The churn at the paper is never ending. It is a way station for young, ambitious reporters, who quickly move on, or an endpoint, with buyouts and layoffs and plain resignations, for many careers as the industry struggles and changes. The paper hasn't had a person on the City Hall beat for a little over a year now and seems to be in no rush to hire one.
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| In January |
In the midst of that, it has been particularly nice to read Emily Teel's reporting on food. She spent less time on the entertainment and lifestyle and review elements of restaurant reporting than she might have. Though the restaurant scene here just isn't that big anyway, her approach also seemed more newsy and demotic, and it was welcome.
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| October 2020 |
But she's leaving now.
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| via Twitter |
I'm sorry I don't have more clippings to show the range and how interesting they were.
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| September 29th, 1915 |
Since we are in the heart of an important agricultural area, there will always be interesting food stories, though they will not always be restaurant stories.
Hopefully the next person on the food and drink beat will seek them out.
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| Yesterday on ice storm damage and a tree ring cookie |
Maybe this transition doesn't mean much to you, but I guarantee we will
all miss it when Capi Lynn and her decades of local knowledge move on.
Yesterday she had a nice piece on the old Oaks at the Oregon Garden and
the impromptu Willamette science project to collect tree ring samples on
them.
A century ago the afternoon paper got a new press. We will miss it also when the print product is discontinued, as it seems it must some day.
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| February 26th, 1921 |
Even if the parent company deserves criticism and sometimes scorn, the erosion of the paper is nothing to celebrate, and it's worth a subscription.
1 comment:
Well, here's a semi-correction - but with a further quibble.
Yesterday on a FB group, a new editor came in to say the paper "has a great City Hall reporter."
And sure enough, if you go to that reporter's twitter handle, it says "city hall and business."
But you have to look at her twitter account!
If you go to the SJ's Staff Directory, she is still the Courts Reporter. On her March 18th print story about the police audit, she's identified as a general reporter, nothing about the beat.
The paper is not making it known in any meaningful way that there's a new reporter on the beat. It's like a secret! That's not the fault of any reader.
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