A4
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MARcH 13, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
circulation Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
SUNSHINE WEEK
Communities lose when newspapers die
I
t is a story of corruption that will
stay secret, politicians who will need
fewer votes to win, even dangerous
communicable diseases that will spread
faster as our best scientists struggle to
fight them.
The story is the slow and pain-
ful demise of local newspapers, a story
whose ending is not yet written but
which — without bold intervention and
strong reader support — could bring cata-
strophic repercussions.
Whether you follow
the news or not, whether
you trust journalists or
not, the financial chal-
lenges slaying local
newspapers will affect
JOYCE
your community, your
TERHAAR
wallet, your quality of
life. In some cities, they
already have.
We’ve watched local newspapers lose
revenue to tech giants for the better part
of the last quarter century. In recent years,
the outcome has become dire, with nearly
one in five — almost 1,800 newspapers
— closed in the last 15 years, according
to Penelope Muse Abernathy, the Knight
Chair in Journalism and Media Econom-
ics at the University of North Carolina.
Even more prevalent than closures are
what Abernathy calls “ghosts,” newspa-
pers that are a shell of what they were.
Tens of thousands of journalists left
newsrooms in the decade ending 2017.
You can blame the insatiable grab for
profits from hedge fund ownership like
Alden Global Capital and its Digital First
Media. But even companies with deep
commitments to their journalistic mission
have been forced to issue one layoff after
another, dismantling newsroom staffs that
once kept a check on the powerful.
When they walked out of the news-
room, those journalists took with them
their connections to the community and
their knowledge of issues and people.
We’ve all lived through the result: Your
newspaper’s best coverage still might be
very good; there’s just not nearly enough
of it.
I used to think journalists in digi-
tal startups would replace newspapers
that disappeared. That isn’t happening
enough. Abernathy identified hundreds
of cities with no credible news source
left. And last July, Pew Research Cen-
ter reported that in the decade ending in
2017, roughly 32,000 newspaper journal-
ist jobs evaporated and only 6,000 were
created by digital news startups. News-
papers still employed more journalists —
39,000 — than the 13,000 at digital sites.
What happens when a community
loses a newspaper? Or when the news-
paper no longer has enough reporters to
cover the news? The Federal Communi-
cations Commission as far back as 2011
had a bleak prognosis : “More govern-
ment waste, more local corruption, less
effective schools, and other serious com-
munity problems.”
It was right:
— It costs you money: Higher wages
for government employees, higher defi-
cits and — perhaps a more esoteric exam-
ple — higher costs for municipal bor-
rowing. Last May, researchers at the
University of Notre Dame and the Uni-
versity of Illinois at Chicago found all
three after looking at how local newspa-
per closures affected public finance. “...
local newspapers hold their governments
accountable, keeping municipal borrow-
ing costs low and ultimately saving local
taxpayers money.”
— It might hurt your health: Scien-
tists with the US Centers for Disease
Control and the World Health Organiza-
tion told the health news site STAT last
year they use local newspaper reports to
watch for the spread of infectious dis-
eases and are handicapped in communi-
ties without newspapers. For instance, the
CDC obtained urgent data about a 2016-
17 mumps outbreak in northwest Arkan-
sas only because of coverage from the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
— Fewer people hold power: When
local newspapers go out of business, sev-
eral recent studies show, we don’t vote as
often or stay engaged with politics. That
means fewer people elect our politicians.
Think about the last time you voted. Did
you vote in every race on the ballot? Or
did you skip some because you couldn’t
easily find verified information about the
candidates?
Without local newspapers, who
reveals injustices like the widespread sex-
ual abuse by Catholic priests reported
by the Boston Globe in 2003? Or leads a
community-wide discussion of race rela-
tions and the impact on housing, crime
and education, as Ohio’s Akron Beacon
Journal did in 1993? Or exposes high
death rates among Las Vegas construc-
tion workers as the Las Vegas Sun did in
2009? These are just three examples of
public service so exemplary they received
a Pulitzer Prize.
We can’t afford to lose this kind of
journalism. You can help by subscrib-
ing to at least one local newspaper. The
Knight Foundation last month announced
a major effort to help, committing $300
million to organizations including those
that pay for local journalism, like the
American Journalism Project, Report for
America and the investigative journal-
ism nonprofit ProPublica. Philanthropists
around the country are funding nonprofit
startups to help fill the void.
We should pay attention to what other
countries are doing, and to Sen. Eliza-
beth Warren’s proposal to break up tech
company dominance, even though gov-
ernment intervention rightly raises some
hackles.
Late last year, the Canadian govern-
ment announced it would spend $600
million to protect public service jour-
nalism, using tools such as tax incen-
tives. A British inquiry into what it will
take to sustain high-quality journalism
last month rightly questioned whether it’s
time for government intervention given
the market dominance of Facebook and
Google, and made recommendations
including possible journalism subsidies.
What about that market dominance?
It is, after all, threatening public ser-
vice journalism, an essential part of our
democracy and citizen power. In January,
we saw Facebook pledge to spend $300
million in the U.S. to help local newspa-
pers, a year after Google promised the
same amount.
It’s a good start, but not nearly
enough: The duopoly controls most
online advertising revenue, benefits from
news content, yet doesn’t pay for the sub-
stantial cost of quality journalism. Bold
intervention is what we need. Will it take
the British?
Joyce Terhaar is a board member with
the American Society of News Editors
and former executive editor of The Sacra-
mento Bee.
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2009
KNAPPA – Things look pretty good in Knappa right now.
And the winning formula is the T-word — “teamwork.”
The Logger boys basketball team did its own version of
“winning one for the Gipper” Saturday night, earning the
state Class 2A basketball championship for coach Craig
Cokley.
It was especially fitting because Cokley had announced
that he is retiring from the coaching job after a stellar career.
A settlement has removed the last obstacle pre-
venting a controversial condominium project on
the Columbia River waterfront in Astoria from
going ahead.
Seldom has a residential development sparked as much
public opposition as the condominium Jon Englund and his
partners proposed for property between 15th and 16th streets
on the Astoria riverfront. It was 2006 when Englund first
floated the idea of a condo on the former site of his family’s
marine supply business, which is now located at the Port of
Astoria.
The Oregon Department of Transportation is sending an
extra $895,000 in highway project funds to Clatsop County
and its municipalities as part of the federal economic stimu-
lus package.
In addition to the normal state distribution of Surface
Transportation Program funds, Clatsop County will receive
$541,530, the city of Astoria, $215,779, and city of Seaside,
$137,966.
The funds must be spent within a year on ODOT-ap-
proved projects.
Even from a cornfield in Illinois, someone can
pan across the waves washing up at the Cove in
Seaside.
From an internet cafe in Africa, a computer
user will have a front-row seat while Fourth of July
fireworks light up the ocean.
And, deep in the heart of Texas, a curious
onlooker will be able to cheer on the runners in
the Hood to Coast Relay as they spring down the
Promenade to the finish line on the beach.
Watching the waves is already possible with a
webcam perched on a balcony at the Lanai at the
Cove, a vacation condominium complex on the
south side of town. Set up by the Seaside Chamber
Millions of feet of lumber and no transportation in sight was the picture in 1969 at Pier 2, Port of Astoria. Port officials
said the East coast strike of longshoremen, recently settled, prevented ships from maintaining normal schedules. More
than 12,000,000 feet of lumber awaiting export is visible in this view, taken from the port water tower.
of Commerce on the chamber’s website a month
ago, the webcam enables viewers to see almost 3
miles away to the Turnaround.
In another two weeks, the chamber will install
a second webcam at the Seaside Aquarium, which
will offer a view that will reach to the mouth of the
Necanicum on the north and Tillamook Head on
the south.
50 years ago — 1969
Retired logger Henry Mooers of Skamokawa came in
with a map. The map showed how much distance would be
cut off travel to and from the beach if the present circuitous
route over K-M mountain could be eliminated. This can be
done, and must be done sooner than later, says Mooers, by
simply extending the highway straight down the shore of the
Columbia from Skamokawa, past Brookfield, Pillar Rock
and Altoona, and either across Grays Bay on a low-level
bridge, or around it, to connect with the present highway in
the vicinity of Pt. Ellice.
It looks as if this would shave about 20 miles in distance.
In terms of driving time, that would be around 30 minutes
considering the nature of the road, up and over the mountain,
being replaced.
Anyone who wonders why the road wasn’t located along
the river in the first place – why, after following water all way
from Longview, it took off inland at Skamokawa – needs
to understand a little lower Columbia history. There was a
legislator named Meserve who had a large general store at
the head of navigation on Grays River. He insisted that the
new road, finished in 1930, go through his town rather than
Brookfield, Pillar Rock and Altoona. And he prevailed.
The manager of the Port of Astoria pleaded with
the port commissioners Tuesday not to give up on
the bill in the Legislature that proposes merger of
the ports of Astoria, St. Helens and Portland.
“What you lose is so small, in comparison with
what you gain, that it’s foolish to question the
Mosser bill,” Manager C.E. Hodges told commis-
sioners skeptical of some provisions in Senate Bill
492, drawn by Port of Portland attorney John
Mosser.
75 years ago — 1944
A committee to work out a plan of financing the proposed
teenage recreation center was appointed at Thursday night’s
community council meeting by Chairman Don Mitshell in
hopes that a survey of financial support might help in selec-
tion of a site for the recreation rooms.
No union of opinion was reached regarding location of
the youth hall. In addition to the two sites previously favored,
the YMCA and basement of the old Montgomery Ward
building, now owned and offered free of rental by the Amer-
ican Legion, several others requiring rent were suggested.
A medium-sized plane from the Astoria airport
facility of the U.S. Naval Air Station, returning
with other planes from a routine flight, was forced
into the sea 8 miles off Willapa Bay at 7:55 p.m.
Sunday, and two men aboard were still missing
today despite an all-night search.