The Watchdog

JAQUISS HAS BROUGHT DOWN NOT ONE, BUT TWO, Oregon governors as an investigative journalist for the Wil- lamette Week, Portland’s free alternative weekly. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for exposing revered politician Neil Goldschmidt’s sexual relationship with a 14-year- old babysitter. And John Kitzhaber ’69 resigned from the state’s top post earlier this year after Jaquiss revealed pos- sible ethical misconduct involving Kitzhaber’s fiancée. “A reporter has the responsibility to be the public’s watchdog,” he says. “If I didn’t challenge people, I would only be doing a small part of my job.”

Though Jaquiss is one of just three news reporters at

the 70,000-circulation weekly, he often scoops the Orego- nian, the state’s largest paper. The reason? Curiosity and persistence. Plus, working for an underdog publication sometimes serves as an advantage. “It’s hard for a pillar of the city to sometimes investigate other pillars of the city,” he says. “We’re decidedly not a pillar of the city.”

Raised in southern Indiana, Jaquiss decided to switch careers in his early 30s. Post-Dartmouth he spent 11 years as a Wall Street oil trader before his first child’s birth and the death of both parents prompted him to enroll in Co- lumbia’s journalism school. “All those things forced me to think about whether I was doing what I wanted to do with my life,” he says. Still, Jaquiss never expected to land at an alternative weekly. “I’m a pretty conventional person,” he laughs. But he was attracted to the paper’s commitment to hard-hitting political coverage and joined the staff in 1998. Winning the Pulitzer, he says, proves that reporters don’t need to be part of a major news organization to make a difference. “It showed me that if you do great journal- ism, it doesn’t matter where you do it,” he says. “People will respond.”