Portland Sentinel Closing

For the last five years the Portland Sentinel has been operating as an online and print hyperlocal paper serving the North Portland area. But according to Oregonian columnist Anna Griffin, that run is coming to an end because of lack of advertising revenue.

The paper was being run by Cornelius Swart, who decided he would rather close the news outlet down rather than try to operate with a skeleton staff or become a boosterish publication that blurs the line between advertising and editorial.

The community will continue to be served by the much smaller scale twice-a-month St. Johns Review.

An Oklahoma Community Paper Closes

Terry Clark, journalism professor at the University of Central Oklahoma and director of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, laments the closing of The North Central Reporter. He writes that it was a model of what community journalism ought to be. The paper closed because the publisher wanted to move on and do other things, she no longer wanted to be, as her daughter put it, The North Central Reporter. One thing that community journalism undeniably needs is passionate people willing to put their all into it. And that can be a high cost of doing business.