The Oregonian
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The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously operated media operation in Oregon Loy, William G. "Atlas of Oregon" (2001) University of Oregon Press, Eugene, OR. pp. 60 ISBN 0-871-14102-7., founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850. The Oregonian is the largest newspaper in Oregon by circulation. It focuses its content on the Portland area but is available in most parts of Oregon.
History
- 1861 The Oregonian publishing on a daily basis.
- 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.
- 1939 A Pulitzer Prize for editorial reporting is awarded to Ronald G. Callvert, associate editor.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 presidenthttp://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10611F7395C0C7A8DDDA90994DA494D81.
- 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).[link]
- 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 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.
- 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.
Allegations of Bias
- The Oregonian has long been thought of as an anti-labor, pro-corporate Republican establishment newspaper,[link] having endorsed one Democratic candidate for president in over one-hundred-forty years on October 18, 1992.
- 2004 The paper faces criticism after a headline characterizes a 1970s sexual relationship between then-mayor Neil Goldschmidt and a 14-year old girl as an "affair" rather than statutory rape. [link] [link][link]
- Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights publishes two reports on The Oregonian claiming the paper under-reported Palestinian deaths in its news stories of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and in its exclusion of the Palestinian narrative in its Opinion Pages. [link][link]
See also
- Ben Hur Lampman, editor and Oregon poet laureate
References
External links
- [Official website]
- [A Brief History of Newspaper Publishing in Oregon] at University of Oregon Libraries
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