An Oregon weekly newspaper has had to lay off its entire staff and halt print after 40 years because its funds were embezzled by a former employee, its editor said, in a devastating blow to a publication that serves as an important source of information in a community that, like many others nationwide, is struggling with growing gaps in local news coverage.
About a week before Christmas, the Eugene Weekly found inaccuracies in its bookkeeping, editor Camilla Mortensen said. It discovered that a former employee who was “heavily involved” with the paper’s finances had used its bank account to pay themselves $90,000 since at least 2022, she said.
The paper also became aware of at least $100,000 in unpaid bills — including to the paper’s printer — stretching back several months, she said.
This is why you never have one person responsible for finance without oversight. Who was reviewing budgets, checking the bank balance etc? How could one person make payments alone?
How is 90k enough to kill a company? Payroll likely dwarfs that number. And creditors will usually work with you if there’s an issue like that and you can show them what happened and how it’s fixed.
Many companies are not that cash rich, if that was most of their bank balance, and they have $100k debt, suppliers may refuse to any more service until debts have been repaid. Can’t acquire what you need, can’t produce what you need to sell to raise the cash, so you go under.
While I have no idea of specifics, 90K missing plus 100K in debt to several places, including to the paper’s printer, might be the real issue. If the printer cuts you off, you can’t print the paper that would make up lost revenue. And it’s going to be hard to get financing when you have outstanding unpaid debt.
Eugene isn’t big, and paper is dying. They probably operated on a very tight budget.
FYI, it is not dead yet.
The paper has launched a fundraising effort that included the creation of a GoFundMe page. As of Friday afternoon — just one day after the paper announced its financial troubles — the GoFundMe had raised more than $11,000.
Now that the former employee suspected of embezzlement has been fired, “we have a lot of hope that this paper is going to come back and be self-sustaining and go forward,” he said.
That dude is fucked when he gets arrested and there’s just a super clear paper trail leading back.
I hope the paper manages to survive this, and maybe recoup some of the money lost through legal means. And I hope they can hire their staff back soon! I bet none of them would be against going back considering!
