News-Record.com

Welcome to my weblog. Its purpose is to engage you in public conversations about the newspaper. The key word is public. Readers have several ways to reach out to us now, but they are all two-way streets between the writer and the paper.

This is the first method that encourages dialogue back and forth between me and our readers in full view of anyone visiting the site.

Shoot me a question, a comment, a concern. I'll try to address it. I'll also write about decisions we make, whether it is to change the front pages or the comics pages. (I guarantee you the comics elicit more fury.)

The one area off-limits in my commentary is editorial. I have nothing to do with the editorial page or the op-ed page or the opinions therein. If you have a pressing question, I'll try to get an answer to it, but I won't debate the opinions.

This is the third blog the News & Record is hosting by staff members. You can find the others - The Lex Files by staff writer, editor and longtime blogger Lex Alexander, and Sports Extra by staff writers Rob Daniels, Jeff Carlton and Jim Young. Both are displayed prominently at the News & Record.

OK. I'm climbing on this rocket ship. Let's see where it goes.

Nothing riles readers like messing with the comics, unless it is leaving out the Jumble or Bridge column. The New York Times, which in its wisdom doesn't run any comic strips, weighed in with a front page story earlier this week.

I'm still getting angry notes about our decision last month to replace Mark Trail with Brewster Rockit, a strip syndicated by local artist Tim Rickard. Things are worse for readers of some newspapers: as the Times report, some large papers are eliminating entire pages of comics. In any case, we moved Mr. Trail's adventures online.

Opinion columnist and blogger Ed Cone has organized the Piedmont Bloggers Conference this Saturday at the Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro. It's open to anyone interested in Weblogs. Details here. Alas, I'll be on a soccer sideline, working my other fulltime job as parent. But the conference looks like it going to be good. We'll have a report on it in the newspaper on Sunday.

We're sending Jim Schlosser to New York next week to write about the Republican National Convention. Jim, who has written with style and flair for us since George W. Bush was an undergrad at Yale, will be covering his sixth political convention. His first was with the Republicans in Miami in 1972.

Jim's charge is to send colorful and insightful dispatches about the local delegation and the state's political presence. That won't be difficult; News & Record readers know him for his ability to pick up interesting stories others miss.

And Republicans who suggested that our bias was showing when we displayed the Democrats prominently on the front pages of the paper during their convention, you'll get your turn on A1 next week.

Has the news media betrayed its core purpose in its coverage of the Swift Boat veterans story?

"Just how dishonest must a smear campaign be for American journalists to say so plainly or, better yet, to ignore altogether?" asks The New Republic Online. After outlining what the media has done with the story - primarily fumbling it - they add: "The effect was to spread lies rather than scrutinize them, in a precise perversion of journalism's supposed purpose."

Other sites, notably the Columbia Journalism Review , raise similar questions.

Essentially, this story was driven first by cable news in search of copy to fill the 24/7 maw, then followed by network news, afraid to be found wanting. Most newspapers tracked the story, reporting the he-said, she-said nature of the argument, but it took some digging and some time to get to the military records of both Kerry and his critics. Many major newspapers wrote long pieces this week detailing the holes in the Swift Boats Veterans stories.

So where was the News & Record? Until Sunday, we hadn't done all that much with the Swift Boat vets, but that's not entirely because of the lack of corroborating evidence supporting their claims. Our coverage has mainly consisted of short stories inside the paper.

A friend of mine asked me if we were intimidated by the conservative lobby that doesn't hesitate to call and e-mail when it perceives we have crossed their "fair and balanced" line in the sand. And when we published a first-person story on A2 by a Swift Boat captain who fought alongside Kerry that confirmed Kerry's account, I got several calls complaining about our omission of "the other side."

I told my friends that, no, we haven't been intimidated. We try to be fair, objective and truthful. The chips fall where they may. Specifically, the story hasn't bannered the front page because we're emphasizing local news over national news, particularly national news that is all over television. By definition, news is something you didn't know before. So, when a story gets blanket coverage by other media, particularly when it's a story that has little local connection or import, we don't feel the need to give it huge play.

Now, the Guilford school system's bus hub, that's another matter.

From Editor & Publisher. Our man in NYC, Jim Schlosser, will be too busy getting good stories to be tempted by the journalistic graft, won't you, Jim?

On Sunday, the News & Record will report on illegal steroids in the Triad. An excerpt from the story by Taft Wireback and Jeff Carlton:

"Illegal steroids are available for covert use by body builders and fitness buffs across the Triad, both police and gym owners acknowledge.

"The good news is that steroids apparently haven't made significant inroads into the Triad's subculture of high school and college students.

"The bad news is that few coaches, team doctors and other school officials are looking very hard for signs of steroid abuse."

As you can see from this column, our plan with Jim Schlosser at the GOP convention in New York City is similar to the plans of many papers around the country. That is, he's going to cover stories specific to the Triad and North Carolina. My guess -- and knowing Jim, I'm confident -- is that you will learn something here that you won't even find in The New York Times.

At least that is the plan for now. Jim has a way of finding stories no one else can. And don't worry about the addresses of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the others. We'll cover those with the wire services. We are cognizant of the need for equivalency with the GOP and the Dems, all things being equal. Just don't let your party loyalty get in the way of enjoying Jim's dispatches from the convention. I guarantee they will be worth your reading, even if you're a yellow dog Democrat.

Much of the discussion about the news media these days involves political bias. I rarely hear debate -- and rarely get letters -- about religious bias. But it's an interesting subject worth pursuing. Over the weekend, a friend, who happens to be a Protestant minister, praised Tom Steadman's Sunday story on Royce Reynolds. The theme of that article was that Reynolds' Christian faith has driven his philanthrophy.

Then the pastor wrote: "I feel compelled to write and encourage the paper to include in the near future, if you are not already planning to, articles on other faith traditions as well -- Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, etc. I am aware that it can be very difficult, especially in the case of faithful Muslims, to get someone to speak publicly about their faith, but I believe this would provide a better reflection of the reality that is now our community, and would avoid the appearance that you are promoting one faith. This could also help enrich our community's understanding of those whose beliefs differ from our own."

Exactly. One of the jobs of a newspaper is to reflect the community in all of its diversity. We need to do better in that. I cannot say that we're overtly biased on religion. I think, though, that we write about what we know, and we know Christianity best. I don't know the religious makeup of our staff, but I suspect that most are Christians. If we had more Jewish, Muslim or Sikh staff members -- or any, in some cases -- their stories would be better reflected in the paper.

Our challenge -- and one we'll take up -- is to excel at portraying the impact faith -- all faiths -- has on people's lives. Knowledge leads to understanding and acceptance, which helps the community at large. If you know of stories, Christian or non-Christian, that illustrate the power of faith, let us know. Our religion reporter, Nancy McLaughlin, would love to hear them. Her direct e-mail is nmclaughlin@news-record.com

Last week, a reader wrote a letter to the editor expressing disappointment that the newspaper is moving away from front page display of serious stories on national and international events, such as the war, the presidential election and Hurricane Charley. "I subscribe to read these stories with insightful coverage, not quasi-religious 'fluff,'" the writer said, referring to an article the previous Sunday about an ill boy who was buoyed by his faith.

Today, I got an e-mail from another reader voicing similar concerns: "The front page news items that are the leading stories on the Internet are often not mentioned and certainly not on the front page where they belong."

Both readers are correct about our evolving front page philosophy. In the past eight or nine months, we've purposely moved A1 beyond national and international news and into issues that directly affect people locally. With all the news sources out there -- from network news to 24-hour cable news to other newspapers to C-Span to the Internet -- we decided that the smart play is to emphasize local news. Actually, we emphasize stories that are local, serious and exclusive. Many readers can get the headlines about Iraq, Bush and Kerry, and Hurricane Charley before they go to bed. It has become increasingly difficult for us to tell them something they don't already know because of the easy access to other information sources.

What we can deliver is local: local news, local people and local features. We don't ignore the serious issues of the world. Coverage of the war and the presidential race have prominent places every day inside the newspaper. When important news develops on those topics, we don't hesitate to move it to the front. But we don't automatically layer those stories on the front page as we might have done a few years ago. That, in turn, allows us to display stories more prominently about local people and local decisions that are hard to find elsewhere. We think it helps people in the Triad understand their community better.

With all the coverage the newspaper gave to the departure of professional baseball at War Memorial Stadium, I received this e-mail from Perry Keziah, a founding member of Keziah, Gates and Samet, and a longtime correspondent on the shapes of things in the news business. With our story this morning on the fight after the Greensboro Page-High Point Central game and the serious injury to Page principal Terry Worrell, his e-mail becomes even more poignant.

"I have no idea how it was reported, but in the fall of 1945, High Point High School played Greensboro High School at War Memorial. I was there as a member of the High Point High School band. The rivalry between the schools was intense.

"The game was interrupted by fist fights among the fans which spilled onto the field. After the game, our band made it back to our chartered bus (Greyhound) but the bus was blocked and couldn't move. The local fans attacked the bus and most of the windows on the bus were broken by rocks, etc. It was urban warfare!

"I remember deciding that band work was too high risk and retired my trumpet. It might be interesting to have someone check your morgue and see what the reports of the game said."

Well, I checked. We covered the High Point-Greensboro game. High Point won handily, 13-0, thanks to their running game and tough defense. A crowd of 13,400 attended, the largest ever to attend a high school game in the state. I know this because the 12-paragraph story told me. It didn't mention anything about fisticuffs, bus attacks or urban warfare.

Back in those days, news had a different definition, particularly in the sports section, where if a ball wasn't involved, it wasn't reported. Neither was the retirement of a future Doc Severinsen.

Meanwhile, best wishes on a speedy recovery for Ms. Worrell.

I just came back from the annual State of the Community luncheon sponsored by the Greensboro Area Chamber of Commerce. Once again, Mayor Keith Holliday criticized the news media for its negativity, for trumping up its public watchdog role and for underestimating its readers' intelligence. He encouraged the 800-or-so business and community leaders there to think for themselves, advice, I suspect, the audience had already learned by themselves many, many years ago. Here's what he said:

"Of course, nothing breeds the Greensboro disease more profoundly than a group of media representatives that rationalize their attempts at marketing their product by labeling themselves as public watchdogs. Some day our local media is going to discover the public is much smarter than they give them credit for.

"Please, please, please do not let the media do your thinking for you. Ask them to give you facts so that you can create your own opinion. The media in Greensboro run a business just like many of you do and thus should be scrutinized just like any other consumer product or service in the marketplace."

Contrast that with the comments of the speaker who followed the mayor, Alan Duncan, chairman of the Guilford school board and an attorney for the News & Record. He could have remarked on the recent coverage of the bus transportation mess, the controversial High Point redistricting plan or the story in the morning paper about the superintendent's travel. Instead, he opened by saying the school system has "been under close scrutiny. That's a good thing." He said he welcomes the scrutiny because that means the community cares about their children's education.

Discuss among yourselves.

Oh, for the record, I have great respect for the wisdom of our readers. We know -- and I've written many times -- that our readers are savvy, sophisticated and have no difficulty seeing behind the curtain.

By the way, the mayor introduced his remarks about the media by saying that he enjoyed Ed Cone's column in the News & Record about being optimistic about the city's future.