THE BEE, founded in 1906, has been owned by Pamplin Media since 2000, which is when it was purchased from owner-editor John Dillin and made part of the Pamplin Media group of two dozen Oregon newspapers – the flagship of which is the Portland Tribune.
Concerned about making sure his newspapers continued in the future to serve the communities of which they are a part, just as they have been since he acquired them, Dr. Robert Pamplin recently made the decision to sell the group to Carpenter Media, a family with deep roots in newspaper operation, effective on June first of this year.
Carpenter Media already owned over a hundred community newspapers in northwest Washington State and in southwest British Columbia, as well as in Hawai’i and elsewhere – with strong record of serving these communities – and the company expects to continue to operate the former Pamplin Media group in the same manner to which you have become accustomed.
THE BEE actually has more readers every month – an estimated 45,000 per month, of every age, and across a broad swath of Southeast Portland – than it ever has!
There certainly are challenges in newspaper operation these days, and one of the most formidable ones is the perception by newer businesses that advertising in a newspaper is an old-fashioned idea. This idea is planted by the promotional efforts of new Internet-oriented media, which would like to eat newspapers’ lunch – but, significantly, it does NOT come from readers – from those who rely on newspapers for objective, accurate, and thorough news coverage of their communities!
The advertising in THE BEE is what pays for your being able to count on reading us each month, and our advertisers are almost entirely local to the area served by our newspaper. If you have been reading THE BEE for some time now, you may have noticed some of our advertisers have been in the paper every month for the entire time you’ve been reading it! Your editor took the reins of this newspaper in late 2000, and at that time a significant number of advertisers you are used to seeing in it were already appearing in every issue.
That they’re still here and are still happy with the results of their BEE advertising is testament to the fact that our readers still respond as they always have. The ads appear alongside the news stories; they are not intrusive and you don’t have to fight them off with ad blockers and frantic efforts to turn them off so you can see what they’re covering up, or by allowing “cookies” to track your interests and online activities.
Newspaper advertising still works just fine – and it would be helpful, when you patronize a BEE advertiser, if you would mention that you appreciate their support of the community and of THE BEE.
Another challenge in newspaper operation these days is rampant vandalism of newspaper newsstands. Our newsstands have been free, and have been one of the most important ways we distribute the newspaper to those who do not encounter it in any other way.
But newsstands are expensive, and we cannot afford to replace those which are vandalized (one in Woodstock was set afire and burned to the ground). So there are now considerably fewer places to find us than there used to be. And, some of the few newsstands that remain have had their display windows so thoroughly damaged that you can’t tell whether or not a newspaper is displayed inside – and, unless there is a copy displayed, few people look inside. If you encounter such a BEE newsstand, open the door – there may still be copies inside for you!
Although for over thirty years THE BEE has been mailed free to sections of Southeast, we have been unable to expand this free distribution because our cost of postage keeps going up, while advertising revenue has declined as new businesses have the idea that newspaper advertising is somehow passé. Not only have we not been able to expand the mailings to keep up with the large population expansion in Southeast in the last thirty years, but soaring postage has resulted in some necessary reductions in the areas receiving the mailings.
If you used to get it free in the mail but now no longer do, there IS a way to get it back. We have a very inexpensive annual subscription fee of $25, which contains no profit for us – it just covers mailing twelve issues – and you’ll once again get it every month. That rate applies to every address in the United States, now, too – so you could even make a gift of a subscription to a family member or a friend who has moved away. (Your editor maintains three such gift subscriptions of his own.)
Despite the decline of our free newsstands, there are still a few around, and there also are a number of businesses and institutions that distribute free copies every month. If you used to find us in newsstands but don’t anymore, there may be such a location near you with a pile of free copies available for those coming by – and below is the current list. There are additions made from time to time, so you may find a pile of BEEs in a place not listed here – please thank any merchant or institution that carries them for doing so!
The list:
The Mill Ends Store, the “365” convenience store (on S.E. 17th), Sellwood Senior Living, New Seasons Market (Sellwood), Sellwood-Moreland Library, Sellwood Market, SMILE Station, Wallace Books, Windermere Real Estate lobby (Westmoreland), QFC Market (in Westmoreland – below the doughnuts), Primary Care Northwest (Westmoreland), Westmoreland’s Union Manor, Brooklyn Pharmacy, Rose City Veterinary (on Powell), the Odd Fellows Retirement Home, Woodstock Wine and Deli, Woodstock Community Center, Woodstock Library, Mehri’s Deli and Café (52nd and Bybee), and Jumbo’s (Johnson Creek Boulevard).
Among the remaining free BEE newsstands are these: On the sidewalks outside the Sellwood-Moreland Post Office, Bertie Lou’s Café, on S.E. 13th just north of Tacoma, Twisted Patisserie, 3616 S.E. Knapp in Eastmoreland, and the intersection of S.E. Tacoma and Johnson Creek Boulevard in Ardenwald.
And thank you for making it a habit to read THE BEE!
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