Oregon newspaper lays off entire staff, pauses production after ex-employee allegedly embezzled funds

The Eugene Weekly’s editor says the ex-employee embezzled thousands and left the newspaper with more than $100,000 in unpaid bills

The Eugene Weekly laid off all its staff and halted print production after allegedly discovering an ex-employee embezzled thousands of dollars (AP)

A newspaper in Oregon has laid off its entire staff and stopped printing after the editor says the paper discovered an ex-employee embezzled funds.

Days before Christmas, an editor at The Eugene Weekly said the paper discovered a former employee closely involved with finances paid themselves $90,000 since 2022 and the newspaper had more than $100,000 worth of unpaid bills, the Associated Press reports.

Some staff members also discovered money from their paychecks that should have gone into their retirement accounts was never deposited, according to the AP.

As a result, the paper had to lay off all ten staff members and stop printing.

The Eugene Police Department is now investigating, and forensic accounts are working to trace what happened, editor Camilla Mortensen told the AP.

The paper’s closure comes amid a worrying time for local newspapers in the United States. A study from the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University indicates 2.5 newspapers closed each week in 2023, an uptick from previous years.

Furthermore, more than half of the counties in the US have either no access or limited access to local news — and over the last 18 years, the nation has lost nearly one-third of its newspapers, the study shows.

Brent Walth, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon, told the AP he’s concerned the closure will have “an outsized impact in filling the widening gaps in news coverage” in Oregon’s third biggest city.

The Eugene Weekly has launched a GoFundMe to raise funds to “keep their paper alive.” In the first two days, they raised over $26,000.

“Thanks to our loyal readers and advertisers, Eugene Weekly has endured where other newspapers have struggled,” the GoFundMe page reads. “Now we are fighting to keep this newspaper alive.”