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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 2015)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015 D AILY A STORIAN Brian Williams’ ticking time bomb T HE Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager SAMANTHA MCLAREN, Circulation Manager Port of Astoria gets a do-over By MAUREEN DOWD New York Times News Service W ASHINGTON — This was a bomb that had been ticking for a while. NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was FRQVWDQWO\ LQÀDWLQJ KLV ELRJUDSK\ 7KH\ ZHUH ÀXPPR[HG RYHU ZK\ the leading network anchor felt that he needed Hemingwayesque, EXOOHWVZKL]]LQJE\ ÀRXULVKHV WR puff himself up, sometimes to the point where it was a joke in the news division. But the caustic media big shots who once roamed the land were gone, and “there was no one around to pull his chain he Port of Astoria has a burden in its lease to Brad when he got Maureen Smithart, who operates the Astoria Riverwalk Inn — the too over-the- top,” as one Dowd remade Red Lion Inn. Smithart owes some 18 months of lease NBC News re- payments to the Port. He also owes overdue room tax money porter put it. It seemed pathological because to the city of Astoria. Williams already had the premier It appears that Smithart wants property. It is understandable that job, so why engage in résumé in- to sell his lease to another operator. the Port did not want to make that flation? And you don’t get those because of your derring-do. But the Port Commission must cash outlay. But demolishing the jobs When Williams was declared agree to that transfer. decrepit motel and starting over the hair apparent to Tom Bro- The essence of the choice is the only way to go. Putting kaw in 1995, hailed by Jay Leno Port commissioners made in money into a waterfront property as “NBC’s stud muffin,” I did a column wondering why TV news giving Smithart the lease on the that is falling apart is a losing programs only hired pretty white former Red Lion property is that proposition. male clones. I asked Williams if they passed up a professional While Astoria has been he was an anchor android. “Not that I’m aware of,” he KRVSLWDOLW\ ¿UP ² (VFDSH enjoying an explosion of quality said gamely, in his anchor-desk Lodging — in favor of an hotel projects — Cannery Pier, baritone. “I can deny the exis- inexperienced, untried operator. (OOLRWW+DPSWRQ,QQ+ROLGD\,QQ tence of a factory in the American Headquartered in Cannon Beach, — the Port is sitting on one of the Midwest that puts out people like me.” (VFDSH /RGJLQJ RSHUDWHV WKH best hotel sites in town. Williams told friends last week Ocean View Lodge and other Port Commissioners and that he felt anguished, coming un- hotel properties on the coast and staff will have an opportunity to der fire for his false story of com- LQ(DVWHUQ2UHJRQ make a choice that would make ing under fire. Although the NBC anchor had The key element of the Astorians proud. In the parlance repeated the Iraq war tall tale, (VFDSH /RGJLQJ SURSRVDO ZDV of sports, the Port will soon have ever more baroquely, for more than a decade, when he cited it demolition of the Red Lion a do-over. on his Jan. 30 broadcast during a segment about going to a Rang- ers game with a retired, decorat- ed soldier who had been on the ground that day when he landed, Williams got smacked down on Facebook. A crew member from a Chi- nook flying ahead of Williams, who was involved in the 2003 firefight, posted, “Sorry dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walk- hey are cool dinosaur Society is spending a vast ing up about an hour after we had descendants. But we don’t sum on salmon recovery. At landed to ask me what had hap- T Despite bad experience, waterfront hotel site is one of the best Time to restore natural balance T Cormorants are overrunning lower Columbia salmon population need so many of them. It’s comparatively easy to learn what is killing young salmon on their migration to the ocean, but it has proven exceptionally difficult to do much about it. So it is for double-crested cormorants RQ (DVW 6DQG ,VODQG QHDU Chinook,Wash., where a bird colony eats about 11 million juvenile salmon and steelhead each year. By one calculation, this resulted in 740,000 fewer returning adult salmon between 2010 and 2013. This issue is the opposite of a mystery. The great- great-grandfathers of today’s fishermen were concerned about the same problem more than a century ago. Back then, the drastic solution was to kill everything that competed with humans for salmon, to the extent that fish-eating birds and sea mammals were drastically cut back. Most modern residents understand the desirability of a diverse ecosystem. We want all creatures to prosper. This includes cormorants. It’s hard to look at a hummingbird and believe it is a descendant of dinosaurs, but cormorants look as though they could be direct survivors from the Jurassic period. With close-cropped black feathers and a sort of hunched- shoulders demeanor, when they spread their wings to dry while perched on pilings, it’s easy to see their inner- pterodactyl. some point — and that point is now — it is time to rebalance the equation toward making sure that fewer of these expensive young salmon end up as bird food for an avian species that is obviously doing quite well in this region. “Avian predation upon Columbia River salmon stocks has grown to become the single-largest, unchecked impact on their sustainability. ... After more than a decade of research, we can no longer afford to study cormorant impacts without addressing their threats to salmon recovery,” said Paul Lumley, executive director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland. No one better understands the need for long-term balance than the river’s treaty tribes. We should listen to them. The U.S. Army Corps of (QJLQHHUV LV SURSRVLQJ WR NLOO 11,000 adult cormorants on the island. Along with other steps, including making sure some eggs don’t hatch, this will bring the colony into better alignment with modern realities. None of the rationality of wildlife management measures such as these will keep the most avid environmental groups from suing to try to block them. But mature and responsible stewardship often requires assisting nature in maintaining the right balance. That is what is should happen here. Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Actress Allison Williams poses with her father NBC News anchor Brian Williams at HBO’s “Girls” fourth season premiere party at The American Museum of Natural History Jan. 5 in New York. Frothy morning shows long ago became the more important anchoring real estate. pened.” Stars and Stripes ran with it. Social media — the genre that helped make the TV evening news irrelevant by showing us that we don’t need someone to tell us ev- ery night what happened that day — was gutting the institution fur- ther. Although Williams’ determi- nation to wrap himself in others’ valor is indefensible, it seems almost redundant to gnaw on his bones, given the fact that the In- ternet has already taken down a much larger target: the long-in- grained automatic impulse to turn on the TV when news happens. Although there was much chat- ter about the “revered” anchor and the “moral authority” of the networks, does anyone really feel that way anymore? Frothy morn- ing shows long ago became the more important anchoring real estate, garnering more revenue and subsidizing the news divi- sion. One anchor exerted moral authority once and that was Wal- ter Cronkite, because he risked his career to go on TV and tell the truth about the fact that we were losing the Vietnam War. But TV news now is rife with cat, dog and baby videos, weath- er stories and narcissism. And even that fare caused trouble for Williams when he reported on a video of a pig saving a baby goat, admitting “We have no way of knowing if it’s real,” and then later had to explain that it wasn’t. The nightly news anchors are not figures of authority. They’re part of the entertainment, branding and cross-promotion business. Former ABC News anchor Di- ane Sawyer trended on Facebook for reportedly scoring the first in- terview about Bruce Jenner’s gen- der odyssey. When current ABC News an- chor David Muir was still a cor- respondent, some NBC News re- porters had a drinking game about how many times he put himself in the shot and how many times his shirt was unbuttoned. As the late-night comic an- chors got more pointed and edgy with the news, the real anchors mimicked YouTube. Williams did a piece on his daughter Allison’s casting in an NBC production of Peter Pan. And Muir aired an Access Holly- wood-style segment with Bradley Cooper. As the performers — Jon Stew- art, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and Bill Maher — were doing more serious stuff, the supposedly serious guys were doing more per- forming. The anchors pack their Hermès ties and tight T-shirts and fly off to hot spots for the perfor- mance aspect, because the exotic and dangerous backdrops confer the romance of Hemingway cov- ering the Spanish Civil War. Oliver, who has made waves with pieces on financial chica- nery in the Miss America contest and the corporate players trying to undermine net neutrality, told The Verge that he is hiring more researchers with backgrounds in investigative journalism. Meanwhile, in an interview with Fusion, Muir acted out the facial expressions he uses during his broadcast: “the listening face,” the “really listening” face, and the “really concerned” face. All that was missing was “Blue Steel.” With no pushback from the brass at NBC, Williams has spent years fervently “courting celebri- ty,” as The Hollywood Reporter put it, guest starring on 30 Rock, slow-jamming the news with Jim- my Fallon and regaling David Letterman with his faux heroics: “Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the one I was in, RPG and AK-47.” As his profession shrinks and softens, Williams felt compelled to try to steal the kind of glory that can only be earned the hard way. Nobody understands how debt works governments haven’t been Which brings us to cur- making a serious effort to rent events, for there is a tighten their belts, and that direct connection between the overall failure to de- any economists, including what the world needs is, yes, more austerity. But we have, leverage and the emerging Janet Yellen, view in fact, had unprecedented SROLWLFDOFULVLVLQ(XURSH global economic troubles since austerity. As the Interna- (XURSHDQOHDGHUVFRP- 2008 largely as a story about tional Monetary Fund has pletely bought into the notion that the economic “deleveraging” — a simultaneous pointed out, real government spending excluding interest crisis was brought on by attempt by debtors almost has fallen across wealthy too much spending, by na- Paul everywhere to reduce their nations — there have been tions living beyond their Krugman means. The way forward, liabilities. deep cuts by the troubled Chancellor Angela Merkel Why is deleveraging a problem? GHEWRUVRI6RXWKHUQ(XURSH but there have also been cuts in coun- of Germany insisted, was a return Because my spending is your in- tries, like Germany and the United WR IUXJDOLW\ (XURSH VKH GHFODUHG come, and your spending is my in- States, that can borrow at some of the should emulate the famously thrifty come, so if everyone slashes spend- lowest interest rates in history. Swabian housewife. ing at the same time, incomes go This was a prescription for All this austerity has, however, down around the world. only made things worse — and pre- VORZPRWLRQ GLVDVWHU (XURSHDQ Or as Yellen put it in 2009, “Pre- dictably so, because demands that debtors did, in fact, need to tighten cautions that may be smart for in- everyone tighten their belts were their belts — but the austerity they GLYLGXDOV DQG ¿UPV ² DQG LQGHHG based on a misunderstanding of were actually forced to impose was essential to return the the role debt plays in the incredibly savage. Meanwhile, Ger- many and other core economies economy to a normal state economy. All this — nevertheless magnify You can see that misun- — which needed to spend more, to the distress of the economy at work every offset belt-tightening in the periph- austerity derstanding as a whole.” time someone rails against ery — also tried to spend less. The So how much progress GH¿FLWV ZLWK VORJDQV OLNH result was to create an environment has, have we made in return- “Stop stealing from our in which reducing debt ratios was ing the economy to that however, kids.” It sounds right, if you impossible: Real growth slowed to a “normal state”? None at don’t think about it: Fami- FUDZOLQÀDWLRQIHOOWRDOPRVWQRWKLQJ only all. You see, policymak- lies who run up debts make DQGRXWULJKWGHÀDWLRQKDVWDNHQKROG ers have been basing their themselves poorer, so isn’t in the worst-hit nations. made Suffering voters put up with this actions on a false view of that true when we look at policy disaster for a remarkably long what debt is all about, and overall national debt? things their attempts to reduce No, it isn’t. An indebted time, believing in the promises of the the problem have actually family owes money to oth- elite that they would soon see their worse. made it worse. er people; the world econo- VDFUL¿FHVUHZDUGHG%XWDVWKHSDLQ First, the facts: Last my as a whole owes money went on and on, with no visible prog- week, the McKinsey Global Institute to itself. And while it’s true that coun- ress, radicalization was inevitable. issued a report titled “Debt and (Not tries can borrow from other countries, Anyone surprised by the left’s victo- Much) Deleveraging,” which found, America has actually been borrowing ry in Greece, or the surge of anti-es- basically, that no nation has reduced less from abroad since 2008 than it did tablishment forces in Spain, hasn’t its ratio of total debt to GDP. House- EHIRUHDQG(XURSHLVDQHWOHQGHUWR been paying attention. Nobody knows what happens hold debt is down in some countries, the rest of the world. especially in the United States. But Because debt is money we owe to next, although bookmakers are now it’s up in others, and even where ourselves, it does not directly make giving better than even odds that WKHUH KDV EHHQ VLJQL¿FDQW SULYDWH the economy poorer (and paying it off Greece will exit the euro. Maybe the deleveraging, government debt has doesn’t make us richer). True, debt damage would stop there, but I don’t risen by more than private debt has FDQSRVHDWKUHDWWR¿QDQFLDOVWDELOLW\ believe it — a Greek exit is all too fallen. — but the situation is not improved if likely to threaten the whole curren- You might think our failure to re- efforts to reduce debt end up pushing cy project. And if the euro does fail, duce debt ratios shows that we aren’t WKH HFRQRP\ LQWR GHÀDWLRQ DQG GH- here’s what should be written on its tombstone: “Died of a bad analogy.” trying hard enough — that families and pression. By PAUL KRUGMAN New York Times News Service M