Beat Check with The Oregonian

Therese Bottomly, editor of The Oregonian/OregonLive and a frequent host of Beat Check with The Oregonian, is retiring next month after 42 years in the newsroom. On this episode of Beat Check, Bottomly reflects on the stories that shaped her career, and Oregon. She discusses how the newsroom rose to the challenge of covering some of the most significant news events of the era, her decision in 2022 to apologize personally for the newspaper's historical promotion of racism and xenophobia, and her hopes for the future of local journalism.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Features reporter Samantha Swindler talks about the hidden gem stories she finds in some of Oregon's smallest towns.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Oregonian’s investigative reporter Yesenia Amaro talks on Beat Check about the recent immigration enforcement ramp-up, Trump’s approach to immigration and the impact on Oregon communities.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lawmakers in Salem recently enacted a series of substantive tweaks to the state’s beloved Bottle Bill, which allows residents to return cans and bottles for 10 cents apiece.

Those changes have helped amplify a growing and complicated debate about Oregon’s first-in-the-nation program, now more than 50 years old.

Does Portland and some other pockets of the state have a cash-for-cans crisis? What should city and state officials do about the drug, crime and livability problems surrounding some BottleDrops? And will these revisions to the Bottle Bill make the issue better or worse?

On the latest Beat Check, reporters Aimee Green and Shane Dixon Kavanaugh discuss Green’s four-part series that digs deep into these questions and many more.

Read More:
Oregon loves its Bottle Bill, but is it dragging down Portland?
‘At the grocery store, we’re looked down upon,’ say people who collect cans on Portland’s streets
Fentanyl use, drug deals cluster around a few Portland Plaid Pantry stores. Chain’s boss worries it’ll get worse
Do you return cans for 10 cents apiece? Oregon’s Bottle Bill is set to change

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the digital age, true crime content has exploded in popularity across podcasts, social media and streaming platforms. But with this growth comes a troubling trend: The blurring of verified facts and speculative theories.  

On a recent episode of Beat Check with the Oregonian, guests Emily Reeder and Ashley Desanno from the Books with Your Besties podcast discussed this challenge while reflecting on their coverage of the Kyron Horman case, the 7-year-old Portland boy that went missing in 2010. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2010, digital tools for journalists were emerging, but the gritty, time-intensive methods of traditional reporting still dominated newsrooms.

The disappearance of 7-year-old Kyron Horman from his Portland elementary school thrust The Oregonian’s journalists into a high-stakes investigation that demanded old-school techniques now increasingly rare in today’s fast-paced media environment.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a child goes missing, the first hours can be critical. In Kyron Horman’s case, investigators didn’t even know he was missing until about six hours had passed — a devastating delay that may have forever altered the trajectory of one of Oregon’s most haunting unsolved cases.

In a recent discussion on the Beat Check with The Oregonian podcast, veteran crime reporter Maxine Bernstein highlighted this critical timeline as perhaps the most consequential element of the 2010 disappearance.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fifteen years after 7-year-old Kyron Horman vanished from Skyline Elementary School in Portland, his disappearance continues to haunt not just the Pacific Northwest, but parents everywhere.

In this special episode of Beat Check, engagement editor Julie Evensen and social media producer Destiny Johnson talk to investigative reporter Noelle Crombie about recent news about the case.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A trio of journalists joined Editor Therese Bottomly on Monday’s episode of “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to talk about the 2020 street protests that started in Portland after the police killing of George Floyd.

Multimedia journalist Beth Nakamura, social media producer Ryan Fernandez, and reporter Zane Sparling (who covered protests for the Portland Tribune) join the conversation.

On this episode of Beat Check, we talk about:

--The physical dangers journalists faced on the streets from tear gas, munitions, crowding

--Direct police violence against journalists

--The three chapters of the 150-plus nights of protest

--The role of live streamers

--The fatal shooting in downtown after a pro-Trump caravan arrived in the city

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen died in 2018 from complications related to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, it was matter of when, not if, his beloved professional sports team would be sold.

Seven years later, that time has finally arrived.

Allen’s estate announced on May 13 that is has initiated a formal sales process for one of Oregon’s most cherished institutions.

Even though the sale has been anticipated since Allen’s death, it has sparked widespread curiosity — and concern — among the Blazers’ passionate fan base, fueling speculation about the future of the franchise.

How long will the process take? Who might be interested in buying the team? And are the Blazers safe from relocation?

On the latest episode of Beat Check, The Oregonian/OregonLive’s sports columnist, Bill Oram, dissects the looming sale of the Blazers and the future of the franchise.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices