Salem Reporter is growing.
We’re excited to announce Joe Seiss, a veteran Oregon reporter, is joining our news team this week.
Seiss comes to Salem most recently from the Redmond Spokesman, where he covered a variety of local news topics including schools, homelessness and an obituary for Rogue, a beloved river otter. He’s also worked for local newsrooms in Klamath Falls and Vale at the Malheur Enterprise.
He has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri’s Columbia Journalism School and is a fluent Spanish speaker.
For our small newsroom, adding one more person is significant, and means we’ll be able to better serve you.
Our operating costs are almost entirely covered by subscribers, and the growing number of you signing up has allowed us to expand. We have no hedge fund or corporate HQ taking a cut – everything goes to building our ability to report on Salem.
We are cutting against national trends with this addition. This expansion comes at a time when newsrooms all across the country are scaling back, if not closing entirely. That is because the people of Salem, clearly, value dependable local news. In the year ahead, Salem Reporter is counting on even more people signing up as subscribers.
As that support builds, we’ll add yet another journalist to more deeply report on news in Salem and, perhaps, in the surrounding area. (You can help – urge your friends and colleagues to sign up.)
Seiss will report in depth on local government, with a focus on the city of Salem and Marion County. We’ll put his language skills to use to deepen our coverage of Latino Salemites. He’ll be reaching out to connect with organizations serving our Spanish-speaking population.
As he takes over more city coverage, reporter Abbey McDonald will spend more of her time producing deeper looks at Salem housing, homelessness and local social services.
Our team has closely reviewed the results of our recent Salem Reporter News Survey, providing invaluable insight on what we’re doing well and what we could be doing better. We have read every single comment, counting in the hundreds.
You’ll hear more from Editor Les Zaitz about our takeaways soon. Among them: We want to deepen our coverage of local events and become a better resource for you to know what’s happening in Salem.
We’ll make sure our coverage of local government is squarely focused on accountability and telling you how to get involved and weigh in on decisions.
Seiss begins Wednesday, May 1. If you have suggestions for him or just want to welcome him to Salem, you can reach him at [email protected].
Contact Managing Editor Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
