Salem Reporter

The Salem Reporter is an online news platform dedicated to covering stories in the Salem region. Owned and operated locally, it offers readers high-quality investigative journalism, straightforward reporting on local government matters, and a closer look at the influential figures within the Salem community.

Local

English

Online/Digital

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#425788

United States

#91260

News and Media

#3541

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

Salem-Keizer School Board to vote on superintendent contract, new science curricula

2 days ago | salemreporter.com | Rachel Alexander

The Salem-Keizer School Board on Tuesday will vote on adopting new curricula for science, social science and world languages, the latest in a multiyear effort to modernize the materials teachers use in the classroom. Board directors will also vote on a new three-year contract with Superintendent Andrea Castañeda, which would tie a raise of her current $285,000 salary to the raise given to district teachers this summer. View the agenda here.
Obituary: Richard Allen Reece

5 days ago | salemreporter.com | Les Zaitz

Born in Eugene and transplanted to Salem at age 10, Rich worked his way up the Willamette Valley to spend his adulthood in Portland. Even as a small child in Eugene, he was a neighborhood personality, legendarily walking at age 4 with a toddler buddy to the local grocery store to buy a pack of gum—and leaving behind a hand-drawn map as to their whereabouts. When young, he starred in several commercials for the local Bob’s Burgers chain, and later for Wunderland in Salem.
A behind-the-scenes look at Salem’s 911 dispatch center

5 days ago | salemreporter.com | Madeleine Moore

When people in the Salem area call 911, the person answering the phone walks them through their situation with ease that comes with years of practice. Dispatchers assigning police or fire responders to 911 calls rattle off memorized combinations of numbers and letters that correspond with law enforcement or medical units.
Thursday evening fire burns Southeast Salem home, displacing 3 residents and pets

5 days ago | salemreporter.com | Abbey McDonald

Three people and six pets were displaced after a fire destroyed a southeast Salem home Thursday evening. Firefighters arrived at 6:46 p.m. on Thursday to find about half of the home engulfed in flames, according to a post from the Salem Fire Department. An attached video shows several firefighters blasting water from a hose into the roaring flames.
Police arrest boy, 16, in pool hall stabbings that killed 1, injured another

5 days ago | salemreporter.com | Madeleine Moore

A 16-year-old boy is accused of murder and attempted murder for stabbings that killed a young man and left another injured early Thursday morning. Salem police arrested the suspect Thursday night, May 8, around 9:30 p.m., according to a statement from the Salem Police Department released Friday morning. The boy is facing accusations of second-degree murder, first-degree attempted murder, second-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon in Marion County Juvenile Court.
Salem budget committee recommends city spending, cuts for 2026 - Salem Reporter

6 days ago | salemreporter.com | Joe Siess

The interim city manager’s proposed budget scenario which drastically cuts city services is one step closer to becoming a reality after the city’s budget committee voted to move it forward Wednesday night. The proposed budget would cut library hours roughly in half, turn off water fountains and splash pads at city parks, reduce parks maintenance and recreation staff by 30%, and cut two part-time staff members at Center 50+.
Stabbings at Salem pool hall leave 1 man dead, another injured

6 days ago | salemreporter.com | Madeleine Moore

A fight early Thursday morning at a pool hall east of downtown Salem resulted in two stabbings that left a young man dead and another injured. Around 1 a.m. Thursday, police responded to a report that two stabbing victims had arrived at Salem Hospital’s emergency room “in need of immediate care,” according to a statement from the Salem Police Department. One victim, Isac S. Rizo, 21, of Salem, died at the hospital from his injuries.
City plans to pull funding from safe parking, warming shelters

1 week ago | salemreporter.com | Abbey McDonald

Every night, hundreds of people in the Salem area sleep in their cars. There’s always a waitlist for Church at the Park’s Safe Parking Program, which offers a place for car campers to shower, get food and meet with a case manager to sign up for health care and connect with housing. They then have a designated place at a local church to park and sleep through the night without fearing they’ll be asked to move by a business owner or police officer.
Salem artist crafts quilt to commemorate migrant deaths in Arizona desert

1 week ago | salemreporter.com | Joe Siess

A local quilt artist named Glenda Mah is joining an art initiative 18 years in the making documenting migrants who perished along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona by creating quilts using scraps from their discarded clothing. The project started in Tucson, Arizona in 2007 when a group of artists used the discarded clothing of migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert to create quilts as a way to commemorate those who died in pursuit of a better life in America.
Accusation of cat theft has stymied adoptions at Oregon shelters. Lawmakers want to solve the problem

1 week ago | salemreporter.com | Aimee Green

It’s been a tumultuous several years in the world of Oregon’s cat adoptions — with a booming population of cats brought on by the pandemic, tearful conversations over how to best address the problem and even a lawsuit accusing a local humane society of cat theft. Together, those factors have crippled the cat adoption system.