More layoffs may be near at already depleted Gannett newspapers in Oregon.
Gannett, the owner of the Statesman Journal in Salem, The Register-Guard in Eugene and the Daily Journal of Commerce in Portland, says it plans to cut more staff in its news division and will notify affected employees on Dec. 1-2, 2022.
“While we have taken several steps already, we must enter the new year in a stronger economic position, and the reality is that our news cost base is currently too high for the revenues it generates,” Henry Faure Walker, who is temporarily overseeing Gannett’s U.S. news operations, wrote in a recent memo to employees. “Regretfully, this means we will be implementing further reductions.”
The cuts will follow the company’s net loss of $54.1 million in the three months ending Sept. 30 and previous nationwide layoffs that affected its Oregon operations. About 400 employees were laid off earlier this year.
Gannett has also paused its 401(k) match and most hiring, offered employees a voluntary severance plan and is having workers take five days of unpaid leave.
The Statesman Journal, Oregon’s second-oldest newspaper, was sold to Gannett in 1973. Currently listing 15 reporters on its website, it has been steadily shrinking in staff and as a reliable news source. The paper is one of the Gannett properties that lost staff in cutbacks earlier this year.
The Register-Guard, formed in a 1930 merger of two Eugene papers, the Eugene Daily Guard and the Morning Register, was acquired by GateHouse Media in 2018. At the time, the paper had 240 full-and part-time employees. The newspaper has been owned by Gannett since Gannett’s 2019 merger with Gatehouse. The paper’s current website lists just 5 reporters.
Founded in 1872, the Daily Journal of Commerce (DJC) provides resources and reporting on the Portland, Oregon building and construction market. Owned by Gannett through its BridgeTower Media division, the paper has a circulation of 1,966, according to the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.
UPDATE 12/15/2022: The latest Gannett cutbacks have resulted in at least one Oregon layoff, Statesman Journal reporter Natalie Pate Gwin, who had covered education at the paper for the past 7 1/2 years. Separately, Register-Guard editor, Michelle Maxwell, left the paper on Nov. 11, 2022. Her departure came nine days after the paper announced it would no longer publish “traditional opinion pieces — letters to the editor, editorials and guest opinions.”
UPDATE 03/10/2022: The Columbia Journalism Review reported that Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton crunched the numbers from Gannett’s most recent annual report and found an “astonishing” record of “shrinkage”: since merging with GateHouse in 2019, Gannett has cut nearly sixty percent of its workforce and either sold or shuttered over a hundred of its papers, while circulation has plummeted at those that remain. Alden Global Capital has the most villainous reputation of any US publisher, Benton writes, but “nocompany has done more to shrink local journalism” than Gannett of late.
Sure, Harvard University admitted only 3.2% of the 61,220 people who applied to join the fall 2022 class, but Harvard’s not typical.
According to U.S. News & World Report, college acceptance rates average 68%. Pew Research Center found that over half of U.S. universities have an admissions rate of at least 67%.
Then there’s Oregon.
Can you breathe, fog up a mirror? If yes, just submit an application and you’ll probably be accepted at some of Oregon’s public universities.
Acceptance rates at Oregon’s seven public universities are unusually high. For the 2022-2023 academic year, they ranged from a high of 98.43% at Portland State University (PSU) to a low of 89.21% at Oregon State University (OSU):
School Acceptance Rate (%)
Portland State University 98.43
Eastern Oregon University 97.68
University of Oregon 93.00
Western Oregon University 91.57
Oregon Institute of Technology 90.62
Southern Oregon University 89.70
Oregon State University 89.21
Not only are acceptance rates high at Oregon’s public universities, but they’ve been going up.
At the University of Oregon, for example, the average acceptance rate over the past 10 years is 79.89%, but it has been fairly steadily increasing from 72.96% for the 2012-13 academic year to 93.00% for the 2022-23 academic year.
So hang in there high school seniors. If you want to go to an Oregon public university there will probably be a spot for you.
No question. Portland is “The City That doesn’t Work”. But Ballot Measure 26-228, the charter reform proposal, isn’t the answer.
Driving support for the measure is a commonly held view that Portland’s government is an unwieldy mess that doesn’t serve citizens well.
A recent poll commissioned by the Portland Business Alliance validates that voters are up for change.
Presented with the text of the ballot measure, 63% of 420 respondents said they would vote for it and 21% said they would vote no.
The 63% figure makes it sound like approval is a slam dunk, but the devil may be in the details.
Of that 63%, only 26% were sure they’d vote for it; 36% were less certain, but leaned toward a yes vote and 16% were undecided. In my view, even though the vote is just weeks away, that means there are an awful lot of persuadables.
The task ahead for opponents is to raise enough awareness of the measure’s complexity and cost to raise doubt about the wisdom of the whole proposal.
For example, Portlanders may think more City Council members will mean better representation. But the proposal for four districts, each represented by three city counselors, won’t necessarily translate into that result.
One reason is because the ballot measure doesn’t specify the boundaries of the new districts. If the measure passes, a separate districting commission would be convened in January and assigned the task of drawing the boundaries. Nobody knows now where those lines will be drawn.
Things get more complicated and uncertain because the measure proposes that the councilors of each district be elected using a proportional method of ranked choice voting known as “single transferable vote” (STV).
In this system, voters rank the candidates and if a candidate gets more votes than needed be elected the extra, or surplus, votes get transferred to the voter’s next choices. The process is so convoluted the measure takes almost 300 words to explain how it would work.
Under this system, a candidate running for a seat in a multimember district could win a position on the Council with as little as 25% of the vote. One consequence could be a councilor able to remain in office by consistently satisfying just that small segment of eligible voters and ignoring those who are disenchanted with their performance because it would require 75% of voters to vote against the entrenched councilor to remove him or her.
As Tim Nesbit, a former chief of staff to Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski and a critic of the ballot measure, wrote in the Portland Tribune, “This will be a ‘welcome to the Hotel California’ for candidates who seek office in the first council election to follow. It will be easy to check in to the council, but much harder to be forced to leave.”
And then there’s the potential cost of the new governance system proposed in the measure. Talk about buying a pig in a poke. Frankly, nobody’s really sure what the cost of the massive changes would be.
The City Budget Office estimates the cost of implementing the measure could be up to a whopping $8.7 million annually.
One unknown is transition costs. Then a Salary Commission that would need to set the salaries of all the newly elected officials. And all those new City Councilors will have staff. And the fact is, government tends to grow. As George Roche wrote in a booklet published by the Mackinac Center for Public policy, bureaucracies “tend to swell up like toadstools on a rotting log.”
Do Portlanders really want to spend MORE on their government? Charter reform proponents don’t tend to talk about this.
The key task ahead is to convince the “less certain” and “undecided” voters to move into the “No” column.
Lawyers of distinction is back with its advertisements congratulating its newest 2022 members. One of them is Rex White, Esq., a criminal defense and family law attorney in Salem, OR.
An Oct. 1, 2022 ad in the Sunday New York Times, “Congratulations to the Newest 2022 Lawyers of Distinction”, featured White and lawyers from 40 states, the District of Columbia, Australia, Canada, France, Puerto Rico, Switzerland and even one from Vietnam. Another ad in the same issue congratulated 39 “2022 Power Lawyers”.
Impressed? Don’t be.
About all that’s required to be named a “Lawyer of Distinction” is to apply yourself or be nominated, fill out some online forms and pay a fee.
According to the Orlando, FL-based organization’s website, a Charter Membership, for $475 a year, comes with a “Customized 14″ x 11″ genuine rosewood plaque”. A Featured Membership, for $575 a year, brings the plaque and inclusion in a membership roster published in USA Today, The New York Times, The American Lawyer and the National Law Journal.
Then there’sthe super-duper Distinguished Membership, for $775 per year (described on the organization’s website as “Most Popular”), which brings the rosewood plaque, the membership roster ads and an 11″tall translucent personalized crystal statue.
All of it is for attorneys, including 24 in Oregon, who apparently want to embellish their credentials by deceiving the public.
It’s like diploma mills, companies or organizations that claim to be a higher education institution, but only provide illegitimate academic degrees and diplomas for a fee.
“There’s a sucker born every minute,” is a phrase often attributed to P. T. Barnum, an American showman. It’s apparently true with respect to the attorneys who pay for “Lawyers of Distinction” memberships as well as members of the public who are misled by them.
The Lawyers of Distinction website describes the application review process:
“Lawyers of Distinction Members have been selected based upon a review and vetting process by our Selection Committee utilizing U.S. Provisional Patent # 62/743,254. The platform qenerates a numerical score of 1 to 5 for each of the 12 enumerated factors which are meant to recognize the applicant’s achievements and peer recognition. Members are then subject to a final review for ethical violations within the past ten years before confirmation of Membership. Nomination does not guarantee membership and attorneys may not pay a fee to be nominated. Attorneys may nominate their peers whom they feel warrant consideration. The determination of whether an attorney qualifies for Membership is based upon the aforementioned proprietary analysis discussed above.”
Phew! Sounds complex and rigorous.
Don’t believe it.
Essentially, it’s just pay-for-play. It’s selling badges. It’s paying for meaningless accolades. Apply, pay the annual membership fee and you’re in.
Conrad Saam, president of Mockingbird Marketing in Seattle, tested the membership vetting process by applying for membership as his child’s pet chicken, Zippy. “Surely their ‘rigorous review process’ would disqualify a 3 1/2 month old Golden Wyandotte,” he theorized.
Saam started by getting an email address for Zippy through Yahoo. Then he used an alias to nominate Zippy DeShickeen. He quickly received notification that Zippy had been nominated, but he chose not to send in the membership fee.
“Surely they wanted to know more information about Zippy. What about the background checks? Independent Research? and Zippys scholarly writings? Verdicts… Settlements…. Bar Certifications? Surely that would follow in the next phase of the process; at a minimum, LOD would want to know what state Zippy was licensed in? a bar number? or a release to perform the background check? Some of her awards? Some bio information? But alas, the application required nothing more than a name, address and a domain.”
According to the Florida Division of Corporations, “Lawyers of Distinction Inc.” is a private for-profit company with a principal address of 4700 Millenia Boulevard, Suite 175, Orlando, FL 32839.
Robert B. Baker, at the same address, is listed as the President in the company’s 2020 Annual Report.
Robert Baker
But don’t go to the office address expecting to be ushered into a space with a clean, modern aesthetic that communicates success. The address is only a virtual office.
“These Orlando virtual offices are perfectly located on Millennia Blvd., offering a fantastic office location and recognisable (sic) business address without the cost of renting a full-time office space.,” its website says. “Virtual office users benefit from a local phone number, receptionist call answering services, and a mail handling facility, and can even visit the premises for meeting room rental or day office usage whenever the need arises.”
Robert “Robbie” Brian Baker, a member of the Florida Bar (Bar #992460), is also the founder and owner of Baker Legal Team at 2255 Glades Rd., Ste 330-W, Boca Raton, FL 33431. According to the Baker Legal Team website, he has a degree from Boston University School of Law in 1989 and a B.A. from Ithaca College.
As an aside, the firm’s website has the chutzpah to highlight that it’s a member of Lawyers of Distinction.
Lawyers of Distinction’s website says it currently has over 5000 members. If 5000 lawyers sign up for the Distinguished category at $775 this year, the organization will rake in $3.9 million. Quite a haul.
Lawyers of Distinction tries to quell doubts about its legitimacy by including on its website a section headed, “Is Lawyers of Distinction A Scam? With Over 5000 Members, See What Lawyers Have To Say.” But all the section contains are a few member comments and ratings, such as, “Andre L. Pennington – June 20, 2022, I love the opportunities that this honor provides. I highly recommend!”
It’s likely that few attorneys have been duped by Lawyers of Distinction, lured into believing they’ve been selected for a rare honor based on their legal work. They must figure that impressing potential clients is worth the chronic mendacity and deception.
But the widespread use of Lawyers of Distinction by American attorneys really just represents the decay of honest professional representation. If the American Bar Association and state bar associations really cared about lawyers’ clients they would be cracking down on such misleading marketing ploys.
And if an attorney ballyhoos their selection as a Lawyer of Distinction to you, beware. They are living in a world of unearned praise.
Proponents of Portland’s charter reform proposal (Measure 26-228) try to make it sound so simple and straightforward; just a good government initiative that will transform the city.
Not so. The proposed radical change in how city officials would be elected is a convoluted jumble that few probably comprehend.
The current system is simple: the person with the most votes wins.
Under the reform proposal, not one but two voting systems would be employed.
First, the Mayor and the Auditor would be elected at-large using a flawed method of ranked choice voting (RCV) known as instant runoff voting.
This is how the reform proposal describes the system:
“If no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the initial round, subsequent rounds are counted in which (i) candidates retain the number of votes counted for them in the first and any subsequent rounds that already occurred; and (ii) the candidates having the fewest votes are successively eliminated in rounds and their votes are counted as votes for the candidates who are ranked next on the ballots that had been counted for the eliminated candidates. The process of eliminating candidates and transferring their votes to the next-ranked candidate on ballots repeats until a candidate has a majority of the vote.”
Got that?
In RCV, voters need to have a high level of information about all the candidates in order to choose preferences. You can’t just vote for the person and ideas you like. You must also educate yourself about all the other candidates in order to elevate, or dismiss, the ones you don’t.
If you only vote for the candidate you prefer and don’t rank all the rest, you are effectively disenfranchised if your candidate doesn’t come in first in the initial ballot count.
The fact is, the more people a voter ranks the longer a ballot works for the voter. If there are five people on a ballot, you vote for only one and that one is eliminated in the instant runoff, your ballot is exhausted and has no impact on the race. It simply won’t factor into the final outcome.
On the other hand, pressure to rank all the candidates can lead to support for somebody you really don’t like. In RCV, your vote for a candidate you dislike can actually help that candidate move up.
Jeff Jacoby, an award-winning columnist for the Boston Globe, calls the RCV process “democracy on the Rube Goldberg model”, where ideas that supposedly simplify people’s lives wreak havoc instead.
“Perversely, (ranked choice voting) enhances the influence of the candidate who comes in last when the ballots are first counted, by shifting that candidate’s voters to their second choice.,” Jacoby says. “Just as perversely, the system pushes voters to decide on who their third-, fourth-, and even fifth-favorite candidates are — or face the prospect of their vote being nullified if multiple rounds of tallying are required.”
Things get even weirder when you apply RCV to an election for multiple positions.
As noted earlier, not one but two voting systems would be employed under Portland’s charter reform proposal. In the races for mayor and auditor, there would be only one final winner in each. In the district council races, each of four districts would be electing three Councilors to create a 12-member city council, guaranteed to lead to gridlock at times because of the even number..
The Councilors of each district would be elected using a proportional method of RCV known as “single transferable vote” (STV). In this system, voters rank the candidates and if a candidate gets more votes than needed be elected the extra, or surplus, votes get transferred to he voter’s next choices. The charter reform proposal is so convoluted it takes almost 300 words to explain how it would work (See below for complete text)
Under this system, a candidate running for a seat in a multimember district could win a position on the Council with as little as 25% + 1 of the vote. One consequence could be a Councilor able to remain in office by consistently satisfying just that smaller segment of eligible voters.
Because STV is a complex system, understanding it demands a high degree of literacy and numeracy. It can also heighten the power of small minority coalitions and fragment political parties because it can cause members of a party to compete against each other as well as against their ideological opponents.
Although organizations such as the City Club of Portland, the League of Women Voters of Portland and the ACLU of Oregon have endorsed the reform proposal, it’s hard to understand why given that its complexity potentially endangers its legitimacy in the eyes of the general public.
Charter reform proponents cite a Portland Governance & Electoral Reform Survey conducted in March 2022 by Baltimore, MD-based GBAO, which does survey research and strategic consulting for Democratic and progressive campaigns, that showed strong support for RCV and multimember districts.
The polling questions did not, however, explain the intricacies of how RCV would work with multimember districts and application of the single transferable vote concept.
Probably realizing that all this is confusing as hell, the charter reform proposal calls for voter education. “The City must conduct periodic voter education campaigns to familiarize voters with the ranked choice voting methods described above,” the proposal says.
Try explaining all this in a 30-second tv spot, a tweet or a digital ad.
Good luck with that.
__________
Charter reform’s explanation of how “single transferable vote” (STV) would work:
“Councilors of each district are elected using a proportional method of ranked choice voting known as single transferable vote. This method provides for the candidates to be elected on the basis of a threshold. The threshold is determined by the number of seats to be filled plus one, so that the threshold is the lowest number of votes a candidate must receive to win a seat such that no more candidates can win election than there are seats to be filled. In the initial round, the number of first rankings received by each candidate is the candidate’s vote count. Candidates whose vote counts are at least the threshold are declared elected. Votes that counted for elected candidates in excess of the threshold are called surplus. If fewer candidates are elected in the initial round than there are seats to be filled, the surplus percentage of all votes for the candidates who received a surplus are transferred to the next-highest ranked candidates in proportion to the total numbers of next-highest rankings they received on the ballots that counted for the elected candidate. If, after all surpluses have been counted in a round, no additional candidates have a vote count that is at least the threshold, the candidates with the lowest vote counts are successively eliminated in rounds and their votes are counted as votes for the candidates who are ranked next highest on the ballots that had been counted for the eliminated candidates, until another candidate has a vote count that is at least the threshold or until the number of candidates remaining equals the number of seats that have not yet been filled. The process of transferring surpluses of elected candidates and eliminating candidates continues until all positions are elected.”
Most of the discussion about the wisdom and impacts of President Biden’s college loan cancellation announcement is focusing on college graduates.
I maintain that college graduates, certainly including couples with annual income of $250,000, are in the strongest position to pay back their student loans. The students who got screwed the most are those who took out loans and failed to graduate. They got stuck with the costs of college, but none of benefits of a college degree.
Accordion got the Social Security Administration, men with bachelor’s degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor’s degrees earn $630,000 more. Men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with graduate degrees earn $1.1 million more.
An estimated 38.6% of the 43 million student debtors in the United States — roughly 16.6 million people — have debt but no degree six years after first entering college, according to National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data.
At the University of Oregon, 27.4% of the students seeking bachelors degrees in the class of 2015 had still not graduated 8 years later. Of these 1,730 students, 25 were still working towards their degree, 1,148 had transferred to a different institution, and the remaining 556 are assumed to have dropped out.
At Oregon State University, there were 6,316 bachelors degree candidates in the class of 2015 . After 8 years, just 63.8% of this class had eventually their degree. Of the remaining 2,288 students, 79 were still working towards their degree, 1,406 had transferred to a different institution, and the remaining 802 are assumed to have dropped out.
The institutions with the highest dropout rates are historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). HBCUs have an average graduation rate of just 35%, according to Best Colleges.
When The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education surveyed 64 of 100 historically black colleges and universities, only 5 of those schools surveyed graduated more than 50 percent of their students:
At half of the HBCUs surveyed, the black student graduation rate was 34 percent or lower. And there were seven HBCUs in which fewer than one in five black students earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a Washington D.C.-based, nonprofit organization that represents 47 public HBCUs, attributes much of the high non-completion rate to the HBCUs accepting a lot of students with low standardized test scores and GPAs, students encountering time-management and behavioral issues, and a lack of financial literacy.
Some black students failing at HBCUs, just like some other college dropouts, would also be better off if they had chosen, instead, two-year schools, one-year associate’s degree programs, community colleges, trade schools and the like.
“It seems we’re telling our kids that if you don’t go to a four-year school,” Taylor said, “then you are wasting your mind.”
In a recent interview with Newsweek, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R – North Dakota) took a dim view of college dropouts and was disinclined to give them any help with college debt. “If you look at the statistics of freshmen who don’t finish college, but they take out student debt in order to experiment with college—if you start forgiving that first $10,000 for people, that just enhances these reckless decisions,” he said.
I disagree. With no degree, they’re the ones least able to benefit from their college experience and the most likely to need a leg up now.
“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”
―Robert Louis Stevenson
Inspirational thoughts about trees are ubiquitous. It’s natural that one would think of planting a tree in memory of a treasured family member or friend.
When looking for an obituary of a former work colleague who recently passed away, I quickly found myself on Legacy.com, a U.S.-based website which hosts obituaries from newspapers for more than 70 percent of all U.S. deaths and is said to attract more than 30 million unique visitors per month.
But Legacy.com isn’t simply an obituary posting service. It also tries to exploit the inclination of people to want to memorialize the departed by driving the grieving to pay to have trees in their name. “Plant a tree in memory of a loved one,” says its website. “Let their legacy live on.” The cost? $90 for 10 trees, $165 for 50, $265 for 100.
“By planting memorial trees, you not only honor the life and legacy of your loved one — you also help to preserve our beautiful national forests for generations to come,” says Legacy.com’s website.
Responding to an inquiry, a Legacy.com Support & Solutions Specialist said all the trees planted would be saplings, young trees with a slender trunk.
If the purchaser doesn’t choose a planting location from among several offered up when ordering, the trees will be planted by arborists in a forest in need. “The current project is the Mississippi Alluvial Valley,” the Specialist said. “The other current location choices are: Oachita National Forest (in both Arkansas and Oklahoma), Econfina Creek (in Florida) and Manchester State Forest (in South Carolina). Since we started the program, we have not offered any locations in Oregon.”
Sounds good. But there’s something left unsaid. Legacy.com is far from a sympathetic, supportive helping hand in difficult times. It is, instead, a giant private profit-hungry company based in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1998, it was acquired by Pamplona Capital Management , a a private equity firm, in 2017.
If Legacy.com was a non-profit or a public company, it would have to disclose its finances. As a private company it has no obligation to do so.
Thankfully, there are a lot of great alternatives to Legacy.com’s profit-seeking memorials.Impactful Ninja,for example,has created a list of the best non-profits for planting trees in 2022.
One Tree Planted, at the top of their list, promises one tree will be planted for every dollar donated. The non-profit plants trees all over the world. Their work helps restore land affected by human and natural disasters, including supporting the communities and ecosystems in these areas. One Tree Planted recently focused on raising funds to create breeding habitat for monarch butterflies in Mexico.
The organization holds a Platinum Seal of Transparency by GuideStar. It is the highest rank held by organizations that share all their results and progress. And a 100% rating for impact and results from Charity Navigator.
Don’t assume, by the way, that well-known tree planting non-profits are all highly rated.
For example, one highly visible non-profit, the Arbor Day Foundation, is not on Impactful Ninja’s list. The Foundation promotes “Trees in Memory” where a donor can have trees planted by contracted professional tree planters in a variety of national forests, including Oregon’sUmpqua National Forest, for $2 a tree.
However you choose to do it, planting a tree in memory of a special person is a worthy tribute. As Nelson Henderson, a Canadian farmer, observed:
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
UPDATE (Aug. 12, 2022): In a late move on Friday, Aug. 12, 2022, Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, executed layoffs at outlets across the country. While no official tally was available, journalists at the Salem Statesman Journal (Oregon), Athens (Georgia) Banner-Herald, (South Texas) Caller-Times, Columbia (Missouri) Daily Tribune, Ventura County Star, St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times, Monroe (Louisiana) News-Star, Billerica (Massachusetts) Minuteman, (Milwaukee) Journal Sentinel, Panama City (Florida) News-Herald, Gainesville Sun (Florida), The Athens Banner-Herald (Georgia) The Des Moines Register (Iowa), Burlington Free Press(Vermont), Beaver County Times (Iowa), MetroWest Daily News (Mass) and the (Kentucky) Courier Journal all reported layoffs at their publications. Friday’s layoffs also affected non-journalists. A reporter at the Pueblo (Colorado) Chieftain tweeted that the paper’s only customer service representative, who had been making less than a dollar above minimum wage, had been let go after working there for 16 years.
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The decline of Oregon’s local newspapers is set to continue with cutbacks by Gannett Co.
Gannett, the owner of the Statesman Journal in Oregon’s capital, Salem, The Register-Guard in Eugene and the Daily Journal of Commerce in Portland, is planning a “significant cost reduction program” amid a “challenging economic backdrop marred by soaring inflation rates, labor shortages and price-sensitive consumers.”
A message to all of its employees on Thursday from Gannett’s president of news warned of “painful reductions to staffing, eliminating some open positions and roles that will impact valued colleagues.”
The Statesman Journal, the second-oldest newspaper in Oregon, was sold to Gannett in 1973. Currently listing 16 reporters on its website, it has been steadily shrinking in staff and as a reliable news source.
The Register-Guard, formed in a 1930 merger of two Eugene papers, the Eugene Daily Guard and the Morning Register, was acquired by GateHouse Media in 2018. At the time, the paper had 240 full-and part-time employees. The newspaper has been owned by Gannett since Gannett’s 2019 merger with Gatehouse. The paper’s current website lists just 8 reporters.
Founded in 1872, the Daily Journal of Commerce (DJC) provides comprehensive resources and reporting on the Portland, Oregon building and construction market. Owned by Gannett through its BridgeTower Media division, the paper has a circulation of 1,966.
Gannet, which owns over 100 daily newspapers and nearly 1,000 weekly newspapers in 43 U.S. states and six countries, reported on Thursday a net loss of $53.7 million in the second quarter, compared with a net income of $15.1 million the same period a year earlier. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) totaled $50.9 million, down 56% from the prior-year quarter, with declines driven by a decline in print revenue and inflationary pressures.
“We are not satisfied with our overall performance in the second quarter,” Gannett CEO and Chairman Michael Reed said in a release, noting the results reflect “industry-wide headwinds” in digital advertising and tightening across the economy.
Anticipated cutbacks at Gannett’s Oregon papers would track declines in locally focused daily newspapers across the United States.
The total combined print and digital circulation for locally focused U.S. daily newspapers in 2020 was 8.3 million for weekday (Monday-Friday) and 15.4 million for Sunday, among the lowest ever reported, according to the Pew Research Center. Total weekday circulation is down more than 40% and total Sunday circulation has fallen 45% in the past seven years. Local newspaper advertising and circulation revenue has also been dropping precipitously.
In another episode of self-flagellation for past injustices by Oregon’s so-called institutions of higher learning, Oregon State University said on August 3 that enrolled members of all 574 federally recognized Indian tribes in the United States will be eligible for in-state tuition at the school starting this fall. This will include currently enrolled students, no matter where they live.
OSU has a branding video on YouTube called “It’s Out There.” It sure is. Way out. while the school pleads with the legislature for more money and with alumni for more donations, concern about revenue goes out the window when it wants to do some virtue signaling.
When Portland State University initiated an identical policy on July 21, it told Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) it was not aware of any other schools in the United States that have also made the move to offer discounts to Native American students on a national scale. There’s probably a reason for that.
OSU’s action is by a school that increased tuition for the coming school year because of inflation and a decline in the amount of tuition it’s receiving from students, partially because of fewer international students.
Continuing undergraduate students at OSU’s main campus in Corvallis will see about a $360 increase in annual in-state tuition and a $1,080 increase in out-of-state tuition, a 3.5% increase. New undergraduates starting at OSU this fall will pay about a $450 increase in annual in-state tuition and a $1,395 increase in out-of-state tuition, a 4.5% increase.
Continuing in-state students will pay $10,920 and out-of-state students $32,595, respectively next school year. New in-state undergraduates starting this fall will pay $11,010 and new out-of-state undergraduates $32,910.
It would be one thing, I suppose, if university leaders wanted to expiate their fathers’ sins by offering some benefits to tribal members in Oregon, but offering them to enrolled members of all 574 federally recognized Indian tribes in the United States if surely going overboard.
Allowing enrolled members of all federally recognized Indian tribes to pay in-state tuition will mean a potentially significant revenue loss to OSU from each out-of-state tribal student enrolled.
But, hey, who cares. OSU can pat itself on the back for what, according to Interim OSU President, Becky Johnson, is past “…displacement, hardship, familial and cultural disruption and destruction, and the denial of educational opportunities for many members of Tribal nations.”
“This new tuition policy advances our commitment – in the spirit of self-reflection, learning, reconciliation and partnership – that the university will be of enduring benefit to Tribal nations and their citizens throughout Oregon and the country,” Johnson said.
As with the PSU program, this is nothing more than academician’s guilt run amok.
Expanding resident tuition benefits to out-of-state tribal members means foregone revenue for increased services. And despite the tendency of left-leaning idealists to see government benefits as free, Oregonians will have to cover the cost of this new non-resident benefit.
It’s just more wrong-headed feel-good performative activism, at the expense of Oregon taxpayers.
