Public newspapers

Whole Community News

Continuing since 2020, the community news initiative supports civic journalists tackling issues of interest in their Eugene, Oregon neighborhoods.

As part of this outreach, we are partnering with neighborhoods and nonprofits to curate hyperlocal news contributions shared under a Creative Commons license and available to other news organizations. Now in its fifth year, this CPCN project has contributed over 90 percent of the original news stories produced by KEPW News.

News of the Future / Noticias del futuro

The 1787 Constitution of the United States, established as the supreme law of the land at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, was a great innovation in its day. It represented Novus Ordo Seclorum, a new order of the ages.

But since the Civil War amendments and the legal end of color-caste slavery, we no longer need a Senate, House, Electoral College, or any other cogs in the "Great Compromise" legal machinery that have successfully preserved structural racism in our nation. 

In fact, the vestigial Electoral College was a key piece of the Trump-directed Jan. 6 insurrection. We need to start clearing out some constitutional cruft. Our social compact, as represented by our foundational documents, is due for an upgrade.

How might we co-create a new form of self-governance? This project explores the news we the people might need to effectively function as the Cascadian co-creators of a renewed American Novus Ordo Seclorum, enhancing human rights and extending legal rights to Nature. 

Journo Duty

We summon you...to Journo Duty! At CPCN we view journalism as both product and process.

Beyond the product of published news stories, the process of journalism creates better, more informed citizens and improves our capacity for self-governance.

The quick-paced and highly-structured "Journo Duty" program summons citizens to perform their civic duty as citizen journalists for a day. Journos are asked to identify the most important story in their community not being told; experienced journalists help the journo produce that story, and at the end the team discusses the entire process.

Many victims of the Camp Fire were overtaken in their stopped cars as they tried to evacuate from Paradise, California. With drought, wildfire, extreme weather, and the periodic Cascadia Subduction Zone event threatening millions of residents of the Pacific Northwest, we promote a comprehensive Exercise and Evaluation Plan to help nearby neighbors practice watching out for one another in disasters.

This project seeks to increase reporting on issues facing human beings during the climate change refugee crisis of the 2020s, with an emphasis on our new neighbors in Eugene Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. 

This project seeks to demonstrate the need to support government and corporate whistleblowers. Based on our interview with NW Natural Gas whistleblower Gary Dye, we learned that whistleblowers often face strategic lawsuits and other economic pressures from powerful institutions. This project reports on local whistleblowers and their treatment by former colleagues, to advocate for greater support for those who risk their lives and livelihoods in the public interest.