Ore. paper cuts staff, stops printing after employee stole $90K, editor says

A few weeks ago, Camilla Mortensen’s colleague told her to log into her retirement account – something she hadn’t done since filing her taxes last year.

The colleague had noticed that funds from her paycheck weren’t making it into her account and worried the same was happening to Mortensen and others at their Oregon alternative newspaper.

And it was, Mortensen said.

When the staff dug deeper into where that money and other cash at the Eugene Weekly was ending up, what they uncovered was “sheer horror,” Mortensen, the editor of the paper based in Eugene, told the Washington Post.

Since 2022, an employee had embezzled at least $90,000 from the newspaper, she alleged. Bills were marked as paid, but major suppliers – including the electric company and the paper’s printer – didn’t get their checks, Mortensen said. As of Dec. 14, company leaders discovered, there wasn’t enough money in the bank for the next round of payroll, she said.

On Dec. 21, the Eugene Weekly’s entire 10-person staff was laid off. The next week, the paper posted a letter to readers breaking the news that, for the first time in 20 years, there would be no new print issue.

“It was just gutting,” Mortensen said.

A Eugene police spokesperson said the department is investigating the alleged embezzlement. No arrests had been made as of Monday evening, and the accused employee, who was fired, has not been publicly identified. The paper’s owners hired forensic accountants to examine its financial records, Mortensen said.

The Eugene Weekly was launched in 1982, first listing community events and, over time, expanding to report news and cover the city’s arts and culture scene. The paper typically prints an issue every Thursday, circulating about 30,000 copies.

While many alternative weeklies face the same financial pressures as traditional media organizations, including a decline in print advertising, the Eugene Weekly had remained relatively stable. There were layoffs in 2008 during the Great Recession, Mortensen said, but in the years since, they found other ways of managing financial struggles, such as reducing pages and cutting sections.

It had not seen a major test to its financial stability in the past 15 years – until December.

The paper’s staff started looking more closely at its records when its accountant asked questions about finishing its bookkeeping for 2022.

As they checked on the retirement funds and other accounts, they learned about the missing money, Mortensen said. The accused employee worked at the paper for at least five years, Mortensen said. The letter to readers described the person as “someone we once trusted.”

“All of a sudden, all the embezzling balls that were in the air came crashing down, and we began to realize what was going on,” Mortensen said.

It hurt to deliver layoff notices around the holidays to workers she considers to be like family, she added, describing it as tearing the “fabric of your world.”

Also on Dec. 21, the Eugene Weekly’s last issue went into its news racks around the city. The following week, workers posted red fliers in the same boxes that read “Where’s the Damn Paper?” with QR codes that led readers to the weekly’s letter about its financial woes.

“The scale of this moment is unlike anything we have ever faced,” the Dec. 28 letter to readers said. “But we believe in this newspaper’s mission and we remain determined to keep EW alive.”

The newspaper had a history of running on trust, it added, but the staff “learned a hard lesson” and the company “should have had tighter financial systems.”

As Eugene residents learned about the paper’s troubles, the offers to help came in droves. Contributions to the paper’s fundraiser poured in, and readers have stopped by the office to ask how they can help.

Journalism professors from the University of Oregon, which is in Eugene, and former employees of the Register Guard, a daily newspaper in the city, extended their services to help the publication continue its coverage.

And despite the layoffs, some Eugene Weekly staff members – including Mortensen – are still showing up to cover events as planned. Mortensen said she’s not surprised to see the staffers’ dedication to their readers and community.

“It’s the nature of being a journalist at an alt-weekly; we don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Mortensen said.