Oregon Media Insiders

From this week's Eugene Weekly comes a story on some property the R-G owns and whether a newspaper can be both a developer and a, well, newspaper. The R-G owns a business park on the outskirts of Eugene that may be the site of a new Triad hospital. (Triad currently runs McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center in Springfield and Willamette Valley Medical Center in McMinnville.)

The R-G owns a vacant 47-acre business park on Chad Drive in north Eugene that has enough room to accommodate Triad's proposed new hospital. The R-G's developer for its Summer Oaks Business Park, Dan Tucci, said he hasn't heard the hospital is interested in the site.

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If Triad builds at the R-G site, the paper will make a huge profit. The R-G bought one 23-acre piece of the property for about $1 million in 1996. Now the county has put the market value of that land at $6 million. But the land could sell for much more. PeaceHealth paid land speculators about $20 million for its hospital site in north Springfield.

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The R-G's mixed mission as a major developer and a newspaper could present a conflict of interest. The R-G's coverage of locating the hospital in downtown Eugene has been largely negative and has failed to describe how a central hospital location would save on costly urban sprawl, prevent traffic congestion and make the city more livable.

So how should the modern corporate newspaper deal with stuff like this? Obviously NOT covering it isn't an issue. And what's up with newspapers speculating in real estate anyway? Enlighten me. I'm naive.