Welcome to the official launch of the Yamhill Advocate. My name is Carey Martell and I am the owner, publisher and editor for this newspaper.
The Yamhill Advocate is an alternative independent newspaper for the residents of Yamhill County, Oregon. It is my intention that it will provide you with the latest breaking news in Yamhill County, Oregon, serving the residents of Newberg, Dundee, McMinnville, Yamhill, Carlton, Dayton, Amity, Willamina, Sheridan and Layfette.
The aim of this publication is to publish news of interest for political moderates and conservatives in the county, who I believe are underserved by other existing publications in the area. This means that Yamhill Advocate accepts guest articles and will publish letters to the editor which have a liberal, moderate and conservative bias to them, in an effort to be able to provide enough facts and viewpoints for the residents of Yamhill County, Oregon to make up their own minds on issues.
Yamhill Advocate has started its life as a free digital publication and in the future will transition to a subscription model for exclusive content and a print version. The publication will feature the editorials and investigative reports I have previously published on my blog, CareyMartell.com, but as these are time-consuming to investigate and write, I will need to take on additional writers for the local interest pieces and general news content.
This means that Yamhill Advocate is looking to hire writers to ensure a steady stream of quality content. We are also looking for any local businesses who would be interested in pre-purchasing advertisement space in the publication so that we can pay these writers. As part of the advertisement package, we can produce clearly labeled sponsored content such as articles about your businesses. If the creation of this new publication is of interest to you as either a contributor or an advertiser please reach out to us via yamhilladvocate@gmail.com
I am sure many people will be interested in learning more information about myself and the reasons for why I have created this publication, so I have taken the time to write a short biography about myself which will provide you these answers.
About Your Publisher
I was born and raised in Newberg, Oregon. Before my parents divorced, my brother and I lived with our parents in one of the houses in the graveled road area at the other side of the highway from the Dairy Queen, by the railroad tracks, back when it was still an active railroad. After our parents divorced, my brother and I primarily lived with our grandparents, on the farm that used to exist on Villa Road by the trestle bridge. As a child I used to walk down the railroad tracks to go back and forth between my parent’s house and my grandparent’s farm, and then later, my father’s new home on the edge of town.
In July 2000, when I was seventeen years old, I enlisted into the military and served a little over a year of duty during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was honorably discharged from the US Army in January 2005. This was around the same time that YouTube launched, and I spent the next several years as an entrepreneur working a number of positions in new media (including a stint as a games journalist) until founding a YouTube multi-channel network called Power Up TV, which I sold to Los Angeles-based Thunder Studios in 2015. After the acquisition I became Vice president at the studio, in charge of its digital television division. After I exited from Thunder Studios, I worked as a consultant for a number of video streaming startups and founded another media company, Martell Broadcasting Systems, which developed a streaming video platform called Zenither (currently in hiatus as we explore the enforcement of our intellectual property; I have 10 patents in my name related to it).
I’ve always had a natural talent for writing, which I honed throughout my life. I’ve published a number of various content marketing blogs over the years, some of which succeeded and some of which did not. Most of them have been niche interest topics websites that primarily monetize using affiliate marketing. An example is MillennialGentleman.com, a men’s lifestyle magazine. I also started an imprint, Martell Books, to publish a number of books I have written. I have also dabbled in e-commerce; for example, one of my startups is Federschwert.com, a supplier of affordable equipment for the emerging full contact combat sport of historical fencing.
In summary, as an entrepreneur I have a substantial amount of hands-on experience with digital publications and the business of new media. I also have some limited experience with print. Previous to the founding of the Yamhill Advocate, starting a newspaper was not on my horizons, as I am fully aware of the challenges of the legacy media business model. I’ve been on the other side of this battle, actively contributing to the demise of legacy media. I find myself here under strange circumstance.
Why I Am Founding a Local Newspaper
For a little over two months now, I have been employing my old trade skills as a journalist to investigate what I believe to be a conspiracy against the residents of Yamhill County, which is particularly concentrated in Newberg, McMinnville and Carlton. This conspiracy has been orchestrated by the leadership of the Yamhill County Democrats political party, primarily using Facebook groups, the main one being called Progressive Yamhill. They organize their political activities under a wide number of different political action committees (PACs), but they consist of the same general members who are actively involved and funding their operations. This has gone unnoticed by the general public for the past few years, until my recent investigative reports exposed them.
The two main articles I am referring to are,
These articles were originally published on my personal blog, as they didn’t fit in with any other publication I owned at the time. When I began this investigation I originally did not expect to uncover such a large, organized group that has involved itself in so many events over the years, so at the time I figured a couple articles hosted on my personal blog would be no big deal. I have used my personal blog to talk about a wide number of topics and issues over the years. Yet, it is now clear to me that there is so much more to still report about this group that a new publication is needed, as the articles will very quickly overtake the rest of the content on my personal blog if I were to continue as I have been.
Thus, I put it to the public, those readers of my articles, to help me decide what to do. I posted into several Facebook groups and my personal Facebook profile asking people if they were interested in a new local newspaper edited by me that would report on stories that other publications in the area are not. The response was very encouraging, and so I have now followed through and founded the Yamhill Advocate.
Why the Name Yamhill Advocate Was Chosen
The logo of the Yamhill Advocate is created in Pirata One typeface. I knew that I wanted a Blackletter typeface for the logo in keeping with the tradition of historical local newspapers here in the Northwest. I preferred the modern styling of the Y and A in this typeface, which is why I selected it. I also selected News Cycle typeface for the body font of articles, as it resembles the antiquated look of classic News Gothic, the same typeface that would have been used by many of the first newspapers in Oregon. While the Yamhill Advocate is a digital newspaper publication I wanted it to have a kind of retro look in its branding.
I’m a big believer in branding. With the exception of Zenither, all of my past startup projects have relied heavily on organic means of growth using a business model called lean startup bootstrapping, which was taught to me by my mentor, Kevin Koym, at the Tech Ranch Austin accelerator program I attended many years ago. The business model is focused on minimizing costs, using a development methodology first pioneered by Toyota, to develop a new product or service that is market validated. This strategy involves re-investing all profits back into the business in order to scale it to a point the founder can remove themselves from its day to day operations. Developing a good brand is part of this process.
After a few brainstorming exercises, I settled on the name Advocate for the publication. The name ‘Advocate’ has been used by a number of American newspapers across the country, many of which were involved in some capacity with the civil rights movements. In fact, a newspaper use to exist in Portland called The Advocate, which is an example of one of these publications that reported on these very social issues during its short run in the very early 20th century.
While the social issues and circumstances of the times have most certainly changed since the early 20th century, I believe there is presently a renewed need for publications who advocate for the Common Humanity approach — the viewpoint that a person’s worth should not be evaluated by the color of their skin, gender or sexual orientation, but instead by the content of their character. This is the ideology that was championed by civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and it guided the drafting of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
By contrast, a Common Enemy framework called Critical Race Theory has become popularly adopted by many people within our county, and these people are deeply involved in the conspiracy I have uncovered. The ultimate goal of their organization is to re-introduce segregation in a way they think will be ‘equitable’. I am opposed to this goal, as I am against any form of racial segregation, no matter the reason.
So, like past newspapers to bear the name of Advocate, the Yamhill Advocate will advocate for shared and universal American values and it will oppose the re-introduction of segregation that is desired by these Common Enemy groups, who are using other publications as a means of spreading their propaganda intended to deceive residents into supporting politicians and social activism that favor segregation, without the general public realizing that is what they are doing.
The Yamhill Advocate will, of course, also advocate on behalf of the residents of Yamhill county for other issues of public interest, too. Many people feel that civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution are being trampled upon by state and federal governments, and existing local newspapers are not providing equal voice for their concerns in the public forum. The Yamhill Advocate shall aim to restore some balance to the local news reporting in our area on these topics as well.
What Are The Personal Political Positions of the Publisher?
Personally speaking, at the time I write this essay I am still a registered Democrat, even if I am appalled at the direction the party leaders have taken it. I will not support their candidates at the ballot box. At the time of this writing I am still deciding what to do about this and I am of present mind that a new political party for moderates may be needed to restore balanced governance to Oregon. I will elaborate more on my thoughts about this in future editorials.
I consider myself to be a politically moderate person. I believe my viewpoints on many social issues are centric in nature. For example, my views on several common topics are thus;
- Taxation and welfare: I believe the federal, state and municipal governments have a right to tax. I don’t necessarily think this means they must tax whenever they can on whatever they can. I do believe the tax system in Oregon is creating many social issues and that it needs to be re-worked to bring down the average cost of living in the state and promote more job creation. I’m not opposed to welfare programs, but I do believe current programs are being mismanaged and worsening the problems they are supposed to be solving, as the spending is being done irresponsibly. I think a re-assessment is needed.
- Religion: I, personally, am an atheist. I am a firm believer in the freedom of religion guaranteed by First Amendment of the Constitution. Unlike many other atheists who involve themselves in politics, I did not become atheist because I hate religion. I became an atheist because the amount of scientific knowledge I have acquired has resulted in an inability to believe in the supernatural and magical things, such as gods, demons and miracles. I have no problem with religious symbols such as crosses used in memorials and holidays such as Christmas, which I still celebrate in a secular way. I don’t have any issues with churches having non-profit statuses. I do not spend my days trying to convince everyone to become atheist, either. I would prefer people simply be morally good people. I strive to practice a virtue-based moral framework that has many overlaps with Christian moral beliefs, which you can read more about here if you’re particularly interested in the topic. The document I am most loyal to is the Constitution, and I regard myself as an American before I am anything else. My editorials will discuss the importance of striving toward excellence and virtue in character and conduct, championing shared American values. I am probably not going to talk about atheism much in this newspaper, if at all, as I don’t think it’s all that important to the issues at hand in this county or even our country. Atheism is merely absence of belief in the supernatural; it is not an inherent moral code.
- Abortion: I believe it needs regulation but I’m not in favor of a complete ban, as there are times it can be necessary. I am opposed to it being presented and used as a normal means of birth control. I think it should not be publicly funded, as abortion is counter-productive to the public interest to increase the birth rate. I’m also uncomfortable with public money used to fund the termination of otherwise healthy human life when the human has committed no wrong; I believe this sends the wrong social message about the value of human life. I’m also not comfortable with the way pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood target ethnic minority, low-income teenage girls, as it looks exploitive to me and reeks of eugenics.
- Gun control: I am a believer in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, yet I also agree that violent criminal offenders should not be permitted to legally own firearms. I don’t have issues with firearm registration and concealed carry permits (I have permits and registered firearms) but I do think some states attempt to use these laws to deny ownership against law-abiding citizens for no legitimate reason. I believe people have a right to defend themselves and that legal ownership of firearms is necessary for lawful citizens to have this right. I’m in favor of the idea for a national concealed carry permit system which states must comply with as a means of ensuring the Second Amendment is honored. I agree certain kinds of ammo and weapons need strict regulation to reduce their chance of falling into the wrong hands. I don’t agree semi-automatic handguns and rifles are comparable to automatic weapons.
- Free College: I’m in favor of this as it will help make America more competitive again, but not in the way it is frequently discussed (a free reign license to dump more public money into universities). I believe public education needs to be dramatically reworked with the elimination of the present high school structure, and instead students who would normally enter the 9th grade will instead attend local community colleges, the tuition paid for by the funds that currently are used to pay for their high school education. If students attended community college classes instead of high school, they could graduate with a bachelor degree by the time they are eighteen, greatly expanding their job opportunities, even if they don’t necessarily use that degree for primary employment (instead choosing to join a trade union, or the military, etc.). I believe present day high school education standards have become so high that the class material is comparable to freshman and junior college classes, yet the students do not earn college credits for these classes taken in high school. The High school system is a legacy developed for a past age (the early 20th century) and I think it should be retired as it no longer meets the needs of present day; a high school diploma is today not regarded as comparable to a university diploma and will not qualify you for any useful civilian employment. We’re wasting money by funding high schools and wasting the time of young students, too. Likewise, I believe universities and colleges who are the recipients of federal and state funding should be required to have caps on their tuition so that higher education is more affordable. There is already a trend on this at the state level, but I think the federal government should do this as well.
- Draft: I am in favor of bringing back the draft, but not precisely in the way most people discuss it. I do not believe all young people have the necessary aptitudes for a military service career and it would not be wise to force it upon everyone. Yet, I do believe there are many valuable things to be gained for both the country and young people from bringing back a draft for public service, the most important being a guarantee of employment for those fresh out of school that will help them transition into the work force. So, I believe the Jobs Corps needs to be re-structured into a department of the federal government separate from the Department of Labor and focused now on implementing a number of large-scale infrastructure improvement programs in impoverished areas with the goal of undoing the damage of bad past policies that caused these impoverishments to begin with. Basically, marry the Job Corps with the General Services Administration to perform large scale publicly funded infrastructure and public works projects as a means of providing both employment and resolving economic woes in troubled parts of the country. This will cover everything from bridge and road repairs to construction of new schools and hospitals. This would be similar in concept to the Public Works Division under the New Deal policies of President Franklin Roosevelt. After this integration of the Job Corps with federally funded public works programs is done, I believe the draft should be re-instated for all young adults, and that mandatory civil service in either the military or the Job Corps should be required for at least four years; everyone will have the right to choose whether to serve between civil service or military service. Serving in either will afford many of the same benefits in terms of home loan programs and other benefits packages, including healthcare and college tuition payment programs like the GI Bill. I believe this plan could significantly improve some of the root causes of economic problems facing young people in America today while also allowing the federal government to use its money to fix some of the problems past administrations caused in many impoverished areas, such as those most harmed by the loss of manufacturing jobs as a consequence of things like NAFTA. I think it is also good for young people to serve their country and take ownership for its improvement. So, in the scenario I imagine, young people would turn eighteen with a bachelor degree in hand and then enlist into either the military or civil service Job Corps, gaining guaranteed employment, valuable work experience and benefits so that at the end of their four year draft term they can either continue on or discharge into civilian life, pursue higher education professions (such as becoming a doctor or lawyer) with the tuition payment programs they earned from their draft service or obtain a good paying job in the civilian sector based on their prior work history. I think this approach would restore the middle class to the American economy, the loss of which is one of the causes of America’s present economic troubles. Dumping trillions of dollars into private and non-profit companies in the hopes the money will trickle down to average people, which is the goal of the so-called “Build Back Better” plan, is not a real plan, since the companies it benefits can actually spend the money any way they want with no consequences. My strategy guarantees employment for every young American, provides them with valuable work experience and programs for advancing their career, or even for starting a business. It’s a life path strategy, which other plans are not.
- Homelessness: I think we need to start calling this what it actually is; vagrancy. While there are certainly people who experience a temporary economic crisis and lack family to help them through these tough times, the vast majority of vagrancy we are seeing in our cities is not caused by economic issues. Mental health issues, overwhelmingly alcohol and drug dependencies, are the main causes of vagrancy. These mental health problems result in the person being unable to hold down a job and/or maintain a residence. The factors that are causing widespread vagrancy are complex and require several solutions to fully resolve, but I am totally against the use of public money to build so-called “tiny homes” and other expensive land development projects to provide them housing outside of the medical care they so very need. You cannot solve a mental health crisis by treating it as an economic problem. I believe we should cease our dependency on publicly funded outpatient centers which have proven ineffective, and bring back public state ran in-patient psychiatric hospitals that specialize in the care of people with addictions and who have developed severe mental health problems as a consequence of these addictions. I think this is the best way to get these vulnerable people off the streets and away from the drug dealers who exploit them.
- Immigration: I’m pro-immigration. I’m not pro-ignoring immigration laws. Every country has sovereignty and a right to decide who will and won’t enter its country. When I visit other countries, I comply with their policies and enter through a known port of entry. I think if you have no respect for the laws of a country to the degree you enter it illegally, you shouldn’t have the right to become a citizen of it. I am not in favor of amnesty for illegal immigrants currently in the USA. I have friends who broke these laws and have not been permitted to return to the USA, and as a result I have not seen them in many years, so I am not saying this because I just don’t know anyone who is effected. The law is the law, and if you violate our laws as an alien you should not be surprised if you are deported from the country. That’s how every country works. Immigration impacts the economy and security of a nation, it must be regulated.
- Police reform: I support law enforcement and am opposed to defunding the police so that their budgets can be given to non-profits who have no public accountability and their own vested interests. I think police officers should be well compensated for their work, since they risk their lives to protect our streets, and this also reduces their vulnerability to participate in crimes through bribery. I think body cameras are good, useful tools for the benefit of both the public and police officers. I think states, maybe even the federal government, need to implement new standards for the education and training of new police officers to ensure a consistently high quality standard of law enforcement everywhere in America. On that note, I believe that it is unfair for local police to be expected to enforce our laws against well organized and funded criminal organizations such as street gangs who distribute illicit goods for foreign criminal syndicates such as the Mexico-based cartels, and that the federal government needs to step in by better funding Homeland Security, the FBI and ATF for dealing with these organizations and implementing new laws to expand their jurisdiction over these type of groups. Small town sheriffs and police officers shouldn’t be expected to have to investigate and arrest cabals of criminals receiving assistance from vast networks of organized crime. Police departments are becoming more “militarized” because they are having to deal with criminals organized as a paramilitary force who engage in black market trading of drugs, weapons and even other humans as slaves. The situation should never have gotten to this point to begin with and gross incompetence at the federal level has resulted in this problem escalating to the present day conditions police are dealing with.
- Homosexuality: I don’t care much about the details of other people’s personal sex lives. Gay marriage, adoption and so on, is all fine with me and I’m glad these issues have been resolved at the federal level within my lifetime. The social issue related to sex that I am actually focused on is the obsession many in my generation have developed with prescribing significant positive moral value to whether or not you have strange and unusual sexual fetishes. This isn’t exclusive to homosexuality, but is related only in that many pro-gay social activists are promoters of the fringe gender identity theories of John Money, which I regard to be pseudo-scientific given that he intentionally faked the results of his research so as to profit from the publishing of his books and funding of companies that endorsed his ideas, which then hired him as a consultant. As a consequence, I believe it is unfortunate that so many people today have decided their sexual fetishes are some kind of all-important aspect of their personality that defines everything about them, as this often results in the adoption of a hedonistic world view. Hedonism is the reduction of what is ‘good’ to simply be whatever provides pleasure and it is a philosophically problematic approach to morality; what is good for the wolf can be bad for the deer. Moral relativism has a strong tendency to lead to the collapse of societies when adopted by the masses, especially by its leaders, because it allows for the justification of shortsighted and destructive behavior. So, in short, I have no major issues with homosexuality; my issue is with hedonism and the reason there is any overlap between the two topics is not because all homosexuals are hedonists but instead because many of the social activist groups these days who claim to be pro-gay are actually pro-hedonism, in my opinion. Heterosexuals can also be hedonists and I have issues with them as well, for the same reasons.
These are, of course, my personal viewpoints. I think they are what genuine progressive-ism should be looking like in America today; solve unemployment issues by giving people employment, solve mental health problems by giving people mental health care, reduce organized crime by better utilizing the agencies designed to investigate and arrest organized criminals, and so on. I believe that many people today have stolen the label of “progressive” to support their desire to just give free things to people and think this will somehow magically solve the underlying causes of social issues. It hasn’t and it never will, because giving people free things unconditionally does not fix complicated problems. I believe there needs to be an actual strategy attached with the spending. We need to be more pragmatic in our approach to problem solving and that is what I try to be when I look at these issues.
I think this should be enough commentary on popular topics of public policy that a reader can get a sense for where I personally align politically. I believe my viewpoints are centric and moderate; I acknowledge there are social problems and I think we need solutions to these issues based on proven ways that past generations have solved these issues, even if the particulars need adjusting for the present age we live in.
The Yamhill Advocate Is For the People
Yet, the Yamhill Advocate is not just for me to express my own personal viewpoints though. It’s a place for residents of Yamhill County to submit their own viewpoints and be able to share them. Anyone can send in letters to the editor and submit op-ed essays for publishing, regardless if you are a liberal, moderate or conservative. If I think their content is of suitable quality for publishing, I’ll publish them.
What I’d like to do the most with this publication is advocate for the Common Humanity approach to social issues of diversity and difference, and to restore excellence to our county. I think I owe at least that much to this region of the world that I am a product of.
I hope that this endeavor will be successful enough that I will be able to hire additional staff to help cover stories in every city in the county on a regular basis. I would like to have at least 12 stories published every week. This is an ambitious goal but one that I believe is achievable. At the moment, the Yamhill Advocate is a free publication and I have setup a SubscribeStar account where people can subscribe to make monthly donations as low as $1 a month toward assisting with its operation costs, and the funding of the hiring of other reporters to write for it. You can also make a post in the Classifieds section of this site, which is free to do at launch of this paper (once the paper has established itself, it will cost like like $3 or something to make a classifieds post).
I also have a legal defense fund I am raising via GiveSendGo, as I anticipate that people who do not like my reporting will attempt to sue me. Oregon has a very good law to protect reporters so these efforts will not be successful, but it will require the retaining of an attorney. You can help support the Yamhill Advocate by donating to this fund.
Once this digital publication has established itself and gained enough people who are interested in a print edition I intend to produce a weekly newspaper edition that will be delivered to subscriber’s doorsteps. You can learn more information about that at the SubscribeStar page.
This has been a lengthy essay to introduce the newspaper and myself as its publisher, but I hope it provides much of the information many people are looking for in deciding whether to support this paper or not. Thank you for your readership and I look forward to bringing you the news.
