Eugene's weekly paper has been publishing a print edition since 1982. Embezzlement and financial malfeasance from within the paper has paused printing, but volunteers and laid off staff are still publishing online.
Courtesy Eugene Weekly
The local alt weekly in Eugene has been publishing community and regional news since 1982. It’s no purple prose to say that many readers consider Eugene Weekly to be an institution. So when editor Camilla Mortensen put out a letter explaining that the paper had suffered a huge blow from alleged theft and mismanagement by a longtime employee, the community responded with offers of help and donations of cold hard cash. Law enforcement are investigating, and Mortensen says the Eugene police chief personally assured her he is overseeing the case. Some details are under wraps because of the investigation, but Mortensen joins us to discuss the situation and what the paper hopes can be a way forward.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Eugene Weekly has been the city’s alt weekly since 1982. As they wrote recently, “We’ve sought to enlighten you. We’ve sought to entertain you. We’ve pissed you off even when we didn’t mean to. And most of all, we have stood as this community’s alternative voice, a watchdog that speaks up to power on behalf of everyone.” One thing they’re not doing right now is publishing their paper. They announced over the holidays that they had suffered a huge blow, alleged theft and mismanagement by a longtime employee, leading to huge unpaid bills. The entire 10-person staff were laid off three days before Christmas and the paper was not printed for the first time in more than 20 years. Camilla Mortensen is still the editor of Eugene Weekly. She joins us now. Welcome back.
Camilla Mortensen: Hi.
Miller: When did you realize that something was very wrong?
Mortensen: We had, I wouldn’t even say like an inkling. There was sort of, mid-December, we were getting some questions about closing the books and not getting any answers on it. And then when this former employee was out of the office, is when things started to become very apparent that things were deeply wrong, and that’s when our tech guy got on the computer to look at some of the accounting and realized that right off the top, he could see that there was at least $90,000 to $100,000 of checks and reimbursements to this person.
Miller: Oh, directly to an employee as opposed to the printer or other places?
Mortensen: Exactly. Yeah. And so that’s a whole other factor as well.
Miller: So I understand that this is an ongoing criminal investigation and so there are limits on what you can say, but can you give us the basics of what happened, to the best of your ability?
Mortensen: Yeah, I mean, it appears that this long time employee was embezzling, writing checks to themselves and then also not paying really important bills. So we owe right now at least $70,000 to our printer, who has graciously agreed, if and when we can get printing again, that if we prepay they will print us again, which is huge. So things like that and then just getting our payroll company, like $20,000. And I looked at my retirement account, somebody mentioned that they had noticed something weird and there’s been no payments into my Oregon state retirement account all year. So we just keep finding more and more like the depths of it. We don’t even really, we don’t know yet.
Miller: Do you have a sense for how much money in total was not paid, when you add in retirement and the printing press and everything else?
Mortensen: I mean, we’re guessing $100,000 to $200,000. Just, I don’t know, as an editor, I handle a lot more of the, obviously, the editorial work and not financials. So I’m getting a crash course in financials, but that is my understanding. It could be as high as $200,000.
Miller: I hope this doesn’t come off as blaming the victim, but do you have a sense for how this could have gone on for so long and to such an extent without it being discovered until now?
Mortensen: Ironically, some of the systems we had in place to protect the integrity of the paper and the integrity of the product, of the journalism that we’re doing, I think were the same things that led to this. So as the editor, I don’t handle finances. Like I know what my budget is. I know what I pay the freelancers, but I don’t handle finances because if I were to know, for example, how much an ad costs or if a community member was contributing money or something, the fear would be that it would, it would bias our reporting.
Miller: It’s a firewall that, as journalists, we are proud of.
Mortensen: Exactly. And then ad sales, bringing in the money but not responsible sort of for the accounting of it. And so one of the things I think we’re learning is to sort of, we thought we had checks and balances in place, but obviously not enough. And so one of the first things we’re doing is we’re going to bring someone in, as soon as we can afford it, to bring someone in to sort of just look at the operations and be like, how do we not do this again, ever?
Miller: Have you gotten any meaningful updates from the police? I mean, do you have a sense for where the investigation stands right now?
Mortensen: I don’t entirely. The police have definitely been in touch and made sure that we know that they’re investigating. I believe the financial crimes unit has it now. A lot of it is up to forensic accountants going through and just looking at our books and seeing all the places that things happened, over the past probably several years.
Miller: I mentioned that in your letter to the community just a couple of days after Christmas, you noted that all 10 members of staff were laid off two days before Christmas. There’s never a good time for somebody to be laid off. But that seems like an especially painful one. How are the staff doing right now?
Mortensen: It was absolutely horrible. Laying off is not usually something I’ve ever really had to do and to tell my calendar editor, my arts editor, my reporter, my copy editor, who operates on a shoestring, like, I’m so sorry, we have no money, I have to lay you off, was just horrible. And I guess one of the things that made it less horrible is they’ve been just so amazing and they’re just like, well, if you’re fighting, we’re fighting. So we’re not gonna go down without a fight. And so they’ve been amazing.
Miller: What does fighting mean?
Mortensen: That we still put out a very small digital paper. So it’s not what our readers want. Our readers are very print focused. We’ve really discovered how much something means to the community like this paper does, like you can’t just take that away. So putting out a digital paper, fundraising, just doing everything we can to get this paper back.
Miller: We asked folks about their responses to this news on Facebook. Missy Mark said, “This paper is vital to our community. It’s the only paper in Eugene that still publishes letters to the editor.” What has the community response been like since you made your announcement?
Mortensen: Amazing. I mean when we discovered all this, I was just shattered and was just like this paper, like we’re done. We don’t have any money. We have tremendous losses. And then the next response from, I think me, and from everybody was OK, we don’t take this paper away from the community without giving the community and ourselves a chance to bring it back. And so immediately the next morning, there were people coming to our office, which technically was closed, but we went ahead and opened the doors, [people were] coming to the office and doing anything from like, there was a local veterinary facility that knows that we have, almost all of us have pets. I have office dogs that are blissfully being very quiet right now. And they offered to provide medical care for our pets. People have offered food, they have made contributions, they have sent just lovely messages and just anything imaginable. There’s a local restaurant doing a fundraiser today. There’s a local pub here in town that’s doing a fundraiser. It’s just unasked - asked in the sense that we’re like, please help us - but in the sense that people have just stepped up and been like, here’s what I’m gonna do for you, I guess, reassures me of people’s belief in local independent journalism.
Miller: Do you have a sense right now though, for the gulf between what has already been raised and the hole you’re trying to dig out of?
Mortensen: Kind of, just because I feel we keep getting bills or a notification of some finances that were also messed with. So I feel like every once in a while, there’s another step backwards. But we have a GoFundMe and then we also have a contribution page at the Weekly and looking at those, from what I can see, we’ve raised at least $100,000 in a week, which is just mind blowing to me. But just knowing the gap of what we owe, it’s still a pretty big gap. But at the same time, if we can get ourselves printing, if we can start selling advertising again, then I’m feeling more and more like we really do have a chance.
Miller: Camilla, best of luck to you. And thanks for giving us some of your time today. I really appreciate it.
Mortensen: Thank you so much.
Miller: That’s Camilla Mortensen, editor of Eugene Weekly.
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