Five Oregon Newspapers To Cease Printing Next Month

EO Media Group, which runs the East Oregonian and 11 different Pacific Northwest newspapers, will quickly cease printing 5 of them.

The La Grande Observer, Blue Mountain Eagle, Hermiston Herald, Wallowa County Chieftain and the Baker Metropolis Herald will all stop to publish print editions on July 1, in accordance with an announcement from the chain’s writer, Joe Seashore. Subscribers will get copies of the East Oregonian of their mailbox as a substitute.

The chain can be shedding 28 staff, however remaining workers on the 5 papers will “proceed to put up information on-line and contribute to the East Oregonian print publication,” primarily based in Pendleton. That paper will now “function the regional newspaper for all of Northeastern Oregon,” in accordance with an article within the East Oregonian saying the adjustments.

All 5 papers, which serve rural Oregon communities, had been based over a century in the past. However the rural newspaper enterprise has struggled in recent times, as promoting income drops and postal prices rise.

EO has beforehand tried to stem the lack of print media throughout the state. Two of the now affected papers had been beforehand acquired by EO after the chapter of their former proprietor in 2019. And final yr, it introduced it was stepping in to open a brand new paper in Medford after the shutdown of the Mail Tribune.

However the firm in the end succumbed to the identical headwinds. The agency’s homeowners are evaluating “all choices” for the corporate’s future, together with switching to a nonprofit mannequin.

“Small family-held media firms like EO Media have to regulate operations to the brand new realities of the business with the intention to survive,” CEO Heidi Wright stated.