He may not look like a rebel, but Portland Tribune President Dwight Jaynes is shaking up the Portland media scene

hen Michael Jordan exits a nationally televised NBA game, he routinely greets NBA broadcaster Ahmad Rashad on the sidelines for a post-game chat.  Rashad cuts right to the chase.  “Michael, you just scored 42 points.”
At that point, his contribution to the interview is over, and Jordan proceeds to say whatever he wants to say, then hits the showers.  Ahmad almost never asks Michael another question.

Portland Tribune President and KPAM Radio personality Dwight Jaynes has that same ability
to dominate a conversation.  "Dwight is a big man and his personality fills the room," said Portland Tribune Sports Editor Steve Brandon.  “If we are talking about sports or journalism, his mind is like an encyclopedia.”  Jaynes was a sports reporter and columnist for the Oregon Journal and Oregonian for 17 years before the second richest man in the state made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.  Philanthropist, media mogul, and businessman Robert Pamplin, whose estimated net worth is roughly $700 million dollars, planned to launch a newspaper to rival the daily Oregonian.

Speculation on why Pamplin created the Tribune is the subject of rumor.  In 1999, the Oregonian was less-than-kind with its coverage of his Ross Island Sand & Gravel Company as it confronted accusations of environmental dumping.  With his vast business interests over a variety of industries, Pamplin likely had zero knowledge of the illegal dredging.  Once the story broke, he reformed his company almost overnight, to the delight of salmon everywhere.  The unflattering attention from the Oregonian was said to have ruffled his feathers.  Less than two years later, the Portland Tribune was born.

Oregonian Editor Sandy Rowe and Publisher Fred A. Stickel denied Jaynes the opportunity to host a local radio show and pursue his dream of becoming a broadcaster.  Jaynes was criticized internally for not-so-subtle suggestions in his columns that Trail Blazers President Bob Whitsitt was out of touch with his team because he lives in Seattle instead of Rose City.  The Oregonian is very protective of its relationship with the Blazers; Paul Allen purchases hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising every season.

“Whitsitt likes to tell people that he calls everybody back, but that’s not the case,” Jaynes commented.  “I wouldn’t have any need to call him because for the most part, I have seen over the last decade the answers I’m going to get, and we’re not dealing in reality here.  I don’t think you get the straight story from talking to him, so what’s the point? It’s still an issue that his wife and his children don’t live in this town, so they are not exposed to the kind of ritual that the Blazers themselves and Whitsitt in particular are exposed to, and I felt that it did affect the way he runs this team.  In fact, it’s almost unprecedented in sports that a general manager of a team would not live in the town that he works in.  I made a habit of pointing that out on several occasions, and I was actually told at one point not to write about it anymore.”

Near the end of his career with the Oregonian, constant travel became tiresome.  “I think I had gotten a little stale at the Oregonian, not in my writing but in the duties of the job,” said Jaynes.  “I began to hate the travel.  I had spent too many years covering the Blazers and writing.  I had seven years in a row where I had over 90 nights a year on the road, and that’s just a lot of travel.  I got to where I hated it.  I was kind of looking for a change to energize me anyway, and I think it’s kind of interesting at that point in your life to go do something else.”

Once you leave the Oregonian, the door is closed forever.  “The number one media outlet in the city will never recognize me publicly again,” said Jaynes.  “I have been told I could never be employed there again.  That is their policy.  If you leave, you can never come back.”

Dwight made the move to radio in January 2000.  “I was approached by KPAM when they were changing the format over from a religious station at one time to talk, and the general manager there was Kevin Young, a guy I had known for years,” said Jaynes.  “He was a friend of mine and asked me if I would come over.  I had been approached many times about doing talk radio, but the Oregonian has a policy that their employees can’t take money to do talk shows, so I told him I didn’t think I could do it.  He told me the offer was not in conjunction with my job at the Oregonian.  They wanted me full-time.  I basically told him he couldn’t pay me enough money to do that.  He proceeded to prove to me that he could.”

In his first few months as a broadcaster, Jaynes developed a friendship with KPAM owner Pamplin that led to his appointment as President of the Portland Tribune.  “I got to know Dr. Pamplin very well just from being around him and talking to him and getting to know him.  I think a respect developed between us and a friendship too, actually.  It wasn’t long before we started talking about newspapers,” said Jaynes.  “He had acquired some community newspapers, but he wanted to start a newspaper in Portland.  One day he looked me in the eye and asked, ‘Can you do a newspaper for me?’ I told him, ‘I can do the newspaper, but I don’t know anything about printing or distribution.  I don’t know anything about the business side of it.’  He said, ‘That’s not what I’m saying.  We can hire somebody to do that.  Can you guarantee me a good newspaper?’  Bob Pamplin has a way of asking you these questions and getting the answers that he wants to get, and I was shaking my head yes, like ‘yeah, I can guarantee you that,’ not really realizing what I was guaranteeing.  What really sold me on it, was not just doing a newspaper, it was doing a newspaper for somebody who was doing it for the right reasons.  He’s not in this to be Rupert Murdoch.  He’s not in this to start other newspapers in other cities.  He lives here.  He thought Portland needed another voice, and he wanted to figure out a way to do that.”

Dwight was one of the few people in the city who could hit the ground running in building a newspaper from scratch.  His name recognition and rolodex would prove invaluable in helping the media project gain credibility.  “I have known Dwight for more than a quarter of a century.  What makes him so effective is his ability to analyze a game, or an event, or a team, or a situation, very quickly and precisely,” said Brandon.  “He gets right to the point.”

Willamette Week is an alternative to the Oregonian but isn’t really a family newspaper.  The Oregon Journal is in the dustbin of history.  Until the Tribune came along in February 2001, the Oregonian dominated the Portland landscape.  The romantic appeal of making Portland a two-newspaper town helped lure top talent away from the Death Star of local publishing.  In alienating Jaynes, Rowe and company set in motion a process that would inspire the defection of their top sports reporters, Kerry Eggers and Brandon, media analyst and former KGW anchor Pete Schulberg, plus a small army of news reporters and support staff.  This was a total coup.  Pamplin offered top talent “substantive” salary increases when they came onboard.  None of the writers or editors we spoke with at the Tribune would go on record about how much more they were earning, but no one voiced any complaints.

“Probably the biggest reason I moved over, besides the money, was my past experience with both Dwight and Steve,” said Eggers,  “They are good friends.”  Jaynes believes the Oregonian underutilized Eggers.  “Kerry wasn’t being used in the best manner for him or the readers.  This is a guy with Larry Brown’s number in his Rolodex.  This is a guy who can call the commissioner of the NBA and get a call back.  This is a guy who knows the NBA better than anybody in the city of Portland, and he wasn’t being used to cover the NBA for various political reasons.”

“I don’t see myself as a great rebel,” said Jaynes.  The Portland Tribune President refuses to honk his own horn in discussing his prowess as a recruiter, but the facts are self-evident.  Almost overnight, Dwight carved a newspaper out of the wilderness and stood up against the most powerful media company in the Northwest.  He even had the good sense to leave Margie Boulé right where she was.

Inspired to create a newspaper that could rival their former flagship, Jaynes and his team often scoop the Oregonian in local coverage.  The Tribune uncovered a secret police network that spied on Oregonians for decades.  Eggers and Brandon beat everyone to the punch in announcing the return of Mike Riley to OSU.  Columnist Phil Stanford unveiled the dark underbelly of Portland in the 1950’s, from labor racketeering to organized crime.  Tribune editors introduced Cue, an arts and entertainment supplement released every Friday.  An automobile-themed section named XLR8 debuted last year to compete for the attention of car enthusiasts.

Tribune stories consistently emphasize the impact local events have on families and everyday people.  The Oregonian might tell you who robbed a local bank and whether or not they got away.  The Tribune provides the same facts, while exploring the impact of the robbery on the lives of witnesses, security guards, and tellers.  One reason the Tribune can cover stories in more depth is their twice weekly distribution cycle.  Deadline pressures are less intense, with more time to gather relevant facts and information.  When news breaks over a weekend, however, reporters and editors can wait days before publication resumes.  “The biggest problem we face in this job is when we learn something on Saturday and there is no paper until Tuesday.  That can be frustrating,” said Eggers.  According to Jaynes, expanding the paper to three days a week is a definite possibility as circulation grows and the market for advertising sales improves.

The Portland Tribune distributes 80,000 papers in racks throughout the city every Tuesday.  Every Friday, the paper is delivered to 80,000 homes—plus another 80,000 copies in racks—for a total distribution of 240,000 newspapers each week.  The raw distribution of the Tribune makes Dwight Jaynes one of the most powerful voices in the city, with the ability to reach tens of thousands of Oregonians twice a week.  Add in thousands of additional listeners from his weekday radio show, and Jaynes can make a case for being the most powerful single voice in Portland media.  Scott Thomason may have a better known face.  Local television anchors may reach more homes.  Dwight Jaynes, however, reaches the most important demographic in the city—decision makers who read newspapers.

Dwight spends his mornings at the Portland Tribune offices on 5^th Avenue downtown.  KPAM is just a few blocks away from the Tribune, allowing Dwight to seamlessly transition from one role to the next.  His afternoon sports radio show broadcasts live from 3-5pm every weekday.  His evenings are spent at sporting events or entertaining clients; 12-15 hour work days are routine.  “My only concern is that Dwight may be spread a little thin, with radio, meetings and other demands on his time.  I find myself wishing I could tap into his expertise more often,” said Eggers.

"The main thing about Dwight, what makes him good for this job, is that he is so level-headed,“ said Portland Tribune columnist Phil Stanford.  “He knows Portland, and he is not overly impressed by important people.  He is a very smart man and deserves a lot of credit for the success of the Tribune.”

The Oregonian has responded to the rise of the Portland Tribune with an appropriate dash of bitterness.  “Oh, they pass a lot of rumor about us,” said Jaynes.  “When we started, there were people saying we would not last three months, and then we continually hear stories that we are ready to fold.  People are starting to realize that we’re not going away.  In fact, two weeks ago we were named the best non-daily newspaper in the United States.  The product is good, and advertisers are coming around to that.  We have a mission, and our mission is very clear.  It’s fair and balanced journalism on a local level, and we try to stick to that.  I hire good people and leave them alone.”