Saving local journalism isn’t always straightforward, as a turnabout in Oregon demonstrates.

Two newspapers in Linn County just about failed after they were sold to a former employee. But veteran owners and community support jolted them back to life this month.

I wrote in November that selling local newspapers to employees should be an option for owners who might otherwise shut them down or sell to parsimonious chains.

The goal is to preserve independent newspapers, which accounted for a majority of newspaper closures and mergers over the last year, according to data gathered by Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative.

But there’s no single — or simple — solution to ensure the survival of America’s 5,400 or so remaining newspapers. Many approaches are needed, including community and public support, to sustain these essential local businesses.

Employees-turned-owners are doing well at the Sunnyside Sun in Central Washington and the Idaho County Free Press in Idaho.

It’s too bad employees weren’t given an option to buy and save The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a daily whose owners announced last week that it’s closing May 3. That’s probably wishful thinking, since the shutdown was prompted in part by a long and bitter labor dispute.

Nor did selling to staff work out for the Oregon papers in Linn County, east of Corvallis, but they are still having a positive outcome.

Scott and Miriam Swanson sold their publications in Lebanon and Sweet Home to former employee Chris Chapman in mid-2023.

The Swansons had published The New Era in Sweet Home since 2005 and started a monthly paper in nearby Lebanon in 2016.

Chapman modernized systems and made improvements but struggled to make a go and the news staff fell from three to one, as reported by the Albany Democrat-Herald.

Rather than see the papers die, the Swansons ended their early retirement and resumed ownership late last year. They had carried Chapman’s loan and the arrangement ended after 18 months. Chapman couldn’t be reached for comment before my deadline.

In December, Scott Swanson wrote an editorial explaining the papers’ dire situation and asked the community to assist. Individuals could help by subscribing, businesses could advertise and anyone could donate to keep the operation afloat.

The people came through. With their support, the Swansons on Jan. 1 relaunched the publications as a combined weekly newspaper, The New Era, serving both Sweet Home and Lebanon.

“It was on the verge of collapse and the community literally donated five figures … that’s a lot of money in our world,” Scott Swanson said.

That infusion will keep the paper going long enough “to get things back on track, advertising-wise,” he said.

The paper is based in Sweet Home but increasing civic and sports coverage in Lebanon, an evolving timber town with a medical school and Veterans Affairs facility.

The Swansons’ monthly paper in Lebanon was competing with a weekly owned by Lee Enterprises, an Iowa-based chain that publishes dailies in Corvallis and Albany.

Lee is now being taken over by a Florida billionaire, David Hoffmann, who told me last year that he plans to become the nation’s largest newspaper publisher.

We’ll see if Hoffmann can revitalize Lee and restore its coverage of far-flung communities. A series of cuts gutted Lee’s Oregon papers and it stopped publishing its Lebanon Express in early 2023.

“We have a good local radio station but once we lost the Lebanon Express, that was really hard on Lebanon,” said Rebecca Grizzle, a former City Council member who now leads the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce.

Grizzle said local reporting dwindled in the Express before its closure “but the Swansons have been amazing, at least trying to fill that void.”

Scott Swanson said The New Era has around 2,000 subscribers, which is good for a combined market with around 25,000 people.

“We’ve had quite a number of people coming in the door telling us this is what they’ve been waiting for,” he said.

The New Era should be able to grow because residents appreciate the Swansons’ commitment, said Laurie Heib, executive director of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.

“I think that community is in love with them,” she said. “You know, they’re just in it. They see him around town, they cover the sports, they cover all the community information, and I think they very much enjoy it.”

Swanson said the newsroom is up to two people, plus freelancers, and he aims to hire more journalists this year.

“We’re slowly building things back to where they need to be, to keep us from working 60 hours a week,” he said.

The night before we spoke, Swanson, 64, covered a swim meet and two night basketball games.

“Well, I took pictures of them, and I have three or four stories to write,” he said.

It’s a familiar beat to Swanson, who landed a summer job as a teenager covering sports for the family-owned newspaper in Grants Pass, Ore.

“I was 18 years old. I could wash dishes in a restaurant or I could go to baseball games and get paid for it — awesome!” he said. “That’s how I got into journalism.”

Let’s hope more teenagers catch that bug and find opportunities to help keep independent, local journalism alive. It won’t work out every time but there are still plenty of publishers and communities willing to give them a chance.

This is excerpted from the free, weekly Voices for a Free Press newsletter. Sign up to receive it at the Save the Free Press website, st.news/SavetheFreePress. Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley is the editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about issues facing newspapers, local news coverage, and a free press. You can learn more about the Free Press Initiative, or sign up for a newsletter, at https://company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press/.