Publisher’s Notebook: What’s in a name?

Published 8:00 am Thursday, April 25, 2019

What’s in a name?

As I look around the art on our office walls, it includes a display of the historic newspaper names from our front pages since the first publication in 1873: The Tri-Weekly Astorian, The Morning Astorian, Evening Astorian Budget, Weekly Astorian, The Daily Astorian. And yes, The Astorian.

Chinook Observer publisher Matt Winters collects, as he describes it, old ephemera, and passed along copies of checks from The Astorian, dated in the 1880s, and one from The Daily Morning Astorian dated 1892. As I looked at the logo from the J.F. Halloran & Co. title, it struck me how oddly similar that the logo used in 1885 was to the newly designed brand that we will be using starting May 7.

Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

As The Daily Astorian once again becomes The Astorian when we change from five-day a week to three-day a week mail delivery, it strikes me that we are putting a lot of old ideas into practice again in a new era. Tri-Weekly, Morning, The Astorian. Our mission and purpose in the community remain constant — a commitment to relevant, credible local news and information for the people of Astoria and Clatsop County, and the belief that a well-informed public keeps our community strong.

Thank you to readers who have called and written with questions and comments about our change to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday mail delivery. Many pointed out things we hadn’t considered, and will make your newspapers better because of it.

As we continue to prepare for our May 7 publication schedule change, please contact me with questions or comments at kborgen@dailyastorian.com, or mail to 949 Exchange Street, Astoria.

I look forward to hearing from you.