Farewell, News Roundup

Dear readers,

I have decided to stop publishing the weekly news roundup - mostly to reclaim more of my weekend time for rest and things more fun than scouring the internet for news.

If any readers would like to take over the weekly publication, I am happy to help by transferring the substack and sharing the tools I use to make the process easier. I have a pretty good system for finding stories and formatting them into the newsletter.

Over the course of creating this newsletter (for something like two years), I've discovered some interesting resources and tips that I'd like to share for anyone looking to fill the gap.

Tips and trends:

• For surprisingly solid in-depth stories: Every week I look forward to watching KGW's The Story. KGW Investigates picks up on some important longer-term issues that go overlooked. (Has RSS) Willamette Week routinely breaks stories of significant local and state-level impact and should be in any Portlander's news diet, in my personal opinion.

• For election coverage: I highly recommend Rose City Reform, they have been covering the City Council election for about a year in great detail.

• For transportation issues: It is horrifying to me how frequently Portlander's die by the city's transportation system, and tragic to see how little progress has been made on achieving our shared goal of reaching zero traffic deaths (in fact, negative progress has been made). While nominally bike-focused, BikePortland.org covers ODOT, PBOT, and transportation safety issues beyond just biking. (Has RSS)

• Other niche news sources: Rose City Counter-Info publishes reports by anarchists, often after attacks, and often before things are picked up by news media. (Has RSS). Northwest Labor Press covers union drives affecting both government and local business, as well as labor organizing in the public safety and local transit spaces. (Has RSS)

• RSS Feeds for Google News Searches: I've been using Google to find stories missed by going directly to news outlets. This is important because the navigation on news sites doesn't always surface all the important stories. The following RSS links correspond to the searches I conducted. Note that not every story is worth reading (most aren't), and the results often include Portland ME stories. RSS: Portland crime stories, Portland justice stories, Portland politics stories

• Police staffing data: If you care about the regular PPB staffing reports, those are available direct from PPB: https://www.portland.gov/police/open-data/ppb-staffing-report

• Volunteer opportunities: The city's "job" board for volunteers is available online: https://www.governmentjobs.com/jobs?location=97232&jobtype%5B0%5D=Volunteer&organization%5B0%5D=City%20of%20Portland&distance=25&isTransfer=False&isPromotional=False&sort=date&isDescendingSort=True. PPB's website for directive (policy) review is available here: https://www.portland.gov/police/directives-overview/first-universal-review