Over seven years of fieldwork, from 2018 through 2025, the Agora Journalism Center and journalism students from the University of Oregon have listened to Oregonians across the state describe how they find, share, and trust information. From Central Oregon’s smallest city to coastal hubs and valley towns, each assessment revealed more than local media habits; it revealed a snapshot of civic life. Together, these reports show how Oregon’s information ecosystem has evolved —from scarcity and survival to coordination and collaboration.
Explore the reports in reverse chronology:
Florence (2025): From Fragmentation to Coordination – The coastal community has numerous information producers, local government, nonprofits, schools, and media outlets, but little integration among them.
- Residents want a central and timely civic information hub to reduce duplication and confusion.
- The Florence Public Library became a trusted convening space for distributing surveys and hosting listening sessions.
- Participants valued facilitation as much as findings: the process itself rebuilt civic connection.
Oakridge (2025): Rebuilding Local Trust – A town surrounded by forest and tradition, Oakridge illustrated both resilience and fatigue. Residents voiced pride in community identity but skepticism toward local media. They valued listening sessions for allowing direct dialogue with journalists and students.
- People felt disconnected from traditional outlets but eager to contribute to solutions.
- Listening sessions revealed broad agreement on the need for consistency, transparency, and shared ownership of information.
- Social media remained dominant in connecting, but was seen as untrustworthy and incomplete.
Salem (2024): Representation and Voice – In Salem, the conversation turned toward representation, whose stories get told and how. The project, focused on the city’s Hispanic community, invited students and residents to co-design survey questions and listening sessions in collaboration with local schools and churches.
- Young residents wanted stories about shared challenges, education, housing, and climate, not tokenized coverage.
- Bilingual storytelling, youth-led outreach, and social-media-native formats were cited as ways to rebuild trust.
- Participants equated trust with empathy: “Tell stories with us, not about us.”
Rogue Valley (2023): Fragmentation and Crisis – In southern Oregon, the closure of the Medford Mail Tribune exposed how quickly a local information ecosystem can collapse. When the Almeda Fire struck, residents scrambled across disconnected platforms—Facebook groups, agency feeds, radio stations—each delivering partial truths.
- Residents described “communication chaos” during crises, citing duplication and contradictions across sources.
- Without a central newsroom, nonprofits and volunteers filled gaps, but coverage was inconsistent.
- Calls for regional collaboration grew louder, particularly among local stations and civic agencies.
Hermiston (2022): Inclusion and Access – The agricultural town’s fast-growing, Latino population highlighted the next frontier: inclusion. Residents noted that while English-language updates were plentiful, Spanish-speaking families often learned about key civic issues secondhand, or not at all.
- Limited bilingual communication in city channels and local media hindered civic participation.
- The public library and schools emerged as trusted yet underused conduits for equitable outreach.
- Facebook filled the gap for real-time updates, but also amplified misinformation.
La Pine (2018): From Scarcity to Survival – Oregon’s newest incorporated city marked the first step in this statewide inquiry. Residents expressed both a hunger for hyperlocal news and an acceptance that Facebook was the town’s de facto information hub. The What’s Really Happening in La Pine group had twice the membership of the city’s population and was trusted more than any formal outlet.
- Residents trusted local outlets like KTVZ and The Newberry Eagle but wanted more frequent updates and youth-focused stories.
- Churches, grocery stores, and bulletin boards remained vital places for in-person news exchange.
- National sources were widely distrusted for perceived bias or detachment.
Looking Forward: From Coordination to Integration
The next challenge is integration—linking local efforts into a statewide network that connects libraries, newsrooms, schools, and civic groups through shared standards of trust, transparency, and collaboration.
Agora’s ongoing work aims to cultivate this infrastructure while training the next generation of journalists not only to report, but to listen.