Les Zaitz, a journalist in Oregon for more than 50 years, has been awarded his sixth Bruce Baer Award, considered the state’s top investigative reporting honor.
Zaitz is editor and publisher of the Malheur Enterprise in Vale and co-founder and editor of Salem Reporter. He is also interim editor of his family’s Keizer newspaper, Keizertimes. He grew up in Keizer, graduating from McNary in 1973 and his family acquired the Keizer newspaper in 1987.
The Bruce Baer Award is given for public service reporting and was announced Monday, May 5, by the Friends of Bruce Baer and the Portland State University Foundation. Zaitz has won the award more times than any other journalist, starting with the original award presented in 1978.
The award is named for a television reporter for KATU in Portland known for his public affairs reporting. Bruce Baer died of cancer at age 40 in 1977.
“In challenging times for the press, the duty to hold public officials accountable for how they use public money and their power is more important than ever,” Zaitz said. “I hope this recognition serves as inspiration to other Oregon journalists that such work continues to be a fundamental role of reporters.”
Zaitz was cited for his investigation of state Rep. Greg Smith, a Republican from Heppner who mixes his public service with private contracting that has made him a millionaire.
“The investigations brought to light ethical and financial entanglements that had long gone unchallenged. Those included serious conflicts of interest, mismanagement and a pattern of evasion by Smith,” the committee said in its announcement.
The legislator has held multiple positions at the same time but he has shed some in the face of the investigative reports in the Enterprise.
Smith worked under contract for years as Malheur County’s economic development director. He was in charge of a publicly-funded rail shipping project that burned through more than $30 million and remains unfinished.
While he was under scrutiny in Malheur County, Smith sought a criminal investigation into Zaitz’s weekend contacts with his staff, discouraged businesses from advertising in the local paper, and once offered to buy the Vale business.
He quit his county contract in 2022 and in 2023 gave up his role administrating the rail project with 11 days’ notice to officials.
In 2024, Eastern Oregon University terminated its contract with Smith that had been in place for nearly 20 years. That action followed the Enterprise investigation into Smith’s role as director of a business center at the university. The center was shut down after Smith left.
In a separate action, the U.S. Defense Department earlier this year canceled funding of a small public agency run by Smith. He has for years been executive director of the Columbia Development Authority. Zaitz’s investigation of Smith’s conduct at the Boardman agency triggered the federal review. The public board overseeing Smith also canceled a major pay raise the legislator had engineered for himself.
Zaitz won the first Bruce Baer Award ever presented. That was in 1978 for his investigation while at The Oregonian of a rogue sheriff in Curry County. His other wins:
*1981: Investigation of a corrupt state senator that led to the then-largest state ethics form and a reform of state bribery laws, for The Oregonian.
*1999: Investigation of cost overruns for a school being built on marshy ground, for Keizertimes.
* 2001: Investigation of the state school superintendent, resulting in the then-largest ethics fine in Oregon history, for The Oregonian.
*2014: Investigation of drug cartels operating in Oregon, for The Oregonian.
