A4
THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, July 21, 2022
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
Founded in 1873
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
SAMANTHA STINNETT
Circulation Manager
SARAH SILVER
Advertising Sales Manager
WRITER’S NOTEBOOK
New media are filling Oregon news deserts
G
eorge Custer is a new player
in the struggle to keep Oregon
news deserts from happening.
Following closure of the Dead Moun-
tain Echo, an Oakridge newspaper of
some 50 years standing, a group led by
veteran newsman Doug Bates started
the Highway 58 Herald, an online news-
paper. A former U.S. Marine Corps cap-
tain and a businessman, Custer is work-
ing on the newspaper’s
business side, and he has
filled in as an interim
editor.
Custer and I met
at the City Club of
Eugene’s July 8 discus-
sion of the topic, “Can
STEVE
local newspapers sur-
FORRESTER
vive?” In response to
that question, I had the
easier task, because I could speak about
our media company and its survival.
The Highway 58 Herald endeavor
is much like the Ashland News, which
is powered by retired journalists and
business people such as Paul Steinle,
who resides in Ashland, as well as on
the Long Beach Peninsula. Steinle is a
retired executive of King Broadcasting
of Seattle.
These two startups and another in
Yachats are emblematic of the drive to
fill community news voids.
EO Media Group, the parent com-
pany of The Astorian, closed its books
on June 30, at the end of the fiscal
year. I am pleased to report that it was
a financially healthy year. During that
cycle, our newspapers gained sub-
scribers, to both our print and digital
editions.
Talent is the key to our company’s
financial health. Talent in the news-
rooms of our 15 newspapers, talent
among our designers and advertising
sales staffs, talent in our one printing
site in Astoria and in our call center.
News content is what drives readers
to our print and digital editions.
In one of our highest profile news ini-
tiatives, The Bulletin in Bend is in the
midst of a yearlong series that profiles
homeless persons in Deschutes County.
George Custer is the interim editor of Highway 58 Herald.
duRING THE FISCAl yEAR, EO MEdIA GROuP
lAuNCHEd THE FuNd FOR OREGON RuRAl
JOuRNAlISM (FORJ). THIS NONPROFIT VENTuRE
IS SEEKING PHIlANTHROPIC MONEy THAT IS
dEdICATEd TO HElPING NEWSROOMS THRIVE.
FORJ AIMS TO HElP RuRAl NEWSROOMS AROuNd
OREGON BuIld SuSTAINABlE OPERATIONS.
Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court deci-
sion on Roe v. Wade, Katie Franko-
wicz of KMUN and Nicole Bales of The
Astorian took an extensive look at the
lack of access to abortion in rural areas
of Oregon like the North Coast. The
East Oregonian covered a 170-car crash
on Interstate 84 in late February that
stretched nearly 2 miles long. Nearly
20 patients were taken to area hospitals
and stranded motorists were taken to the
Pendleton Convention Center, which
served as a reunification hub for people
involved in the crash.
In the years ahead, our company’s
path and the paths of new Oregon news
outlets such as in Ashland and Oakridge
may intersect. During the fiscal year,
EO Media Group launched the Fund
for Oregon Rural Journalism (FORJ).
This nonprofit venture is seeking philan-
thropic money that is dedicated to help-
ing newsrooms thrive. FORJ aims to
help rural newsrooms around Oregon
build sustainable operations. Also we
hope to build collaborations with other
rural newspapers in shared news initia-
tives on topics such as water, housing
and climate change.
What I like about FORJ is that it is a
countervailing force against the national
narrative that news deserts must be our
future. What America and Oregon need
is a new generation of news entrepre-
neurs. In other words, young people
who are equipped with reporting, edit-
ing and business skills to start commu-
nity news organizations. These young
talents can emerge from our journalism
schools. Our company leaders have had
that conversation with the leaders of the
University of Oregon School of Journal-
ism and Communication.
Journalism schools at the University
of West Virginia and University of Ken-
tucky are focusing on how to develop
new generations of entrepreneurial jour-
nalists. Our conversations with UO are
heartening.
By telling you that we’ve had a good
fiscal year, I do not mean to disguise the
challenges we’ve confronted and will
confront. The newspaper business has
never been easy for papers our size in
communities such as we represent.
If you’ve read “Grit and Ink,” the
history of our company and family,
you know that from the late 19th cen-
tury into the 21st century, impediments
such as the Great Depression, a massive
fire in Astoria, pandemics — as well as
shifts in the advertising industry — have
come our way regularly.
The key to rural and regional news-
papers’ survival is resilience and inno-
vation. And that is where you’ll find EO
Media Group in the year ahead.
Steve Forrester, the former editor and
publisher of The Astorian, is the presi-
dent and CEO of EO Media Group.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A testament
M
ark Winstanley concluded 37 years
of service to the city of Seaside at
the end of June, and more than 20 years
as the city manager. In fact, Mark became
the city manager the year that I graduated
from high school, a fact I’ve reminded him
of a few times in our conversations over
the years.
It’s incredibly difficult serving in a role
like Mark has for that span of time and,
frankly, it’s unprecedented. It’s a testament
to Mark’s flexibility, communication and
leadership that he’s been able to hold that
role for so long, working with numerous
elected officials, leading a dynamic and
growing city and responding to significant
changes that have occurred over that time.
If you’ve ever been around Mark, you
know that he truly cares about the city and
the people of Seaside. I recall many expe-
riences of walking with him to a meeting,
or walking behind him, and seeing him
pick up every piece of litter he saw.
Mark has offered me support numerous
times, going back to when I was first hired
by the Sunset Empire Park and Recre-
ation District in 2015. He’s been there as a
resource for me to ask him questions, and
I know he’s provided the same mentorship
to many of his staff and other folks in our
community.
The city will miss him greatly and,
while they’re in good hands, I wish Mark
the best in his future plans for travel,
family, Oregon State University athlet-
ics and, hopefully, some much-deserved
relaxation.
SKYLER ARCHIBALD
Executive director, Sunset Empire Park
and Recreation District
LETTERS WELCOME
Letters should be exclusive to The
Astorian. Letters should be fewer
than 250 words and must include the
writer’s name, address and phone
number. You will be contacted to
confirm authorship. All letters are
subject to editing for space, gram-
mar and factual accuracy. Only two
letters per writer are allowed each
month. Letters written in response
Worth repeating
T
wo tweets worth repeating and
retweeting:
Dan Rather tweeted: “All those say-
ing the ‘vote, vote, vote’ message is old
and tired undermine the power of the bal-
lot box. Elections are fulcrums that pivot
the course of history. There’s abundant
evidence of this simple fact. Is voting
enough? No. Is it a potent tool for change?
Absolutely.”
David Axelrod tweeted: “The best and
most effective way to respond to blatant,
calculated efforts to discourage voting is to
vote in record numbers.”
Yes and yes to Dan and David. Make
plans to vote. Go to co.clatsop.or.us/clerk/
page/voter-registration-information, there
are many sources of information.
LARRY ALLEN
Astoria
Of bees and fish
I
was disappointed, but not surprised,
by The Astorian’s sophomoric edito-
rial (July 7) parsing the language of Cali-
to other letter writers should address
the issue at hand and should refer to
the headline and date the letter was
published. Discourse should be civil.
Send via email to editor@dailyasto-
rian.com, online at bit.ly/astorianlet-
ters, in person at 949 Exchange St.
in Astoria or mail to Letters to the
Editor, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR.,
97103.
fornia’s 3rd District Court of Appeals rul-
ing that allows bumblebees to be listed as
fish under the California Endangered Spe-
cies Act.
The Astorian missed an opportunity to
underscore the dangerous extinction of
species taking place and chose, instead,
to play a game of “gotcha” about wording
in an editorial that should have appeared
on the In One Ear page. Sadly, the editori-
al’s conclusion that “bees and other insects
could conceivably need protection,”
speaks volumes about their ignorance and
indifference to the pollinator crisis at hand.
The inclusion of bumblebees is linked
to the word “invertebrate.” The intention-
ality of the judges acknowledges the cri-
sis of pollinators that are dying in massive
numbers. The ruling recognized that there
isn’t time to wait for legislatures to reword
the Endangered Species Act if a worse cri-
sis is to be avoided. Without bumblebees,
and other bee pollinators, fruit and vege-
tables will no longer be available for con-
sumption. When that happens, the days
before human extinction are numbered.
The Astorian would have better served
its readership by interviewing the founder
of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate
Conservation, which petitioned to have
bumblebees listed. That founder is our
local butterfly man, nationally acclaimed
naturalist and author, Robert Michael Pyle,
of Grays River, Washington. He would
have cut through the hubbub over termi-
nology and gotten to the core of the issue.
ROGER DORBAND
Astoria