News-Record.com

In case you thought the legislature is spending all its time on the lottery and raising the cigarette tax, it is also putting the squeeze on information that has been available to the public for, like, ever. Here is an update on pending legislation from the N.C. Press Association. Everyone who commented in the previous post about free speech may want to weigh in with their legislators:

House Bill 714 may be heading for a floor vote on Thursday, May 5. This bill, sponsored by Rep. Linda Coleman (D-Wake) would allow the head of a public agency or university to withhold any information that he or she believes is in the best interests of the health, safety or security of the employee of the department.

The language in this bill is so broad that it would create a huge loophole in the state's public records law by giving custodians of public records new reasons for withholding documents. And the burden would be on citizens and reporters to prove why information withheld under this amendment should be open to the public.

This bill flies in the face of a preamble to the N.C. Public Records Law, which states that public records and public information compiled by government agencies are the property of the citizens of the state.

Other secrecy bills are coming from the Senate side and sponsored by Sen. Dan Clodfelter (D-Mecklenburg). These bills: SB 932, SB 856 and SB 792 would close many records that have long been open to public inspection. Among these are:

* Drafts of unfinished public records
* Communication between government attorneys and government officials
* Records relating to donors to public universities
* Unpublished research data generated by public universities
* Create a limited "work product" privilege exempting memos from government lawyers reflecting strategies concerning legal claims against government
* Make secret "notes" of closed session until the need for secrecy has passed.

This secrecy legislation will emerge soon on the House and Senate floors.

To view the text of these bills, visit www.ncleg.net and use the bill search engine. Talking points are located at www.ncpress.com.

Much discussion on newspaper sites about the latest publishers' statements on circulation. From Editor & Publisher: "On 'Bloody Monday,' E&P calculated the circ numbers in the new Fas-Fax report and found steep percentage drops at many large papers. A few show modest gains, but in some spots it's downright ugly."

Not so ugly here. Weekday and Saturday circulation is at 95,119, an increase of 426 papers, or 0.45 percent. Sunday circulation didn't fare as well with a decrease of 1.34 percent, or 1,521 papers to 112,154.

But in our primary circulation area of the metro Greensboro area, we're in much better shape. Weekday and Saturday circulation climbed 1,089 papers to 62,105 or 1.78 percent. Sunday went up 405 papers to 71,936 or 0.57 percent.

There are a couple reasons. We have an excellent circulation sales staff and delivery force, and we put a pretty decent newspaper on the streets, if I do say so myself. We are emphasizing our core Guilford County market, and the gains reflect that. Sunday's softness concerns us, and we have a task force looking at it.

Meantime, we're continuing our efforts to improve the newspaper, ensuring that we reflect the values of the community by telling your stories, increasing our investigative reporting and writing about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Alan Mutter of Newsosaur has another take on the national scene. "The daily circulation of the nation's largest newspapers dropped an average of 3.3% in the six-month period ended March 31, as compared with the widely reported 1.9% drop for the industry over-all."

Here's the official newspaper site's article about the audit.

Reporter Mark Binker, our new correspondent in Raleigh, has taken what he learned from Inside Scoop and has started Capital Beat, a blog covering state government. "We're going to try to keep an eye on all the various doings of the state government here, including the governor and his executive agencies. And more than that, I aim to help you understand how the doings here in Cap City affect you at home there in the Triad."

Check it out. If you know Binker from his newspaper reporting, Scoop or his personal blog, you know he's got something to say.

We've had some good discussions about anonymity, pen names, civil discussion and defamation on this site and on Allen's. After reading, talking and thinking some more about it, we've decided to require you to enter a name and e-mail address to post a comment on our blogs. It doesn't address everything, but it's a start.

Ed points to the coming blogs at the News & Observer. The Charlotte Observer has a new one that is kind of cool, written by their pop culture writer. "I don't know much about golf other than Tiger Woods is the man, but I do know how to have a good time. I'm heading out to the Wachovia Championship Media Party to suck down a few brews and hang with my fellow media peeps."

Discussion continues about anonymous comments here. Daniel Okrent, public editor of The New York Times, probably doesn't even know we exist down here. But in his column today (reg. req.) he says:

Since I've been in this job, use of anonymous sources has been the substantive issue raised most often by readers. They challenge the authenticity of quotations. They question the accuracy of the information in the quotations. They believe reporters who invoke unidentified sources are lazy or, far worse, dishonest. As Leonard Wortzel of Atlanta wrote, "Whenever I come across a phrase like 'according to a high-ranking official,' I translate it to mean, 'I, the reporter, will now state my opinion and disquise it as news.'"

This is one of the reasons we gulp a bit at anonymous commenters.

I suspect that most of the people who visit this site don't rely on our home page for national and international news. Still, our link to the AP Wire site gets a couple hundred-thousand page views a month. So, the AP's announcement last month that it is going to start charging for its online content next year is problematic. We already pay several hundred-thousand dollars for the service, which currently allows us to publish stories and photos in the paper and online.

An article in Newsday describes the issue for newspapers pretty well. We want a robust site with a variety of content, and I'm not sure we can do it without the AP. On the other hand, with national and international news from Yahoo News and Google News available, we may not need that content for a good site.

We won't make a decision until AP sets a rate structure, which is scheduled to come this summer. If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

Kit Seelye, a reporter for The New York Times, wrote to say that her story about Greensboro, blogging and citizen journalism is scheduled to run in two weeks. I wouldn't bank on it, though. Newspapers are notorious for scheduling, dropping, re-scheduling and moving timeless stories as news requires. Why, we even do it ourselves! Her article is apparently being planned for the new Monday Business section. Meanwhile, she's been busy with other stories at The Times (via Romenesko).

I attended this Nieman reunion last weekend, but not this event. I'm not a Nieman Fellow. I know some Nieman Fellows, and I'm not nearly smart enough. I had enough trouble as a student 30 years ago. Why go back? Anyway, the only way I could get in is as a participant in a 90-minute panel discussion on the future of journalism.

But this post isn't about the Nieman program or the panel. (Sylvia Poggioli was on the panel, though.) It's what I hear at panels like this. I've spent more of the past 10 days talking to journalists for other newspapers about our online experiment than I have at my own newspaper. Just don't tell my boss. (Robin, I took vacation time, I promise.)

What I've encountered are groups of curious, interested and, to some extent, frightened journalists. Some want to embrace blogs, but don't know how; others are intrigued, but think their editors will never go for it; and still others are dismissive to the point of nodding off, but that may just be my speaking style.

Every visit I get half a dozen of the same questions. This post if more for my benefit than yours. I'm going to ask and answer them here so that I can refer people who ask to this.

Q. Are the staff blogs edited?

My friend Allen Johnson over at Thinking Out Loud has posted what he calls The House Rules. They are right on the money. Please go there to read 'em. Heck, two elected officials have already commented on them.

Some good ones:

2. "Listen." Don't just come to have your say but pay attention to others' views. Feel free to discuss as long as you have the interest and the energy.

8. Get your facts right. No urban legends or heresay, please.

I might have added two others:

No. 11. Move the ball forward. Discussion that spins around and around gets boring fast. Take the idea and make it better.

No. 12. If you have a question, comment or suggestion not remotely on the topic thread, e-mail me. I'll start a thread on it. I'm always looking for topics you're interested in.

And if you want to suggest other rules, have at it.

The Spokane Spokesman-Review's articles on the sexual habits of the city's mayor are being picked apart in journalism circles. Should a newspaper go undercover to get a story? No, say editors. Yes, say readers. There is, of course, a long history of it.

Spokane editor Steve Smith said: Based on what we're hearing from readers, it has built trust in our readers and Spokane citizens. They know what we wrote is true. Feedback is running 10- maybe 15-1 in our favor and those who don't like what we did rarely reference the computer expert.

I think our credibility with journalists is hurt. But I think this may be a sign of how disconnected some editors are from the sensibilities of citizens who want their newspapers to watchdog government and do it aggressively.

I don't doubt his feedback numbers. He's dead on when he suggests a disconnect between citizens and editors on this issue.

We don't go undercover or lie to get stories either, but I think Julia Wallace of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has it right when she told Editor & Publisher that she hadn't done it before, but could envision a time when it might be necessary. "You would have to be totally transparent about it. The question is when are you being unclear, and when are you being deceptive?"

Update: Of course, I am not taking into account going undercover to determine whether dry cleaners are charging extra for over-sized garments!

If you want to hear the unbridled "discussion" by your elected leaders when they're away from the commissioners' podium, go to Inside Scoop. We've posted an audio tape. It's a little hard to make out, what with all the raised voices and interruptions and people talking over each other, but you'll get the point.

The topic is, once again, County Tax Collector Jenks Crayton.

Update: Sue Polinsky's citizen journalism take on the meeting is here. "In a word, I now know why many good people will not run for office in Guilford County. I was terribly disappointed by the behavior of many of our County Commissioners."

Michael Grossman, currently an assistant city editor at night, has been promoted to High Point editor. Michael's been with us since 1998 when we hired him away from The Progress-Index in Petersburg, Va, to be our criminal justice reporter in High Point. The next year, he became our online editor and made great strides in building the breaking news site.

Michael is going to continue our efforts in High Point, where we have 12 news folks who are putting out a strong, intensely local edition of the News & Record serving High Point and parts of Jamestown and Randolph and Davidson counties. We're still sorry that High Point city editor Ed Williams is leaving news to become our Brand Marketing Manager. But I am comforted that an editor of Michael's caliber is ready to take over.

Because I asked for suggestions, Libby requested a thread on why the American media have largely ignored this story indicating that President Bush decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and "was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy."

Libby wrote: "I wonder if you're willing to break the press blackout and address the UK intelligence minutes story on 'the intelligence on WMDs being fixed around the policy.' I'd be most curious to see if your readers are concerned or even aware of this story." Are you concerned? Aware? More commentary here, here

Libby, as many of you know, visits often. You may not know that she also blogs at The Detroit News politics site. Here is her post about what President Bush knew and when he knew it.

The story is two weeks old now, and it appears from Google that several, if not many, newspapers published it somewhere. I can't speak to why other papers haven't done more with it. We have not followed the story, although it isn't because of any unwillingness to hold the president accountable or a preoccupation with the runaway bride. We simply continue our move to focus on local news. That focus means that we don't put as much emphasis or space on national and political news as we once did. Or perhaps as we should, sometimes. A mistake?

Monday Update: The Washington Post's ombudsman, Michael Getler, comments on the Post's coverage of the intelligence memo. "How significant this memo may turn out to be is still to be determined. But the reaction to the failure to cover it, even with the hyperbole and worst assumptions about journalistic motives by some of the e-mailers, is understandable. It is a reminder of how powerfully the circumstances leading up to this war still reverberate within a sizable chunk of the population and why the press should not let go of any loose ends that may shed light on how this happened."

Stan Swofford, a reporter and editor here since 1969, is taking a one-year leave of absence to write a book about Blue Rhino. The leave will begin Aug. 1.

Along with a few others, Stan is the heart and soul of this newsroom, and while I applaud his initiative and courage in taking time off to write a book, we're going to miss him terribly. He's broken dozens of stories for us on a variety of topics. His work has spotlighted people incarcerated unjustly, misuse of tax dollars and scandals in government. For a few years in the 80s, Stan was an editor, but his heart was in reporting and writing.

Most recently, Stan has produced significant journalism for us on Project Homestead and crack cocaine. Those projects are typical of Stan's reporting. He's won numerous N.C. Press Association awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1978 for his reporting on the Wilmington 10.

Personally, he has been an wise and independent counselor to me...someone who would tell me the truth when perhaps I didn't want to hear it. We look forward to his return as a published book author, (and I'm sure he'd welcome you buying three of four copies of said book.)

I'm hurt. No one has asked me how our meeting to begin our efforts to remake the paper went. OK, I know you are just being polite and don't want to be perceived as nosy, and I appreciate that. As a reward, I'll go ahead and tell you.

As I wrote about in January, we have been working on thinking younger and making our content more local. Now we've taken the Readership Institute's research and recommendations to heart. We're layering in experience-based editing. That means that when you read the News & Record, we want to evoke these thoughts and feelings:
* It gives me something to talk about
* It looks out for my civic and personal interests
* It provides surprise and humor
* Its ads are useful

The definitions of the experiences are here, but, if you don't want to bother with the link, they are pretty intuitive.

A formula? No. Or, at least no more formulaic than we've used for years. Instead, the idea is to provide you more intensely relevant news and information. The "old" model of newspapering -- we tell you once a day what you need to know and you'll buy us if you know what's good for you -- is rapidly losing its footing. Now, we're trying to tell stories in more compelling ways, to make the important interesting and cycle out of publishing boring process stories, and to focus on journalism that makes a difference in the hearts of our readers and the life of the community. That means tightly focused investigative efforts, clear explanations on how the news affects you and stories that resonate as true and reflective of the community.

The market is changing, as people have said. Our work rethinking the newspaper will take us a while to complete, but we'll be making changes throughout, trying this and abandoning that. Tomorrow's front page will reflect some of them, with, I hope, more interesting story selection and more impactful design. You can view it Tuesday on this site if you aren't a subscriber (and you really should be!)

As always, let me know what you think.

Don't know about you, but my inbox was flooded with nasty German spam this weekend. Even though I took a couple years of German in college, I couldn't translate much of it. (Neither sauerbraten nor Lowenbrau were mentioned.) According to Editor & Publisher, here is what it was.

Apparently Scott Adams thought it might bother some newspaper editors. Today's Dilbert strip was sent with an alternative, in which the last panel was covered by a sign saying something like the content might offend some readers (I'm going by memory). We chose to publish the original.

A related note: Newspaper editors take their comics seriously because readers do. The Charlotte Observer yesterday announced the restoration of one of the comics it canceled. More than 6,000 votes came in for Cathy. Cathy!

Thanks to our friends at Newsweek, the spotlight has, once again, been focused at high wattage on anonymous sources.

I've addressed this before, but here's our policy on use of anonymous sources: "Do not use without prior approval from the editor or managing editor. We particularly dislike using anonymous sources to criticize people whose names are used. Editors, including the copy desk, should question all anonymous sources to make sure they have been approved."

Our practice is even tighter. We don't like 'em and don't want 'em in the paper, particularly on local content. It occasionally means we have to wait to publish a story. It occasionally frustrates the journalists who believe they have the story nailed. We permit them when we know the source has first-hand knowledge of an event, there are other sources, and we judge there's a compelling public need to know. And even then we may not publish until we do more reporting.

Of course, having a reliable and identified source doesn't always guarantee accuracy.

That headline got you, didn't it? On the front of today's Life section, we published a Chicago Tribune story (not posted) about Lucha VaVoom, which is sort of a racy cross between burlesque and pro rasslin', best I can tell. Other publications that have written about it include Time, Rolling Stone and the Los Angeles Times. One Web site described the audience this way: "Your idea (sic) target audience: urban hipsters 18-30 who are in the 'know' and cool 2nd generation Latinos who know how hilarious Lucha (beloved Mexican) wrestling with burlesque and stand up comedy doing the 'color, play by play' is. All Shows are 18+ or 21+ depending on the city."

Newspaper reader and blog frequenter Susie Barnes asks what in the world we were thinking. "I think that a story published in Greensboro about a Chicago wrestling/strip show is incongruous, lacks any kind of newspeg and seems to glorify violence and nudity with sexual overtones as entertainment. I can see this piece in the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine (or the NY Times or Washington Post Sunday Magazines) but not on the front page of the Life section that kids pick up and read! (I eliminated a couple dozen exclamation points, Susie) Go ahead and publish the story, but put it in the right place."

It should be noted that on the back of the section is our Kidsday page, featuring this week elementary school students' drawings.

I asked Susan Ladd, our features editor, about the story: "I don't think the mission of the Life section is radically different from the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine or the Times or Washington Post Sunday magazines. We try every day to give readers a menu of interesting, informative and provocative things to read. Readers can make the choices about which stories they read and which they ignore. The actual content of the story was far from X-rated. It was tamer, in fact, than much of the content offered on Jerry Springer or other afternoon talk shows."

I understand Susie's point about publishing that story on the same day as the Kidsday page. But I don't have much concern about an elementary school student actually sitting down to read the Lucha VaVoom story because, well, it is written on an adult level and would bore most pre-teens to death. I know from watching my own daughters that they encounter graphic content every day in the news pages of the paper. We use some of those occasions to discuss the news. But, mostly, they scarcely pause over them as they look for other stuff they might be interested in. They, and I, see much, much worse on television.

But Susie raises interesting questions that editors everywhere wrestle with: How to navigate the issues of taste in a mass medium? Are sections with content of interest to children automatically off-limits to more adult-oriented stories? If so, does that mean the Life section must be "safer" because it has the comics inside?

I expect to run into this conflict of values more and more as we try to make the newspaper more interesting and relevant.

Update: Fellow blogger Joe Guarino addressed this issue about taste and newspapers back in March as part of a series on the future of papers.

As we'll tell you in the paper tomorrow, the Burlington building on West Friendly Avenue is coming down Monday morning. If you have to work for a living and can't take off to watch it live and in person, we are planning to post video of it on the Web site as soon as we can get it up. Check there for updates.

With the new publishing system, we plan to enable reader comments on individual stories. It's not a new idea, but we can't do it with our current system. That said, there are some issues that concern me. The Ventura County Star has enabled comments on its stories since January. It stopped the practice earlier this week because the comments became abusive, racially and otherwise, and often had little to do with the originating story.

From the announcement by the assistant managing editor for new media and technology: "And it also showed the unfortunate underbelly of the Internet. The anonymity offered by the Internet on comments like this seems to encourage people to say the meanest, ugliest things about other people. You know that many of those comments would never be made in person."

Earlier, I spoke with the online editor of The Morning Call who said they were having similar experiences, particularly with crime stories.

Then, yesterday, Dan Gillmor made this parenthetical remark on a post on his site: "(Note: I have deleted a comment that compared me and others to pro-Nazi groups of the 1930s. This is unacceptable. I've invited the commenter to repost the rest of his comment, which was harshly critical of what I wrote above, but not in a way that breaks this community's rule of civility.)"

We have great hopes for building community through this Web site, expanding the comment function we have on the blogs to the news and feature articles the staff produces. The benefits are many. Imagine the civic-minded discussion over the treatment of Jenks Crayton, for example. Think of the suggestions readers could made to help City Council cut expenses. Or you could tell us what you think about getting your newspapers late. (Well, maybe not that last one. :))

On some of our blogs, we've seen some comments border on the obscene and the abusive. Some people have gotten angry with us for permitting them. Others have said they stopped coming because of them. But the offending comments have been in the minority, and we've let them run.

Given the experiences at other places, we're going to have further discussions about enabling comments on stories. I believe we're going to give them a shot, in any case. (Readers are sophisticated and they will drown out the trolls, he says to himself optimistically.)

We hope for this, again from Ventura County: "Wonderful conversations ensued. Readers began talking with each other, offering opinions, raising the bar of discourse in the county. They were voices we didn't normally hear from."

Beginning next month, we are dropping the New York Times News Service, which means that we won't publish Times news stories or commentary any longer.

I made the decision, and I admit that I hate it.

We aren't doing this because of that newspaper's recent ethical lapses or because it is a lightning rod for readers who see political bias in the news coverage.

In fact, I put off the decision to cancel as long as I reasonably could. The Times produces some of the world's best journalism, and I want our readers to have access to it. But given our direction in focusing on local news, we could certainly devote the $34,000 a year we spend on the Times reports better elsewhere.

That doesn't mean I have to like it. Many of us will miss the breadth and depth of its report, and the elegance and insight of its writing.

The Los Angeles Times beat The New York Times to it. Here's the L.A. Times story on Greensboro and us (reg. req.).

"It's been more than two centuries since this town last saw a revolution. In the last one, after tangling here with local militia commanded by Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene -- who became the city's namesake -- the dubiously victorious Redcoats limped away only to surrender seven months later in Yorktown, Va.

"Many believe that the state's third-largest city is once again ground for a revolution, albeit bloodless and virtually invisible, but still one of national consequence. If ultimately successful -- and revolutions have been known to fail -- the city might instead become Blogsboro."

Best part of the story?

"While encouraging, the News & Record's project isn't uppermost yet on the town's mind. Mitzi Barber, an educational programmer with the county schools, said she occasionally checks Alexander's newspaper blog. However, the longtime News & Record subscriber starts most mornings reading a popular non-newspaper local blogger called 'Hogg's Blog,' after its author David Hoggard. (The blog has a link on the paper's website.)

"'I like the personal twist on a topic,' said Barber, who typically reads the paper after putting her two children to bed in the evening. "He's a little outrageous"

A little?

Wonder why Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday is on the air encouraging viewers to watch the Burlington building demolition this morning on Fox 8? Me too. The promo spot I saw twice last night has him standing in front of the building. He says something like this (I had to find a pencil to scribble it down last night so I may have a few words wrong.): "I'm Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday, and I would love it if you would tune in to watch live the demolition of this building on Fox 8."

Some news organizations might feel uncomfortable having a politician shilling for them. It poses a conflict of interest. Can't imagine how the folks at WFMY feel about it, particularly given that WGHP is located in High Point. Is this the mayor's way of letting people know he's going to run for re-election? We'll ask.

Update: Matt Williams has the explanation over at Inside Scoop.

You can read the blog comments on the decision to cancel the New York Times News Service here.

I've received a dozen or so e-mail messages, too. Here is a sampling of the comments.

"Although I'm a Times subscriber, and often read its articles and editorials a day before they appear in the News & Record, most N-R readers get this content from their local paper....News & Record readers should have the opportunity to read work of this quality on a regular basis. They especially need to read editorials by Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Thomas Friedman. These people are telling the truth about what is happening in this country and around the world. How can you drop these columnists but retain the likes of Calvin Thomas, Thomas Sowell and Charles Davenport?"

"Boiled down, it said that the News & Record didn't have time for serious news so you were dropping it. I stopped watching TV news because they do not devote any time to details of news. The paper has been scaling back its news coverage every year. There are very few national or international stories that receive any reporting or analysis. Now, you've made it official. It is sad when even the paper thinks that its readers need to be fed in 30-second sound bits."

Amy Joyner, who used to be a fulltime business reporter for us and still writes a column on Sunday, has a new book out titled "The eBay Millionaire: Titanium PowerSeller Secrets for Building a Big Online Business."

Here's part of the description from Amazon: "The eBay Millionaire profiles 25 of eBay's elite Titanium Power Sellers -- those who move more than $150,000 in goods every month-and reveals the secrets to their success. Author Amy Joyner reveals the fifty top lessons for profitably selling almost anything on eBay, from how to select the best mix of merchandise, ship goods, and keep customers happy to working with wholesalers, making the leap from part-time to full-time selling, and looking like a million-dollar business even if you're working from your kitchen table."

Amy, who is also heading up our efforts to launch a teen page, will discuss the book and sign copies at 7 p.m. Thursday at Barnes & Noble in Friendly Center.

Last week, I expressed our concerns about enabling comments on individual news articles. Got some great comments and suggestions, too. The news peg on the post was an announcement by VenturaCountyStar.com that it had temporarily halted comments because they have become out-of-hand abusive.

Yesterday, after some technological fixes, they returned. Here's the announcement with the new rules.

John Moore, assistant managing editor/new media and technology, voiced a bit of resignation in a message he sent me via e-mail: "I wish I had come up with the solution, but I've come to the conclusion that it's always going to be a messy system and we just have to figure out how much time we're willing to devote to keep the conversation civil ... and if it's worth the investment of our time."

He blogs about it here. "And we are encouraging, imploring and, yes, empowering readers to police themselves.... We recognize that the persistent ones can find a way around the wall. At least now they'll have to work at it a little harder. We've committed to devoting some initial staff time in the coming weeks to monitor the comments. We'll work hard at keeping them away. Our hope is that we'll spend less time doing that and more time working to grow and enhance the site."

Like everyone else, I applaud the efforts of Yes! Weekly in writing about blogs. (Although Lex's quotes cross the suck-up line.)

Still, riddle me this, Batman. The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, Business Week and, soon, The New York Times have been among the papers that have written about Greensboro and blogging. Other than Yes! where are the local papers?

Update: And Justin Catanoso, executive editor of The Business Journal, reminds me precisely where one of the local papers is. Mark Tosczak of his staff wrote about our efforts Jan. 14 (reg. req.). My bad.

Rob Daniels and Jeff Carlton, two of our informed sportswriters -- and that NOT an oxymoron -- are talking sports now. Check out this 20-minute audio file. In this version of RadioFree Sports, the duo talks about the NBA draft, the Bobcats, ping pong, NASCAR and the U.S. Open in Pinehurst. And, if you are familiar with Rob's writing, you know that there will be plenty of obscure, dead-on pop culture references.

We don't know how often they'll do this, maybe once a week as they have info and opinions to impart. Give them some feedback over at SportsExtra.

I've waited to write about Rosemary Roberts' retirement. I'm happy for her, but I'll miss her.

Rosemary is the last one left from the editorial heyday of Bill Snider. It's a long, glorious tradition that Allen and his crew carry on.

Rosemary will always hold a special place in my heart. Back in 1997, when I became editorial page editor, Rose helped me understand what I was supposed to do. She stood by me, counseled me on developing a thick skin and showed me how to act with grace. I was charged with putting more life into our editorial pages, and the department went through some personnel changes. Rose kept me sane and wrote an awful lot of editorials when we needed them.

Now she can more easily visit her sons and her grandchildren, and I know that makes her happy. She loves this paper and this craft. I'm glad she remains a part of this place.

I'm in a small group session with former FCC Chairman Michael Powell next month. What questions should I ask him?

In the week since I wrote that we are canceling our contract with The New York Times News Service, I've gotten about 30 e-mails and telephone calls, most of them complaints. This is far more than the half-dozen or so I get in response to the typical column. On the other hand, we get 30 complaints in the first hour if we leave out the bridge column, and I got many, many more complaints when we cancelled Snuffy Smith and Mark Trail. No implication intended, just a little perspective.

I apparently wasn't clear enough in my explanation last week. We aren't eliminating all thoughtful commentary, as some writers suggested. The Times columnists will be replaced with columnists from other excellent newspapers. Allen Johnson is writing about that in his newspaper column tomorrow. Please take the time over the next several weeks to sample them and give Allen feedback.

No question, money was the key component in this decision. But the effort was less to drop the money to the bottom line than to use it for other things. We weren't getting the value we thought we should be getting from the news service. In fact, virtually all the people who've written to me have singled out Thomas Friedman as the item they will miss. While his voice was valuable to us, at $34,000 a year -- with a 10 percent increase this year -- the news service became impossible to justify. We aren't the only paper taking the route, by the way. The Baltimore Sun did the same in January (via Romenesko).

My comments about the newspaper becoming more local bothered many people, and I understand that. The cancellation of the Times, though, doesn't mean we're dumbing down our national and international coverage. In fact, it will have little effect as we rarely used the news stories from the syndicate these days anyway. And, as I noted before, we still have have the services of the AP, The Washington Post, The L.A. Times and Knight Ridder.

I don't write much here about my family. It's not the point of this column, and, more important, my wife and children have told me they'd rather be President Bush's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations than featured in this column.

But I'm going to risk it.

Along with several thousand high school seniors in the Triad, my daughter Alexa graduated this weekend. High school graduation is a passage in a teenager's life, and it is a passage in a parent's life. Boy, is it ever.

Unlike college graduation when a student steps into the working world, high school graduation is a full-bodied leap into the unknown. In most cases, teenagers leave home for the first time. Leave the daily watchful eye of their parents. Leave the cozy cocoon of friends. Leave the structure of high school, of school lunches, of adults who've known you for years.

If everything goes as planned, there will be a button on our home page tomorrow labeled "sneak peak" that will lead you to a beta site of our new design. Go there. Sample stuff. Report back.

The site isn't fully navigatable yet -- it is a beta site, after all. It will go deeper, and we still getting bugs out. But we want to hear what you think before we officially launch. So use the feedback mechanism and let us know.

Tuesday update: Here's the link.

The Spokesman-Review in Spokane is on the online cutting edge, for newspapers, at least. A new blog there intrigues me. It's called "News is a Conversation" -- sound familiar? -- and it is run by readers initiating and talking about the newspaper.

"As part of our effort to increase transparency in journalism, The Spokesman-Review has invited five readers to talk about our news coverage and content on a daily basis: what they like, what they don't like, and what they'd like to see more of. We participate, but the readers lead the conversation here."

We're interested in greater transparency, too. That's pretty much what this blog is about. If we created a blog about the newspaper, would you be interested in participating? Would you read it?

Teri Saylor, executive director of the N.C. Press Association, sent this e-mail alert to members today. For those of us -- press and citizen journalists -- who believe that government workings should be open to the public, take serious note.

"Two bills sponsored by Rep. Linda Coleman, D-Wake, which would drive large loopholes through our state's public records laws, will be heard in the House J-1 Committee tomorrow morning, scheduled at 8:30 a.m. Of the two, HB 714 would be the most damaging, as it would allow custodians of public records to use their own discretion in determining if the release of public records would not be in the best interests of the health, safety, or security of an employee.

"Passage of this bill would put the burden of proving a record should be open on the backs of citizens rather than putting the burden of proof as to why a record should be closed on the backs of public agencies.

"Here are the names of members of the House J-1 Committee. You are in the same districts as one or two of these members. If you have time to send a quick e-mail to your local House member, urging him or her to oppose these bills and cast their votes for open government, NCPA would appreciate it.

"Generally, their e-mail addresses consist of their first name/last initial followed by @ncleg.net. For more contact information visit www.ncleg.net.

Chair: Rep. Joe Hackney
Vice Chairs: Rep. Deborah Ross; Rep. Bonner Stiller

Members: Martha Alexander; John Blust; Russell Capps; Debbie Clary; Melanie Goodwin; Mary Harrison; Verla Insko; Paul Miller; Skip Stam;
and Roger West."

Have at it. I'm sure Greensboro's John Blust would appreciate hearing from you.

Tuesday update: Raleigh reporter Mark Binker sent me this message just now: "Public records did not get heard today in committee; their sponsor did not show up. Thursday is the crossover deadline for bills that don't have anything to do with taxes or fees, so it's critical that legislation pass one house or the other by then in order to stay alive this session. It's perfectly possible the J committee could hold another hearing or that someone who really wanted to get this bill done could find a back door."

Here's HB 714 (forgive some of the riffraff in the copy. Our system doesn't recognize some of the legislature's markings.):