By GRACE CHINOWSKY/Lookout Eugene Springfield

The Chronicle, the print newspaper covering the cities of Springfield, Cottage Grove, Creswell and Pleasant Hill since 1909, is shutting down.

The newspaper’s executive editor, Erin Tierney-Heggenstaller, announced the news in a column published Tuesday, Aug. 11. She wrote that the decision ultimately came down to a lack of subscriptions and advertising as the paper struggled to repay pandemic-era debt.

The newspaper bills itself as the oldest locally owned newspaper in the southern Willamette Valley. Noel and Denise Nash purchased the newspaper from Scott and Jeanne Olson in 2019.

“After years of barely hanging on, we have no choice but to let go,” wrote Tierney-Heggenstaller, who is also a part owner.

Tierney-Heggenstaller wrote that the newspaper took a Small Business Administration loan in 2020, believing it was a “bridge to stability” during the pandemic. But in March 2025, the federal government discontinued the repayment relief program that allowed struggling borrowers, like the newspaper, to pay 10% to 50% of their regular payment, she said.

“Suddenly, a staggering percentage of our revenue was swallowed up just servicing that debt,” Tierney-Heggenstaller said.

The newspaper shuttered its brick-and-mortar newsroom for a model where employees worked out of libraries, coffee shops and bookstores, she wrote. Still, the paper’s savings from the closure were “instantly wiped out” by changes to the loan repayment program, the editor said. Tierney-Heggenstaller added that rising costs from newsprint tariffs have compounded the squeeze, and the “deliberate dismantling” of the U.S. Postal Service has threatened the paper’s “delivery pipeline.”

“You cannot innovate, hire reporters, or keep the presses running when nearly everything you bring in goes straight back to the government for the privilege of surviving 2020,” she wrote.

Tierney-Heggenstaller said despite the paper’s attempts to be strategic, weather its financial hardship and tailor its journalism to the community’s needs, The Chronicle is “out of options, out of funds, and at the end of our timeline.”

The newspaper took home 14 awards at the 2025 Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association conference.

1 Comment Leave a Reply

Gerald Townsend says:
August 12, 2026 at 4:10 pm
Another trajedy for trusted quality information for the citizens of Springfield, Cottage Grove, Creswell and Pleasant Hill. Without access to information about these communities and their governments, we become far less capable of being a country of, for and by the people. The people in those cities can’t support or oppose what they don’t know about or even have adequate information on who to elect to public office.