- The Eugene Weekly, a weekly newspaper in Oregon, was forced to lay off all employees and suspend publication of its print edition after a former employee was found to have embezzled funds.
- Bookkeeping inaccuracies revealed that a former employee misused the paper's bank account to pay himself $90,000 starting in at least 2022.
- The suspect employee has been fired and police are investigating the incident with a forensic accountant hired by the paper's owner.
An Oregon weekly newspaper has fired its entire staff and ceased publication for the first time in 40 years due to embezzlement of funds by a former employee, dealing a devastating blow to the publication, which is an important source of information for the community. the editor said. Like many other parts of the country, we are suffering from growing disparities in local news coverage.
About a week before Christmas, Eugene Weekly discovered a bookkeeping inaccuracy, said editor Camilla Mortensen. A former employee who was “deeply involved” in the paper's finances was found to have used the newspaper's bank account to pay himself $90,000 since at least 2022, the paper said.
The paper also learned of at least $100,000 in unpaid bills dating back several months, including an invoice to the paper's printer, she said.
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Additionally, multiple employees, including Mortensen, discovered that funds from their paychecks that were supposed to be deposited into their retirement accounts were not deposited.
A red newspaper box called “Eugene Weekly” stands outside an office in Eugene, Oregon, on December 29, 2023. Three days before Christmas, the weekly paper had to lay off its entire staff and cease printing due to embezzlement of funds by a former employee. said the editor. (Todd Cooper, via AP)
Mortensen said the paper was forced to lay off all 10 staff members and stop publishing its print edition after realizing it would not be able to make the next payroll. Founded in 1982, the alternative weekly printed 30,000 copies each week for free distribution in Eugene, the state's second-largest city and home to the University of Oregon.
“The worst thing you can do is temporarily cut your entire family's income three days before Christmas,” Mortensen said, expressing despair. “It never entered my mind that something like this could or was actually happening.”
Mortensen said the suspect employee worked for the newspaper for about four years and was later fired.
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The Eugene Police Department's Financial Crimes Unit is investigating, and the paper's owners are hiring a forensic accountant to help figure out what happened, she said.
Brent Walse, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon, said he was concerned about the loss of papers that were “so influential in closing the growing reporting gap” in Eugene. He said the paper is an independent watchdog and a caring voice for the community, and cited it as an example of how the paper has helped put a human face to some of the city's biggest issues. Listed obituaries of homeless people.
He also noted how the paper has made a “game-changer” for journalism students seeking internships and the start of their careers. He said there were feature articles and investigative articles, and that “without the Weekly's commitment to ensuring that journalism students have a place to publish in professional media, the community would not exist.”
Tim Gleason, dean of the University of Oregon's School of Journalism, said a wave of local newsroom closures across the country in recent decades has left many Americans without access to important information about their local governments and communities. He said that this is a contributing factor to increasing polarization. school.
“The loss of local news across the country is serious,” he said. “Instead of having the healthy community connections that local journalism creates, we're losing that and becoming a community of strangers. As a result, we're falling into partisan camps.”
Researchers at Northwestern University predict that by 2023, an average of 2.5 newspapers per week in the United States will cease publication. According to their research, more than 200 counties have no local news outlets at all, and more than half of all U.S. counties have no local news sources or only one remaining news outlet, usually a weekly newspaper. ) was found to be the only one.
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Despite being officially unemployed, Eugene Weekly staffers continue to work without pay to update the website and figure out next steps, said Todd Cooper, the paper's art director. He described his colleagues as dedicated, creative and hard-working people.
“This paper is definitely an integral part of the community, and we really want to take it back and bounce back, hopefully bigger and better,” he said.
The paper has launched a fundraising campaign, including the creation of a GoFundMe page. As of Friday afternoon, just one day after the paper reported financial troubles, the GoFundMe had raised more than $11,000.
Now that the former employee accused of embezzlement has been fired, he said, “I have high hopes that this newspaper will be revived and move forward on its own.”
“Well, it's going to last another 40 years.”
