>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

For more than 30 years The Observer has considered Wallowa County part of its coverage area.

For many years The Observer had freelance correspondents in Wallowa County. About 15 years ago we added a staff reporter.

Our sports department, at least since the mid-1970s, has considered Wallowa County part of its coverage area.

The Observer long has been the community daily newspaper for both Union and Wallowa counties.

But not until we started a weekly Wallowa Life section on Mondays a year and a half ago have I heard occasional complaints from Union County readers about the coverage we’re providing Wallowa County.

This issue came to the forefront recently when I received an anonymous letter from a “longtime reader of The Observer’’ asking why we devote Monday’s second section to Wallowa County.

“I do not like the idea of paying for The Observer while you attempt to increase circulation in Wallowa County,’’ the letter said. “There are too many other areas of the news in Union County that could be covered. I would even prefer you going to the wire for stories. How about a Social Security article weekly, or an ‘Of Interest to Veterans’ weekly?’’

The letter writer went on to say he or she could “care less about the news in Pendleton, Wallowa, Enterprise, etc.’’ and that I should not pass the letter off “as a crank because there are a great number of citizens of Union County that feel as I do.’’

I don’t consider the letter a crank at all. The letter brings up some issues that need to be aired, not to mention a couple of great ideas concerning the possibility of adding a Social Security column and one about veterans.

Covering Wallowa County doesn’t exclude the possibility of such added features. And it hasn’t reduced the coverage of Union County. We’ve just congregated much of the Wallowa County news and features on Mondays, rather than spreading it out throughout the week.

We used to run a Wallowa County feature in the “Portraits’’ rotation. We don’t do that any more because Wallowa Life has what basically constitutes a Portrait every week.

Wednesday’s Business section remains Union County centric, though we try to provide some Wallowa County business news when we can.

Friday’s Outdoors features are mostly about Union County. So are most of the Ag Life and all of the Portraits features on Saturdays.

Tuesday’s Home Life is food and home-related — mostly AP or MCT wire — with a La Grande food column or a Union County-based “Front Porch’’ column appearing monthly.

On Thursdays we put regional coverage on the cover of the B section — stories about the West from MCT, AP or the Wescom News Service.

We try to keep the front page of the “A’’ section mostly local. Except for what we call breaking news from Wallowa County, like the swastika, tramway and drowning stories from this week, most of the front page pertains to Union County.

When we started Wallowa Life, we added a freelance reporter and photographer to supplement the work of our one staff member in Wallowa County. Freelance means they are independent contractors, not full-time staff members. Nearly a year prior to that, however, we added two freelancers to boost stories from throughout Union County.

We are holding off on filling a La Grande-based reporter position that opened up this spring. The economy, right now, is tough on every business, which impacts newspapers’ bottom line. But we still have three full-time reporters, two full-time sports people and two correspondents in Union County. In Wallowa County, we have the one full-time reporter and the two regularly contributing freelancers.

Are we trying to increase circulation in Wallowa County? Absolutely.

But the same goes for Union County. Without readers, we’re nowhere. 

No newspaper gives up the fight to build circulation. I won’t apologize for that. Too much is at stake.

The Observer, like all newspapers, is a business. We need advertising and we need circulation to pay the bills, most of which — like any business —  are related to personnel. And frankly, we’ve got some of the finest personnel of any small daily newspaper around.

We have not sacrificed Union County coverage to enhance Wallowa County coverage. We’re just displaying it differently.

Indeed, La Grande and Union County hold the bulk of our readership. We acknowledge that and try to represent it every day in the pages of the newspaper. Can we do more? Always. And we’ll keep striving to do better.

Wallowa County readers, I’m sure, would like to see more, too.

We are committed to covering both counties with the resources we have, just as we have been for more than 30 years — at least back to 1977 when I landed my first full-time newspaper job as The Observer’s sports editor.

Union and Wallowa counties are distinct populations. But there is so much that we share in common. I hope readers in both counties appreciate having the chance to find out a little more about each other.

The Observer’s mission hasn’t changed. We’re just packaging things a little differently.

Ted Kramer is editor/publisher of The Observer. Reach him at 963-3161 or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .