Barrage of dramatic and important news helps illustrate the value of local, professional journalism

To Lincoln Chronicle readers:

The two Lincoln Chronicle reporters, its regular freelancers and editor are usually pretty busy bringing you news from around Lincoln County. But reporting efforts this week bring out what I think makes professionally-reported news vitally important – and why it may deserve more of your support.

First, a refresher for those new to Lincoln Chronicle. It started as a personal community service project in 2019 as YachatsNews, then transitioned to a 501c3 nonprofit in 2022 to raise money to hire its first full-time reporter. Our second reporter joined us in March, when we also changed the website’s name to Lincoln Chronicle to better reflect our broader coverage.

Our goal is to bring professionally-reported local news to as much of Lincoln County as humanly possible.

The work this week of Garret Jaros and Shayla Escudero illustrates just how important it is to have reporters who have the skills, background, patience, knowledge and time to bring both dramatic and nuanced stories to the 2,000 to 10,000 readers who visit the Lincoln Chronicle news site every day.

The Thor’s Well tragedy: Our initial story Monday night gave only the barest details of the tragedy at Thor’s Well just south of Yachats where for the third time since 2017 a man was swept into the hole and drowned. The next-day’s plan was for Jaros to try reach the Coast Guard rescue swimmer to tell the story of how he was lowered from a helicopter into Thor’s Well to recover the body. Jaros has an extensive outdoors background and experience with Coast Guard training, which helped him tell the dramatic story – and observations – of rescue swimmer Tyler Gantt.

Here’s what Hasso Hering, the retired longtime editor of the Albany Democrat-Herald newspaper and former Yachats part-time resident had to say: “Thank you, Garrett Jaros, for bringing us the story of Tyler Gantt’s heroic feat of recovering that man’s body. We get a sense of how a well-trained and competent crew handles an incredibly dangerous job. A great tribute to the Coast Guard. And a beautiful piece of journalism.”

All of that occurred while Jaros was also putting together a detailed story of the Oregon Parks & Recreation Commission awarding a $732,000 grant to the city of Yachats to help build the estuary boardwalk overlooking the Yachats River – a hugely important public works and tourism-related project.

Immigration arrest in Newport: Few actions of the Trump administration have drawn more attention – for and against – than the work of U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents across the country. Although there have been few reports of ICE activity in Lincoln County, given the employment by tourist-related businesses and the significant immigrant population here, it was a matter of time before an arrest. Reporter Shayla Escudero has been attending immigration-related meetings, talking to workers, businesses and others to help understand what happens when someone is detained. Her breaking news story Wednesday night helped tell the chaos and uncertainty around the detention of a Newport man – and its impact on that city’s businesses that day.

All of Escudero’s work Wednesday came as she put the finishing touches on an in-depth look at the Port of Newport’s revitalization projects, tried to pry employment information out of Lincoln County officials, and chased reaction and information over a high school teacher’s social media comments on the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah.

Trying to cover everything in “newsy” Lincoln County with two full-time reporters is impossible. Other than meat-and-potatoes (but important!) coverage of municipal governments, education and county commissions, we try to pick and choose stories that we think (and not always correctly) will have the most impact or might be the most important for readers to know.

Free to you, but not to do

But part of the reason for this editor’s note is to remind readers – especially those in Newport just becoming aware of our work – that while our news is free to anyone with internet access, it is not free to produce.

Hiring reporters with experience and expertise is not cheap, and we have a policy to provide full health insurance coverage. Our budget this year is $160,000 – with revenue from reader donations, a few grants and advertising.

Next month we plan to launch an improved and re-designed website. This month we added high school sports schedules and scores to our current site and with the new site would like to add an expanded events calendar and a Lincoln County real estate page.

Those additions – if we proceed with them – and cost of living raises for our two reporters in November will add $1,200 to our monthly budget.

Lincoln Chronicle is in reasonable financial condition and we had a successful annual fundraising effort in June. But if, as I like to say, our goal is to “Do more and better” this nonprofit news site will need more financial support, especially from new readers and businesses in the Newport area. As traditional newspapers shrink or close (like Country Media’s paper in Crescent City, Calif. did this week) we believe it is important for the community to have professionally-reported local news.

If you are able and so inclined, here’s how to help:

• Write a check to YachatsNews/Lincoln Chronicle and drop it in the mail to P.O. Box 284, Yachats, Ore. 97498.
• Donate electronically — either one time – or join the 117 others who make a small ($5-20) monthly contribution via our PayPal account.
• Or, you can support us by advertising and getting your message in front of 150,000 readers a month. Our ad director, Tiffany Sullivan of Blue Sprocket Brokerage can be of great help. Here is a link to our advertising rate card and Tiffany’s contact information.

Ok, I’ll end with part of a note Garret Jaros received this week:

“It was so wonderful to read an article that felt like real journalism again. It’s difficult these days with the way the news is going, but you showed me that short-form journalism is continuing to hold on … please keep at it.”

We plan to.

— Quinton Smith/editor & board chair/Lincoln Chronicle/YachatsNews@gmail.com