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An Oregon weekly newspaper suddenly ceased publication and fired its entire workforce after an employee embezzled tens of thousands of dollars and left months of unpaid bills, the editor announced.
The Eugene Weekly newspaper has a number of financial issues, including nonpayments to employees’ retirement accounts and a $70,000 unpaid bill to the paper’s printing company, paper editor Camilla Mortensen said Sunday. They announced that they had discovered a problem and would be discontinuing publication. .
All 10 newspaper staffers were laid off three days before Christmas, but some employees, including Mortensen, continued to volunteer to publish stories online.
Eugene Weekly, a free newspaper, was founded in 1982 and prints 30,000 copies each week. In and around Eugene, one of Oregon’s most populous cities, newspapers are placed in bright red boxes.
Recent articles include a guided New Year’s Day hike in a state park, the nearby unincorporated community of Blue River’s recovery efforts from the 2020 wildfires, and a memorial for those who died of homelessness in 2023 explained.
Eugene Weekly executives said in a letter to readers that the paper’s finances are in “turmoil” but they will fight to keep the publication afloat.
“The damage is greater than most small and medium-sized businesses can bear,” the letter said. “The scale of this moment is unlike anything we have faced before. But we believe in the mission of this newspaper and remain determined to keep EW alive.”
Eugene Police Department spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin said police are investigating, but could not provide further details because the investigation is ongoing. The identity of the former employee involved in the paper’s finances and accused of embezzlement has not been made public.
Mortensen, who joined the paper in 2007 and became editor-in-chief in 2016, said the paper had asked police to prosecute someone who had worked for the paper for at least five years on embezzlement charges.
Mortensen said the employee was away from the office when questions arose earlier this month about closing the company’s financial records for the year, and suddenly a number of issues came to light.
“Every time I find something, I get sick to my stomach,” she says. “Also, this is someone we worked with who came into the office every day.”
Mortensen said the problems were discovered as the paper was trying to recover from financial losses early in the COVID-19 pandemic as businesses such as local restaurants and event organizers stopped buying advertising. That’s what it means.
In recent years, as local newspapers have rapidly closed down and slashed staff, the Eugene Weekly has taken steps to cut costs by reducing the number of pages it prints.
About 2,900 newspapers have closed since 2005, according to a 2023 report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications. All but about 100 of the newspapers that were closed were weekly publications. Most communities that lose their newspapers do not have access to replacements.
Mortensen said Eugene Weekly was in good financial shape before the pandemic.
Mortensen said owners Anita Johnson (who is 94 and visits the office twice a week) and Georga Taylor never receive any of the paper’s profits and pay for their employees and other expenses. Therefore, we are constantly returning funds to our business. Bonuses and new equipment. They also paid for the paper’s last printed edition, published on December 21st.
Johnson and her husband, Art Johnson, and Taylor’s husband, Fred Taylor, bought the paper in the 1990s. Mr. Johnson was a reporter for the Washington Post, and Mr. Taylor, who died in 2015, was a former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal.
Mortensen said that while newspapers are focusing a lot of attention on digital products, in Eugene and the surrounding rural towns, “paper is still really valued by people.”
The Eugene Weekly is accepting donations to support the reissue and has launched an online fundraiser that has raised more than $42,000 as of Monday morning.
Mortensen said some people stopped by the office to make donations. A visiting local bookseller tearfully described how when a customer asked if she wanted to get a copy of the book, she told him what happened to the newspaper.
Support also came from unexpected sources, including retired journalists from the city’s daily newspaper, the Register Guard, who volunteered to help edit the project.
Mortensen said the support gave him hope that the newspaper might be able to print again.
“I think we need $150,000 to survive as a paper again,” Mortensen said. “And I looked at some of the money and thought, ‘Oh my God, can I do this?'”
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