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.