Agora Journalism Center – The forum for the future of local news and civic health in Oregon and beyond

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Assessing Oregon’s Local News & Information Ecosystem

Our updated 2025 report focuses again on the whole range of news outlets, from large to small, that provide original, civically relevant news

Advancing Community-Centered Journalism

A Practical Guide for a More Equitable and service-oriented form of Journalism

Redefining News: A Manifesto for Community-Centered Journalism

Community-focused model of journalism prioritizes listening to and collaborating with communities to produce relevant, equitable and impactful news and storytelling.

Engaging the Emergence of Civic Media Ecosystems

As a precursor to the Online News Association’s national conference in Philadelphia, 120 community-driven innovators assembled at Temple University to address this question: “How do we advance journalism for all?”

January 6th, Disinformation, & the Critical Role of Community-Centered News

Focusing on disinformation turns our attention away from its opposite: high quality, fact-based, inclusive, and trusted information

Our Renewed Vision

We believe that vibrant local information ecosystems are critical to civic health—the ability of communities to work together to address shared problems.

Welcome to Agora

The Agora Journalism Center is focused on strengthening the local information landscape through fostering and nurturing community-centered journalism. Our four pillars are:

Building a collaborative, sustained laboratory for improving the local information ecosystem in Portland and Oregon
Creating and sharing research, case studies, tool kits and insights to disseminate across the news industry and throughout the nation
Pioneering a rigorous, ongoing assessment of the health of information ecosystems in Oregon
Developing curriculum focused on how media can innovate to regain relevance and purpose through community-centered journalism

As a program of the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism & Communication since 2015, we learn and engage primarily with our home region in the Pacific Northwest, but share and collaborate with the wider world through research, publications, digital platforms, and live events.

Let’s create healthy local information ecosystems together
Learn how we hope to engage with you, and please take a survey on the following linked pages so we can start on the right foot:

**Community Organizations**
**& Voices**

Leadership at the intersection of practice and theory

Andrew DeVigal, Agora’s director, won two Emmys for groundbreaking storytelling as the multimedia editor at the New York Times. Regina Lawrence, associate dean and research director, is a widely published authority on political communication, journalism, and civic engagement. Together, they advance the practice of community-centered journalism with a national profile at a local scale.

A strong foundation for a new chapter

In its first six years, before the pandemic and the wrenching 2020 election cycle, Agora Journalism Center established a focus on innovative civic engagement by journalists and the media. These reports, publications, projects, and tools have deeply informed our redoubled attention to understanding and improving civic health through local storytelling.

Community Perspectives on Oakridge’s Information Ecosystem (2025)

The closure of the Dead Mountain Echo in 2020 and limited capacity of the Highway 58 Herald have left Oakridge relying heavily on Facebook, word of mouth, and bulletin boards. While residents expressed deep pride in their community, they voiced frustration over fragmented, biased, or outdated information.

Read The Report

Community Perspectives on Florence’s Information Ecosystem (2025)

With a population that skews older and a patchwork of information channels—ranging from Facebook groups to library bulletin boards—Florence faces the challenge of keeping residents informed without a single, consistent hub. The project, conducted by University of Oregon students, included a co-designed survey with 106 responses, a well-attended listening session, and weekly planning meetings with community partners.

Read The Report

Assessing Oregon’s Local News & Information Ecosystem 2025

This 2025 report builds on our 2022 assessment, providing an updated snapshot of Oregon’s evolving local news landscape—highlighting challenges, emerging solutions, and key initiatives shaping the future of civic information in our state.

Read The Report

The 2022 Doers Gathering explored community-centric approaches to funding and resource distribution

We invited an inspiring group of “Doers” to share their projects and visions for transforming our relationship with the land, our natural resources, and each other. The event offered the opportunity to explore promising community-centric approaches to funding and equitable resource distribution.

More About The Project

University of Oregon students test a new framework for dialogue-driven reporting

17 students in DeVigal’s engaged journalism class used the Generative Dialogue Framework (GDF) to host small-group conversations with folks across the U.S., asking them about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and their perspectives on the new vaccine.

More About The Project

Gather supports community-centered journalism and the journalists behind them

The project and platform help make journalism more responsive to the public’s needs and more inclusive of the public’s voices and diversity, helping journalists, educators, and students find each other, resources and mentorship.

More About The Project