Two more Oregon newspapers go dark. This time in Columbia County

Another Oregon news source has gone belly up due to declining revenues.

The Columbia County Chronicle & Chief, a recently formed hybrid of two existing papers serving the rural environs northwest of Portland, printed its last issue Sept. 25.

Its publisher, Country Media, had merged the St. Helens Chronicle and Clatskanie Chief in December 2023, citing the need to cut costs in the face of declining print revenue and difficulties with staff turnover.

“Combining the two newspapers into one was a last-ditch effort to reduce expenses and reestablish profitability,” company president Steve Hungerford said in a statement. “Sadly, that wasn’t successful.”

The weekly Chronicle & Chief was down to a newsroom of one, plus an administrator and page designer when the closure was announced. Both papers had served Columbia County under a variety of mastheads since the late 1800s.

It’s the latest bad news for local print media publishers, who have spent decades searching for a sustainable business model while grappling with an ad market now dominated by tech companies.

EO Media Group stopped printing five newspapers and cut two-dozen staffers in June. Pamplin Media Group also saw job losses once it sold to the Mississippi-based Carpenter chain. The new owners are running house ads warning they will merge their Estacada and Sandy papers unless more readers start paying.

There are about 1,000 people left working for the state’s newspapers, a decline of three quarters since 2000, The Oregonian/OregonLive previously reported.

The Chronicle and Chief’s final issue included front-page reports on a delayed reservoir project and the loss of 24-hour police coverage in St. Helens. Its demise did not go unnoted.

“Social media cannot replace our county paper of record, because its content is not professionally vetted,” reader Margaret Trenchard-Smith wrote in a letter to the editor. “We have lost a chunk of our history.”

—Zane Sparling covers breaking news and courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-319-7083, zsparling@oregonian.com or @pdxzane.

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