it’s unclear how a lot of the proceeds would move to these publications.
However it might have been a distinct story elsewhere.
“We predict it’s extremely doubtless it might have made an enormous distinction in future instances all through the state,” Carr wrote. “Future group information deserts might have been prevented.”
Laurie Hieb, government director of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Affiliation, concurred.
“Papers not solely would be capable of keep open however have the flexibility to rent extra journalists,” she mentioned by way of electronic mail. “There’s no query — we may have prevented the closure of some newspapers if we had been correctly paid for the work Google continues to revenue from.”
Dallas drama: The household that controls The Dallas Morning Information guardian firm rejected a buyout offer from Alden International Capital, one other chain writer identified for purchasing newspapers then reducing employees.
DallasNews Company on June 9 accepted a $14 per share buyout provide from nationwide publishing large Hearst, which Alden’s MediaNews Group countered with a $16.50 per share provide.
Hearst upped its bid to $15, valuing the corporate at $80.3 million, in keeping with a report in The Dallas Morning Information.
The important thing choice to take much less and reject Alden was made by Robert Decherd, the controlling shareholder and great-grandson of the paper’s co-founder.
“There are not any circumstances underneath which I might vote for or assist the MNG (MediaNews Group) proposal,” Decherd wrote in a letter to the board of administrators, per the Morning Information report. “I’m centered, as I’ve at all times been, on the well-being of The Dallas Morning Information, the standard of its journalism, and The Information’ position within the metropolis of Dallas.”
MediaNews Group’s Chicago Tribune concurrently laid off about 10% of its newsroom, or eight workers, in keeping with the Chicago Sun-Times.
NYT’s prime deal: Amazon pays The New York Occasions $20 million to $25 million yearly to make use of its information content material, The Wall Road Journal reported, providing “a window into how publishers and artificial-intelligence corporations are valuing information content material within the midst of a seismic change in how shoppers search data on-line.”
Amazon can use the paper’s materials to coach AI fashions and supply information excerpts and summaries by way of merchandise together with Alexa, the report mentioned. The deal was disclosed in Might however not the cost quantity.
It stays to be seen what number of of America’s 5,600 other newspapers will safe honest cost from tech giants.
Till then, I worry these high-profile offers may worsen the native information disaster.
With a number of huge shops feeding principally nationwide tales to AI platforms and Amazon’s media bundle, fewer folks might really feel the necessity to learn and subscribe to native and regional shops reporting on their communities.
That is excerpted from the free, weekly Voices for a Free Press e-newsletter. Signal as much as obtain it on the Save the Free Press website.
