Julia Ruminelli, clinic director at Salud Medical Center, helps medical assistant Yuleivi Cazares Rodriguez tie her gown while Viviana Gourley adjusts her gloves at the center’s COVID-19 testing area in Woodburn on Wednesday, April 29. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
The mystery was in front of us all.
Marion County had racked up the worst rate in the state for Covid-19 infections. And areas around Woodburn and Gervais were particularly hard hit.
Why?
The answer proved devilishly hard to get, as the reporting team at Salem Reporter found.
Government officials at county and state agencies initially resisted questions, providing bland, broad statements that weren’t illuminating. In some instances, governments would not disclose information they acknowledged having that would help explain what was happening.
But Salem Reporter’s team persisted in learning how Marion County became the scene of such a major public health crisis.
The reporting took several approaches, with reporters Rachel Alexander, Saphara Harrell and Jake Thomas dividing the work.
Rachel is our wizard with data so she dug into government statistics as available. Her results focused us on the north Marion County area.
Saphara focused on county health authorities, patiently teasing out details about what they knew about the unfolding crisis. She went back repeatedly, layer by layer tracking local government’s responses.
Jake focused on public officials, questioning those in elective office about what they knew, what they suspected, and what they had done to protect people.
And all three shared in the most crucial work – reaching community nonprofits struggling to contain the virus.
Those interviews revealed a belated response by government, fear among vulnerable communities and the struggle to get out lifesaving messages in languages residents could understand.
The reporters tackled the work with care and diligence, all the while continuing to report on other news around Salem. As findings came into focus, they went back to sources. Was this fact correct? Are we properly quoting you? Are these numbers accurate?
At Salem Reporter, we knew that fairness and accuracy were vital for this investigative project. That’s true for all of our work, but we doubled our efforts to achieve those standards with this story.
The result was a deeply reported, carefully written investigative report that you can read HERE.
This is the kind of journalism too often missing these days, and one reason Salem Reporter came to be.
And now the team has turned to another “why?” question: Why did a west Salem assisted living facility become one of the state’s hotspots for infections? Dealing with health and medical issues is slow work. Privacy issues are at play. People are reluctant to discuss publicly what they or their relatives experienced.
But at Salem Reporter, it’s our duty to explain with more than raw numbers what happened at Prestige Senior Living Orchard Heights. (If you can help, even confidentially, reach out to reporter Saphara Harrell at [email protected].)
Aside from the investigative work, our team continues to provide reports on life in Salem that no one else is producing. Our reporters are joined by special writers Jean Dion, Cathy Ingalls and Kate McMahon and photographers Amanda Loman and Ron Cooper.
Together, they are working tirelessly to keep up with the almost-daily changes related to the pandemic. They are providing the kind of factual, in-depth reporting that Salem so deserves.
None of this can be done without the encouragement and support of the community.
On almost any day, you can find news stories about the crushing impact of the pandemic on journalism in Oregon and elsewhere. Some news organizations have folded. Others, including many in Oregon, have cut staff or furloughed employees. That’s an economic necessity. But a reporter off duty is a reporter not questioning government officials or chronicling the tenacity of people to get through the pandemic.
At Salem Reporter, we feel our duty more keenly than ever to fill the gap.
That’s why I come to you from time to time to remind you of how you can support this work. We know you have many choices on how to spend your money. And we know many of you can’t afford to help no matter how much you’d like. That’s one reason we have made our coverage of the pandemic available for free.
But if you can put some money behind us, there are three ways:
SUBSCRIBE: Our service starts at $5 a month. Sign up HERE. Already subscribe? Get a subscription for a neighbor, a relative or employees with a gift subscription HERE.
DONATE: We put contributions to work building our news coverage. You can donate HERE directly on line or you can go HERE if a tax benefit for you helps.
ADVERTISE: Our readers are clearly Salem-centric. Use our power to reach Salem residents to help build your business. Advertising on Salem Reporter is amazingly simple, affordable and effective. Details are HERE.
No matter your choice, and even if you elect to stand aside for now, Salem Reporter’s news team won’t relent in pursuing the truth. Not for a day, not for a moment. In these times, credible news is vital. We’re here to deliver, and I’m deeply proud of the news team giving their all to make that happen.
Les Zaitz, editor and CEO
Salem Reporter
