Scott Swanson
In the wake of National Newspaper Week, I’ve got some good news.
A big concern I’ve had, both as a journalist and as a citizen, has been the dearth of news coverage of state government in recent years.
Sure, we at The New Era occasionally summarize what’s coming up in the Legislature, what might be in progress, or what laws have gotten passed.
Occasionally, we interview our local representative (now Jamie Cate) or state senator (Fred Girod) about what’s happening in Salem, but it doesn’t happen nearly as often as would be ideal, in my mind. Unfortunately, it’s a question of resources, time, effort and space in the newspaper.
But it’s hit-and-miss and it’s not close to what I’d like to see.
Larger news organizations have done better, but even they do not have the presence they once had in Salem.
As I’ve noted previously on this page, slashed budgets – and staffs – have crippled news coverage in Oregon (and across the nation), which does a great disservice to readers who need reliable information about what their politicians are doing to function in our system of government. It’s as simple as that.
I’m certainly not happy about the level of coverage we’ve been able to provide, simply because it’s been minimal, at best.
As I’ve also said before, in this business you’re never done. There’s always another story that really should be covered. Many, actually.
There are reporters in Salem, but until recently they’ve been much fewer than in the past.
A 2014 Pew Research study reported that Oregon had one of the smallest contingents of statehouse reporters in the nation, in comparison to the state’s size.
In 2018, the Columbia Journalism Review, which reports on the newspaper industry, ran an article noting that the Salem press corps had shrunk by nearly two-thirds between 2005 (when there were 37 reporters covering the capitol) and that year, when the tally was 13.
Plus, the article stated, reporters in 2018 were much less experienced than had been the case even a decade previously. Legislators are concerned about the trustworthiness of young reporters and, well, it just takes time to learn the landscape, how things work, what to look for.
The Eugene Register-Guard’s Saul Hubbard, who was assigned to the capital in 2011 as an intern, was one of the capital’s most veteran reporters when he moved to a job as director of communications for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries in early 2019.
It would be safe to say that quality of journalistic scrutiny in Oregon’s capitol has declined.
What’s lost with the lack of experience and diminished numbers are “complicated stories – tax policy, for instance,” Willamette Week reporter Nigel Jaquiss, who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for his work uncovering former Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt’s sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl, told the writer of the CJR report.
In recent years, locally-owned newspapers such as the Register-Guard, which have in the past maintained an ongoing presence in Salem, have been bought out by giant media companies that have pared their newsrooms down to the bare essentials, turning formerly robust publications into mere shadows of what they used to be. That includes capitol coverage.
What’s scary about all of this is that the declining numbers of reporters means we’ve lost a lot of scrutiny of what’s happening in Salem. A reporter can only do so much, and there is a lot happening in the state capitol – literally hundreds, if not thousands, of bills floated in recent legislative sessions alone.
The good news is that I’m not the first, by a long shot, to be aware of this problem. And journalistic organizations with the capability to do something about it are.
In 2015, the Pamplin (25 publications, two radio stations) and East Oregonian (11 community newspapers) media groups combined to establish the Oregon Capital Insider (oregoncapitalinsider.com), which has a number of staffers working to produce daily stories about what’s going on in Salem.
I’ve always appreciated the intent and the results of Oregon Capital Insider’s efforts, which have been helpful, on occasion, even in this newspaper.
But as should be clear by now, there room for plenty more.
So I’m really happy to report that another, similar, news service produced by veteran journalists started up last week in Salem.
This won’t be breaking news to observant readers, since we published a little blurb about the launching of the Oregon Capital Chronicle, but Capitol Chronicle’s Salem-based newsroom is led by Editor-in-Chief Les Zaitz, a two-time Pulitzer finalist and longtime investigative reporter in Oregon who formerly was involved with the Oregon Capital Insider.
He is joined by deputy editor Lynne Terry, who was recently editor of The Lund Report; Julia Shumway, recently a statehouse reporter for Arizona Capitol Times, and Alex Baumhardt, most recently a reporter and producer with American Public Media.
“Our purpose is to provide careful reporting about state government and leaders that has been reduced in recent years as news organizations cut,” said Zaitz. “We will get beyond the story of the day and probe the politics and policies that touch every Oregonian. We will do so thoroughly, accurately and without bias.”
Zaitz is a veteran, who brings clout to the table because state officials know who he is. He’s been involved in many investigative projects and they know he can ask tough questions.
Tough questions do need to be asked, particularly when the pandemic restrictions have allowed legislators to operate in the pseudo-open – Zoom-ing in from their offices or wherever, ostensibly holding public hearings that didn’t involve actual in-person testimony from the public, with all the attendant nonverbal communication and social connection that all of us miss in virtual meetings.
Politicians are people just like the rest of us. Do we sometimes step it up a notch at work when the boss is standing there, watching us? If legislators and the governor know that their moves are being tracked, well, that’s helpful.
So who wins here?
You, the reader, the voter, the Oregon resident. Sometimes I wonder whether, if we had a more significant press corps in Salem, if the super-majority would be able to just run with loose reins.
If they had more reporters walking into their offices and asking them about their proposed legislation, popping those questions, and investigating the realities behind the laws, whether things would be what they are today.
I really don’t think so, but it will take time.
We’ll find out.
Note: Click the Oregon Capital Chronicle button, and check it out. You may need to refresh your page a time or two if you don’t see it immediately.