McInally mug

About six months ago, EO Media Group — the Oregon company that owns the Wallowa County Chieftain and other newspapers around the state — approached me with an intriguing offer: Would I be interested in serving as the interim editor of the Chieftain?

I was. Three years before, I had been laid off as the editor of the Corvallis Gazette-Times and the Albany Democrat-Herald as part of a cost-cutting move. (The fact that I was editor at both papers at the same time can be attributed to a previous cost-cutting move.) After my layoff, I launched a freelance career that was moving forward in fits and starts, as freelance careers tend to do. The notion of getting back to work at a newspaper was appealing and, to be frank, there also was a certain appeal to having a somewhat steady cash flow, as you freelancers out there likely can appreciate.

As it turned out, I have enjoyed the work — and getting to know a different part of Oregon — more than I expected. So I’m pleased that my bosses at the EO Media Group have seen fit to remove the “interim” tag from my title and have brought me aboard as a full-fledged employee.

I’ve mostly been editing the paper remotely from my home in Corvallis, and family obligations prevent me from making a permanent move to Wallowa County. (I was tempted to insert a joke here about the housing crunch in Wallowa County, but it might be wise to pass on that right now.)

But, as members of the Rotary Club of Wallowa County can attest, I’ve already made two trips to the county. My plan is to continue to spend most of a week in the Chieftain’s office every four to six weeks. I’m planning my next return engagement for late April and early May. My plans for these trips include what you might call “office hours” — I’ll settle in at some location that is willing to have me and issue a standing invitation for people to drop by and talk with me about the Chieftain: What we’re doing right, what we could do better, stories that we should do and whatever else might be on your mind about the paper.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for my office hours: You can bend my ear right now. You can send me an email at this address: editor@wallowa.com. I try to respond to every email I receive — well, OK, not the spam messages — but it might take me a few days to respond. I don’t mind at all if you send me a follow-up note to jog my memory. You also can call me at 541-905-4282.

With the exception of my recent three-year hiatus, I’ve worked for newspapers for about 40 years now: Before I came to Oregon in 2005, I worked for the Missoulian newspaper in Missoula, Montana, starting as a police reporter and working my way up to editor. From my first days at a newspaper, I believed that there was a strong connection, a two-way conversation, between successful communities and newspapers. I still believe that. It might be more true today than when I started, considering that some 2,500 newspapers in the United States have shut down since 2005.

That connection between communities and newspapers was hammered home for me again the first time I walked into a conference room at the Chieftain and saw a wall full of bound volumes of newspapers stretching back more than a century. That’s the story of Wallowa County over the last hundred years. I am pleased and honored to be able to carry that forward, even in a small way — to document, in the pages of the newspaper and through our online offerings, the county’s continuing story.