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 鈥� 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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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. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
Ashland is the unexpected home of the country鈥檚 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. -
Despite a parade of winter storms in Southern Oregon in recent weeks, hydrologists say it鈥檚 not enough to undo the effects of multiple years of drought. -
鈥淲hat are the physical spaces where people come together and share information in your community?鈥� That鈥檚 one question from a new report about access to information in Southern Oregon. It鈥檚 being published in April by researchers and students at the University of Oregon鈥檚 Agora Journalism Center. -
On Tuesday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a new batch of funding for ecosystem restoration in the Klamath Basin. The region along the Oregon-California border has been hit with multi-year droughts, and suffers from excess demand for water. -
During a campus town hall on Thursday morning, Southern Oregon University President Rick Bailey announced significant proposed staffing cuts and program reductions in the face of a structural deficit. -
Two activist groups focused on water issues are coming together to host an educational event for the public in Medford this weekend. -
A Black Lives Matter memorial near downtown Ashland was vandalized on Tuesday night. The Say Their Names Memorial spans Railroad Park and includes hundreds of t-shirts and posters with the names of people of color who have been killed over the past century, many by police. -
There will be a new news outlet in Medford starting in February. On Friday, Oregon-based EO Media Group announced it will open a news outlet that serves Medford and Ashland after the closure of the Mail Tribune.
