Eugene-Springfield residents have watched local news coverage decline since 2018. This has impacted in-depth news coverage, weakening the transparency and accountability of local government and public institutions.

One digital news outlet believes it has the solution to the decline. Set to launch in early spring 2025, Lookout Eugene-Springfield aims to provide in-depth nonpartisan news coverage to the area.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield follows the model of Lookout Santa Cruz, which launched in 2020 under the leadership of Ken Doctor, a former journalist and media analyst.

Lookout plans to have 20 staff members, five of whom will work on the business side. Doctor said he anticipates starting with a 13-person newsroom and expanding to 15 later. The 15-person team will consist of 10 reporters, three editors, one photographer and one opinion columnist. 

Decline of Local Journalism Since 2018

The Baker family owned the  Register-Guard newspaper from 1927 until its sale in 2018 to GateHouse Media. In 2018, the newsroom staff shrank from around 80 to 40 people, according to The Oregonian. In 2019, the newsroom staff was reduced to 20 people when Gatehouse merged with Gannett. 

As of February 2025, The Register-Guard has a full-time staff of 12, including two editors, eight reporters and two multimedia journalists. The Register-Guard did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Springfield Mayor Sean VanGordon has seen the decline up close.

“When I started on city council in 2011, there was a print press person here every Monday,” VanGordon said. “Every Monday you saw them and they followed all the meetings so that they had the context behind it.”

VanGordon has watched as once-daily coverage of city government has dwindled, leaving major policy issues underreported.

“When I ran my first city council campaign in 2009, The Register-Guard sat down with me for an hour and a half and just grilled me,” VanGordon said. 

Now, VanGordon said he cannot remember the last time he had a “lengthy” interview with The Register-Guard. 

VanGordon, though, doesn’t blame The Register-Guard’s journalists for the changes.

“The Register-Guard does the best it can with the capacity it has,” VanGordon said. “They have a lot of good reporters, but there’s just not very many of them anymore.”

A Call to Action

Doctor had not necessarily planned on bringing the Lookout model to Oregon. But that changed one day when he got a visit from a University of Oregon journalism professor. 

The professor, Peter Laufer, who has been at UO since 2010, lamented to Doctor about the reduced coverage at The Register-Guard.

“Laufer said, ‘I think somebody needs to do something,’’’ Doctor said. 

Laufer floated a bold idea: What if Gannett donated The Register-Guard to UO, allowing students and professors to run it like a teaching hospital? Laufer said the idea could allow Gannett to have a tax write-off. Gannett, though, ultimately rejected his idea because they were still making a profit, Laufer said. 

Doctor had his doubts about Laufer’s idea. He didn’t think journalism students could run the paper alone and maintain the quality of a professional newspaper.

Laufer, who teaches reporting and storytelling courses, said he disagrees with Doctor. He said students can do amazing things. 

But that conversation planted a seed for Doctor. Not long after, he visited the Eugene-Springfield area and spoke with UO Journalism faculty and residents. He began hearing the same sentiment over and over again: The area missed strong local journalism. 

“It became clear that people understood what they lost — how good The Register-Guard was as an independent paper,” Doctor said. “And that’s what they wanted again.”

For Doctor, a UO alumnus and former Daily Emerald features editor, the move to Eugene-Springfield is personal. All three of his children were born in Eugene and his wife is from Oregon. The family still has friends in the area. 

“It’s an arc for me,” Doctor said. 

Pulitzer Recognition and Community Engagement Drive Lookout’s Expansion

In 2024, Lookout Santa Cruz won the Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting for their coverage of catastrophic flooding in Santa Cruz County in January 2023. 

Beyond publishing stories, Doctor said that a key part of the Lookout’s strategy is “showing up” and being connected to the community. He said that it is important to him that people in the community know who his reporters are. 

“Lookout team members are part of the community they serve and that has always been a core part of why local news is so special,” former Lookout Santa Cruz Assistant Managing Editor and Enterprise Reporter Mark Conley said. He now works as an editor and writer for the Stanford School of Medicine. 

Doctor said the Eugene-Springfield newsroom plans to engage with the public through Lookout Listens Sessions, which they will hold at least twice a month. At the sessions, community members can tell newsroom staff what topics they want to see covered more.

Another way Lookout plans to engage with the community is by working with local school districts. Through their Lookout in the Classroom program for local high school students, they will provide in-class workshops led by newsroom staff, news quizzes, discussion guides and free access to Lookout stories. 

Lookout also plans to collaborate with other news outlets. According to Doctor, Lookout will be the exclusive distributor of Oregon Journalism Project content in Lane County. They will also partner with Oregon Public Broadcasting and KLCC, leveraging OPB for statewide and non-local content.

Community Support and Funding

So far, Lookout Eugene-Springfield has raised $3.5 million of its current $4 million goal, helped by a $1 million challenge match grant from the Tykeson Family Foundation. Other donors include former Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy, the Chambers Family Foundation, former UO SOJC Dean Tim Gleason, the Ford Family Foundation, former State Representative Phil Barnhart and the Baker Family Foundation, the same family that used to own The Register-Guard.

“Their fundraising success just speaks to the fact that we are a community that cares a lot about having strong local media,” Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson said. “We as a community really miss the extraordinary capacity of The Register-Guard.”

Mayor VanGordon echoed a similar opinion. He said the support Lookout received shows that residents want more consistent, in-depth journalism.“We have seen the decline since around 2017,” VanGordon said. “We have been hit particularly hard.”

Community donations are not the only way Lookout Eugene-Springfield will achieve financial sustainability. Lookout Eugene-Springfield is a public-benefit corporation. Unlike purely for-profit or nonprofit models, a public-benefit corporation is a hybrid structure that allows for a mission-driven company purpose while also being a profit-making business. To ensure long-term financial sustainability, Lookout will operate using both subscriptions and advertising. 

To get unlimited access to all Lookout stories and digital features, readers must buy a membership. Currently, memberships at Lookout Santa Cruz cost $17 a month, with lower rates for annual memberships. 

Doctor said Lookout just started to provide stock options for employees, which it could not do if it were a nonprofit. Under Oregon and California law, public-benefit corporations must file annual reports documenting their public benefit contributions.  

Potential Local News Sustainability Challenges

Professor Andrew DeVigal is the director of UO’s Agora Journalism Center, which studies local journalism and its sustainability. While he acknowledged that new players like Lookout could help fill existing coverage gaps, he said there could be unintended consequences.

“I worry about the impact when a new player enters a local news ecosystem, like in Eugene, and competes for the resources that existing organizations also rely on. That is kind of problematic,” DeVigal said. “We already have deeply rooted newsrooms like Eugene Weekly, KLCC and The Register-Guard.”

DeVigal has more than financial concerns for Eugene-Springfield news outlets. He worries about how outlets will approach serving communities in the future. 

“Are we duplicating efforts? Are we fragmenting audiences? Are we strengthening what’s already here?” DeVigal asked.

On the other hand, Professor Laufer said there is a need for more news outlets in Eugene-Springfield. He said the area used to have many more professional reporters than it does now. 

“There’s always room for more,” Laufer said. 

DeVigal believes local news is a “public good.” He said the less it is about making a profit, as is the case at Lookout, a public benefit corporation, and other nonprofit news outlets, the better local outlets can serve communities. After five years, Doctor said Lookout Santa Cruz is “on track” to start making a profit. 

Impact of Lookout Eugene-Springfield

What success looks like for Lookout Eugene-Springfield is not clear yet.

Doctor said the goal is to reach 50% of adults in Eugene-Springfield in two to three years. In Santa Cruz County, he said the newsroom has reached roughly 60% of adults.

But more than clicks, Doctor said that he wants Lookout’s work to have an impact and create positive change.

“When things go wrong, which is often, we call them out,” Doctor said.

Doctor said he will announce an official launch date later this month. The current plan is to launch sometime early this spring.