Letter from the Editor: We’re investing in business news

Last calendar year about this time, we launched on a venture to glance at the worries confronting downtown Portland after (we’d hoped) the height of the pandemic and protests. That project, “Downtown in Distress,” incorporated reporting on homelessness, the mood of downtown inhabitants and the problems for merchants, as very well as results from an independent poll.

The delta and omicron variants threw a wrench in expectations for a rapid return to ordinary in 2021. And just a week ago, much more lousy information. A longtime retailer, Margulis Jewelers, declared it was closing its landmark downtown retailer.

“Customers are hesitant to arrive downtown to store,” operator David Margulis stated in a news launch. “Employees decide on not to get the job done downtown.”

It is distinct that additional than two several years into the pandemic, Portland has important financial difficulties. And The Oregonian/OregonLive carries on to spend in enterprise reporting.

“We’re mobilizing close to a target to deal with all elements of Oregonians’ economic life, from the consequences of the point out and national financial system, to shopping for goods and companies, to housing, own finance, and get the job done everyday living,” stated Elliot Njus, who sales opportunities our Business enterprise & Economy workforce.

Njus formerly coated real estate/housing, transportation and other subjects. Most a short while ago, he led the progress of podcasts for our newsroom.

Coverage of two important corporations in our place falls to veteran organization reporters Mike Rogoway and Jeff Manning.

Rogoway is Oregon’s indispensable browse for news about Intel, a single of the state’s major private businesses. At the start off of the pandemic, he pretty much singlehandedly birddogged the issues the Oregon Employment Office experienced obtaining jobless gains to Oregonians.

With politics reporter Hillary Borrud in 2020, he broke the tale of how Oregon’s failure to waive a week’s hiatus in advance of advantages begun would expense Oregonians additional than $100 million in federal reduction. The governor promptly vowed to reduce the “waiting week.”

Rogoway, who has a master’s of organization administration from University of Washington, also addresses technologies, software package and related corporations. He keeps an eye on emerging organizations as properly, these types of as Dutch Bros, the generate-via espresso chain that had its first public providing final year.

Manning handles Nike, as nicely as relevant organizations and the intersection of athletics and small business. He also stories on health and fitness treatment corporations and specializes in investigative get the job done with an eye towards white collar criminal offense.

Jamie Goldberg, who experienced covered the Portland Timbers/Thorns and the Portland Path Blazers for us, transferred to business when sports activities shut down at the commence of the pandemic in 2020. She has expended the previous two several years covering the unemployed, the plight of tenants and landlords, and the struggles and successes of compact corporations.

Goldberg, who has a master’s degree in journalism from College of California, Berkeley, is also a breaking information editor part of the 7 days.

Yet another relative newcomer to the crew is Jayati Ramakrishnan, who joined The Oregonian/OregonLive in 2019 from the Hermiston Herald. She commenced on the breaking news workforce but now covers transportation and housing. She is a graduate of the University of Oregon College of Journalism and Communications.

Just this thirty day period, we have extra even much more reporting firepower. Kristine de Leon covers retail, little business and other company developments for us, such as her recent explainer on why gasoline prices fluctuate so substantially dependent on which Oregon county you are in.

De Leon was pursuing a Ph.D. in microbiology before catching the reporting bug. She attained her master’s in journalism from University of Southern California. She is competent in info assessment, coding and world wide web enhancement, which will provide her well as she explores business enterprise and economic traits.

When I started off at The Oregonian in 1983, the Small business section, like the relaxation of the newsroom, was predominantly staffed by adult males. What couple of ladies reporters we experienced ended up generally in the options section, composing for the Residing section. It’s terrific to have a group of Organization reporters with these assorted lifetime activities, views and pursuits.

The team’s perform is supplemented by other reporters, these as Ted Sickinger, who handles forestry and utilities Borrud, who experiences on condition govt and politics and Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, who is on the Portland City Corridor beat.

We know fascination in company subjects is strong. We can see that as a result of the massive figures of folks who examine articles or blog posts on OregonLive and abide by us on social media (On Twitter, @OregonianBiz has the 2nd greatest adhering to after our most important account). You can sign up for our Oregon Small business Insights e-newsletter at oregonlive.com/newsletters.

The Oregonian/OregonLive’s workers still left our downtown places of work and went to distant function March 17, 2020. This spring, we hope some journalists will return to our offices along Southwest Initially Avenue and other folks will keep on to operate remotely. I hope to see our reporters and editors back again browsing workplaces, masking functions, and assembly sources for coffee experience to deal with, just as frequently as we applied to. I’m hunting ahead to paying far more of my time in our downtown newsroom again.

Be aware: Longtime Oregon civic chief Gerry Frank was questioned to create a column for The Oregonian back again in 1988. His column, named “Friday Surprise” immediately after the Meier & Frank product sales by that identify, appeared in the A part for lots of years.

Extra recently, in the functions segment, his well-known regular monthly column highlighted Oregon vacation and dining potential customers for visitors. Frank died March 13 at age 98. We know audience will overlook his informative ideas and insights, as will we.