It is now a matter of fact that the anti-competitive monster that is Gannett Co., with its voracious appetite for smaller-town newspapers, no matter how successful they were, has effectively destroyed general newspaper reporting in Oregon and elsewhere, leaving now, beyond The Oregonian, only community newspapers such as Eugene Weekly.

The Medford newspaper is closed, along with the Ashland Daily Tidings.

The Oregonian details all too similar anti-competitive acquisitions in an article that ran May 21.

Such acquisitions include Albertsons of Safeway, Dave’s assuming GI Joe’s, Cabela’s killed off by Bass Pro Shops and, even locally, McKay’s Markets gobbling up community groceries such as the more than 30-year-old Schwartz’s Market in Walterville, leaving just Dollar Stores in the dust of their programed failures.

What is remarkable, actually paradoxical, is with Gannett’s strategy to cut-off any dissent by eliminating letters to the editor, EW is literally the singular remaining voice of free speech certainly in the southern Willamette Valley — and beyond.

For this perseverance, EW is to be congratulated.

Robert D. Lowry
Eugene

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