Just to round out the media news I posted last week about WWeek Managing Editor Hank Stern taking a spokesman job at the county, an internal memo the Oregonian sent out today says that long-time O investigative reporter Brent Walth will be leaving the daily to take Stern's old job. A copy of the memo is below the jump.

Walth worked at WWeek back in the eighties, but has been on staff at the Oregonian for 16 years. He was definitely one of the star reporters at the paper, most recently digging into political stories and an overly-expensive state emergency radio system, but was part of a team that won a Public Service Pulitzer in 2001 for coverage of abuses by Immigration and Naturalization Services. Walth has also written a book about former Governor Tom McCall.

Walth has a pretty nice Twitter avatar, but has yet to actually tweet anything.

That's two top-tier reporters to leave the paper since the start of the year. City hall reporter Ryan Frank left in February to take a journalism teaching gig at University of Oregon.

Memo from Oregonian editor Peter Bhatia:

It is with great sadness that I report to you that Brent Walth has resigned to become managing editor of Willamette Week. Brent has served this newspaper and our readers with amazing distinction over the past 16 years, as the Pulitzer he shared for the INS project reflects. But his work can be measured in uncountable important ways, through mentorship of others, and a remarkable string of investigative projects, most recently on OWIN and the DOE-DOJ investigation stories. Personally, I look back with great memories of projects we worked on together, most recently the Social Security disability stories and long-ago PERS investigations. We did our best to get him to stay, but he is ready for new challenges.

I hope you can understand that I have asked Brent to make today his last day at The Oregonian. So please go by and wish him well and thank him for all he has done here.

Peter