This summer, The Observer was fortunate to have a pair of interns in the newsroom helping cover stories and topics in some of the communities in our coverage area that we might not otherwise have gotten too.

While I’m grateful for the extra help, it is a double-edged sword because those reporters have moved on and we, as a newsroom, are back to picking and choosing what to tackle and what to leave for another day. That’s never a great place to be and it means some stories might get put on the backburner or fall through the cracks entirely.

This triage mentality isn’t due to a lack of motivation with the reporting staff. Quite the opposite, Dick Mason and Isabella Crowley are hard workers who try hard every day to generate engaging, credible content. 

It’s a matter of horsepower. There’s only so many hours in a day for two reporters with overflowing plates to be able to get to everything.

I’m hoping to find some help by seeing if there might be anyone in Union County who’d be interested in helping out as a freelance contributor and help with feature and general interest stories in some of the outlying communities of Union County.

It’s been apparent since I took over as interim editor that we have been lacking in our coverage of news in some of these communities.We have tried our best to make sure Elgin, Cove, Imbler, Summerville, Union and North Powder are part of the newsroom matrix when we can but, quite frankly, we don’t have the bodies to provide good, consistent regular coverage.

The goal is quite simple. I’m looking for someone who is part of one of those communities and can cover city council meetings, find features and keep our audience up-to-date on the happenings that pertain to their respective communities. If you are interested, I encourage you to give me a call here at the paper at 541-963-3161.

In the meantime, we are going to do our best to increase our coverage of the outlying towns and to make sure we are doing our part for those communities.