The Skanner, Portland’s dominant Black-owned newspaper, shuttered on Jan. 30.
The newspaper was founded in 1975 by Bernie Foster, alongside his wife, Bobbie Dore Foster. The couple, now in their 80s, began publishing the paper in a small office on what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Bobbie Foster said in an email The Skanner closed “due to the changing technology and readers choosing social media for their news.”
“With advertisers using those platforms as well, newspapers no longer have the revenue stream needed to operate,” she said.
Bobbie Foster said in a 2017 oral-history interview with the Oregon Historical Society that when the couple launched The Skanner, they hired one person to sell advertising, one copy editor, one reporter – and Bernie’s brother handled layout and distribution.
“We did the best that we could,” she said. “Tried to find little stores and outlets that would take the paper and distribute it. We got the attention of people.”
Bernie Foster, who had experience working for The Facts newspaper in Seattle, focused on business, while Bobbie Foster worked with writers, she said.
She said their original focus was serving the Black families in their neighborhood.
They eventually opened a second operation in Seattle, and The Skanner became the largest Black paper in the Pacific Northwest.
Their unofficial mission, Bobbie Foster said, was: “No one can tell our story as well as we can tell our story.”
She added, in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive:
“Our legacy is inspiring people to take pride in Black business ownership, to read our newspaper and not depend exclusively on social media, covering news that gave our readers the perspective of our community.”
The Skanner successfully lobbied in the 1980s and ’90s for Union Avenue to be renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Its advocacy in a series of articles led, in 2015, to a World War I hero – Henry Lincoln Johnson – posthumously receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor, “redressing an injustice,” wrote The Oregonian at the time, “that spans almost a century.”
The Skanner stopped printing in 2020 and moved to a fully remote newsroom in 2023. It continued to publish online, with a focus on North and Northeast Portland, the traditional center of Portland’s Black community.
“We have been a reliable voice our readers could trust, covering their issues, their stories, their accomplishments,” Bobbie Foster said. “I hope we have made a difference as we honored our mission of Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now.”
