THE OREGONIAN

'''The Oregonian''' is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. West Coast,^[2] founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest by circulation.^[3]
The paper has received seven Pulitzer Prizes during its history, five of them since 1999: one in 1999 for Explanatory Reporting; two in 2001 for Public Service and for Feature Writing; one in 2006 for Editorial Writing, and another in 2007 for Breaking News Reporting.
''The Oregonian'' focuses its content on the Portland metropolitan area but is available in most parts of Oregon.

Contents

History

1800s

1900s

Turn of the Century

Recent Awards

Allegations of bias

See also

References

External links

History

1800s

★ 1850 Founded as the ''Weekly Oregonian''

★ 1861 ''The Oregonian's'' ownership passes to Henry Pittock in settlement of back wages, and begins publishing on a daily basis.^[4]

★ 1866–1872 Harvey W. Scott editor.

★ 1881 The ''Sunday Oregonian'' is first published. The Oregonian became known as the voice of business-oriented Republicans in an age when each main point of view was represented by a Portland daily.

1900s

★ 1922 ''The Morning Oregonian'' launches KGW, Oregon's first commercial radio station.

★ 1933 ''The Morning Oregonian'' purchases its second station KEX from Northwest Broadcasting Co., a subsidiary of the National Broadcasting Co. NBC.

★ 1937 ''The Morning Oregonian'' shortens its name to ''The Oregonian''.

★ 1939 A Pulitzer Prize for editorial reporting is awarded to Ronald G. Callvert, associate editor.

★ 1944 KEX is sold to Westinghouse Radio Stations, Inc.

★ 1946 ''The Oregonian'' launches KGW-FM, the Northwest's first FM station. Today its KKRZ.

★ 1950 The paper is bought by S. I. Newhouse, founder of the publishing dynasty Advance Publications. The $5.6 million sale price was the largest for a single newspaper up to that time.

★ 1953 KGW & KGW-FM are sold to King Broadcasting Co.

★ 1954 S.I Newhouse buys 50% of Mount Hood Radio & Television Broadcasting Corp. KOIN-TV, Portland's first VHF television station and KOIN-AM-FM.

★ 1957 Staff writers William Lambert and Wallace Turner win the Pulitzer Prize for local news reporting on vice and corruption in Portland involving municipal officials and Teamsters.

★ 1959 Bitter and violent five-year strike begins November 10, during which union workers publish their own weekly, then daily, ''The Portland Reporter.'' Wallace Turner refuses to cross picket lines and is hired as West Coast Correspondent for the New York Times.

★ 1961 Newhouse buys the ''Oregon Journal'', Portland's afternoon daily newspaper. Production and business operations of the two newspapers are consolidated in ''The Oregonian's'' building; their editorial staffs remain separate.

★ 1977 As part of a larger corporate plan to exit broadcasting, ''The Oregonian'' sells KOIN-TV to newspaper owner Lee Enterprises. KOIN-AM-FM are sold to Gaylord Broadcasting Co.

★ 1979 S. I. Newhouse dies. He turns over the operation of his company to his sons. S.I. Jr. takes responsibility for the magazines, and Donald takes over the newspapers.

★ 1982 The ''Oregon Journal'' is shut down after declining advertising revenues, and "incorporated" into ''The Oregonian''.

★ 1989 The paper establishes an Asia bureau in Tokyo, Japan, becoming the first Pacific Northwest newspaper with a foreign correspondent.

★ 1989 The paper orders its delivery trucks to return most copies of a Sunday edition because an article told readers how to sell their homes without a real estate broker. The editor responsible for the story was demoted. The ''Wall Street Journal'' cited the incident in 1992 as an example of how papers soften business coverage to appease advertisers.

★ 1992 The paper endorses Bill Clinton for President of the United States, the first time in its history that it has endorsed a Democrat for president. THE 1992 CAMPAIGN; Newspapers Publish Endorsements

★ 1993 Robert M. Landauer, then the paper's editorial page editor, is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing for "a bold campaign to defuse myths and prejudice promoted by an anti-homosexual constitutional amendment, which was subsequently defeated," according to the Pulitzer judges.

★ 1993 ''The Oregonian'' becomes the subject of national coverage due to the fact that it was the ''Washington Post'' which broke the story of inappropriate sexual advances which led to the resignation of Oregon senator Bob Packwood four years later. This prompts some to joke, "If it matters to Oregonians, it's in the ''Washington Post''" (a twist on a slogan heard in advertisements for ''The Oregonian'').^[5]

★ 1993 Newhouse appoints a new editor for the paper, Sandra Rowe, who relocates from a Virginia newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot.

★ 1999 Staff writer Richard Read wins the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, for a series, The French Fry Connection, that illustrated the impact of the Asian economic crisis by profiling the local industry that exports frozen french fries.

★ 1999 Staff writer Tom Hallman Jr. is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing for his "unique profile of a man struggling to recover from a brain injury," according to the Pulitzer judges.

★ 1999 The paper wins two Overseas Press Club awards, for business and human rights reporting.

★ 1999 The Columbia Journalism Review poll of editors ranks ''The Oregonian'' as number 12 in the list of "America's Best Newspapers" and the best of the papers owned by the Newhouse family.

Turn of the Century

★ 2000 The Oregonian is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting for its comprehensive coverage of an environmental disaster created when the New Carissa, a freighter that carried nearly 400,000 gallons of heavy fuel, ran aground February 4, 1999, north of Coos Bay. The articles detailed "how fumbling efforts of official agencies failed to contain the far-reaching damage," according to the Pulitzer jury.

★ 2000 Staff reporters Brent Walth and Alex Pulaski are finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Writing for their series on political influences in pesticide regulation.

★ 2001 The paper wins the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for its "detailed and unflinching examination of systematic problems within the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, including harsh treatment of foreign nationals and other widespread abuses, which prompted various reforms." In addition, staff writer Tom Hallman Jr. wins the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for a series, The Boy Behind the Mask, on a teen with a facial deformity.

★ 2003 Music critic David Stabler is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing for "his sensitive, sometimes surprising chronicle of a teenage prodigy's struggle with a musical talent that proved to be both a gift and a problem," according to the Pulitzer judges.

★ 2004 The paper endorses John Kerry for President of the United States--only the second time that the paper has endorsed a Democrat for president.

★ 2005 Staff reporters Steve Suo and Erin Hoover Barnett are finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for "their groundbreaking reports on the failure to curtail the growing illicit use of methamphetamines," according to the Pulitzer jury.

★ 2006 Editorial writers Doug Bates and Rick Attig win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for their editorials on the conditions at the Oregon State Hospital.^[6]

Recent Awards

In 2007, ''The Oregonian'' and its journalists were recognized with several awards. Sports columnist John Canzano was selected as the nation's No. 2 sports columnist in the annual Associated Press Sports Editors Awards. Three ''Oregonian'' reporters—Jeff Kosseff, Bryan Denson, and Les Zaitz— were awarded the George Polk Award for national reporting, for their series of reports about the failure of a decades-old multibillion-dollar federal program. The program, established by the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act, was intended to help people with severe disabilities find employment, but instead "awarded executives handsomely but left disabled workers in segregated jobs often paying less than minimum wage."^[7][8]
On April 16, 2007, it was announced that the staff of ''The Oregonian'' were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for their "skillful and tenacious coverage of a family missing in the Oregon mountains, telling the tragic story both in print and online."^[9]
In addition, the paper's reporters were finalists in two other categories. Les Zaitz, Jeff Kosseff and Bryan Denson were nominated finalists for the Pulitzer for National Reporting for the same series that also won the George Polk Award noted above. Inara Verzemnieks was nominated for the Pulitzer for Feature Writing for "her witty and perceptive portfolio of features on an array of everyday topics," according to the Pulitzer judges.

Allegations of bias

★ ''The Oregonian'' was founded by businessmen whose specific goal was to establish a Republican newspaper. It is therefore unsurprising that throughout its history it has been subject to charges of anti-labor, pro-corporate Republican bias,^[10] nor that it has endorsed only two Democratic candidates for president in over one hundred forty years: in 1992 and 2004.

★ In 2004 the paper faced criticism after a headline characterized a 1970s sexual relationship between then-mayor Neil Goldschmidt and a 14-year old girl as an "affair" rather than statutory rape.^[11][12][13]

★ In 2005 Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights published two reports on ''The Oregonian'', claiming the paper under-reported Palestinian deaths in its news stories of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and excluded the Palestinian narrative in its Opinion Pages.^[14][15]

★ As of 2006, ''The Oregonian'' chooses not to have an accredited member of the Organization of News Ombudsmen (also known as a public editor) on its staff,^[16] whose traditional job is to point out inaccuracies or bias with regular editorials as well as maintaining a general standard of journalism ethics at the paper.^[17]

See also

★ Ben Hur Lampman, editor and Oregon poet laureate

References

1. 2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation
2. A Brief History of Newspaper Publishing in Oregon
3. Top 100 Newspapers in the United States
4. The Press
5. Dubious Achievements: The Oregonian 1974-1999
6. The Pulitzer Board Presents The Pulitzer Prize Winners 2006
7. Polk Awards Announced — Honor 8 Papers From New York To Oregon
8. Long Island University Announces Winners of 2006 George Polk Awards
9. http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/breaking-news-reporting/
10. Oregon Biographies: Thomas Jefferson Dryer
11. The Story Behind the Story
12. The 30-Year Secret
13. We are Dealing with a Child Molestor
14. The Oregonian: A News Coverage Report May-October 2004
15. Excluded Voices: A study of Palestine/Israel in the Opinion Pages of The Oregonian Newspaper
16. [1]
17. ono.org


★ Dubious Achievements: The Oregonian 1974-1999 (The Oregonian's Big Oh's) Paul Koberstein

External links

★ Official website

★ A Brief History of Newspaper Publishing in Oregon at University of Oregon Libraries