An Oregon weekly newspaper that had to lay off its entire staff after its funds were embezzled by a former employee will relaunch its print edition next month, its editor said, a move made possible in large part by fundraising campaigns and community contributions.

The Eugene Weekly will return to newsstands on Feb. 8 with roughly 25,000 copies, about six weeks after the embezzlement forced the decades-old publication to halt its print edition, editor Camilla Mortensen said Saturday.

The alternative weekly, founded in 1982 and distributed for free in Eugene, one of the largest cities in Oregon, had to lay off its entire 10-person staff right before Christmas. It was around that time that the paper became aware of at least $100,000 in unpaid bills and discovered that a now-former employee who had been involved with the paper’s finances had used its bank account to pay themselves around $90,000, Mortensen said.

  • Snot Flickerman
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    8 months ago

    Jesus Christ, if you’re going to embezzle, can you at least do it to a giant fucking corporation with terrible business practices and money to burn and not small journalistic outfit actually being a saving grace of local news in a time period where there is a dearth of good local news sources that are actually, you know, local?

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Probably chose the small business specifically because it was easier and poorer (harder to pay for legal process).

      Criminals rarely take the moral high ground.