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We’ve got to hand it to the team at Willamette Week’s Give!Guide. They really know how to put the fun in fundraising. As a Give!Guide nonprofit, you’re encouraged to partner up and lift each other’s campaigns. That can be as simple as a shout-out on social media or, if you’re City Club and Open Signal, co-producing a fundraising event together.

Beyond the Noise: Media That’s Moving Portland was a two-in-one event: a community conversation on the next chapter of civic media and a civic media production in itself. Across two panels, the audience heard directly from people who shape public understanding of civic issues every day, from working journalists in newsrooms to filmmakers, podcasters, and multimedia artists in their home studios.

One of the biggest takeaways was that the line between news and information media and documentary and storytelling media is far thinner than many people assume. Facts and lived experiences aren’t separate lanes; they inform and strengthen each other. The conversation surfaced a shared belief that media professionals should approach their work with care, stay present in the communities they cover, and recognize that residents are the true experts in their own stories.

Portland is fortunate to have so many media makers who see their work as a form of community care. They’re committed to surfacing what Portlanders are actually talking about around their dinner tables, rather than simply repeating statements from major parties and organizations opposed to each other. Covering those conflicts can drive success measured in views and clicks, but it rarely gets to the heart of the issues, let alone to solutions.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone who already made a year-end gift and was invited to attend this conversation in person. We’re honored by your curiosity, care, and support.

Thanks especially to our panelists and moderators: Althea Billings, Noah Carandanis, Jeremiah Hayden, John Lugton, Bruce Poinsette, Ranya Salvant, Donovan Scribes, Erin Yanke, Chris Williams and Kristen Schier.

We also want to thank our 2025 Give!Guide nonprofit partners, Open Signal and Kickstand Comedy, and our sponsors*, City Cast Portland and the Agora Journalism Center, whose collaboration and financial support made this event possible.

About the Speakers

  • Althea Billings is News Director at KBOO Radio (@kbooradio).
     
  • Noah Carandanis is a junior philosophy major and Editor in Chief of the PSU Vanguard (@psuvanguard).
  • Jeremiah Hayden is an award winning magazine writer and Housing and Homelessness Reporter at the Portland Mercury (@jeremiahhayden).
     
  • John Lugton leads the award winning production team at Metro East Community Media in Gresham (@metroeastmedia).
     
  • Bruce Poinsette is a writer, digital storyteller and organizer whose work is primarily based in the Portland Metro Area. A former reporter for the Skanner News Group, his writing has also appeared in the Oregonian, Street Roots, Oregon Humanities, and Eater PDX (@poinsettebruce).
     
  • Ranya Salvant is a filmmaker, multimedia journalist and a graduate student at the University of Oregon studying Multimedia Journalism and Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies. She works as a journalist for the arts and culture editorial, The Knockturnal.
     
  • Donovan Scribes is the owner of D Scribes LLC, creator of BlackOut: a Five Year Retrospective of Portland’s Racial Justice Protests, and a columnist at the Portland Mercury (@dscribesllc).
     
  • Erin Yanke is a self-taught multimedia artist and documentarian working primarily in audio. Recent projects include It Did Happen Here, Fight the Power Do No Harm, and This Is A Message to Persons Unknown.


*City Club of Portland relies on organizational sponsors to help underwrite the cost of bringing our programming to our members and the public. As a nonpartisan, impartial forum for civic dialogue, City Club accepts sponsorships from a wide spectrum of organizations. Our topic, speaker selection, and editorial policy prevents sponsors from influencing the content of our programming. We are deeply grateful to all who support our events and research.