New owners of two Oregon newspaper groups cut more jobs, put buildings up for sale

By RYAN HAAS/Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Mississippi-based media chain that recently bought more than three dozen newspapers in Oregon and Washington has spent the two months since its acquisition pursuing job cuts and exploring other steps to save money.

Carpenter Media Group this month laid off Bend Bulletin copy editor Tim Doran and Wallowa County Chieftain editor Mike McInally. It also proposed laying off another reporter, two photographers and a news clerk at the Bulletin, according to three sources familiar with the job cuts.

The layoffs come as Carpenter Media Group has placed the headquarters for its recently acquired papers in Astoria and John Day up for sale, according to The Oregonian/Oregonlive, signaling the out-of-state newspaper chain is seeking to cut back its footprint in Oregon media as company leaders extol their commitments to local journalism.

“Carpenter cannot legally implement the layoff of unionized employees until they bargain with the Guild,” Central Oregon NewsGuild President Morgan Owen told OPB in a statement Thursday. “This is the second time in six months employees at the Bulletin have faced layoffs.”

Morgan said the staff union was “eager to see how Carpenter treats us” when they attend a bargaining session on Tuesday.

Carpenter Media Group went on a Northwest media buying spree this year, purchasing the distressed newspaper empire of Robert Pamplin Jr. in June and EO Media Group — which owned the Bulletin, East Oregonian and many other rural newspapers — in October. Those acquisitions made Carpenter the single largest media owner in Oregon, and pushed it to No. 4 among newspaper publishers nationally, according to Northwest University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Carpenter Media’s John Carr, who is based in North Carolina and was named as publisher of the Bulletin in November, declined to comment.

In an email to staff obtained by OPB, Carr described the cuts as “necessary financial changes and cost-cutting measures that will stabilize these publications for the future.”

McInally, the now unemployed editor of the Wallowa County Chieftain, also provided editing for the La Grande Observer. His departure means Wallowa and Union counties each now have a single reporter. Collectively, the counties make up more than 5,000 square miles of Oregon.

Reached for comment Wednesday, McInally said he was not surprised by Carpenter’s decision to cut his job.

“I worked for daily newspapers for 40 years. You kind of expect this,” he said.

Carpenter Media has taken a similar job-cutting approach at newspapers it purchased from Pamplin Media Group this year, instituting an unknown number of layoffs at the dozens of newspapers in Portland’s suburban communities previously owned by Robert Pamplin Jr. The company also cut around half the staff at the Everett Herald in June, leading to an acrimonious dispute with the Washington paper’s union.