About Salem-News.com

The old methods of gathering news in this world are behind us. Our approach is different, and the success is measured in our ever growing numbers of visitors. Almost all media groups rely on wire services, and they publish material from reporters who are loosely associated with their organizations, and they all publish roughly the same material. Salem-News.com's team of more than 40 writers are a breath of fresh air in this world. Welcome to the only online media group in America that adheres to honesty while refusing to bow to pressures from would be advertisers.

Welcome to the most unique and interesting news group in the nation. Salem-News.com is also the first exclusively Web news organization in the world. Not a blog, but a full service multimedia news site staffed by award-winning professional journalists and a wealth of diverse writers from all over the U.S. and also in places like Canada, Vietnam and Mexico. Salem-News.com was created as a present and future answer for the needs of a wide range of news consumers in Oregon, across the nation and around the world.

Salem, Oregon is one of many locations in the U.S. of 250k or more, that are not adequately supported by a local television market. We see the 'New Media' revolution as an opportunity to bring more news to these areas and also as a venue for emerging and veteran journalists, and we want it to be more than just an extension of the existing overly commercial mainstream news market.

Our goal is to provide news and information that is honest and up to the minute, without compromising a strong moral and ethical code that we believe should guide all journalists. You will never see certain types of advertisement here, like big pharma, because we refuse to do business with them, and our writers are clear about that.

Salem-News.com does not charge visitors a fee to view the our stories after they are a few days old, unlike the majority of daily newspaper Websites. We do not allow pop-up advertising or any other similar invasive practice. Everything we publish is on the Web forever and logged by Google as well as Salem-News.com.

The site was created by Web Designer Matt Lintz who built Salem-News.com to the specifications of our journalists. It is a full multimedia site with constantly added images, stories and video reports and programs.

Salem-News.com carries a 5/10 Google ranking which we are very proud of. This hard earned rating is a result of publishing news consistently and accurately for over half a decade. Salem-News.com performance can be judged by a number of independent Website evaluators like alexa.com.

A recent celebration marked the publishing of the 13,000th Salem-News.com article.

If there is any one subject that tends to dominate our interest and reports, it is certainly the conflicts that the U.S. is engaged in overseas. As an embedded photojournalist/reporter, Tim King has spent months covering operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan for Salem-News.com. Our photographer/writer Dexter Phoenix who originally hails from London, has extensive experience covering fighting in Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and also parts of Africa.

In his career, Salem-News.com's Dr. Phil Leveque was an Army Combat Infantryman in WWII, an esteemed Osteopathic Physician, Professor of Pharmacology and Forensic Toxicologist. There are few rivals when it comes to medical knowledge and particular specialties like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dr. Leveque has written several dozen articles specifically about PTSD and the Veterans Administration, as well as his other specialty, medical marijuana. Dr. Leveque helped establish the program in Oregon and was at one point one of the state's busiest doctors specializing in this increasingly accepted natural medical treatment.

Our writers specialize in all kinds of things and they hail from all over the nation, and world. All are dedicated people who have integrated into the system that Tim King established years ago with Salem-News.com's original News Director, Kevin Hays.

Ersun Warnke, Salem-News.com's Business/Economy Reporter, delivers sizzling reviews of local politics and state government. Along with Henry Ruark and Daniel Johnson, Jeff Gates, Gordon Duff and many others, articles published here cut through the maze of bureaucracy that government often becomes.

One area this site covers seriously is medical cannabis. We are part of the current world view and do not have any reason to be anything less than forthright in our reports and discussions on the subject. This is a new century and we refuse to be bullied or intimidated.

Our writer Marianne Skolek in South Carolina is powerful in her reviews of the pharmaceutical industry's dirty deeds. She has every right, after losing her daughter to a respiratory arrest as a result of taking prescribed OxyContin. She keeps tabs on Purdue Pharma like a hawk. Tim King calls her the team's 'Super Hero' writer, because she has and continues to make a difference in the world on a profound level. In 2007 she testified against Purdue in Federal Court at the sentencing of their three CEO's, Michael Friedman, Howard Udell and Paul Goldenheim, who pled guilty to charges of marketing OxyContin as less likely to be addictive or abused to physicians and patients. We may write about medical marijuana which is legal, but dangerous drugs are on our radar, with Marianne in point position.

Salem-News.com was launched in the summer of 2004 when founder Tim King was a photojournalist/reporter with KATU, the ABC station in Portland, Oregon. At the time Tim's wife and current business partner Bonnie King, was the Newspapers in Education Manager for the Statesman Journal newspaper.

Today Bonnie King is Salem-News.com's Publisher, Tim King serves as the News Editor. Other team members help with production and new local video is the specialty of our News Photographer Jerry Freeman begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

Our Opinion-Editorial Writer is Henry Clay Ruark. At the age of 92, Henry is the oldest working journalist in the nation. Tim says 'Hank' has a mind that can run circles around people one third his age.

While the site is staffed by many Oregon writers, Salem-News.com also has a strong contingent of California-based writers. They include former ABC VP Bruce Sallan in Agoura Hills, Ken Ramey in Paso Robles who specializes in religious issues, 'Odd Man Out' Roger Butow in Laguna Beach who specializes in environmental issues, talented Los Angeles Attorney, Dr. William K. Barth Ph.D. and Phil Northcutt in Santa Rosa, a Marine Iraq Vet who keeps up on VA related subjects.

In fact there is a strong Marine Corps connection to the Salem-News.com staff that really started moving after Tim's reports on the now closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Irvine, California in early 2008. Salem-News.com reports exposed how the base was heavily contaminated with numerous deadly toxic substances, as the city of Irvine and Lennar Homes were moving forward with plans to build a park and new homes on the contaminated soil. Soon other former El Toro Marines began corresponding regularly and today there are eight former U.S. Marines writing for Salem-News.com. They are Tim King, Alan Sabrosky, Bob O'Dowd, Gordon Duff, Roger Butow, Jerry West, Chuck Palzaao and Phil Northcutt.

Both Dr. Phil Leveque and noted Author Jeff Gates are U.S. Army Combat Veterans. Henry Ruark, Jerry Freeman, Q Madp and Gerry Villani all served in the military as well.

When a nation is at war, it makes sense that at least a portion of any media group should be comprised of veterans. We take that a step further.

Other staff members like Alysha Atma Allan Erickson are activists. Bernard Powell, is an author who operates a serious paranormal research group in Oregon. Bruce Sallan writes about family issues from a father's perspective.

Two Salem-News.com writers are from Canada. Daniel Johnson is a frequent contributor who generates provocative articles that examine politics in the U.S. from a much needed outside perspective. Jerry West is a longtime journalist who grew up in the U.S. but made Canada his home after the Vietnam War.

This team of dedicated writers has made many differences in the world already. Our group looks forward to growing and expanding in the future.