Over the next few weeks, The Oregonian/OregonLive will be rolling out a few changes with the goal of enhancing coverage of those issues that matter most to Oregonians.

A new Public Interest and Accountability team will build on the newspaper’s tradition of hard-hitting coverage of issues that directly impact readers’ lives. Team members will focus daily reporting and in-depth analysis on the agencies and leaders making decisions about how to spend our public dollars, including Portland City Hall, Multnomah County, state government, the Oregon Legislature and Portland Public Schools.

The team will also tackle issues that are top-of- mind and seemingly ever-present, including homelessness, the Public Employees Retirement System crisis and Oregon’s struggling public schools, as well as how the state’s most vulnerable populations are provided physical and mental health care. The team will aim to help readers understand important issues, uncovering the full scope of problems as well as potential solutions.

I will oversee the new team in addition to our Opinion pages, which will continue to feature weekly editorials guided by our editorial board’s 2019 agenda and its longstanding principles. The Opinion section will also remain a forum for Oregonians to air varied view- points from across the state.

The goal in redeploying newsroom resources is to focus more journalistic firepower on the most important issues of the day and ratchet up the accountability lens on powerful public and private institutions. We aim to better serve readers who are hungry to stay informed and learn what has worked here and elsewhere to solve problems that can appear intractable.

How will we do this without crossing the clear line between opinion writing and news reporting? As always, our news reporting will be driven by breaking news and the need to analyze issues that are priorities for Oregonians.

On the opinion side, the editorials remain independent from the news coverage. Helen Jung will serve as opinion editor, writing editorials and leading the election endorsement process. She also will craft our editorial agenda, which we set to provide readers insight into those issues we have prioritized for the year. For instance, this year’s agenda includes: Transform education for students’ benefit, keep Oregon solvent, work toward more evenhanded justice in Oregon and put Portland on the right track.

The editorial board will continue to convene Oregon’s leaders to discuss those issues – as well as others that arise throughout the year – and build on our rich history of institutional stances in our Sunday editorials. As well as Helen and myself, the board includes Therese Bottomly, executive editor and vice president of content; and John Maher, president. Longtime Oregonian/OregonLive staff editor Amy Wang also will join the board, bringing her expertise from years overseeing coverage in the Portland area as well as valuable insights from her work leading the newsroom’s diversity committee.

In my new role, I will help guide the general direction for the Opinion section and participate in editorial board meetings – as newsroom leaders here and at media organizations across the country traditionally have. However, because I will oversee news coverage, I will no longer regularly write editorials. The Public Interest and Accountability team focus will be to highlight the most significant issues facing our state, illuminate them through clear-eyed reporting and help bring rigor and leadership as we look for solutions.

With these changes, we will eliminate our single page of opinion content on Fridays and Saturdays. However, we plan to expand our Wednesday section to include several syndicated columnists providing compelling context and analyses on national issues. Both our Wednesday and Sunday Opinion sections will also continue to feature op-eds from local writers and the letters to the editor that we know inspire rich debate among our readers.

We welcome your input on the changes we are making as well as your ideas about what issues we should consider covering throughout the year. Please email me at lgunderson@oregonian.comor call 503-221-8378.