News-Record.com

John, here is one more comment to help you catch up.

I fully expect the blogs in the op-ed area to be the most popular. Nothing gets people's blood boiling faster than an opinion different than their own printed 90,000 times.

John: I left this at Lex's joint too. I have an idea for your next blog, or one down the road. It's a hyper-local, super-global blog. New way to do international coverage. You find the places where a "global" story intersects with life in the Triad and environs. And you run with it.

This is from Doug McGill's concept essay on it: Glocal Journalism in America.

The idea of glocal or worldplace news is that every place on earth is connected by strands of mutual influence, interdependence, and direct causality.

Because the geographical distances are so great, say between Rochester, MN and Brooklyn, NY and Warsaw, Poland, it's often easy not to see those connections. But those connections are there, and together they make up not only one's place, but one's worldplace.

The job of the worldplace reporter is to investigate and to write about his worldplace. The invisible strands of mutual influence connecting his place to the world, are his subject. They are what he tries to make visible, to bring into public light and public life.

Sounds dreamy, right? Well, Doug can tell you about the way frantic phone calling back to Africa among immigrants in his town of Rochester, Minnesota were a sign of an actual genocide going on, uncovered by the major media. See the Anuak Genocide. So that's one example of it working.

Next blog: go glocal in a slow-cooked Greensboro fashion.

I will be interested to see if letters to the editor decrease because of this. Will people not want to have to defend their positions online? Are there any plans to monitor this?

JW, yes, we're going to monitor it. But we fully expect that letters will increase, not decrease. Not only will people want to have their thoughts in the paper, but they'll like the give-and-take discussion online. And we hope that it will help people who want to respond to a letter hone their arguments.

So, in that optimistic way we have, we hope it will make the letters stronger and the civic discussion smarter.

Sorry, Jay, I forgot you in that previous post. That's a wonderful idea. And it definitely applies to the Triad. In Guilford County schools alone, there are some 90 different languages represented.

Rah! Rah! Letters to the editor online!!
Rah! Rah! Great idea!!
(this is exciting... but I'm easily entertained)

John,

The following is a copy of a letter to the editor I sent to your paper. I am posting it here because we have discussed this issue before. I really would like someone at the N&R ed board to explain to me why supporting the elimination of elections for council of state is not partisan bias by the N&R. It is one thing to have a liberal opinion on something such as abortion, etc. But your editorial boards position on this issue of elections is not even philisophical. It is purely about helping out Democrats. What other reason is there to hold this position other than helping Democrats? I fully expect the response to be "eliminating elections won't necessarily help Democrats either because they may not always win the governors race." This may be so, but it is still a better position for the Democrats than the current trend. If the elections are eliminated, they only need to win one race instead of many, which they are historically more likely to win. Please, have someone at the ed board call me or write to me and explain why it's suddenly a good idea, and why your paper is moving beyond mere philisophical and ideological bias into pure partisan bias. Here is my letter:

Your February 5th editorial regarding Britt Cobb's concession to Steve Troxler was another shining example of bias at the News & Record. In that opinion, it was suggested that elections for Council of State should be eliminated. In the same issue, there was an article by Eric Dyer about how the Democrats no longer dominate the Council of State.

Is this a mere coincidence that suddenly when Democrats start losing elections, the News & Record along with some Democrats in Raleigh find a need to do away with those elections? Why wasn't this a good idea 10, 20, 30 or more years ago? What has changed now that suddenly elections are not such a good idea?

Republican's started winning judgeships so now we need to consider direct appointment of judges. At the District Court level, Republican's started winning, so the legislature made those races non-partisan. It was only a matter of time before the Democrats and their kindred spirits in the media suggested taking away the vote of the people in other state races. The message is clear- the people are obviously too stupid to vote for the "right" people, so let's take the vote away from them. Of course, the "right" people are always Democrats.

Ordinarily, newspapers attempt to get out of the "bias" label by saying "that's on our editorial page, not our news page." But in this case, you didn't even offer a perspective- you just throw the idea and your support of it out there. This is pure partisan hackery. It would really serve your readers well if you could explain why getting rid of elections for Council of State is suddenly a good idea after over 200 years of elections. Really, I would like to know.

Samuel S. Spagnola