Les Zaitz, Salem Reporter editor
The cheering is likely to be extra loud on New Year’s Eve this year as we all bid 2020 goodbye – and it won’t be a fond farewell.
This week, the crew at Salem Reporter is pausing a bit to reflect on the year. Each of our reporters – Rachel Alexander, Saphara Harrell and Jake Thomas – have looked back on their work the past year.
They’ll each share the stories that struck them as important, and it’s not always the flashy big news stories that warranted attention.
Photographers Amanda Loman and Ron Cooper likewise have gone through their archives. They both did remarkable work for you this year. They’ll pick some of their favorite photos and tell you a bit of the story behind the photo. You’ll get a sense of the care that goes into their work.
We’re not ranking stories as Top 10 or Story of the Year. There was just too much of importance to Salem and its people to focus on a single event or issue.
Through the year, the news team at Salem Reporter worked to stay true to our ambitions. We worked hard to be fair and accurate, to provide reporting on Salem you otherwise wouldn’t get.
In all my years in journalism, I’ve not encountered a year as challenging as this.
And that’s not just because of the steady flow of major news.
What emerged month by month was what has characterized national discourse – the turn to rudeness and meanness.
The stories, columns and magazine pieces elsewhere about the divides among Americans have been endless. Varied explanations have been presented to account for why we seem to disagree so stridently and disagreeably these days.
Whatever the source of those divisions, the impact on Salem Reporter and how we provide your news is real. Presenting the news as straight forward as we can sometimes produces surprising reactions. Word choices in headlines or in a single sentence in a story glow red hot to some. Either we are leftist stooges or right-wing advocates. We have a political agenda or are corporate shills.
As journalists, we’re accustomed to criticism. Not many folks have their work put out in public day in and day out for anyone to review and critique. And criticism is helpful. Often, a word choice that set someone’s teeth on edge was inadvertent, sometimes the result of a hurry to publish.
Safeguarding our credibility has been a key duty through the year. We let people have their say, but we won’t stand silent when people falsely brand us or ascribe motivations that don’t exist.
The mix of stories we covered this year stands as the best record of what Salem Reporter represents for the community.
From the start, we have delved into all aspects of the pandemic. We weren’t interested in just reprinting the government’s numbers. We sought ways to explain the human side of the pandemic. We sought out experts to address the doubts and worries of our readers. And we worked doubly hard to reflect how this pandemic has hammered our Salem economy.
Then came the wildfires and utter disruption of life in the Willamette Valley. We don’t have the staff to send teams out onto the fire lines around the state. Instead, we worked to stand back from the disaster, to again chronicle the impact on people, on business, on a region. We left it to others to measure disaster largely in terms of acres burned and firefighters deployed.
Our approach led to what I judge to be one of the best pieces of journalism we did this year – the chronicle of the night the Santiam Canyon burned. The story: SPECIAL REPORT: A night in hell – Santiam Canyon’s ordeal. This was one of the most read and most shared stories we did in 2020. Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation produced a story examining how we did the story and why it was so “gripping.”
And then came the elections. We elected to keep our focus local. And we decided to go beyond the name-rank-serial number style of reporting on political candidates. Jake and Saphara, in particular, provided readers nuanced profiles of those running for office. They pushed politicians beyond the platitudes of a campaign. They got information that voters could find useful in judging who to put in public office.
Perhaps the most challenging news to cover this year has been the endless stream of protests in Salem. We have become the state’s stage for this sort of thing. With protests, demonstrations and marches virtually every week, Salem Reporter focused on broader themes. The coverage itself brought steady protests of our work, mostly from those who perceived we favored one camp or another.
We don’t and we won’t, but we’re trying even harder to use care in word choices that seem to carry unintended freight. And we won’t avoid telling accurate accounts, using direct and clear language. You need to know what’s going on and you can’t get the truth if we sugar coat the facts.
Now, we turn our attention to the turn of the calendar and what’s ahead.
There is good news. Both the Legislature and the federal government are pumping out relief to sustain unemployed workers, businesses and even local government. Millions of new dollars soon will surge through the Salem economy.
There is the vaccine. Though most of us likely won’t feel the needle for months, at least we know it’s coming. Holding on is easier when you know rescue is coming.
And kids are going back to school. We can’t think of a better way to start the new year. There is much work to do for that to happen, and school and health officials will need your help. Be ready to offer it, no matter what’s asked, so teachers can teach the way they were trained.
While that’s all good, what remains is the sense that people no longer can or want to work together. There are many out in Salem who are fighting to close that divide. They have a big job. Voices are angry and spirits are mean in too many homes and businesses.
Salem Reporter is determined to help. We’ll do what you expect us to do – provide local information that is accurate and can be trusted. At least on the local level, we anticipate that many of you are ready to move on from “fake news” and one-sided websites.
Our contribution to deepening the civility that has long marked life in Salem is to report honestly and fairly. We’ll continue to give you facts to use to reach your own decision about what should or shouldn’t happen at City Hall, your local school, or at the Capitol.
At the same time, I urge you all to continue your support of the work of Salem Reporter. We are locally owned. We don’t follow any corporate dictates. We exist for you alone.
We will continue to grow and strengthen in the new year, and you can help. If you subscribe already, thank you. You can make an extra donation to fund investigative work and internships. (Contribute HERE.) If you haven’t yet subscribed, please do so. (Subscribe HERE.) We put every dollar we can into the job of getting you the news.
The more support we get, the more we can do for you and the community.
Together, we can make 2021 a year of hope, progress and recovery for Salem.
Les Zaitz is CEO and editor of Salem Reporter. Email: [email protected].
