Local journalism is a critical element in our civic culture, and it is in crisis. Newspapers are closing and most remaining newsrooms are cutting staff. Absent strong local newsrooms, we — the public — are left in the dark about the workings of government and other powerful forces in our communities.

In Eugene, where we are in a better position than many communities, the gutting of The Register-Guard following its sale to GateHouse Media in 2018 (now USA Today Co.) left a large hole in our news ecosystem. The launching of Lookout Eugene-Springfield and the growth of the KLCC news staff and KEZI’s news programming, as well as the work of Eugene Weekly, The Chronicle and the Oregon Daily Emerald, and even the recent modest rebuild of the R-G newsroom, are encouraging developments. But they don’t fill the hole. 

The cause of this crisis is not a mystery. The internet severed the news and advertising relationship that funded journalism in the United States for more than a century. 

In the early days of the internet, many of us looked at the potential of the “information highway” and predicted a glorious new world in which “we are all journalists now.” We would be awash in reliable factual information with “citizen journalists” acting as watchdogs on government and power. 

We were not entirely wrong — today thousands of digital start-ups, podcasts, substacks, social media sites, etc., do provide critical news, information and entertainment — but we were very wrong on at least five points:

  1. Few observers and even fewer news executives predicted the catastrophic cratering of the economic model.
  2. Even fewer predicted the dominance of Google and Meta (Facebook) in the digital advertising space.
  3. Or the degree to which they would become gateways to news sites.
  4. Or a world in which Google and Facebook profit off the work of news organizations without compensating those organizations.
  5. Or the rise of AI and a “no-click” world in which we don’t go beyond the AI summary on a search page.

Finally, we overestimated the ability of this new economic and technological model to fill the local news void.

What we now know is that a new economic model is developing in which local news organizations are supported by a mix of subscription and advertising revenue, foundation support, philanthropic support and government subsidy.

States around the country, including California and Washington, are passing legislation to help fund this new model, but, as noted in a 2024 report from the League of Women Voters, Oregon has been slower than other state legislatures to take action to revive the local news industry.

In its two most recent Oregon legislative sessions, two bills (Senate Bill 686 and Senate Bill 1580) were introduced to address Google and Meta’s taking content from Oregon news organizations without paying for that intellectual property. Those bills did not become law. In full disclosure, while I applauded the efforts, the bills were too flawed to support.

Oregon newsrooms need more reporters and editors. Legislative initiatives focused on building newsroom capacity should be acted on in the next session. Adding even one reporter to a newsroom could be a game changer, especially for small and rural newsrooms. For example:

  1. Journalism fellowships: State funding for reporting positions in Oregon newsrooms. Washington and California have state-funded programs run by the journalism schools at the University of California, Berkeley and Washington State University.
  2. Tax credits: Tax credits for news organizations that hire a journalist to cover local communities. Illinois and New York have tax credits in place and programs have been proposed in a number of other states.
  3. Advertising mandates: Require state or city agencies to purchase a percentage of their advertising in local news organizations. New York City and Chicago have programs in place and they have been proposed in other states and jurisdictions.

These and other initiatives being considered in state legislatures should be high on the agenda in the next session. The civic culture of our communities — indeed, the future of democracy — demands that we find ways to revive journalism in the public interest. The crisis is here and the need for action urgent.

Professor Emeritus Tim Gleason retired in 2021 after 34 years on the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication faculty. He served as dean from 1997 to 2013 and as the university’s faculty athletic representative from 2014 to 2021.