Richard Meeker
Publisher & Co-Owner
Richard Meeker has been Willamette Week’s publisher since 1983, when he and Editor Mark Zusman formed City of Roses Newspaper Company to purchase the paper from the Eugene Register-Guard. Meeker started with the paper as a reporter at its founding in 1974 and became editor in 1977.
Meeker is a graduate of the University of Oregon School of Law (1974) and Amherst College (1970). He taught school for one year on Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. He grew up in Washington, D.C., where he got his start in newspapers in the seventh grade. Meeker is married to Ellen Rosenblum, a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals. He and his wife have two children – Cate and Will.
[OR-E 0101] - Epiphany LXXIII: Publisher: Richard Meeker, Willamette Week (3:13)
Richard Meeker was bitten by journalism while growing up in Washington, D.C., in the 1970s, hanging out with a schoolmate who was the child of Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post. Seeing the drama of Watergate played out in the Graham household, Meeker learned “what journalism was all about.” He sees that community service mission fulfilled in ways large and small at Willamette Week.