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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – An Oregon weekly newspaper has fired its entire staff and is forced to cease publication for the first time in 40 years because of embezzlement of funds by a former employee, its editor says, highlighting the publisher’s role. This was a devastating blow to the publications responsible for this. It is a vital source of information for communities that, like many others across the country, are struggling with growing disparities in local news coverage.
About a week before Christmas, Eugene Weekly discovered a bookkeeping inaccuracy, said editor Camilla Mortensen. A former employee who was “deeply involved” in the newspaper’s finances was found to have used the paper’s bank account to pay himself $90,000 since at least 2022, the paper said.
The paper also learned of at least $100,000 in unpaid bills dating back several months, including an invoice to the paper’s printer, she said.
Additionally, multiple employees, including Mortensen, discovered that funds from their paychecks that were supposed to be deposited into their retirement accounts were not deposited.
Mortensen said the paper was forced to lay off all 10 staff members and stop publishing its print edition after realizing it would not be able to make the next payroll. Founded in 1982, the alternative weekly printed 30,000 copies each week for free distribution in Eugene, the state’s second-largest city and home to the University of Oregon.
“The worst thing you can do is cut your entire family’s income three days before Christmas,” Mortensen said, expressing despair. “It never entered my mind that something like this could or was actually happening.”
Mortensen said the suspect employee worked for the newspaper for about four years and was later fired.
The Eugene Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit is investigating, and the paper’s owners are hiring a forensic accountant to help figure out what happened, she said.
Brent Walse, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon, said he was concerned about losing papers that were “so influential in closing the widening reporting gap” in Eugene, adding that the newspaper is an independent watchdog. , cited obituaries of homeless people as examples of how the paper helped put a human face on some of the city’s biggest problems, giving a compassionate voice to the community.
He also noted how the paper has made a “game-changer” for journalism students looking to get an internship or start a career, adding: “The weekly’s commitment to ensuring journalistic integrity would have been “There were also feature articles and investigative articles that the community would never have had.” Students have the opportunity to publish in professional journals. ”
Tim Gleason, dean of the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism, said a wave of local newsroom closures across the country in recent decades has left many Americans without access to important information about their local governments and communities. He said it was leading to increased polarization. school.
“The loss of local news across the country is serious,” he says. “Instead of having the healthy community connections that local journalism creates, we are losing it and becoming a community of strangers. As a result, we are falling into partisan camps. ”
Researchers at Northwestern University predict that by 2023, an average of 2.5 newspapers per week in the United States will cease publication. According to their research, more than 200 counties have no local news outlets at all, and more than half of all U.S. counties have no local news sources or only one remaining news outlet, usually a weekly newspaper. ) was found to be the only one.
Even though Eugene Weekly staffers are officially unemployed, they continue to work without pay to update the website and figure out next steps, said Todd Cooper, the paper’s art director. He described his colleagues as dedicated, creative and hard-working people.
“This paper is definitely an integral part of the community, and we really want to take it back and bounce back, hopefully bigger and better,” he said.
The paper has launched a fundraising campaign, including the creation of a GoFundMe page. As of Friday afternoon, just one day after the paper reported financial troubles, the GoFundMe had raised more than $11,000.
Now that the former employee accused of embezzlement has been fired, he said, “I have high hopes that this newspaper will be revived and move forward on its own.”
“Well, it’s going to last another 40 years.” ___ This article was first published on December 29, 2023. Updated on December 31, 2023 to correct that Eugene is her second largest city in Oregon, not her third.
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