Les Zaitz reflects on 50 years in Oregon journalism, much of it doing investigative work at rural newspapers

Editor-Publisher Les Zaitz talked with University of Southern California journalism students working on a child-poverty reporting project for the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon. (Photo by George Lewis for the Malheur Enterprise) 

Les Zaitz is a legend in American journalism, and he's still building his legacy and telling his story. He's had an unusual career, with two stints as a top investigative reporter at The Oregonian, and two stints as the editor and publisher of rural weekly newspapers. He reflects on that past, and the future, in a piece for his current paper, the Malheur Enterprise in eastern Oregon.

At the Oregonian, "I had no ambition for anything other than to develop powerful stories about powerful people and institutions," Zaitz writes. "But along with those skills came a deepening appreciation for fairness, for ethical behavior. When I turned to community journalism with the acquisition of the Keizertimes in 1987, those lessons were potent. I still recall being too zealous to tell about a mayor parking his boat for free at city hall’s secure lot. The story was accurate, but it wasn’t entirely fair. The breathless account turned a minor infraction into a front-page scandal. Temperance in investigative reporting is critical. Good journalists have to question every fact. They have to constantly ask themselves: Is this story fair? Is the wording fair? That doesn’t mean diluting the facts. That means giving the facts and letting readers decide just how foul the offense is."

Zaitz returned to the Portland daily, and quit in 2016, thinking he was going to retire, "But duty to the profession, to Oregon, kept tugging at me," he writes. His family bought the Enterprise, and then he "was recruited to start up the digital news operation, Salem Reporter. And in 2021 I took the lead to found the Oregon Capital Chronicle," a States Newsroom operation.

Why all that? "I became increasingly alarmed at the demise of news organizations, the rise of partisan news sites and the erosion of American trust in the press, in the truth. . . . In every speech I give these days, whether to Rotary or League of Women Voters, I acknowledge that the media share the fault. For too many years, collectively we have exuded an arrogance that readers and viewers sensed – and then rejected. We have been too slow to admit our errors, to be open with how we do our work. We left you in the dark."

Zaitz concludes, "Experiences in Vale and in Salem impressed on me key truths. First, citizens remain hungry for local information they can trust. Journalists must deliver more. Second, citizens are counting on the press to serve as watchdogs. Sitting in a school board meeting, performing stenography, does not illuminate what readers need to see. News organizations need to replace routine reporting with probing coverage. . . . Finally, I have faith in you and other Oregonians. We may seem to be in a rough patch politically and socially at the moment. But the power of the truth, of the facts, has time after time in our country’s history won out over hyperbole and manipulation. In the press, we have work to do to help get us there. My optimism that we can is what keeps me going."