Letter to Readers: Newberg, Dundee, we want to be your newspaper, too

Starting with today's issue, The News-Register's front page flag denotes itself as "Yamhill County's" newspaper.

The News-Register’s coverage area has remained the same for generations: Yamhill County. But how closely certain cities are reported on has varied, often in accordance with the presence of other local news media. 

For instance, since the Sheridan Sun closed its doors for good, we have spent more reporting time there as we became its only newspaper available (not counting Smoke Signals of Grand Ronde). 

In recent years, our staff and management has often discussed the idea of expanding our coverage of Newberg and Dundee. There’s been plenty of encouragement from residents in those communities to do exactly that, as they became frustrated with the Metro-centric ownership of the Newberg Graphic — of the Pamplin Media Group.

Those feelings have only increased as the Graphic’s weekly print edition was recently folded into papers from Canby, Molalla and Woodburn, a move made by Pamplin Media in response to decreased revenue after the COVID-19 outbreak. 

We have been resistant to making much of a foray into the Chehalem Valley because we lacked the resources to hire a reporter to cover the area full time. Yes, we often have stories about Newberg and Dundee, especially when it comes to cultural features and our specialty publications. But we didn’t want to make a major push for subscribers and advertisers without supplying consistent news reporting.

Well, times have changed, and we’re ready to ask locally-focused residents of Newberg and Dundee to put the cart before the horse. We can’t promise total coverage right away. But the more subscribers we add from the area, the more advertisements we can sell; leading to resources that will allow us to hire a full-time Newberg reporter.

What we can promise is full coverage of Yamhill County government and an increase in communications with the government and business leaders of the Chehalem Valley. 

We also changed our Page 1 flag, starting today. Many moons ago, we began printing each issue headlined by the moniker “Yamhill Valley News-Register.” This was, for the most part, a marketing move as our company began promoting more tourism-centric publications. While the Yamhill Valley is not a federally recognized area, there are myriad cultural and historical references associated with the name, and we thought it was a great way to promote the unique properties of the section of the Willamette Valley we call home. 

Today, as Page 1 denotes, we are “Yamhill County’s News-Register.”

In a way, this was a long time coming. However, we were provided an encouraging nudge last week. Our Tuesday issue had a front-page story about the retirement of longtime Newberg-Dundee Police Chief Brian Casey. A day later, Newberg Graphic subscribers received their newspaper (now covering small corners of three different counties) without any mention of that news story. 

I received a hand-written note about that, saying in part: “I appreciate your paper caring enough about your neighbors (us) to give us space in your paper and the full story on articles from your town and ours that are of interest to us both.”

So, what do you say, Newberg-Dundee, should we take this relationship to the next level? After all, when it comes to county lines, we’re literally in this together. 

If you’re a resident of either 97132 or 97115 and already a subscriber, please encourage neighbors and friends to consider a subscription.

Ossie Bladine

Editor-in-Chief

503-687-1269

obladine@newsregister.com