Emerald back in the black, interim publisher says, as his successor is appointed
The University of Oregon’s student newspaper is financially solvent again, two professional staff members at the Oregon Daily Emerald said, after years of running in the red.
The news comes on the heels of the paper’s announcing the hire of a new publisher, Ryan Frank, to take over from Mike Thoele, who has held the job in an interim capacity since being hired in August.
Thoele was a former Register-Guard reporter and editor who also spent nine years as owner of weekly newspapers in Junction City and Veneta. Measures he has taken to ensure the paper’s solvency include cutting the number of professional staff it pays and hiring more advertising executives.
The most notable measure, though, is the production of a coffee table book to commemorate the UO football team’s season. Emerald business manager Kathy Carbone said the book is nearly sold out.
The Emerald’s financial straits have led to concern over its long-term future, and were even at the root of a strike by the paper’s editorial staff during the 2008–09 school year.
The new publisher is Ryan Frank, currently an investigative reporter for the Oregonian, and he will begin to take the reins at the UO’s campus paper on Feb. 28, according to a press release sent to Emerald alumni. Frank was Emerald editor while he was a UO student.
The Emerald publisher is in charge of administering the paper’s financial affairs and creating a business plan for its operations.
I realize I shouldn’t be writing this, since I am a former Emerald reporter and editor, and that affiliation overrides my ability to report it to my own standard of independence. But nobody else had written anything here about it as of my logging on, so I had no choice.
