Our Impact

Here is some of our investigative work this year, the impact it made, and a glimpse of the effort it took to achieve those results.

Letter from Publisher: Our Impact
By Anna Zusman

Sometimes, all it takes is for WW to publish a story to spur action. The same day staff reporter Lucas Manfield examined the mysterious workings of an unlicensed sober living center in the Wilkes neighborhood, city officials resumed an inquiry into zoning complaints, citing WW’s reporting, and asked the state for help. Other times, people in power don’t wait until the story is published: Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson asked for the resignation of her homelessness czar after receiving questions from reporter Sophie Peel about his bullying behavior.

It’s not just our news team that delivers reporting with results. Arts & Culture reporter Rachel Saslow revealed that one neighbor complaining about smells effectively shut down the restaurant Pho Gabo. In response, the Portland City Council reformed the city’s odor code so it couldn’t happen again. And when Portland’s First Congregational Church canceled an art show displaying nude paintings by artist Phyllis Yes, assistant A&C editor Andrew Jankowski rewrote his preview of the show to explain why people wouldn’t be allowed to see the work. Within days, a new venue stepped forward to display the paintings.

Other times, results come after the drip, drip, drip of unflattering details turns into water damage. That was the case with reporter Anthony Effinger’s tireless watchdogging of the administration at Oregon Health & Science University. Among more than a dozen stories Effinger wrote about the university’s personnel decisions, perhaps the most troubling was the revelation that an independent investigator didn’t believe the explanation provided by OHSU’s head of human resources about a sensitive firing. Anthony kept reporting on the fallout from that investigation—and by the time it was over, both the HR director and university president Dr. Danny Jacobs had resigned.

The full impact of a story can take years to arrive. Last year, Sophie Peel exposed the ethical failings of Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, who swiftly resigned. But her stories also revealed the need for a formal mechanism to remove officials who betray the public’s trust. Oregon was the only U.S. state with no method for impeaching statewide elected officials. This fall, lawmakers sent voters Measure 115, which amends the Oregon Constitution to allow the Legislature to impeach officials. Voters resoundingly passed the measure, which was on the ballot because of Peel’s reporting.

And it took nearly two years, and more than a dozen intensely researched stories by reporter Nigel Jaquiss, but in September, the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against industrialist Dr. Robert Pamplin Jr. and his company, R.B. Pamplin Corp., in U.S. District Court in Portland. The lawsuit alleges Pamplin violated the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act by intentionally engaging in nearly 100 real estate transactions with his company’s pension fund that benefited him and cost unwitting pensioners tens of millions of dollars. In the complaint, the Department of Labor highlights many of the transactions Jaquiss first reported, starting in February 2022, and it confirms the assertions he quoted from experts saying those transactions violated pension law and harmed the pensioners whose interests Pamplin was supposed to protect.

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.