Floyd McKay, 1957 Linfield College graduate and renowned Oregon journalist, will read from his new book on Wednesday, May 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the Austin Reading Room in the Nicholson Library at Linfield.
McKay’s book, “Reporting the Oregon Story: How Activists and Visionaries Transformed a State,” covers the period from 1964 to 1986, often referred to as The Oregon Story because it was a time of great change. From clean rivers and open beaches to mass transit and the Columbia Gorge, those two decades shaped the future of Oregon. As a reporter at the Oregon Statesman (now the Statesman Journal) in Salem and a news analyst at KGW-TV for 17 years in Portland, McKay knew all the major players and rising newcomers that defined this era.
His book describes and analyzes the time, linking the state’s leadership with an emerging corps of activists, many of them women who were on the cusp of taking leadership roles in Oregon politics. It also discusses changes in the Oregon media and is the first to link the environmental gains of the time with the emergence of a Portland renaissance that included MAX, Pioneer Square and the demise of urban freeways.
McKay left full-time journalism in 1986 and spent two years as an assistant to Gov. Neil Goldschmidt. From 1990 to 2004 he taught journalism at Western Washington University, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington along the way, specializing in media history, and later writing two books and many academic journal articles on that topic.
The reading, part of the “Readings at the Nick” series, is free, open to the public and sponsored by Nicholson Library and the Linfield College Department of Mass Communications. For more information, contact Susan Barnes Whyte at 503-883-2517 or swhyte@linfield.edu.
