When I learned last week that the Cottage Grove Sentinel was closing, it felt like a gut punch. 

I even cried a little. 

I was just 25 when I became the weekly newspaper’s editor, supervising two reporters and a photographer. I was 30 when I became the publisher, overseeing the entire 12-person operation. I was 35 when I left the paper, then owned by Lee Enterprises and turning a modest annual profit. 

Those were formative years — personally and professionally. I grew, and grew up.

Now, at the end of this month, after 137 years of publication, that newspaper will be gone.

I’ll never forget interviewing the family of a child who died in an accidental shooting, feeling the weight of their anguish and the responsibility of telling their story. Or watching residents near Dorena fight a wildfire with shovels, garden hoses and buckets of water, desperately trying to save their homes and their community. Or answering phone calls from readers angry that we printed a profanity on the front page after we ran the suicide note left by a young man who had taken his own life in Coiner Park, warning others not to “fuck up” as he had.

It was difficult, sometimes heartbreaking work. But being entrusted with a community’s stories is an extraordinary privilege.

When I gave birth to my second child at home, I wrote about the experience for the Sentinel, sharing something deeply personal with readers whose lives I helped chronicle every week. 

That’s what happens when you spend years telling a community’s stories: Along the way, your own life becomes part of its story, too.

My years at the Sentinel taught me something that my experience at Eugene Weekly has only reinforced: A newspaper is more than a business. It has a unique civic responsibility: to hold up a mirror to the community it serves. It helps people understand their neighbors and introduces them to people whose lives are very different from their own. It celebrates their accomplishments, records their losses, challenges their assumptions and occasionally makes them uncomfortable.

It provides a forum where residents can disagree publicly about what matters to them. It asks questions on behalf of those who don’t have the time, access or resources to do that work. 

And, importantly, it remembers.

So when a newspaper folds, a community loses more than a watchdog over city hall or a record of what happened at the school board meeting. It loses part of its collective memory — the stories, struggles, triumphs and tragedies that tell us who we are and how we got here.

A newspaper closure doesn’t mean the people fighting for it didn’t care deeply enough, sacrifice enough or work hard enough. Nor does it mean a community no longer needs local news.

It simply means the traditional economic model that once paid for local journalism — businesses advertising and readers subscribing — can no longer cover the cost of producing it. That reality is being felt around the country.

When I heard about the Sentinel, the pit in my stomach grew deeper because — and this is really hard to say out loud — the same economic pressures that have devastated other local newspapers are real here at Eugene Weekly, too. 

That’s painful to admit after everything this community has done to keep us going.

This community’s extraordinary generosity brought Eugene Weekly back after embezzlement forced us to close in December 2023. Rebuilding has meant personal sacrifices, long hours and stretching every dollar. 

The good news: Since our almost-demise, we’ve produced 142 more issues, distributed more than 3.5 million copies of the paper and published 2,733 stories on our website. Our small-but-mighty newsroom continues to break and tell important stories. Our advertising sales are growing. And we’re finding new ways to connect with and serve our community.

There’s good reason to be encouraged. 

But saving a newspaper and making it sustainable are two different things. Since August, three Lane County newspapers have closed — The Chronicle, Highway 58 Herald and now the Cottage Grove Sentinel. Each closure is a reminder that time is not on our side.

We’ve been laying the groundwork for a different future for Eugene Weekly. We’re learning from independent newspapers across the country, working with experienced advisers and developing a plan for community ownership. 

At the heart of that plan is this: Eugene Weekly should belong to and be supported by the community it serves. 

We’re working on a new ownership structure that will keep the paper locally rooted, protect its editorial independence and give the community a meaningful stake in its future. 

The Sentinel’s closure has made one thing painfully clear: We need to move faster. And we need more people at the table.

That’s where you come in.

If you want to help build Eugene Weekly’s future, email me or give me a call. We need your ideas, expertise, connections, financial support or simply a willingness to roll up your sleeves and get involved.

After all, this is your newspaper, too.

Jody Rolnick is the publisher of Eugene Weekly. Want to help? Reach her at Jody@EugeneWeekly.com or call Eugene Weekly at 541-484-0519.