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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 3, 2019)
A4 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, ApRIL 3, 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 EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK Reports exaggerated of newspaper’s demise ‘T he report of my death was an exaggeration,” Mark Twain famously proclaimed in an 1897 letter to a newspaper reporter who had inquired about rumors of his failing health. That metaphor seems appropriate in the wake of the recent announcement that The Daily Astorian will change its print publication frequency beginning May 6 to three days a week — Tuesday, Thurs- day and Saturday — and deliver newspapers via postal carrier. Many anxious readers have called to express their concerns. Is the JIM VAN newspaper in bank- NOSTRAND ruptcy? Is it going out of business? No and no. We are being proactive in adjusting to the financial challenges facing all local media companies today. It’s expensive to distribute a newspaper. The savings we will achieve through these changes posi- tion us well to continue delivering news to your doorsteps, your computers and your mobile devices well into the future. Our parent company, EO Media Group, is locally owned, debt-free and committed to community journalism. As Publisher Kari Borgen recently wrote, we have invested in a new press tower that allows us to feature more color throughout our pages. And our printing press continues to serve other newspa- pers around the region, with even more print business likely headed our way. MORE ONLINE Listen to Kari and I discuss the upcom- ing changes with Joan Herman on her Perspectives show at Coast Communi- ty Radio: bit.ly/da-changes Watch video of the new press tower in operation: bit.ly/da-press-tower care less whether the City Council is covered, the election results are reported or if local officials are held accountable. Thankfully, that’s not the case here. We want to put the best news prod- uct in your hands as we possibly can. We believe passionately in our mission state- ment, which says in part, “We are com- mitted to reporting and distributing local news and information because a well-in- formed public keeps our communities strong.” What do you like? Not cutting news First and foremost, we are not cutting news staff. We plan to offer just as much local news in print three days a week as we now offer in five. That means thicker newspapers, with more sections and in some cases more features. We will continue to run a digital-first newsroom, posting breaking news online as it happens. We recently revamped our website at DailyAstorian.com to opti- mize the mobile reading experience and offer more video capabilities, among John D. Bruijn/The Daily Astorian Daily Astorian press crewmen Carlos Anaya, Clark Verd, Carl Earl and Jim Stanovich push out an old 2-1/2 ton black ink only press unit after removing it to make room for a new full-color 4-high tower. other upgrades. We’re also working on a news app that will offer push notifi- cations if you’d like to be alerted when breaking news happens. Reporters are the indispensable life blood of any news operation. We have a talented, award-winning staff that works hard to keep you informed on what’s going on in your city, your county, the region and the state capital. Many other newspaper companies are bleeding their newsrooms dry, cut- ting reporters, photographers and editors to maintain profitability, pad the corpo- rate coffers or satiate the shareholders. Most of those companies are run by peo- ple who don’t live in the local communi- ties in which they publish. They couldn’t We have a lot of work to do in the coming weeks. It’s not unlike a jigsaw puzzle, reassembling the pages into a new structure that makes sense and feels familiar. Where will the comics go? What days should certain weekly fea- tures appear? What new features should we consider adding? If you have thoughts you’d like to offer, please send them to editor@dai- lyastorian.com. We will continue to place local news almost exclusively on our front page, with regional and national news inside. Most news and sports will live in the A section, with most features in the B sec- tion. Coast Weekend will continue to publish Thursdays. The Seaside Signal will be inserted on Saturdays, rather than Fridays, in the Seaside area. One sure-to-be welcome improve- ment for local sports fans is that high school football and basketball games played on Friday nights will be reported in Saturday’s newspaper. You won’t have to wait until Monday for that news in print anymore. Jim Van Nostrand is editor of The Daily Astorian. Water under the bridge Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers 10 years ago this week — 2009 As often as weather permits, a dozen workers wearing orange rain coats and hard hats wade into massive stacks of logs along U.S. Highway 26. They saw the logs down to firewood-length rounds and stack them on a trailer. The wood is then hauled to Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office substations in Jewell and Knappa, where it can be split and stored. The crews come from Clatsop County’s Department of Corrections. They are made up of people on programs in the jail and residents of the county’s Transition Center. And not only are they paying off their debts to society, they are providing essential heating fuel for the needy and making two Oregon highways safer for drivers. Astoria residents have been quick to react to the possibility that the costly Astoria Aquatic Center should be closed. With the Aquatic Center’s subsidy at $420,000, City Manager Paul Benoit has recom- mended closing the facility as a way to help fill a million-dollar gap in the city’s budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. The city’s budget committee begins deliberating later this month. The final decision will be up to the City Council, but Mayor Willis Van Dusen has promised that members will listen to public input. The future of the Naselle Youth Camp is still uncertain. Washington state Senate Democrats released their proposed budget Monday morning. In a surprise move, the senators rejected Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposal to close the camp and want instead to close or convert the 120-year-old Green Hill juvenile prison in Chehalis. However, Washington state House Democrats released their budget wishes Tuesday and went along with the governor’s initial plan to keep Green Hill open and close Naselle. 50 years ago — 1969 A 15-star, 15-stripe flag of the sort flown over Fort Clatsop by the Lewis and Clark party will be sent by an Astoria woman to Rep. William Hungate of Mis- The Daily Astorian 2009 — A Clatsop County work crew cuts logs collected along U.S. Highway 26 in Elsie into fireplace-size chunks. Following winter storms last December, the state decided to make wood from hazard trees available for firewood. 75 years ago — 1944 souri, the state where the expedition began. Mrs. Love and other members of the American Legion Auxiliary made such a flag for the replica of Fort Clatsop, built in the 1950s. She was awaiting more materials to start making more flags, one for each state the Lewis and Clark party passed through on its way to the Pacific, she said. The Navy is well under way on construction of a 100- man laundry at the Astoria naval station on the north end of pier two and will shortly begin work on a $200,000 cold storage plant on property deeded to the Navy by Clatsop County east of Portway, Captain J.D. Barner told the Asto- ria chamber of commerce directors Friday. Gillnet landings on the Columbia increased almost eight-fold between 1963 and 1966. The number of coho returning to hatcheries to spawn increased from about 50,000 fish in 1961 to more than 250,000 in 1967. The ocean troll catch off Oregon climbed from just over 2,000,000 pounds of coho in 1961 to about 8,000,000 pounds in 1967. Sport boat catches of coho near the mouth of the Columbia have risen from under 100,000 fish in 1961 to nearly 300,000 fish in 1967. An early-morning fire Sunday burned to the ground a large wooden hangar and an undis- closed number of combat airplanes at the naval auxiliary air facility, Clatsop County airport. The blaze broke out shortly after 6 a.m. Sun- day, presumably starting among smaller shop rooms along the big hangar’s side. It quickly roared out of control, fed with gasoline and oil, and after shortly more than one fiercely-burn- ing hour, reduced the huge building to a smoking mass of ruin. Work stopped at 8 a.m. today at the Port of Astoria on the loading of three ships, it was learned from Rees Williams, assistant port manager, when longshoremen (ILWU Local 50) refused to work with cranes oper- ated by members of Hoisting and Portable Engineers Local 701. He said the work-refusal was in sympathy with Portland longshoremen because of a similar dis- pute there yesterday. Ensign Wayne M. Erickson, youthful naval reserve flier picked from his life raft 20 miles off the mouth of the Columbia River after his medium-sized plane was forced into the sea, was rescued by Ralph Mason on the fishing boat Foster, it was learned today. What happened to the sailing ship Ton- quin, out of Astoria (1811), which remains one of the greatest mysteries of Northwest history, may be solved soon, depending on the success of an expedition from Portland next month. Edmund Hayes, president of the Oregon Historical Society and a blue water yachts- man, will lead an underwater archaeological search for the Tonquin, which was presum- ably sunk off Vancouver Island, B.C. after leaving Fort Astoria 150 years ago, April 10. The Navy’s “eight ball” left Clatsop County hands this month, according to Hal “Sinbad the Sailor” Eustis, the area’s naval recruiter. The “eight ball” is a trophy awarded monthly by the Oregon Navy recruiting headquarters to the lag- gard in its Wave procurement program. “I got the trophy,” Eustis explained, “for being outstanding in getting no Wave applicants during February. But in March I got four applications.” He said The Dalles’ office has won the “eight ball” three months, while Corvallis has received it once. February was the first month the Astoria office took the trophy and Eustis emphasized he’s out to make it the last. “In all seriousness, the Navy does need Waves,” he said.
