The Skanner has covered politics, policy and other community issues in Oregon and Washington for five decades.
An array of front pages from The Skanner, one of Oregon’s only Black-owned news outlets, that ended operations on Jan. 30, 2026, after 50 years of publication.
Screenshot via Historic Oregon Newspapers / OPB
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A 50-year pillar of Portland media known for reporting on policy impacts in undercovered areas — and one of the state’s only Black-owned news outlets — is shutting down.
The online newspaper was one of just a few Black-owned publications in the state before its website became inactive. The closing of The Skanner comes as Oregon’s journalism industry continues to shrink and consolidate.
As first reported by Willamette Week, The Skanner ended operations on Jan. 30.
Bernie and Bobbie Dore Foster started the newspaper in 1975, according to interviews with the Oregon Historical Society. The newspaper printed a weekly paper until 2023, when it converted to digital-only. Bernie Foster said The Skanner is closing completely now due to rapid changes in technology.
“I hope the new generation of people, that they will leave the city of Portland and this country in better shape than when they found it,” Bernie Foster told OPB.
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The Skanner joined the Portland media scene five years after the Portland Observer, one of the state’s only other Black-owned publications.
Together, the media outlets have helped train many journalists and writers, including Portland communication consultant and essayist Donovan Scribes.
“The Observer and The Skanner were important places to be able to cut your teeth,” Scribes told OPB, “and also be taken seriously within your craft as a writer and your ability to give analysis on situations.”
Scribes first worked as a reporter at The Observer before moving to The Skanner in 2014. He spent two years at the paper at a pivotal time in U.S. history: the growth of Black Lives Matter from a rallying cry and hashtag to a grassroots movement.
Scribes said working at The Skanner during that period solidified and grew his love of Black-owned publications.
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“Black media is important to telling stories that otherwise may not be told,” Scribes said.
During his time at The Skanner, he was reading through police reports in the Portland region and continued to notice the phrase “gang-related shooting.”
Scribes would then see the phrase in news stories, so he asked one of the officials in the region to sit down for an interview with him for The Skanner.
Scribes asked what the threshold was for calling something gang-related.
“In the conversation, it essentially came out that there was no rationale for the statement,” Scribes told OPB. “That Q&A being published, it was such a big thing for a lot of people in the community to finally have it be laid out that there was no rationale — because it’s something that was so normalized.”
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Lisa Loving was among the editors who worked with Scribes.
Loving, a journalism educator and author of the nonfiction book Street Journalist, started as a reporter and then moved into an editor role at The Skanner on-and-off from 2000 to 2015.
“Some of the best stories we ever did were stories where people walked in The Skanner office and just brought rolling suitcases full of documents about how they were treated badly at a local hospital, or boxes of documents about what’s happened to their child in the juvenile justice system,” Loving told OPB. “In a way, you could say The Skanner was a microcosm of how the African and African-American communities fit in the Pacific Northwest.”
Many of the print editions covering decades of The Skanner are archived with the Oregon Historical Society. The website currently shows a note saying the URL is “not found.”
Loving hopes there’s also a way to preserve the content that was on The Skanner’s website.
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“It’s the history of African Americans in the Pacific Northwest, it’s a history of communities that were built around African Americans in the Pacific Northwest, and who are the allies, who are the accomplices, who are the enemies,” Loving said. “There’s so much in there, and that is a huge loss to anyone who lives here.”
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CURRY COUNTY, Ore. (KPTV) – A Texas man wanted for child sex crimes was arrested in Curry County on Tuesday afternoon.
The Curry County Sheriff’s Office says Kenneth Leatherwood of Bastrop, Texas, was arrested with the help of Oregon State Police and U.S. Marshals just after 12:30 p.m.
Kenneth Leatherwood(Curry County Sheriff’s Office)
Leatherwood, who is accused of sex-related crimes involving a child in Texas, was reportedly found camping in a heavy wooded area near Lucas Lodge in Agness.
Investigators say Leatherwood has been on the run from Curry County law enforcement since June 16 after reports that he had been seen with a stolen car in the Agness area.
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Leatherwood was also believed to have stolen weapons with him.
His dog was also found and returned to the suspect’s family in good shape, according to the sheriff’s office.
PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – Fireworks are on sale in Oregon until July 6, but state and local rules limit where they can be used and what types are allowed.
In Portland, fireworks use and sales are banned year-round.
Fireworks are also banned on beaches and in state and national parks.
Statewide, fireworks that fly into the air, explode, act unpredictably or move more than 12 feet horizontally are illegal. Banned fireworks include sky lanterns, missiles, rockets, Roman candles, firecrackers, cherry bombs and M-80s.
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Fountains, sparklers, ground spinners and smoke devices are among the fireworks allowed under state rules.
Officials said people should not call 911 to report illegal fireworks. They said reports should go to the non-emergency line for the area.
First responders said there were 263 fires across Portland during last year’s fireworks season, and 27 were caused by fireworks.
For more details about fireworks regulation in Oregon, click here.
In Washington, fireworks sales legally begin Sunday and run through July 4.
GEARHART, Ore. (KATU) — Another gray whale washed up on the Oregon coast last week, this time in Gearhart, according to Seaside Aquarium.
The 41-foot-long male had been dead for months before washing up on the beach, Seaside Aquarium general manager Keith Chandler said.
He noted that there have been 19 total whale strandings or carcasses washing up on beaches just this year on the Oregon coast region.
The Cascadia Research Collective is reporting at least 30 on Washington coastline alone. | TIMELINE
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Of those deaths, more than half were at least partially attributed to malnutrition. That could have been the cause in more strandings, however, necropsies were not performed in roughly a dozen of the 30 strandings.
Chandler said strong wind from the west this year has been contributing to why coastal towns are seeing a lot of whales and other things washing up on shore. However he also noted that many of the Grey whales washed ashore were emaciated with necropsies showing signs of malnourishment.
“The food sources have been compromised. The warmer water means the nutrients that they’re getting aren’t as good, so the whole food chain is kind of not as healthy,” Chandler said.
He pointed to the warming waters with climate change as the main reason noting that warm water plankton–Grey Whale’s main food source–is thinner and has fewer nutrients than plankton in cooler waters.
Chandler says this whale will not have a necropsy done because of its level of decomposition.
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“The fresher ones, the team from Portland State [University] will come down and they’ll go in and do measurements, take samples and stuff, measurements of the internal organs. But on one this decayed, you won’t gain anything from it scientifically. And it’s just kind of a mess to do when they’re this rotten,” he said.
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You can report a whale stranding to the West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network Hotline by calling 1-866-767-6114.
