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This is our final newspaper of 2021. So it’s a good time to reflect on the vital reporting our newsroom brings you every day.
There is much to be proud of. Over the past 12 months, WW has published enterprise stories that changed how Portlanders viewed their city: identifying trends that affected people’s lives and holding powerful officials and institutions accountable for their decisions. We do so out of a belief that democracy will not survive without robust, fearless and trustworthy local journalism.
A few of our stories in 2021 that demonstrated the power of good journalism:
• In January, Nigel Jaquiss revealed that two city-proposed taxes on carbon emissions would have the unintended consequence of putting out of business the only plant in Oregon that recycles glass bottles. Because of our reporting, the Portland City Council sent the taxes back to planners for an overhaul, which is still ongoing.
• In March, Tess Riski reported that more than 100 cannabis shops in Portland had been robbed, burglarized or looted in one year, a crime wave that resulted in the killing of a clerk on North Lombard Street. After the story was published, Portland police arrested a suspect in the murder, and City Hall dedicated cannabis tax dollars to assist robbed shops.
• For much of the year, our newsroom has held local officials accountable for their failure to act urgently to provide housing and shelter for people sleeping on the streets. We’ve also revealed the pressure that business groups are placing on City Hall to remove homeless campers from downtown sidewalks. Sophie Peel’s May reporting on a plan from Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office to create “safe rest sites” in Portland neighborhoods connected the dots between private demands and public promises—and she’s tracked all year whether those promises will be kept.
• Rachel Monahan warned in January that several populations in Portland would be reluctant to get vaccinated for COVID-19. At the time of her story, most attention focused on whether Oregon had enough vaccine doses for Oregon arms; only Monahan warned that the impending problem was not enough arms. Months later, vaccine hesitancy fueled the Delta variant wave.
• For more than a year, Latisha Jensen told Portland uncomfortable truths about the racial disparities that make life strikingly different for the Black and white residents of this city. In June, she showed readers the biggest difference: Black Portlanders were injured or killed by gunfire at a rate eight times higher than their share of the population. Later that summer, WW reported that Black Portlanders were being murdered at a rate higher than in Chicago, Baltimore or Los Angeles.
• No other news organization in the city gave Oregon voters such a clear look at the people who would be governor in 2022. Monahan and Jaquiss have published in-depth interviews with all of the significant Democratic candidates, pressing them to say how they are different from their opponents and the status quo. These introductions offer clarity in what looks to be the most wide-open governor’s race in a generation.
• When Peel’s car was stolen on Thanksgiving Day, she responded like a reporter: She asked how many other cars had been snatched in Portland that month. She found that her Subaru was one of 1,140 vehicles stolen that month—the most in a single month since the city began tallying detailed figures.
• In November, Jaquiss learned that Joe Gilliam, one of Oregon’s most powerful lobbyists, was in a vegetative state—and police believed he had been poisoned twice with the toxic metal thallium. Jaquiss’ reporting led Oregon’s U.S. senators to call for law enforcement to bring the poisoner to justice.
• And any accounting of 2021′s most important stories would be incomplete without noting the nine months Tess Riski spent watchdogging the Portland Police Bureau and its union, asking once a week what role now-former union president Brian Hunzeker played in an effort to discredit Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty. A possible answer was revealed last week when Hardesty filed a lawsuit accusing Hunzeker of leaking a false report about the commissioner to an Oregonian reporter. Riski broke the news of the lawsuit.
This is just a sample of our work in 2021, work that starts with the premise that you readers are our reason for being.
With your help (and we encourage you to join Friends of Willamette Week to do so) we will continue to fulfill this role.
It is only because of your engagement and support that we can play our part in fighting for this bruised but unbroken city.