Opinion | It’s a great time to support local journalism

If we’re living in a post-truth world, the Street Roots newspaper didn’t get the memo.

Street Roots’ newspaper staff and freelancers spent the last year working tirelessly to uncover the truth about some of Portland’s most pertinent questions. From an affordable housing program catering to developers and subsidizing market-rate construction to traveling to Washington D.C. to cover a U.S. Supreme Court case with immense local ramifications, “the little newspaper that could” continued punching above its weight class this year.

It found official and media narratives about local crime didn’t match up with data or expert opinions, nor did the idea that continually expanding the Portland Police Bureau’s budget and staffing would result in less crime. It caught the same police force overstating its need to purchase chemical and impact weapons when requesting City Council authorization to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

Street Roots warned Portlanders about the continued presence and associated risks of lead-sheathed telephone lines in our neighborhoods. It also continued following the risks and bureaucratic mishandling associated with a multinational gas and oil giant’s quest to expand its operations on the banks of the Willamette River.

It held the city to account for allowing its contractors to post and sweep homeless encampments before and during a deadly heat wave, counter to the city’s own policies and stated values. It dug into the city’s baseless assertions that costly plans focused on sweeping and arresting homeless Portlanders will reduce homelessness. It revealed a pattern of property loss and harassment during those sweeps.

Street Roots uncovered a loophole in Oregon law allowing banned ex-cops to patrol university campuses and publicized known instances of that happening.

It launched an investigative series looking into the growing number of deaths in Oregon’s prisons despite a declining population, part 2 of which can be found in this Dec. 4 edition.

Street Roots also began a year-long partnership with ProPublica in October investigating the local homelessness response.

While these stories cover a lot of ground, both literally and figuratively, they have more in common than threads of accountability, investigation and relevance. They all cost money.

Nearly every story listed above required Street Roots to pay (editorializing here, but unreasonable) public records fees. Labor costs also come into play because Street Roots believes workers deserve fair compensation. Even still, Street Roots did this, at times, with only one editor, one staff reporter, a part-time illustrator/designer, a part-time digital producer and a small roster of incredibly talented freelancers and volunteers.

Then there’s the matter of printing and selling newspapers to vendors at cost, meaning Street Roots doesn’t profit from its vendor model.

Producing this kind of journalism and distributing it this way requires a series of expenses, but they’re worthwhile ones.

Fortunately for Street Roots and its amazing readers and supporters, 2024 marks the second year Street Roots is participating in NewsMatch.

If Street Roots’ supporters donate $15,000 from Dec. 1 through Dec. 10, NewsMatch turns that into $33,000.

The Institute for Nonprofit News, of which Street Roots is a member, administers NewsMatch. The program doubles every dollar you donate to the newspaper up to $15,000 ($1,000 per individual donation) and opens Street Roots up to other opportunities that make donations even more impactful. This means from Dec. 1 through Dec. 10, every dollar you donate to Street Roots is effectively $2. Even better, due to a $3,000 NewsMatch Rural Partner Fund match, the first $3,000 donated to Street Roots will be tripled.

And even if supporting vital local and regional journalism isn’t your objective, every dollar (or $2 or $3, in this case) raised for the newspaper is two or three more dollars the organization can spend elsewhere.

It’s always a good time to support Portland’s only nonprofit print newspaper, but Dec. 1 through Dec. 10 might just be the best time.

Sincerely,

K. Rambo

Street Roots Editor in Chief

Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.

This article appears in December 4, 2024.