By Mike Rogoway | The Oregonian/OregonLive
EO Media Group, which publishes a dozen newspapers across Oregon, said Monday it will scale back publication of several papers in July, lay off 28 staffers and seek a new owner. The small chain will also cut back the hours of 19 other employees as it ratchets back publication.
It’s a shocking reversal for the company, which had appeared to be a bright spot in Oregon’s fractured news ecosystem. EO Media took over The Bulletin newspaper in Bend in 2019 and expanded into Medford just last year to fill the gap created by the closing of the Mail Tribune.
On Monday, EO Media blamed its cutbacks on falling advertising revenue coupled with rising operating expenses, including sharply higher health care costs and the rising price of having the U.S. Postal Service deliver its papers.
“We’ve hit some headwinds. We’re doing what we need to do to get financially stable and sustain the journalism,” said Heidi Wright, the chain’s CEO. EO Media had 185 employees before Monday’s layoffs, which will reduce its workforce by 15%.
Earlier Monday, Pamplin Media Group announced it has sold the Portland Tribune and two-dozen other Oregon publications to a Mississippi publisher called Carpenter Media. Carpenter said it wants to continue Pamplin’s commitment to community news but did not say whether it will make cutbacks or other changes.
EO Media has 15 publications across the state, from Astoria to Medford to Enterprise.
It said five of its papers – the La Grande Observer, Blue Mountain Eagle, Hermiston Herald, Wallowa County Chieftain and the Baker City Herald – will stop publishing print editions effective July 1. It will retain journalists in each market whose work will appear online and in the East Oregonian.
In Bend, The Bulletin will cut back publishing from six days a week to five. Its Saturday and Sunday papers will be combined and delivered by mail on Saturdays.
The Rogue Valley Times in Medford will reduce print publication from three days per week to two. And the East Oregonian in Pendleton will cut its print editions from two days to one.
Newspapers in Oregon and across the country are under enormous financial pressure. Online advertising is not nearly as lucrative as print advertising was and circulations have plunged as readers increasingly seek news from websites and from social media.
The Oregonian/OregonLive and many other publications scaled back dramatically beginning about a dozen years ago as the internet brought about rapid changes in the industry.
While larger publications appear to have achieved a measure of stability in recent years, financial pressures remain acute at smaller newspapers. They don’t have enough readers to attract meaningful online advertising dollars or to provide significant subscription revenue, leaving small and midsized cities with little or no local news.
EO Media’s cutbacks follow a 215% increase in its health care costs, a 30% drop in public legal notices and a 40% drop in national advertising in recent months, according to Wright.
“That’s not different from anybody else. That’s what our industry is experiencing,” she said. “But we need to take these steps to get back to financial health.”
It’s too soon to know how many newsroom jobs will be lost, Wright said, but she said the company will keep some journalists in each of the markets it serves. And she said there are some bright spots in EO Media’s readership.
“Our subscriber base is growing. Digital subscribers are growing. The print subscriptions have stabilized,” Wright said. She said the chain will look to build on that while it explores the possibility of selling the business.
Journalists at the Redmond Spokesman and The Bulletin newspaper in Bend unionized last fall. Kaitlin Gillespie, executive officer with the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, said cuts like the ones announced Monday are exactly why workers sought to organize.
“Of course we’re disappointed. The staff out there is already as bare bones as can be,” Gillespie said.
Union representatives were due to begin negotiating with the company later this month, according to Gillespie, but she said EO Media postponed those talks because managers said they wanted time to stabilize the company. As a result, she said, the union doesn’t have a clear understanding of EO Media’s finances. But Gillespie said she’s concerned about the impacts of the cuts.
“This doesn’t demonstrate a good-faith commitment to investing in local news,” she said. “We’re disappointed, obviously, and frustrated.”
EO Media’s ownership group indicated it is exploring several possibilities for the chain’s future, including seeking a nonprofit to take over the business.
“As a family and owners of EO Media Group, we are committed to the continuity of our publications within the communities we have served for over a century,” owners Steve Forrester and Kathryn Brown said in a statement.
- This story appeared June 3, 2024 on OregonLive and is used with permission.
Thank you for your consistent good reporting on the South County News. We have seen this happening for a long time. They stopped delivering the paper to the Yachats Library and refused to mail a copy. There are still many senior citizens who do not use the internet and this leaves them with television alone which is not local. I do have a request. Without local newspapers we have lost such things a birth notices, wedding notices, and especially obituaries. Would you please consider a section where such information can be posted for the community? Thanks for all you do.