How To Read the News for Free in Portland

It costs money to report the news, so it’s really important to support quality journalism. But it’s also understandable that too many news subscriptions can break the bank.

The good news: There are a number of free (and legal!) ways to tap into the stories of the day.

Here’s a guide on how to access several local and national news sources at no cost to you:

📚 Tap Into the Free Library’s News Offerings

Step one: If you don’t have one already, get yourself a Multnomah County library card. (You can do it online in Multnomah County. It’s totally free, and it unlocks all kinds of other resources too!)

Once you do that, you’ll have access to lots of news, both at physical library branches and in the comfort of your own home. Some highlights:

📰 The New York Times

The library has a subscription to “New York Times Digital Access,” which will grant you a 24-hour digital pass to the Times’ website — and you can always get a new one when your first one expires. Here are instructions on how to get a pass. (It includes perks like recipes and games.)

🗞️ USA Today, The Economist, and More

USA Today and The Economist — along with New York Magazine and more — are also available for free to be read on your computer or smartphone.

🥄 Another Magazine Option

The library also provides access to a wide range of magazines through the Libby app. They’ve got an incredible range of offerings, such as news, fashion, cooking, or science. The titles include Wired, The Week, and Rolling Stone, as well as Bon Appétit and Men’s Health.

📰 The Oregonian

To get access to the city’s newspaper of record, visit the library’s news and magazines page. Log in with your library card number and pin.

That will take you to the website Newsbank. From there, you can choose to read the text of individual articles (select option listed as “Text” from the “Sources” list and then choose which issue you want to read) or images of the paper as it appeared in print (select the option with the “Image” format).

💻 Check Out Some Non-Paywalled Sources

Not all news operates on a subscription model, so try checking out some always non-paywalled sources to see what’s going on. Some of my favorite free-to-read online sources for national news include NPR, the Associated Press, and NBC News.

There are also plenty of state and local news sites that don’t require a subscription. Here’s a selection of a few you can browse online:

• For news across Oregon: OPB
• For statewide government and politics news: Oregon Capital Chronicle and the Oregon Journalism Project
• For city news and culture: the alt-weeklies Portland Mercury and Willamette Week and the magazine Portland Monthly

And, of course, don’t forget about the City Cast Portland podcast and the City Cast Portland newsletter 😉