The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the western United States, founded on December 4, 1850.

History

• 1861 The Oregonian starts publishing on a daily basis.
• 1881 The Sunday Oregonian is first published.
• 1939 A Pulitzer Prize for editorial reporting is awarded to an editor of the paper, cited as an example the editorial entitled My Country 'Tis of Thee.
• 1950 The paper is bought by S. I. Newhouse, founder of the publishing dynasty. The $5.6 million sale price was the largest for a single newspaper up to that time.
• 1957 Staff journalists win the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting on vice and corruption in Portland involving municipal officials and Teamsters.
• 1961 Newhouse buys the Oregon Journal, Portland's afternoon daily newspaper. Production and business operations of the two newspapers are consolidated in the Oregonian's building; their editorial staffs remain separate.
• 1979 S. I. Newhouse dies. He turns over the operation of his company to his sons. S.I. Jr. is responsible for the magazines, and Donald takes over the newspapers.
• 1982 The Oregon Journal is shut down after declining advertising revenues, and "incorporated" into the Oregonian.
• 1989 The paper establishes an Asia bureau in Tokyo, Japan, becoming the first Pacific Northwest newspaper with a foreign correspondent.
• 1989 The paper orders its delivery trucks to return most copies of a Sunday edition because an article told readers how to sell their homes without a real estate broker. The editor responsible for the story was demoted. The Wall Street Journal cited the incident in 1992 as an example of how papers soften business coverage to appease advertisers.
• 1992 For the first time in its history, the paper endorses a Democrat for President of the United States.
• 1993 The Oregonian becomes the subject of national coverage due to the fact that it was the Washington Post which broke the story of inappropriate sexual advances which led to the resignation of Oregon senator Bob Packwood. This prompts some to joke, "If it matters to Oregonians, it's in the Washington Post" (a twist on a slogan heard in advertisements for the Oregonian).[1]
• 1993 Newhouse appoints a new editor for the paper, Sanda Rowe, who transfers from a Virginia newspaper.
• 1999 An Oregonian journalist wins the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting, for a report which illustrated the impact of the Asian economic crisis by profiling the local industry that exports frozen french fries. The reporter spent six months on the story.
• 1999 The paper wins two Overseas Press Club awards, for business and human rights reporting.
• 1999 The Columbia Journalism Review poll of editors ranks the Oregonian as number 12 in the list of "America's Best Newspapers" and the best of the papers owned by the Newhouse family.
• 2001 The paper wins the Pulitzer Prize for public service, for its "detailed and unflinching examination of systematic problems within the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, including harsh treatment of foreign nationals and other widespread abuses, which prompted various reforms." In addition, an Oregonian journalist wins for best feature writing, with a series on a teen with a facial deformity.
• 2004 The paper faces criticism after a headline characterizes a 1970s sexual relationship between then-mayor Neil Goldschmidt and a 14-year old girl as an "affair."

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See also

• Ben Hur Lampman, editor and Oregon poet laureate

External links

• Oregonian website
• Oregonian front page from the Newseum
• The Story Behind the Story, the American Journalism Review 2004 article about the Oregonian's coverage of the Goldschmidt "affair"