The Oregon Legislature Through the Eyes of Journalists

Show Notes

This week on the Forum, hear statehouse reporters share their close-up view of the process they report on. Three print reporters spoke to Salem City Club about covering the legislature and shared details like how the vaccine debate surprised the state lawmakers because they weren’t expecting to tackle THAT issue this year.  The reporters also observe that the state senators and representatives are holding fewer press conferences at the statehouse but these days they tend to walk into a reporter’s office to talk with them directly, in person.  And in this digital social-media age, a couple of the lawmakers even have a podcast now, called – “Capitalizing.” More of the inside stories, in this week’s edition of The Forum!

(Speakers are Aubrey Weaver with the online-only media source Salem Reporter, Connor Radnovich from with the Salem Statesman Journal, and Claire Withycombe who works for a reporting pool that covers legislative events and issues for news outlets including the East Oregonian newspaper, Seattle Times, Portland Tribune, papers in Bend, Albany, Astoria, Silverton and Salem as well as Oregon Public Broadcasting’s radio news service.  In the interest of full disclosure -- she also hosts a music show once a week here on community radio KMUZ.)