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Peter Madsen

Peter is a feature & investigative reporter supported by the Lay It Out Foundation. His work regularly appears in the Source. Peter's writing has appeared in Vice, Thrasher and The New York Times. Recently, Peter worked on the Canadian Screen Award-winning film “It’s Not Funny Anymore: From Vice Magazine to Proud Boys." He's also the author of Dealers, published by powerHouse Books.

peter@layitoutfoundation.org
Posted inNews

Clearing Up a Misattributed Quote About President Trump in ‘The Bulletin’

A June 20 misattribution to Deschutes County Commissioner Patti Adair stoked the online theory that A.I. had hallucinated the politician’s ‘anti-Trump’ sea change
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T o read it on its face, The Bulletin’s June 20 article, “Plan to sell public lands sparks backlash in Central Oregon,” read like another fairly reported story that localizes the latest repercussions of the Trump Administration here in Central Oregon.  The piece covers the U.S. National Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands that […]

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Turning a Corner — Cascade East Transit Expands Central Oregon Services

Transit Agency hopes to make expanded hours, and new fares, a regular thing
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The Cascade East Transit bus trundled along Route 2 past downtown Bend during the evening rush hour on June 12. Finished with work, Jill Hanson boarded the bus at Hawthorne Station, choosing a window seat among four other passengers. Hanson has ridden the bus since her car broke down in February. She tried bike commuting […]

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Teen Gets His Two Billboards Moment

Redmond high schooler Gavin McConnell won an ODOT billboard design contest dedicated to road worker safety
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“Their job is risky. Don’t make it deadly.”  It’s a straightforward concept. The language is concise. Combined with clear illustration, the message packs a punch.  And now it’s one of ODOT’s newest billboards — one that might save road workers’ lives.  The billboard is the work of Gavin McConnell, a recent graduate of Ridgeview High […]

Posted inCulture

Shred Lightly: ‘A Field Guide to the Subterranean’

In a new memoir, Portland author Justin Hocking dismantles his outdoorsy machismo to discover a more sustainable modus operandi
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From the kaleidoscopic pages of “A Field Guide to the Subterranean: Reclaiming the Deep Earth and our Deepest Selves,” a new memoir by Justin Hocking, tumbles the author’s ambition, as a young man, to be hard. He cultivated a stiff upper lip in his late teens by training to become a mountaineering guide in his […]

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Shouldering the Load — and Setting a World Junior Record

Bend’s Campbell McKean notches two wins at the 2025 USA Swimming Nationals, breaks the 1-minute barrier in the 100-meter breaststroke
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One of Bend’s fastest-rising, world-caliber athletes only recently graduated from high school. On June 5, while his friends and classmates at Caldera High School threw their graduation caps into the air, McKean was at the 2025 USA Swimming National Championship in Indianapolis, competing neck-to-neck with an Olympian in the Men’s 50 Meter Breaststroke race. In […]

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Bye-bye Plastic Bags

Oregon restaurants, supermarkets and other retailers will no longer provide plastic bags
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Wait — wasn’t there already a plastic bag ban?  There was, in 2020, on single-use plastic bags. This time, the thicker, 4-millimeter-thick bags meant to be reused several times — you know the ones — have also been nixed.  Gov. Tina Kotek signed Senate Bill 551 into law on June 5, mandating that retailers, grocers and […]

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The Dust is Settling on a More-Supportive Juniper Ridge

A partial closure and designated Temporary Safe Stay Area in ‘Dirt World,’ an unhoused encampment north of Bend, is now in effect
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Tim Cheney took a morning walk where he lives in Juniper Ridge on June 2. Neighbors took a break from home-improvement projects to greet him and chat. Dogs, some fenced and others loose, barked and played while their owners swapped notes about the area’s influx of new residents.  Monday morning, Juniper Ridge, better known as […]

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Have You Been Following The Embezzlement Scandal At The ‘Eugene Weekly’ — As Reported By The ‘Eugene Weekly’?

Days after Gov. Tina Kotek revived the extradition of the alt-weekly’s bookkeeper, ‘Eugene Weekly’ Editor Camilla Mortensen dishes on writing about an embezzlement stranger than fiction
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If we tracked watercooler topics here in the Source newsroom, the story of the “Eugene Weekly” embezzlement would certainly be topping the chart.  A certain reporter — when informed by an editor that the “Eugene Weekly” bookkeeper accused of embezzling more than $100,000 (closer to $300,000, considering unpaid debts) was released from an Ohio jail […]

Posted inCulture

The Gay Show

The Bend Comedy Festival’s Queer comedy showcase will dish up plenty of LGBTQ sass, yuks
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Did comedian Jamie Shriner ever tell you about the time she put gum in her older sister’s hair, right before the pair were set to audition for a production of “Beauty and the Beast”? And the crazy part? By the end of this funny-ass anecdote, Shriner, astoundingly, isn’t the villain. “That’s another one of those […]

Posted inNews

Bias In Our Backyard

Reported stats on bias crimes in Central Oregon are still fresh. Here’s what we know so far.
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He was an Immigration & Customs Enforcement agent. Or that’s at least what the uniformed man said when he boarded a Cascade East Transit bus at the Hawthorne Station in Bend on April 28. He walked down the aisle, asked passengers their immigration status and rummaged through one passenger’s bag. Then he left. An hour […]

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