The Voice of Malheur County | |
Type | Weekly newspaper |
---|---|
Owner(s) | Les Zaitz, Scotta Callister, Lyndon Zaitz |
Founder(s) | Major (L. H.) French |
Editor | Les Zaitz |
Founded | 1909 |
Language | English |
City | Vale, Oregon |
Country | United States |
Circulation | 1,207(as of 2018) [1] |
ISSN | 2835-1835 |
OCLC number | 30766823 |
Website | malheurenterprise |
The Malheur Enterprise is a weekly newspaper in Vale, Oregon. It was established in 1909, and since October 2015 has been published by Malheur Enterprise Pub. Co. [1] [2] It is issued weekly on Wednesdays. [1] Early on, it carried the title Malheur Enterprise and Vale Plaindealer. [3] [4] As of 2018 [update] its circulation has been estimated at 1,207 [1] to 1,277. [5] Its print and online circulation in 2022 was approximately 3,000. [6]
The Enterprise was first published on November 20, 1909, and started out as a regional booster, with financial backing from Major Leigh Hill (L. H.) French. [7] French, who had recently been promoting mining projects in the Klondike gold rush in Alaska and was related by marriage to the Studebaker automobile family, promoted mining, and prizefights. With his backing, the paper envisioned oil wells and irrigation projects as driving a prosperous future for the region. John Rigby, who became the paper's second manager after B.M. Stone in 1912, was credited by Enterprise publisher Arthur H. Bone with rallying public opinion behind the Warm Springs Irrigation District. [8] [9]
John E. Roberts purchased the paper in July 1915, but died a year later. Rigby took charge of the Enterprise again until George Huntington Currey purchased it in 1917, who then traded it in 1920 for the Baker City Herald . [8] In 1922 brothers Winfield S. and Harry Brown, who had founded other eastern Oregon papers, purchased an interest in the paper. [10] The Enterprise played a role in the election of U.S. senator Robert Stanfield in 1928. [8]
After eight years, Winfield Brown sold the newspaper to Arthur H. Bone in 1930. [11] [12] He sold it sixteen years later to Robert V. Thurston in 1946. [13] A few years later in 1950 a book covering the county's early days identified the Enterprise as "one of three newsy newspapers still published in Malheur county." [14] Thurston sold the paper in 1956 to Dudley H. Brownhill, [15] who was the son of the founder of the Californian Newspaper Publishers Association. Brownhill previously worked at Hearst and had founded the Lewis River News in Woodland, Washington. [16] Russell Skinner bought the paper in 1959, and sold it two years later to William Jenkins. [17]
The Oregon Education Association commended the Enterprise in 1972 for its "over-all education coverage." [18]
By 2015, the paper was on the verge of collapse. Oregon journalist Les Zaitz stated it was "arguably the worst newspaper in the state of Oregon". [19] Zaitz had been approaching retirement from his multi-decade position as an investigative reporter for the Oregonian , and was planning to retire with his wife, Scotta Callister, at their Grant County ranch. Upon hearing of the Enterprise's troubles, he and Callister, who was retiring as editor of the Blue Mountain Eagle , along with his brother, Lyndon Zaitz, publisher of Keizertimes , formed the Malheur Enterprise Publishing Company in 2015 to purchase the paper. In a 2016 interview, Zaitz professed no grand ambitions with the paper. [20] [21] At the time of the purchase, the paper only had one reporter. [20] Callister ran the paper for the first year, while Zaitz finished his tenure at the Oregonian. [20]
Zaitz brought a distinguished resume, having earned widespread recognition for his coverage of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, the Rajneeshpuram community of the 1980s, and the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. He had also been a Pulitzer Prize finalist twice, for his coverage of non-profits and Mexican drug cartels. [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] By the time he took the helm, he was ready to fully embrace a turnaround, and insisted to his two reporters that they were going to be the "best there ever was", and held their reporting to a high standard. [20] He felt that local newspapers could serve as "laboratories" for the evolving news industry. [20]
The Enterprise became recognized nationally for their investigative reporting and in-depth coverage rather than the standard local coverage typical of small-town newspapers. [26] Subsequent successful projects brought accolades and opportunities, including membership in a national local reporting network. The Enterprise has hosted local talks including political candidate forums and discussions on social services. [27]
In 2024, Zaitz was inducted into the Oregon Newspaper Hall of Fame. [28]
In early 2017, the reporting team uncovered what would prove to be a major scandal. A man who had killed his ex-wife, and whose arrest caused another death, had previously faked insanity to avoid prison on a kidnapping charge. When the Enterprise sought the release of more than 200 records related to his release, the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board (OPSRB) sued the Enterprise and its editor. [29] The Enterprise appealed to its readers for legal funds, and Zaitz told the review board that picking a fight with a small paper was like "poking a stick in a badger hole." [23] The Seattle Times published a column supporting the Enterprise, [30] and other influential people and agencies expressed support as well. [23] Oregon governor Kate Brown ultimately intervened, ordering the records released. [23]
When Investigative Reporters and Editors conferred its national FOI (freedom of information) Award to the team of Zaitz, Braese and Caldwell, [31] it marked the first time in the award's 20-year history that it went to a community paper. [20] [32] The team also earned one of three finalist spots for the 2017 annual award in the Scripps Howard Foundation's First Amendment category. [33]
ProPublica , a national news organization, announced in December 2017 that the Enterprise would be one of seven news outlets—and the only weekly paper—selected from a field of 239 to be part of its Local Reporting Network. The award includes the salary of one reporter, as well as extensive support and guidance for their reporting. [23] [34] [35]
In a 2018 editorial written under the Local Reporting Network program, Zaitz told the story of how the paper had effected the release of OPSRB documents and stated that the records he had obtained would contribute to future reporting on related issues. [36]
In November 2018, Zaitz estimated that the paper's circulation had doubled, and revenue tripled, in the preceding three years. [37] Zaitz launched the Salem Reporter in Salem, Oregon in September, 2018. [38]
The Enterprise ran a series of articles starting in 2019 investigating state representative Greg Smith's pursuit of economic development projects, notably the Treasure Valley Reload Center (TVRC), a rail shipping facility planned to open in Nyssa in 2020, that ultimately benefited Smith's own consulting firm. [39] [40] [41] Later that year, Smith and Malheur County sheriff Brian Wolfe threatened legal action against the paper, attracting national news media attention. [42] [43] Smith later made an offer to buy the paper, a bid described as "reeking" of self-interest by the publisher of a neighboring newspaper. [44]
The Enterprise continued its coverage of economic development funds and the Smith's conflicting interests into 2022, [45] and sued Smith over public records in September 2022. [46] In early 2023 Smith resigned from the TVRC's board, [47] and that summer Americold, the anticipated operator of the shipping facility, announced its withdrawal from the TVRC; Oregon Public Broadcasting interviewed an Enterprise reporter about the project, and noted the TVRC's numerous setbacks for permitting and financial reasons. [48]
The newspaper later dismissed Smith from its the lawsuit and in May 2023, Malheur County and the public company overseeing TVRC settled with The Enterprise for $40,000, with $20,500 coming from the county and $19,500 from TVRC. The county also agreed to require county officials to get training on Oregon Public Records Law. [49]
In April 2024, The Enterprise was bestowed The First Amendment Award by the Poynter Institute for its reporting on "Malheur County’s lack of transparency and the effect and importance of the paper’s lawsuit against the county to enforce state public records law." [50] [51]
The newspaper published a five part series on childhood poverty in Malheur County, authored by five students from the Annanberg journalism school, in 2023. [52] [53]
The Oregonian is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850, and published daily since 1861. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest by circulation. It is one of the few newspapers with a statewide focus in the United States. The Sunday edition is published under the title The Sunday Oregonian. The regular edition was published under the title The Morning Oregonian from 1861 until 1937.
Willamette Week (WW) is an alternative weekly newspaper and a website published in Portland, Oregon, United States, since 1974. It features reports on local news, politics, sports, business, and culture.
The Register-Guard is a daily newspaper in the northwestern United States, published in Eugene, Oregon. It was formed in a 1930 merger of two Eugene papers, the Eugene Daily Guard and the Morning Register. The paper serves the Eugene-Springfield area, as well as the Oregon Coast, Umpqua River valley, and surrounding areas. As of 2019, it had a supposed circulation of 18,886 daily.
The Argus Observer is a weekly newspaper in Ontario, Oregon, United States. It is owned by Wick Communications.
The Keizertimes is a weekly community newspaper based in Keizer, Oregon, United States, published every Friday, and has a distribution through both the mail and newsstands.
The Pamplin Media Group (PMG) is a media conglomerate owned by Carpenter Media Group and operating primarily in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr. founded the company in 2001 and sold it to Carpenter in 2024. As of 2019, the company owns 25 newspapers and employs 200 people.
Greg V. Smith is an American politician serving as a member of the Oregon House of Representatives from the 57th district.
Eagle Newspapers was an American newspaper publisher serving the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The company originated in 1948 when Elmo Smith purchased the Blue Mountain Eagle. He would later sell the paper but the company's name would be derived from that title. Smith served a partial term as Oregon Governor and upon his death the business was managed by his son Denny Smith, who rapidly grew it from three newspapers to nearly twenty in the span of two decades. By 1985, Eagle Newspapers publications accounted for nearly one-half of the weekly newspapers sold each week in Oregon. The company sold off its last paper in 2020.
On January 2, 2016, an armed group of right-wing militants seized and occupied the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon, and continued to occupy it until law enforcement made a final arrest on February 11, 2016. Their leader was Ammon Bundy, who participated in the 2014 Bundy standoff at his father's Nevada ranch. Other members of the group were loosely affiliated with non-governmental militias and the sovereign citizen movement.
Robert LaVoy Finicum was one of the American militants who staged an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016. After it began, the occupying force organized itself as the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, of which Finicum was a spokesman. He was the only fatality of the occupation.
This timeline of the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge describes the progression of events leading up to, during, and after the occupation. The 2016 event played out over several weeks of public statements, occupying activity, and rallies.
From January 2 to February 11, 2016, the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (MNWR) in eastern Oregon were seized and occupied by an armed group, later called Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, affiliated with private U.S. militias and the sovereign citizen movement following an earlier peaceful march in protest of the prison sentences for ranchers Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven Hammond, who were convicted of arson on federal land, sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and sought clemency from the U.S. president. The occupation received widespread coverage from media outlets.
The Blue Mountain Eagle is a weekly newspaper published on Wednesdays in John Day, Oregon. It is a newspaper of record for Grant County.
The EO Media Group, formerly known as the East Oregonian Publishing Company, is a newspaper publishing company based in the U.S. state of Oregon. It publishes 17 newspapers in the state and in southwestern Washington.
Journalism in the U.S. state of Oregon had its origins from the American settlers of the Oregon Country in the 1840s. This was decades after explorers like Robert Gray and Lewis and Clark first arrived in the region, several months before the first newspaper was issued in neighboring California, and several years before the United States formally asserted control of the region by establishing the Oregon Territory.
The Wallowa County Chieftain is a weekly newspaper in Enterprise, Wallowa County in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The Illinois Valley News is a weekly newspaper published in Josephine County in the U.S. state of Oregon. The paper is published in Cave Junction, Oregon, by Daniel J. Mancuso and Laura Mancuso.
Salem Reporter is a digital news service based in Salem, Oregon. It was launched in September 2018 by longtime investigative journalist Les Zaitz, with investment from businessman Larry Tokarski, president of a real estate development firm. Its primary revenue source is from reader subscriptions, which cost $10/month. The site aims to distinguish itself from its competitors with the quality and credibility of its reporting. According to local news scholar Damian Radcliffe, the Reporter's freedom from the legacy costs that a traditional newspaper like the Statesman Journal has allowed it to enter the field with unusual agility.
The Oregon Capital Bureau is a joint effort of two family-owned news publishers to improve news coverage of the government of the U.S. state of Oregon.