News-Record.com

Thank you, David Shaw. Shaw covers the media for the Los Angeles Times. In his column (registration required) yesterday he says this about online customized news reports:

"Great. Timesaving. Efficient. And I hate to sound like an apologist for the old-media folks who pay my salary. But one of the great ancillary benefits of the traditional daily newspaper is serendipity. You often come across something that you never thought would interest you but because it's there, right next to something that does interest you, you read it and maybe you learn something you would never have thought to ask about.

"I wish every provider of these customized news reports recognized the value of serendipity and breadth, as well as depth, of knowledge and force-fed users at least a few bits of unrequested, unrelated material that just might -- surprise -- prove to be of interest.

"Failing that, I wish everyone who relies on these customized reports for most or all of their news and information would, when filling out the list of what they want sent to their computers, check a couple of boxes for subjects way outside their normal range of interests."

This ability to pick-and-choose only that which interests you is dangerous to democracy, he says. "This is a time of rapidly burgeoning immigrant populations, each inevitably separated from the other -- and from the native-born population -- by language, culture, geography and the media they use. According to U.S. Census Bureau projections, minorities will account for more than a third of the U.S. population within six years -- and half of the population by midcentury. In such a multicultural society, more insulation and polarization are the last things we need."

1. Our advertising director was a little worried that some readers would not like their newspaper wrapped in a paid campaign ad for a political candidate as it was this morning. We received fewer than a half-dozen complaints, though. Personally, I was confident that readers would recognize an ad when they saw it and treat it as such.

2. I wish we had given equal prominence to the photographs of President Bush and Sen. John Kerry on the front page this morning. As it was, the photograph of President Bush is larger and above the fold. It's not a big deal, but given the high-pitch partisan nature of the campaign, we should have been more careful to avoid any suggestion of bias. But I'm not aware that anyone has complained.

If you're sitting in a bar following the returns tonight, here is an informative link that will help you win a few bets. And amid all the links to ballot rules, past voting records, election fraud hotlines and state election sites, there is a candidate joke link!

I'm guessing some of you wouldn't mind being editor of the newspaper, at least for a day. So, help us write tomorrow morning's front page headline for the presidential race. It needs to be about 12 letters. Last time, many newspapers had "Bush wins" which is OK, but a little boring and, honestly, too short. Give it a shot.

We finally put the last edition to bed at 3 a.m. or so. Still no decision, of course. The page we wanted you to wake up to -- the one with the winner grinning out at you -- sits impotently in the computer. Lots of interesting results that will bear some scrutiny, which we'll try to give you over the next few days in the newspaper. Biggest surprise to me: Kerry carried Guilford County.

On the headline issue: A scan of other front pages from around the nation shows that "Still counting," "Down to the wire" and "Nation waits" are among the more popular choices. Our choice for most editions -- "Bush closes in" -- is on a couple of the front pages, too.

After the partisan screamfest of the last several months, it's oddly quiet around here. Virtually no e-mail is coming in to me, and just two days ago I had been getting about 10 politically motivated messages an hour. I checked with the editorial department, and as of noon they'd only received three e-mails, period. So far, I've gotten no phone calls complaining about bias or soliciting candidate coverage. Maybe everyone is still celebrating or mourning. Or still asleep.

Or, perhaps, everyone is just plain tired of it. I do like the idea of resting our voices and lowering the volume back down to a decibel level more befitting a discussion. Maybe we can even get it to last through the end of the day.

As I've said here before, there are few areas more treacherous for editors than messing with the comics. So, I'm delighted that my friends at the Winston-Salem Journal are doing just that. The only reason I mention it now is because Brewster Rockit, a comic strip created by Tim Rickard, one of our staff artists, is being considered for inclusion in the Journal.

The newspaper is running a survey of possible additions to its comic page. I'm not proud. I like Tim and I like Brewster. Go here and let's stuff the ballot box for Brewster.

Here's a interesting look at yesterday's front pages from around the nation. I am surprised at the number of papers that used photos of voters rather than of the candidates. We debated that, but decided the page should focus on Bush and Kerry.

Several people have written since Wednesday morning advocating that President Bush's victory sends the newspaper a message that we should reflect the voters' political preferences. Here's part of an e-mail sent to Allen Johnson, our editorial page editor:

"You claim to be a part of this town/community but your endorsements (president) do not seem to reflect how North Carolina and Greensboro vote!!!"

For the record, John Kerry won in Guilford County.

I've written about this idea that the newspaper should reflect the community in our news coverage before. But because I don't have anything to do with our editorial pages or our endorsements, I haven't touched on those. And the editorial pages have an entirely different mission. I asked Allen about that:

"We don't consider our endorsements an attempt to predict how our readers will vote. Whether our picks win or lose doesn't matter to us nearly as much as whether we feel we made informed, principled decisions. That's why we personally interview the candidates in the vast majority of races we endorse in. And it's why we sometimes make choices that the majority of our readers might even vehemently disagree with.

"When, for instance, the old Greensboro Daily News championed the cause of integrated public facilities, many of our readers disagreed. But the editors still felt it was the right call. Similarly, we respect our readers' ability to make up their own minds about their personal choices. And we don't presume to have the power to make the masses vote a certain way. We just hope they'll vote, period, whether they like our endorsements or not."

He sent this along:

"Here's how our endorsements squared with this year's results in Guilford County:

N&R pick _______________Guilford results

John Kerry ____________John Kerry
Mike Easley ____________Mike Easley
Erskine Bowles _________Erskine Bowles
Steve Troxler __________Steve Troxler
Howard Coble __________Howard Coble
Mel Watt ______________Mel Watt
Brad Miller _____________Brad Miller
Jim Snyder _____________Beverly Perdue
Ralph Campbell__________Ralph Campbell
Jim Long _______________Jim Long
Wayne Goodwin _________Wayne Goodwin
Bill Fletcher ____________June Atkinson
Richard Moore __________Richard Moore
Kay Hagan ______________Kay Hagan
Pricey Harrison _________Pricey Harrison
Maggie Jeffus___________Maggie Jeffus
Alma Adams _____________Alma Adams
Jeff Thigpen ___________Jeff Thigpen
Roger Cotten ___________Paul Gibson
Trudy Wade _____________Trudy Wade
Kirk Perkins ____________Kirk Perkins
Mike Barber _____________Mike Winstead
Sarah Parker ____________Sarah Parker
Jim Wynn _______________Rachel Lea Hunter
Linda McGee ____________Linda McGee
Wanda Bryant ___________Wanda Bryant
Alan Thornburg__________Barbara Jackson
Tom Foster _____________Linda Falls
Robby Hassell __________Robby Hassell
Susan Bray _____________Susan Bray
Susan Burch ____________Susan Burch
Patrice Hinnant ________Patrice Hinnant
Sherry Alloway _________Sherry Alloway
Dot Kearns _____________Dot Kearns
William Fails ___________Walter Childs
Kris Cooke _____________Kris Cooke
Amos Quick _____________Amos Quick
For all amendments ______For all amendments
For parks bonds _________For parks bonds
For GTCC bonds __________For GTCC bonds
For all HP bonds ________For all HP bonds

"Total: Out of 50 endorsements in contested races, Guilford voters agreed with the News & Record on 38, and disagreed with us on 12, including three cases in which we endorsed Republicans."

Via Romenesko, a column in The Washington Post yesterday about headline writing contains this paragraph: "Good copy editors also need to have dirty minds, not so they can write a nasty headline on purpose, but so they don't do it accidentally. (Any story about an organ recital, for example, should be approached verrrry carefully.)"

When I read those two sentences I thought of an e-mail I got last month concerning a headline about converting some downtown Greensboro streets into two-way arteries. The headline read: "Some streets downtown will soon go both ways." The e-mail chastised us for using a risque double-entendre. Sheltered soul that I am, I had to read it twice to understand why we were being accused of having dirty minds.

Judging by the e-mail I've gotten today, the most talked about story in the paper wasn't Fallujah or Dell. It was the story about the Muslim woman who broke her shoulder and rib at Wal-Mart on Battleground Avenue after a run-in of some sort with Greensboro police. I certainly don't know what happened, but the story has sparked an anger out there. Here is a typical e-mail.

"This is the most ridculous thing I have ever heard. The policeman did no wrong, and yet they want an apology in Arabic or some language she understands? Says she is a U.S. citizen and been here for 12 years... WHY DOES SHE NOT SPEAK ENGLISH? These people need to get real, and get with the program, and if they are U.S. citizens, then learn our laws, customs, and ways... and LEARN ENGLISH!"

As we become more and more multi-cultural -- Guilford school system officials say they have students enrolled who represent 95 different languages -- we need another way to deal with our differences, language and otherwise. We'll have another story about it tomorrow.

While some people might consider running a newspaper a rollicking good time -- I do -- it's a hard-nosed, bottom-line business. In the past year, the Greensboro Patriot closed, the High Point Enterprise pulled its boxes out of Greensboro, laid some people off and shut down ESP, and now the Greater Greensboro Observer is facing financial problems. While it's self-serving for me to say much, I wonder why any one would give it a shot. The success and longevity of the Rhino is rare. And the market is rocky these days, what with the rise of the Internet and the free-fall of classified ads.

All that said, good journalists like to hear lots of different voices telling many different stories, and it's always a downer to have one of them quieted.

In 2002, then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales addressed the Associated Press Managing Editors conference. Now that he is attorney general nominee, it doesn't bode well for government openness, according to Editor & Publisher. "You have a right to know what is going on in government," Gonzales said at the time. "But we also believe such rights are not absolute."

Sigh.

Readers complain about headlines of stories almost as often as they complain about the stories themselves. Makes sense. Headlines are frequently the only things that are read, and the writer can only use a few words in which to convey a story's point.

Every week or so, Jim Denery, one of our copy desk chiefs, sends out a memo of information, advice and encouragement to his staff. Here's part of the valuable advice he sent out about headlines. (He openly acknowledges stealing entirely from Kenn Finkel, a ex-newspaperman and now consultant.)

A. Essentially, a good headline is:
* An uncluttered single thought.
* Specific -- Try to avoid a headline that's obvious and true most any day, such as the all-time favorite of the chief slot at the San Antonio Express-News: "Some stocks go up; others go down."
* Constructed of short, simple words -- A couple of months ago, we had a head that said that parents were complaining that officials with the county school system were "not communicative." We should have pushed something more along the lines of the officials "weren't talking."
* Expressed with a strong verb. When you can, avoid the verbs to be and to have. Often, they'll weaken the head.
* Usually in the active voice -- Please note the "usually." Passive voice will often save you space. If you need that space to make a point clear, take it.
* One that violates any or all of these rules when necessary.

B. They distill the news. Editors must know the backgrounds of stories in order to bring a sense of perspective to headlines. Avoid reporting something that's already appeared in the paper. Update the story.

C. They are the windows to stories, so they must be clear and concise.

D. They are also the window dressing of the newspaper pages, so they must be attractive and compelling.

E. They are often the only part of the paper that is read, so they must be informative. In cases of straight news stories, they should stand on their own. In almost every case, readers should learn something from a headline, even if they don't read the story.

Jim and Kenn say much more about the proper construction of headlines, but I'm going to save it for a newspaper column later. Besides, with this guide in hand, I need to spend some time honing my own skills.

Dan Froomkin of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism pulls together some high-level commentary on the role of the political press in the wake of the election. My favorite line: "Opposition to deception and distortion doesn't make one a Democrat; it makes one a journalist."

Now, HERE'S an interesting story. It's a shame that we have no idea whether it is true. But it does demonstrate the twists and turns a story can take.

Thursday afternoon I get a call from a reporter with "Entertainment Tonight." He says something like this: "I'm trying to get information about a Greensboro resident who is in jail now and wonder if you can help."

Sure, I say. What's up? He gives me the person's name, what she's in for -- sale of cocaine -- and the date she was sent to prison. He's looking specifically for a photograph of her. I ask him why he's interested. He says: "She's Martha Stewart's cell mate."

I climb back into my chair and ask when he's going to air it. He says Thursday night but that he needs visuals. I tell him we'll check it out from here.

This is what staff writer Eric Collins found: There is a woman from Greensboro by the name the ET reporter gave us in the same prison in West Virginia as Stewart. But that's as far as the trail leads. The prison isn't releasing information, and we can't confirm that she even knows Stewart, much less shares a room with her.

Meanwhile, unknown to me or Collins, staff writer Tom Steadman had heard that former state Agriculture Secretary Meg Scott Phipps is really the one rooming with Stewart. Phipps is in the same prison, serving four years for extortion and mail fraud. Again, there's no real evidence she's rooming with Stewart, and her attorney denies it.

We didn't write any story about this, of course, because you can't write stories based on rumors. ET went ahead with a report without citing a source. I guess they have better sources on the celebrity crime beat.

Yikes! A reporter for the News & Observer trying to report a story has been arrested and charged with making harrassing phone calls. The reporter says he left two messages related to the story he was reporting on a home answering machine.

Let's hope this charge gets tossed. Of all the actions that people say will have a chilling effect on good reporting, a conviction here would send the temperature sub-zero.

Last Wednesday, we published a photo of a weary, battle-dirtied, cut-up Marine in Fallujah. A cigarette was stuck in his mouth, its bleached white paper contrasting with the black grime and red blood on his face.

I didn't get a single phone call or e-mail about the photograph. My colleagues at the Akron Beacon Journal did, though. In a column, the paper's public editor talks about the photograph, the response and the interesting complaint that the photograph encourages young people to smoke.

The conclusions of the editor: "Yes, once you look at the grime on his face, the grit packed in his ears, the blood on his nose, the pain and exhaustion in his eyes -- well, in this poignant portrait of war, I don't even see the cigarette anymore."

Being a good newspaper is a lot of things. Being printed on paper isn't necessarily one of them. Gerald Boyd, the former managing editor of The New York Times who was caught up in the Jayson Blair business and lost his job as a result, has a wonderful piece about what makes a good newspaper.

A good newspaper is committed to the community, provocative, relevant, transparent, serendipitous and, in its heart of hearts, a member of the family. My favorite line: "They are linchpins for change, not for their own personal gain or to buck the status quo. Instead, they understand their mission: to use all of their collective talent to make the community a better place. To readers, this responsibility is not always obvious. But it flows naturally when newspapers succeed in shining light on real problems."

We hear from people every day who don't want us to be provocative or serendipitous or a member of the family (unless we're the crazy uncle you can't get rid of). They don't buy it when we try to be transparent or say we're committed to the community (committed to the nut house, maybe).

Whatever. I like Boyd's description. A lot. We aren't up to it yet. But we strive toward it.

The Greater Greensboro Observer has an interesting juxtaposition of stories in its Nov. 16-29 edition. The cover story, "Big Media=Big Bucks, is based on the premise that newspapers are shrinking in staffing "as publishing giants take control of local print news outlets and hone operations to increase bottom-line margins." The article cites cutbacks at the High Point Enterprise and the News & Record, without quoting anyone from either place, to back up the premise.

But that's OK. Turn the page to the editor's column and Ogi writes about moving the GGO from a weekly to a bi-weekly because it doesn't have enough money. "We set the bar high for ourselves out of the gate, and when revenue didn't measure up to projections we were too stubborn to drop back and punt."

It's a tough world out there in media, whether you're a "publishing giant" or a locally owned tabloid.

I'm proud to announce that Bruce Buchanan and Jennifer Fernandez, our intrepid education reporters and the authors of The Chalkboard, won a few more School Bell Awards for their coverage of education. The awards are sponsored by the state Department of Public Instruction and the N.C. Association of Educators.

Bruce won first place in spot news for his story on Northeast High School dealing with the healing of racial divisions. Bruce and Jennifer won first place for a series of stories tracking the High Point reassignment plan. Jennifer also received honorable mention in spot news for the story on the last day of school with the retiring principal at Jones Elementary.

It takes a special person to succeed covering education. The list of challenges is long. Scores of schools demand coverage. Board meetings are long and laborious. Parents and students are passionate about their points of view. Try getting a good quote out of a third-grader you don't know sometime. Both Bruce and Jennifer excel. I'm glad they're getting the recognition. Again. (They both won last year, too.)

Stan Swofford spent several months reporting on the devastating human and financial costs of crack in our community, which we published Sunday through Tuesday. It was a powerful series of stories, stories that caused city and county politicians to talk about what role they want to play in addressing the problems.

Not surprisingly, the politicians don't agree. Readers, though, are clear on the problems. Stan has gotten dozens of notes. Here are a few:

"I wanted to write and thank you for writing the article on crack cocaine. Our community doesn't realize what people go through on that stuff. I am 21 years old and this December I will be clean two years. My ex-boyfriend introduced me to the drug. I smoked day and night for three months. I got beat and raped by him it seemed like almost every night. Finally, the day that I escaped he held a knife to my throat and was going to kill me. He ended up falling asleep and I was able to sneak out and go to my mother. I had to go to the hospital and have all my bruises looked at because they were very bad. My left thigh was one big bruise. He had hit me in my head like 20 times in one beating and he tried to kill me several times but luckily he let me live. I lived in my own literal personal hell. I just think that it is really great that someone is trying to reach out to the community about this. One day I would like to speak out about my experience so that maybe I could help someone. Anyways, thank you."

"Thank you for showing the human side of addiction. Because addicts were babies, children that choose to try crack and they can't ever imagine the horror, pain and destruction that one choice would create. My husband struggles with addictions and has off and on for years. I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and I praise you and the News & Record for allowing this series to be done and for it to take first page.

"There could never be enough written. I so desperately want to do something to fight what is ultimately a war on our children, families, individuals, jobs, just every aspect of life you could possibly imagine drugs destroy. I am going to go back through the articles and see if I could find a way to help but if there is anything I can do to help fight this war please let me know."

"Excellent article. Thanks for writing it. One note, you quote Susan Mills that it is not a problem just in the black community, yet most of the references are in the black community. I know that crack is just as prevalent in the white community, it is just covered up better. At any rate, it is a huge problem and I thank you for writing about it."

Let's hope it makes a difference.

I was on a panel discussion with Darren Richards of WFMY and Kevin Bumgarner of the Business Journal this morning addressing Leadership Greensboro alums. Interestingly, three of the first four questions concerned blogs, their threat to traditional media and their accuracy.

For the record, I said they aren't a threat; they're a complement and a competitor.

The first question, by the way, was about the media's failure to accurately report the run up to war, not just the most recent Iraqi war but going back to the Gulf of Tonkin. I'm afraid I fumbled that one.

Because I said here once that we would have a new web publishing tool in place before the end of the year, I'd better correct that now. Because of vendor delays, we're now pushed back into February. I sigh in disappointment. I join you all in looking forward to the day when all stories are posted and all links live on.

I'm late on this, but we brought John Vandiver aboard last week as a reporter in our High Point office. He did this story, which ran on the front page today.

John came to us from The Daily Times in Salisbury, Md., a 30,000-circulation paper where he covered county government, education and agriculture. That's all good and well but my favorite part of his past is that he taught English in Seoul for three years after he graduated from the University of Delaware.

He's primarily responsible for covering law enforcement in High Point. If you run into him -- assuming he's not meeting you as part of his beat -- welcome him.

We've gotten a lot of feedback about Matt Williams's Sunday story on lending and race. As you might imagine, we heard from people who think we're pointlessly stirring the racial pot. Some excerpts:

"What was the point of your lead Sunday article outlining the 'race gap' in home lending? As a commercial lender, I am offended at the inference that race plays any part in lending decisions. One could reasonably conclude from the information provided, that blacks generally have a poorer credit history than whites. Why didn't you lead with that headline?"

"Suggestions of some evil conspiracy involving blacks and mortgage approval rates are simply irresponsible. The real question, considering the hard statistics, is why blacks are disproportionately irresponsible when it comes to honoring their financial obligations. And yes, credit scores and employment histories have a lot to do with mortgage approval rates. How much you earn is of little consequence if have high ratios of debt and a poor record of repayment."

"Talk about politically correct! Your headline on the front page screams, 'Race gap dwells in Triad lending.' An exclusive story no less. You have to suspend common sense to buy your premise in this breaking 'news story' that blacks have a disproportionate rejection rate with home mortgage loans when compared to whites. Must be the fault of the racist mortgage lenders. Give me a break. They don't care if you are purple if they can make a loan work out for you. That is how they make money. Maybe this is a vast right wing conspiracy. Blacks and whites are smart enough to see through your boorish attempts to race bait. You love victims. Quit being so condescending to minorities, try going back to the principles of journalism namely who, what, why, when and where and leave the agenda fiction to your liberal columnists."

Perhaps the credit history angle is true, but we found no evidence of it and none of the lenders would say that minorities had poorer credit on average. And our reporting confirms what the city of Greensboro found last year and is supported by another study by the N.C. Fair Housing Center.

Reader Don Moore just sent me this e-mail: "I've been reading your blog from work for a while; but today I was blocked by our content filter. Did you know that your blog is considered offensive? I've attached a screen capture from Sonic Wall. Hopefully, they will change the rating."

Sure enough, the Sonic Wall report says this blog "is currently rated as Category 4 Pornography."

Well, darn. Heck. Shoot. I know that some people consider my writing and the newspaper offensive, but pornography? Perhaps it is the spam postings that my colleague Bruce Buchanan addresses over at The Chalkboard. We don't intend to limit discourse on the site and so will continue to delete the messages from sex sites and pharmaceutical products.

Sorry that you can't get to us, Don. But shouldn't you be paying attention to your work? Just joking. Please appeal the Sonic Wall ruling.

P.S. Just got this new e-mail from Don: "It's actually funny. Billy's site was marked as well. It takes around three days for Sonic Wall to review and approve. The Eden Chamber of Commerce site was tagged as well; but then with a domain of "edenchamber.com", who could blame them?

Update: Our whiz-bang interactive staff has created a system in which you will need to enter a numeric code, which will be provided, when you comment on a post. This should prevent automated robots from leaving links for drugs and porn sites. Entering the code is easy so don't let one more step stop you for wading into the discussion unless, of course, you're a drug-peddlin' pornographer.

The Durham district attorney tossed out the charge of harassment against the News & Observer reporter who was trying to do his job.

"District Attorney Jim Hardin said in a news release Tuesday that the charge against reporter Demorris Lee had "significant implications" regarding "the First Amendment issues of freedom of speech and freedom of the press."

Thank you.

My wife heard a newscaster use the term "Black Friday" this morning as a description of the shopping frenzy today. "It sounds like it's a tragic accident or something," she said. As someone who avoids shopping on the day after Thanksgiving because of the crowds, I understand. However, it refers to the hope-filled day when retailer balance sheets move out of the red and into the black.

I've heard two newscasters refer to today as the biggest shopping day of the year. Nope, that's reserved for the Saturday before Christmas.

"I never got sick."

With those simple, evocative four words, Jinni Hoggard begins her column for the newspaper about her battle with breast cancer. I can't imagine what going public in this way means to her, although her husband, David, explains it here. To us it means that she can help readers understand more about this deadly disease. Jinni tells her story in a true, heartfelt voice. I only wish I could write as well. (Obviously, we're not the only media with it. David blogs it here.)

Jinni's column runs in the paper on Monday. I'm writing about it now because it's so powerful that I want everyone to know about it. (It will be posted Monday.) I look forward to the column in which she declares victory and is cancer free.

I enjoy reading newspaper articles about the Triad written by reporters who swing in for a few days. Sometimes people tell them things they wouldn't tell us locals. The Houston Chronicle ran this one about Dell considering the Triad. My favorite quote: "'It's not that Greensboro doesn't want this project, but we really want it," said Bob Leak, president of quasi-governmental economic development group Winston-Salem Business."

Every year, editors at the News & Record bemoan the lack of people of color working in the newsroom. Every year, we vow to do a better job recruiting, hiring and retaining minorities.

Every year, we fail.

Of the 124 fulltime journalists here, nine are minorities. Nine. That's a measly 7 percent. In Guilford County, 35 percent of the population are members of minority groups.

That comparison embarrasses and troubles me. A good newspaper reflects the racial and gender makeup of its community. It must, in order to present a true mirror of who the citizens are, how they feel, what they think and how they live.

So what does that say about the News & Record?

This month, we decided to put some muscle behind our annual pledge. Beginning now, at least 33 percent of our new hires will be minorities. If an editor hires two white journalists, the next hire must be a minority. We intend to keep that target in our sights until our staff is more representative of the community's 65-35 breakdown.

It is a daunting challenge, and it will take years. But if it were easy then we wouldn’t be talking about it.

Sen. John Edwards dropped by the News & Record on his farewell tour today, and I'm afraid a few of us made him late for his next stop at the historical museum. I'll let Jim Schlosser and the editorial folks write about it all in tomorrow's paper, except for one topic: media coverage of the campaign. I mention it here because some people believe the media was biased in favor of the Kerry-Edwards ticket.

Edwards said that he thought the coverage was, on the whole, fair-minded, but he added that the national media didn't cover the right things. "Too much process. Too much horse race."

People in local media would ask specifically about issues. "They were interested in what you were going to do to affect their lives," he said. That was certainly our intent.

He didn't have much use for the television pundits spinning and commenting on the campaign, and, interestingly, he said that while he appears on the political talk shows, he doesn't watch them.

We, of course, covered Edwards extensively throughout his presidential run. Some readers held that coverage up as evidence that we favored the man. Because he was a serious candidate from North Carolina, we considered it a responsibility and would do it again. We gave similar coverage to Elizabeth Dole in her flirtation with the presidential race in 2000.

As a selfish newspaper editor, I'll miss John Edwards, but not because of his politics. He was generally accessible to us, throughout his term in the Senate and even as he became a national candidate.

Greensboro is Talking alerted me to this story about a new weekly newspaper coming to Greensboro next month. (Why is this being announced in the Outer Banks Sentinel, you ask? They're both owned by the same company.) Its editor, Brian Clarey, covered the bar scene for Go Triad. I'm intrigued by two comments of the company president. First, his idea that "good, long reads" are lacking in the local press. Many of the stories we publish are too long, as far as I'm concerned. Second, "The Greensboro market is begging for a local, hard news weekly, and that is just what we're going to give them." John Hammer may want to discuss that.

I don't know what it is about Greensboro that says "Start a weekly publication here!" Given the recent history of The Patriot, ESP and the Greater Greensboro Observer, you might be better off investing in a surer bet like, say, Ralph Nader's 2008 presidential campaign. But Womack Publishing has been successful for a number of years so this is obviously no lark.

All that said, competition is good for newspapers and readers are always the beneficiaries. Welcome to town.