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John, since we can get our national and international news in real time via the internet, a few questions about the future.
1. Does a newspaper need a daily listing of the stock market from A to Z as that information is available in real time?
2. What is the future of sports sections in newspapers as scores and summaries are available 24/7?
3. Out of curiosity, do you know of any investigative reporters that got their start as sports reporters?
4. I think you should unleash Ed Hardin on subjects other than sports. He is very, very good.
Thanks for your time.

John, I think the problem with moving the national and international stories to the back of the A section, as even the Merc is doing, is that a role model for citizenship -- the city's leading newspaper -- is lowering the priority for stories that are actually of more importance to each of us than a fire, another murder, another zoning fight, another weight loss plan. Are we going to win in Iraq?, or get out?, what will the revised Supreme Court bring each of us?, etc. Yes, these world stories are on the news (so are the local stories, in spades), but in sound-bite portions. The back page says that world stories are of (much)less importance than reading about Greensboro's events, some of which are like a local version of Fear Factor. Let's let the world out there back in, to at least share the front page. Walt

Tom, excellent questions.
1. I'd love to get rid of the stock listings and use the space for other things, but we still have thousands of readers who depend on them because they don't want to or can't use the Internet.
2. The mission of sports sections is rapidly changing. We're focusing on the things that only we can do...local sports, youth sports, local colleges, ACC and NASCAR. OK, others can do racin' and ACC, but we know our readers really care about those two. But it's tough. We get a lot of criticism for not doing much with pro sports. With ESPN 1, 2, 103, we just don't have much to add.
3. No, but that doesn't mean anything. Many of the best reporters and writers in newspapers got their start in sports.
4. Interesting suggestion about Ed. Never thought of it. Can you imagine Hardin dealing with local politics? I'd like his take on the county budget.

Walt, you're right about the civic imperative. But there are so many other places to get the news (for free) that you're arguing for. Why buy the newspaper for it? In fact, we're discovering that people aren't buying the newspaper for that sort of news. It is a commodity, and there's little reason for people to get it in the newspaper at 7 a.m. when they've heard it on TV or read it on the Internet 18 hours earlier. I don't like it, but it's the way it is.

John, what's sad, and omonious, for our country is that most people seem to be getting sound bites rather than the in-depth coverage for world news that newspapers used to give. This is seen in what people believe (eg, for many still, Saddam had WMD) You see it in the way we vote. We want and love democracy, but we use a something-for-nothing approach to it, rather than investing the time and mental work to really understand the issues. Like you, I don't like it either. Something will have to be done to instill greater citizen responsibility if we are to preserve our democracy. And I have a feeling that eventually it will.

Paying attention to the national and world affairs you refer to is too much like work!!!:) I spoke to a class of future community leaders once and one of them said that very thing to me. When you can get your news bites from television as you dress for work, and then switch to 75 other TV programs instead of watching news, then we get what we deserve.

I agree, we certainly do get what we deserve, John, but I don't think we're going to like what we deserve. It isn't "too much like work" - and certainly not for future community leaders - if done intelligently and with a bit of organization, as well as with a changed attitude that realizes the criticalness of knowing what's really going on in the country and world. It all depends on what's *really* important to us. Sometimes we don't find out what that is until it's too late. And then we would know that it wasn't Michael Jackson afterall.