Beat Check with The Oregonian

A weekly look inside Oregon's biggest news stories with the journalists at The Oregonian/OregonLive.com.

News
News Commentary
Politics
276
Emily Powell on the future of Powell's Books
Emily Powell, the CEO of Powell's Books, is a third generation leader of one of Portland's most famous businesses.But what does the iconic bookstore look like during an age of social distancing? How can it adjust and adapt. as society slow...
27 min
277
Remembering Mount St. Helens 40 years later
Forty years ago today, Mount St. Helens erupted, spewing a cloud of ash and smoke for hundreds of square miles and reshaping a Cascade mountain ecosystem. But the May 18, 1980 explosion didn’t come out of nowhere, and it wasn't the only eruption t...
25 min
278
Students on the edge during the coronavirus pan...
Coronavirus has shut down schools across the country. The impact on Oregon students is enormous. So OPB and The Oregonian are teaming up to cover the effects in a state already struggling with chronic absenteeism and low graduation rates....
5 min
279
The road to reopening Oregon
Weeks into a coronavirus-induced economic shutdown, some parts of Oregon could see some very small steps toward normalcy within days. Reporters Ted Sickinger and Brad Schmidt break down Gov. Kate Brown's plan for reopening the state.Reliable lo...
30 min
280
Previewing Portland's action-packed City Counci...
Portland voters have one of the most interesting City Hall races in years. Four of the five seats on City Council are up for grabs. The Oregonian/OregonLive's Everton Bailey Jr., who covers City Hall, previews those hotly contested races and discu...
38 min
281
Tale of two assisted living centers at heart of...
What can Oregonians learn from the coronavirus outbreak at two very different facilities – a veterans’ home in Lebanon and a Southeast Portland care facility that is now home to the state’s largest outbreak? Health reporter Fedor Zarkhin talks tried to...
27 min
282
Oregon's poet laureate finds poetry in the pand...
Kim Stafford is a rarity -- a second generation poet laureate. His father, William Stafford, was a famous poet who served in the state role appointed by Oregon's governor for 15 years. Stafford talks about his poetry during the pandemic, why he de...
38 min
283
What we know and don't know about Oregonians wi...
There's still so much that we don't know about those Oregonians who have coronavirus. Despite pushing from The Oregonian/OregonLive reporters like Rob Davis, there are still many unknowns. Davis talks about what we now know, including racial ...
34 min
284
'Seabiscuit' author Laura Hillenbrand on her CO...
Laura Hillenbrand, the best-selling author of Unbroken and Seabiscuit, moved to Oregon a few years ago. For more than three weeks now, she's endured symptoms consistent with COVID-10, but her test results were negative. Hillenbrand said three doct...
32 min
285
Two sports reporters on a world without sports
Jamie Goldberg and Joe Freeman, two of The Oregonian/OregonLive's sports reporters, had a ton on their plate in March. Goldberg was covering the Trail Blazers for the first time, and their playoff chase. Freeman, who covered the team for 13 season...
34 min
286
Editor Therese Bottomly on covering the coronav...
Therese Bottomly, The Oregonian/OregonLive's editor, talks about covering the coronavirus pandemic, the state of the local news industry and her career at the paper. Bottomly, a Portland native, first started working at the paper in 1983.If you...
31 min
287
Coping through social distancing
What are you doing to cope with extensive social distancing and the coronavirus pandemic? Grant Butler, an editor and reporter with The Oregonian/OregonLive, talks about what people and grocery stores are doing in response to the state crackdown. Some ...
18 min
288
Coronavirus: The educational, social and econom...
Oregon's economy took a savage hit one week into the potentially months-long reality where bars, restaurants and other social hot spots are shuttered in an attempt to combat the coronavirus. Plus, schools are shuttered through April. Eder Campuzan...
34 min
289
Can Portland's restaurant scene weather the cor...
The Oregonian/OregonLive's Michael Russell talks about the exceptional week that led more than 130 Portland restaurant and bar owners to demand Gov. Kate Brown take action to shut them down amid the coronavirus crisis, why some restaurants may nev...
18 min
290
Inside Italy's coronavirus lockdown; Oregon Leg...
Melissa Graboyes and Alfredo Burlando are professors at the University of Oregon, but the married couple and their two kids on now on lockdown in Italy. We talked about what life is like in the quarantine, why Oregonians need to let go of social plans ...
39 min
291
Covering the coronavirus and the unknown
Journalism is the search for truth, but what does a reporter do when a fast-breaking news story is filled with so many unknowns? As the coronovirus situation unfolds in the Portland area and around Oregon, The Oregonian's Fedor Zarkhin is working ...
30 min
292
The coronavirus response in Oregon
It’s been less than a week since Oregonians first learned that the state had a prospective case of the novel coronavirus. We checked in with Dr. Carlos Crespo, a community health professor and vice-provost at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health to get...
25 min
293
Concordia University's catastrophic deal with o...
Concordia University's path to financial ruin may have been sealed a decade ago. The private Lutheran university, which called Northeast Portland home for more than a century, hitched its fate to an educational technology company known as HotChalk...
28 min
294
The fight for the Boy Scouts' secret abuse files
The Boy Scouts of America have declared bankruptcy, an unprecedented move that reverberated around the nation. The wave of sex abuse lawsuits against the nonprofit organization started in Portland a decade ago. A nearly $20 million ruling against the s...
27 min
295
A Portland psychiatric hospital's struggles
The Unity Center for Behavioral Health in Northeast Portland was supposed to be a game changer for mental illness in the city. Three years after it opened, the hospital is struggling. The Oregonian/OregonLive's Molly Harbarger and Brad Schmidt tal...
29 min
296
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn: A national ...
So many of Nicholas Kristof's friends, neighbors and classmates died young. The New York Times columnist and his wife, fellow Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sheryl WuDunn tried to figure out what these tragic deaths of despair from so many Yamh...
43 min
297
Will Republicans walk out of Salem again?
Oregon's Legislature meets for the next 35 days in Salem, and a cap and trade bill is expected to be the centerpiece of the session. This comes less than a year after Senate Republicans walked out and left the state to prevent Democrats from movin...
32 min
298
How Catlin Gabel school abuse scandal came to l...
Catlin Gabel is facing a reckoning. The Southwest Portland private school, known as a progressive educational institution that's educated the city's wealthy and elite for decades, released an explosive investigation in December that outlined ...
30 min
299
What to expect in Jeremy Christian's murder trial
One of the darkest days in Portland's recent history will be back in the spotlight for the next five weeks. Jeremy Christian is on trial for fatally stabbing Ricky Best and Taliesin Namkai-Meche and seriously wounding Micah Fletcher on a MAX train...
43 min
300
Another leadership shuffle at Portland Police B...
Danielle Outlaw arrived in Portland as police chief in 2017 to much acclaim. She talked about changing the bureau, repairing the relationship with the public and much more. She quietly left Portland to become Philadelphia's chief just before New Y...
38 min