Street Roots needs your help to ensure it can continue providing investigative, accountability-driven journalism and important community feature stories.
Pardon the phrasing, but it’s not news to anyone that the journalism industry is in dire straits. With AI, hedge fund ownership, attacks from government officials, and declining revenue from subscriptions and advertising, it’s understandable if folks feel the fourth estate is on its deathbed. The statistics aren’t terribly encouraging. In the last 20 years, 3,000 local newsrooms closed their doors, and many more faced severe staff reductions.
The impact reaches a lot farther than fewer jobs. Researchers point to reduced local news sources as instrumental in the rise of misinformation and political polarization. These are complex topics, but the fact that people have dwindling access to quality information they can trust is no insignificant factor.
And, here’s the kicker, people know the sources they’re accessing are less credible than the local outlets they’re watching fade away. According to a Pew Research Center survey released last October. Between national news, local news and social media, respondents rated local news as the most credible. It wasn’t close. Nearly 75% of respondents said they have at least “some trust” in local media, compared to 59% for national news and 37% for social media.
While there are some political affiliations and age differences at play, it’s not surprising that a Gallup poll released in February found Americans trust the media less than ever. For the third consecutive year, more Americans had “no trust at all” than even a “fair amount” of trust in the press to report “fully, accurately and fairly.” Over two-thirds of Americans had “no trust at all” or “not very much” trust in the media.As a nonprofit news outlet, every dollar you donate goes directly to ensuring our community can connect with vital information
But, here’s where we shift away from the doom and gloom of it all: The Institute for Nonprofit News, of which Street Roots is a member, reports its ranks grew from about 25 in 2009 to over 400 last year. The majority of these outlets are local or regional.
Nonprofit journalism is growing in an effort to meet the needs of people losing access to good information, but it needs your help to keep going. Supporting nonprofit outlets like Street Roots means your money isn’t going to some CEO in a high-rise. It’s going directly to supporting our newsroom’s efforts to serve our community.
Even Portland, which has a relatively robust local news market, has seen staff reductions at its for-profit news outlets. Fewer reporters mean less reporting, which means fewer watchdogs for the public. Investigative journalism is the most expensive to produce, which is why so many for-profit outlets deprioritized it. That’s where Street Roots found its niche as the city’s only nonprofit print news outlet.
Investigations, accountability and impact characterize both issues of Street Roots’ 2025 Spring Anthology, the paper’s annual look-back at its most impactful and important reporting of the last 12 months. In this April 30 issue, covering November 2024 through April 2025, Street Roots selected five stories to showcase its work, though there were dozens of worthy options.
On page four, “Referring to be referred” digs into the Oregon Department of Corrections’ concerning health care system, which utilizes panels to decide if and when a prisoner can receive medical care. Lawsuits on lawsuits show prisoners sometimes waited years for care that a doctor had already deemed medically necessary. The piece was the second installment in my series on ODOC’s record-high deaths despite a declining prison population.
The day after Street Roots published this story on Dec. 4, 2024, ODOC placed its top two medical staff on leave and launched an investigation. The state concluded the investigation Feb. 3 and terminated both men. The investigation confirmed much of Street Roots’ reporting on the subject, including the committee’s pattern of delaying or denying care for prisoners.
On page six, staff reporter Jeremiah Hayden delves into his conversation on homelessness with Mayor Keith Wilson just after he was sworn in. Hayden, an excellent interviewer, elicited vitally important insights for understanding how Wilson plans to produce better results than his predecessors and shared those insights in the Feb. 5 story.
Street Roots was Wilson’s first full-length interview after he was sworn in, speaking to Street Roots’ growing reputation as an authority in reporting on the city’s most pressing issue.
Page 8 is graced by a flat-out excellent Feb. 19 community feature on the expanded North Portland library’s inclusion of local Black artists’ work. With editorial producer Kanani Cortez taking great photos of great artwork to accompany her great story, how could we miss the opportunity to reprint these photos in color?
Cortez is careful to center the artists, their inspirations, and what it means to see their art in the library. As an editor, I was proud to publish this piece. As a reader, I was honored to have a small window into the artists’ thought processes.
On page 10, “Drinking in the dark,” originally published Feb. 26, explores a tale of intrigue and influence regarding Houston-based fossil fuel company Zenith Energy’s attempt to grow its Portland operations. Hayden’s work on Zenith in Portland is singular. [Chorus: How singular is it?] It’s so singular that when city councilors included his work when demanding an investigation into whether the cozy relationship between lobbyists and city officials impacted permitting decisions, at least one city councilor tried to minimize it by saying something like “only one outlet is reporting this.” We take that as a compliment because it speaks to just how far ahead of the curve Hayden’s reporting is on the topic.
Hayden began filing record requests months earlier after the Oregon DEQ fined Zenith for illegal construction on a neighboring dock on the Willamette River. Hayden uncovered friendly private meetings between the official overseeing permitting and a local lobbyist advocating for Zenith’s expansion, including a game night with someone named “Carmen” (no one would say if this was or was not referring to Carmen Rubio, former city commissioner). Ultimately, Portland City Council voted 11-1 in favor of opening the investigation March 19. Three of Hayden’s articles, including this one, were included as exhibits in the resolution.
The March 5 story on page 12 is a return to the “excellent community feature” category. Freelance reporter Ellen Clarke takes readers through rebuilding efforts at the beloved Portland Mercado just over one year removed from a devastating fire. Clarke’s piece, which covers a topic several other outlets have published stories about, highlights what makes Street Roots’ coverage so special. There’s a depth and detail that would satisfy the most curious of readers, while still being careful to include all the cursory news you can use.
Clarke also takes the time to explore some of the Portland Mercado’s history, as well as an important local organization that’s been instrumental in guiding the Mercado’s next chapter, Hacienda CDC. These pieces of additional history and context help Portlanders connect that much more with their community.
The Street Roots newspaper, which has the smallest staff of any Portland outlet, produced these stories on a shoestring budget. The impacts, however, are apparent, as is Street Roots’ growing profile and influence as a news outlet over the past 12 months. In addition to our work impacting legislation, litigation and public perception, it also landed us a prestigious partnership with nonprofit investigative powerhouse ProPublica.
The work is expensive and grueling and vital. It exposes the misdeeds of powerful people and empowers the marginalized. Yet Street Roots doesn’t profit financially from print sales. In fact, the organization spends more money printing the paper than it recoups from the 25 cents its vendors pay per paper. But the organization continues doing so because it believes in the work.
While Street Roots remains objective and independent in its reporting, it works for the people — those without a frequent audience at City Hall or in Salem.
For Portlanders who believe in journalism’s importance and believe their local news should be free from profit motives and corporate or partisan interests, I ask you to consider donating to the Street Roots newspaper. And now, more than ever, make sure you find a vendor each week and buy a paper for $1 + tips.
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.
© 2024 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext.
This article appears in April 30, 2025.