Erik Neumann
News DirectorErik Neumann is JPR's news director. He earned a master's degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and joined JPR as a reporter in 2019 after working at NPR member station KUER in Salt Lake City. Erik grew up alongside the Puget Sound and is passionate about the power of narrative storytelling to explore the issues that impact people's lives. He has a diverse range of experience in public radio — reporter, host, producer of live events, and teacher of radio production to young people at Youth Radio in Oakland. Reach Erik at: neumanne1@sou.edu
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In his Facebook videos from the first days after the fire in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui, the look on Nicholas Winfrey’s face was painfully relatable.
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A series of lightning-caused wildfires near the Oregon-California border has resulted in an extended closure of Highway 199. Crews are still assessing when the road between Cave Junction and Crescent City will reopen. -
Planned repair work on Winchester Dam near Roseburg has led to emergency salvage efforts for Pacific lamprey. It’s just the latest concern from environmentalists who are opposed to the dam on the North Umpqua River.
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Rafting the Upper Klamath River is possible through the summer thanks to releases of water from the J.C. Boyle Dam, which will be removed next year. When guides return to the Upper Klamath in 2025, this stretch of the river will be forever changed.
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The fast-moving Golden Fire, located 11 miles north of Bonanza, in Klamath County, has destroyed 43 residences and 43 outbuildings, according to initial assessments from the Oregon State Fire Marshal.
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The impending removal of four hydroelectric dams on the main stem of the Klamath River has thrown the normally tranquil community of Copco Lake into turmoil.
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On Wednesday, Jackson County commissioners voted to request a drought declaration from Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek. Despite average precipitation and above average snowpack, the county is still considered to be in moderate drought.
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One of the challenges of producing daily journalism is trying to decide what to cover. In the flotsam and jetsam of daily information, how do you decide what is important? As reporters, what do we have an obligation to cover for our audience and when can we advance a bigger conversation? What has to get left out? At JPR, we have to ask these questions every day.
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The Southern Oregon and Northern California TV station KTVL plans to lay off its entire news staff in mid-May, according to a current staff member.
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Ashland is the unexpected home of the country’s only full-service forensic laboratory devoted to tracking illegally transported animals and plants. Now the lab is employing a new strategy to get forensic tools to U.S. ports to stop the illegal timber trade.
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Despite a parade of winter storms in Southern Oregon in recent weeks, hydrologists say it’s not enough to undo the effects of multiple years of drought.
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“What are the physical spaces where people come together and share information in your community?” That’s one question from a new report about access to information in Southern Oregon. It’s being published in April by researchers and students at the University of Oregon’s Agora Journalism Center.
