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

Previous 12 months about this time, we released on a undertaking to appear at the difficulties confronting downtown Portland immediately after (we’d hoped) the height of the pandemic and protests. That job, “Downtown in Distress,” incorporated reporting on homelessness, the temper of downtown people and the issues for merchants, as very well as effects from an independent poll.

The delta and omicron variants threw a wrench in expectations for a quick return to typical in 2021. And just a week in the past, extra lousy information. A longtime retailer, Margulis Jewelers, announced it was closing its landmark downtown store.

“Customers are reluctant to occur downtown to shop,” proprietor David Margulis said in a information launch. “Employees pick out not to do the job downtown.”

It is clear that extra than two years into the pandemic, Portland has significant financial difficulties. And The Oregonian/OregonLive continues to make investments in business enterprise reporting.

“We’re mobilizing around a objective to cover all elements of Oregonians’ monetary lives, from the effects of the condition and countrywide financial state, to shopping for merchandise and products and services, to housing, private finance, and get the job done existence,” mentioned Elliot Njus, who potential customers our Company & Overall economy team.

Njus formerly protected actual estate/housing, transportation and other subjects. Most lately, he led the enhancement of podcasts for our newsroom.

Coverage of two significant enterprises in our space falls to veteran business reporters Mike Rogoway and Jeff Manning.

Rogoway is Oregon’s indispensable study for information about Intel, one particular of the state’s largest personal companies. At the start off of the pandemic, he pretty much singlehandedly birddogged the problems the Oregon Work Section experienced receiving jobless rewards to Oregonians.

With politics reporter Hillary Borrud in 2020, he broke the tale of how Oregon’s failure to waive a week’s hiatus before rewards began would price Oregonians extra than $100 million in federal reduction. The governor promptly vowed to do away with the “waiting week.”

Rogoway, who has a master’s of small business administration from University of Washington, also handles technological know-how, software package and related corporations. He retains an eye on rising firms as nicely, these as Dutch Bros, the generate-thru espresso chain that experienced its original public providing past yr.

Manning addresses Nike, as properly as similar companies and the intersection of sporting activities and organization. He also reviews on overall health care businesses 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 Trail Blazers for us, transferred to business enterprise when athletics shut down at the start off of the pandemic in 2020. She has used the previous two many years masking the unemployed, the plight of tenants and landlords, and the struggles and successes of small corporations.

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

A further relative newcomer to the group is Jayati Ramakrishnan, who joined The Oregonian/OregonLive in 2019 from the Hermiston Herald. She begun on the breaking news workforce but now covers transportation and housing. She is a graduate of the College of Oregon Faculty of Journalism and Communications.

Just this month, we’ve additional even much more reporting firepower. Kristine de Leon handles retail, tiny enterprise and other small business developments for us, this kind of as her latest explainer on why gasoline selling prices change so substantially relying on which Oregon county you are in.

De Leon was pursuing a Ph.D. in microbiology right before catching the reporting bug. She attained her master’s in journalism from University of Southern California. She is skilled in knowledge evaluation, coding and website development, which will provide her perfectly as she explores organization and economic trends.

When I begun at The Oregonian in 1983, the Company department, like the rest of the newsroom, was predominantly staffed by males. What several ladies reporters we had ended up primarily in the attributes office, producing for the Residing section. It’s fantastic to have a crew of Business reporters with this sort of various daily life experiences, views and passions.

The team’s perform is supplemented by other reporters, such as Ted Sickinger, who handles forestry and utilities Borrud, who reviews on condition government and politics and Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, who is on the Portland Town Corridor conquer.

We know fascination in company matters is powerful. We can see that via the massive quantities of men and women who go through content articles on OregonLive and abide by us on social media (On Twitter, @OregonianBiz has the next most important following just after our major account). You can signal up for our Oregon Enterprise Insights publication at oregonlive.com/newsletters.

The Oregonian/OregonLive’s workers left our downtown workplaces and went to remote perform March 17, 2020. This spring, we anticipate some journalists will return to our workplaces along Southwest Initially Avenue and other individuals will continue on to work remotely. I hope to see our reporters and editors back viewing workplaces, covering occasions, and conference sources for espresso facial area to facial area, just as usually as we used to. I’m wanting ahead to paying out additional of my time in our downtown newsroom again.

Be aware: Longtime Oregon civic leader Gerry Frank was requested to write a column for The Oregonian back in 1988. His column, named “Friday Surprise” following the Meier & Frank gross sales by that title, appeared in the A area for numerous years.

A lot more not long ago, in the functions part, his popular regular monthly column highlighted Oregon journey and eating prospective customers for visitors. Frank died March 13 at age 98. We know audience will overlook his instructive strategies and insights, as will we.