News-Record.com

Nothing in the Rhino about the TRC report? They didn't even use it as an opportunity to criticize us? Did the earth shift and I missed it?

Don't know if it was the same storm that knocked out power to thousands of folks last night, but we had a power surge here, which knocked a press unit offline and forced us to run the Sports section in black and white. (While you're checking it out, make sure you read Robert Bell's story on the North Davidson softball pitcher who puts up Cat Osterman numbers.)

I missed this announcement yesterday from Melanie Sill, editor at the News & Observer.

Today's Business section carries an announcement that The N&O print edition will stop carrying comprehensive stock tables in Tuesday-Friday papers beginning next week.

My newspaper column

Two days before the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its far-reaching report, I was at a community meeting at Presbyterian Church of the Cross on Phillips Avenue in east Greensboro, talking with folks about the newspaper, listening to their suggestions for coverage and encouraging them to write their own stories.

I thought of that meeting when I read the Commission's report calling on the News & Record "to host a citywide citizen group that would comment on news process, content, quality and ethics." (Page 35.)

More specifically, it said, "a diverse citizen group could improve local journalism and the community-building role it can play. Citizen input should be solicited for: story development, source development, recognizing other perspectives, critique of news coverage, commentary on newspaper practices and suggestions for better addressing community concerns."

I won't take a position on the commission's other recommendations. That's a job for the newspaper's editorial board, and, more important, for citizens to discuss in community meetings and with each other. (Read Allen Johnson's opinion.)

But the idea of the newspaper convening a citizen panel is like pushing on an open door here. It fits with our initiative of transforming the newspaper and Web site into a town square, where people come to read the news, tell their stories and talk with each other.

Count us in.

We didn't run an article today on the 62nd anniversary of the invasion of Normandy and we certainly heard about it. A letter writer:

I could not believe when I read today -- June 6, 2006 -- the News & Record and did not see any reference at all to it being the anniversary of D-Day. This should have been front page headlines! How sad that our paper does not even recognize such an important day in our country's history.

We knew it would come. We -- and our wire services -- pay most attention to anniversaries that end in 0 or 5. But, of course, the newspaper coverage of D-Day now comes tomorrow because all the festivities occur on June 6. We'll have something in tomorrow's paper.

My dad has a Purple Heart from WWII. I care; I promise. He'd still kick my butt if I didn't.

In Wednesday's paper, we're adding the last 19 new stocks to our revamped stocks list, biz editor John Nagy reports. I say "last" but I really only mean that we've filled out the column. We've been adding based on demand since we introduced the redesigned page in April. We've finally included BellSouth, even though it is going to merge with AT&T shortly, which was why we resisted. But we had enough requests.

Any others? We're still looking for oversights.

BTW, the requests have died down dramatically, and we've seemingly satisfied most people with the current listing of stocks.

We've started linking to other bloggers as they refer to work in the News & Record. Could be a comment on a story or a comment on what we're doing. Yes, criticism of us will be included. The list won't be exhaustive. We'll update it a couple times a day. If there's something you wrote or you read that you think we've overlooked, please e-mail us with the post. (If you're a blogger and don't want us to link to a post of yours, let me know that, too.)

As with everything else, we'll learn and adjust as we go along. The posts we're looking for will focus particularly on those that advance the discussion, either of an issue noted in the paper or how we've reported, written or displayed our work. We'll link to posts with opinion, of course, but if a post is factually untrue, either about us or a story, and we know it, it won't make the cut.

It's another layer in the Town Square initiative, and the idea that the voices of many are better than the voices of a few. (In this case, us!) Other sites have more complete lists of bloggers. This effort is to focus the discussion particularly on civic affairs. Are there bloggers writing about civic issues not in the paper? Of course, and we'll eventually include those as we learn from this small step.

Teresa Prout, currently in charge of our copy desk and design operation, will become our new city editor, filling Mark Sutter's shoes. Teresa has been here since the 1980s, serving as assistant features editor, education editor, regional editor and day copy desk editor, among other jobs.

She's been an enabler of innovation, most recently with our newspaper redesign, and a leader in making the paper better. We're in good shape.

OK, look, I'm a father.

We've gotten several letters about a reader participation we're doing for Father's Day. We've asked readers to send us their stories of Dad being, well, that goofy father that we all have and love. You know, how Dad has embarrassed you. And, to be fair, we asked Dad to tell us how you have embarrassed him.

But some readers think that we're disrespecting and insulting Pops.

Here's what writer Katie Reetz says about that:

I believe media companies are afraid of interacting with their audiences, because they (mistakenly) believe that their audiences are made up of people just like them -- resentful, mean spirited, backbiting, hostile egomaniacs with inferiority complexes who, if given the opportunity, will spout their opinions without regard or respect for anyone but themselves.

That's Terry Heaton, writing about last month some of the nasty comments left on a television executive's blog about changes at the station.

This is why I love the blogosphere so dearly, because the experience here is so different. Here, respect comes from a mutually-shared experience (blogging) and, I believe, a more realistic view of human nature. If you blog, you are respected until you give a reason to not be respected, and isn't that a great way to get to know people? We used to call that "the benefit of the doubt," but that's apparently been lost in a media culture that looks first to find reasons to doubt before opening the door of acceptance.

Staff writer Nancy McLaughlin has worked on this incredible story about Alice Lawrence for months. As you can imagine, it was touch and go for a while. I asked Nancy to take us behind the scenes. Her report:

"Julie Peeples caught me between assignments. There was going to be a fundraiser for a woman from the Sudan who had no money and was diagnosed with leukemia. Because of her gene pool, her donor would likely have to come from the Sudan. It was late and the person who was supposed to have passed the message didn't. I could only write a brief giving basic information on the fundraiser, but I got it into the paper. She thanked me but told me I really needed to meet Alice in person.

When I read The New York Times Book Review's list of the most distinguished American fiction in the past 25 years, I was struck by how literate I wasn't. Of the 25 books listed -- I had read two: "Libra" and three of the four Rabbit novels. I had started six others, but couldn't complete them, and that list included the top book on the list, "Beloved."

So I welcomed a second list, published yesterday in the N&O, in which the paper asked 32 Tar Heel writers the same question. From that list of 25 novels, I've read 11. The English major in me feels better.

From online news content dude Michael Grossman:

We've added about 25 RSS feeds to our site, so now folks can pretty much get an RSS feed for every category of story that we have and every blog. This was something we had wanted to do for a while, and it was reinforced by a recent survey of our e-mail newsletter subscribers. The URLs for the feeds are all listed -- along with a little information on what and RSS feed is here.

Try 'em. You'll like it.

Eric Collins, our award-winning court reporter, has resigned to move back to Oregon where his family is. Good for him; bad for us. Eric won the N.C. Associated Press Thomas Wolfe Award last year, given for the single best piece of writing published in a newspaper in the state.

Eric is talented. You'll hear from him in the future. I just wish we could have kept him longer.

I don't know for sure, but isn't that the intrepid Lenslinger on our front page today? No, not the one in the sharp suit; the other one.

Update: It is the Lenslinger.

Another hockey game, another missed opportunity by the Hurricanes to seal the deal. And to climb onto our front page. We've had a low-key debate since the Stanley Cup playoffs began about whether and when to put the story of the rise of the Canes on A1.

Pros: The Canes are "our" team, playing only an hour (exceeding the speed limit) away. They are playing for a national championship, hoping to do what the Panthers failed to do a couple years ago -- bring home the trophy. Their bandwagon of fans has grown in the past few weeks, judging by the decals and flags on cars. Other newspapers, including Winston, put it on their front this morning.

Cons: Like, who cares? ESPN's broadcast of the women's college softball world series attracted more viewers. It's a sport loved by transplanted northerners; how many of them are there out there? Besides, won't everyone who cares know the score? Other newspapers, including Charlotte, left it off their front this morning.

We had a short story prepared for the front today had the Canes won last night in Edmonton. (The article was more of an essay, not a "game" story. There wasn't much competition among news stories yesterday.) We were going to sub it in where the story about the two American soldiers captured in Iraq is. Alas, not to be.

We have another chance on Tuesday. Should we put the Hurricanes' victory -- or loss -- on the front page?

Tuesday update: Here is what we did.

A letterwriter complained that a column by staff writers Katie Reetz and Michelle Jarboe in last week's paper encouraged promiscuous behavior among teenagers. She wrote: It appears that these women view "dating" as synonymous with "bedding," judging from their discussion of what a man should and should not wear in bed...on a date! and By trying to give a few readers a chuckle, your writers have put at risk many of your impressionable, dating, teenage readers. Do we really need more promiscuity, teenage pregnancies and STDs?

Allow me to be the first to say that we don't need more teenage pregnancies and STDs.

Andy Bechtel, a former copy editor here and at the N&O, is now a journalism instructor at UNC and a blogger about writing and editing. And by the looks of things, he calls them as he sees them.

A Washington Post columnist didn't much care for Nancy McLaughlin's interview with Condi Rice last week. Al Kamen pokes fun at Nancy's approach and speaks admiringly -- sarcastically, but admiringly still -- of Rice's slippery answers. But you need to read the interview transcript to understand Nancy's side of it fully. Kamen does some judicious editing -- you know how journalists are -- that takes some of Nancy's slightly comments out of context.

Nancy was given seven minutes with the Secretary of State -- that's not much time to go in-depth with a master politician -- and her questions purposely pertained primarily to religious issues and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Nancy's closing comment to Rice -- "We love you here in Greensboro" --was inappropriate, to say the least, and she shouldn't have said it. She knows it, too. She told me that her mouth outran her brain and that she intended to convey respect for Rice's accomplishments. Didn't come out that way. And while it wasn't meant as a political endorsement, I can see how it will be read that way. To avoid any perception of preferential treatment, Nancy won't be covering stories about Rice or the State Department.

Staff writer Jim Schlosser is featured in the June issue of Guilford College Magazine. It's a good piece.

Don Patterson describes Jim the best when he said that there "'was no better feeling than to drive into the company parking lot and to see Jim's blue VW parked nearby.' Because he was there, 'you knew that day there was going to be something interesting to put in the newspaper.'"

It's in the past tense because Don was describing his days as an editor, but I have the same feeling today when I walk into the newsroom at 8 a.m. and Jim's blue blazer is draped over the bookshelf by his desk.

Al Thomy, who started at the Daily News in 1944, and A.J. Carr of the N&O are featured, too.

I am.

The heart of the journalism trade is "about playing around, doing mischief, having adventures, taking risks, undermining the powerful, and chortling darkly the whole time."

Of course, some readers interpret our sense of fun a bit too seriously and our risk-taking as more ominous than it is.

But if it ain't fun, why do it?

And I'm having fun because figuring this out is fun. Gregory Favre, a former editor in the newspaper big leagues and now with Poynter, nails the responsibility of journalists in this post at CJR Daily.

I am more concerned about how we keep faith with those readers, on any platform, who want insight and wit and integrity in reporting; who want information that includes knowledge and a sense of perspective; who want intellectual honesty and a devotion to fairness; and who have a hunger for good writing and good storytelling, for the graceful use of the language, for showing what happened rather than just telling them, or, as Faulkner once said, helping others by lifting their hearts.

This challenges us every day and some days we're more successful than others. But you should know that's what we're striving for.

I spent much of Saturday preparing for a flu pandemic. (No, I was not having fun yesterday afternoon.) My task: to research and craft the news department's response if a pandemic strikes.

Unlike the planning we did for a Y2K bug, this exercise takes on a frightening gloom with its immense human implications. Considering the probability that for months food supplies would be interrupted, doctors and hospitals would be overcome, emergency services would be stressed beyond their limits, there would be fuel shortages, curfews and school closings, the impact is enormous and long-lasting. I'm identifying how we'll get a newspaper out if half the staff is ill, who the critical staff members are and what sorts of information we need to provide to the community. Fortunately, much of the news department's work can be done from home with a telephone and a computer. (How we would deal with a limited production and delivery staff is daunting to ponder.)

Which brings me to what could be another tipping point for American newspapers in the online transformation, ours included. Circumstances would require us to produce a true online news report with all the advantages of the form: real-time interactivity with citizens, aggressive use of contributing readers and open-source journalism, audio and video. In short, a constantly updated, instantly relevant town square. (Katrina did just that for the Times-Picayune and its Web site, NOLA.)

Don't read this wrong. I'm not wishing for a pandemic. My hope is that in planning for it now, we achieve the actual transformational benefits, both technologically and journalistically, without having to endure the tragic consequences of a pandemic. It will require investment, cultural change and new paradigms, but the industry did it for Y2K and we can do it now.

Oh, I almost forgot. If you have suggestions for our coverage plan, send them in!

We awarded our annual in-house journalism awards today. I love these awards because they honor journalists who put their best work out there day after day. Unlike other contests, the Landmark Awards are based on a body of work for a year rather than a single story or photo. As a consequence, versatility of skills, consistency of excellence and depth of understanding are key considerations.

The winners are:

Jeri Rowe's new metro column debuts Saturday. Get ready, too, because it will quickly become a must-read. Thanks to Jeri's past stints as editor of Go Triad and the now-defunct alt weekly TriadStyle, Jeri has one of the more recognizable writing voices in the arts and entertainment field. Now he's going bring his dynamic energy to cover the rest of the world.

He will alternate days with current columnist Lorraine Ahearn.

Jeri was one of our audio pioneers, founding Go Radio. He's spent the last several months helping us -- leading us -- envision the possibilities in the redesign of the Go Triad site. He won't be away from online.

I asked Jeri to write me a few lines about what he hoped to do with his column. He wrote more than a few lines, but I promise his editors will use the red pencil more liberally than I do when he's in the paper. Here's what he told me:

I plan to have fun on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I hope readers will, too.

There's no grand scheme. I plan to trek across the Triad, looking for people and places that make the region what it is today -- a quirky, culturally rich region working to reinvent itself. And whatever I find, I hope to write it like a letter, digging into things that I hope will make readers laugh or simply think about where -- and how --- we live. Lorraine Ahearn has done that admirably for at least a decade as an N&R columnist. I just hope I can follow suit.

We compete with the Winston-Salem Journal for news stories, for readers and for advertising dollars. But when it comes to getting a paper out the door, we help each other.

Last night, the Journal's production facility lost power and the paper turned to us to help them print today's edition. We printed about 17,000 copies. Because the our pages are slightly longer, the Winston paper may look a bit different to the sharpest eyed readers.

We have these sorts of reciprocal printing agreements with our neighbors in case of emergencies just like the Journal faced. We were happy to help.

As part of the Summer Harvest Food and Funds Drive, a brown grocery bag will be tucked inside Saturday's paper in Guilford County. Fill it with non-perishable items -- canned foods, cereals, pastas, peanut butter -- and drop it off at a Wachovia Bank branch during the month of July. Your contribution will benefit Greensboro Urban Ministry and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC. Well, actually, it will benefit the hungry in the 18-county area the food banks serve.

I've not commented on the New York Times' decision to publish the financial monitoring story. I wasn't there, have no legal expertise and have sat long enough in this chair to refrain from any second-guessing. Besides there's plenty of commentary going on without me.

That said, I fully support this statement from the ASNE, an organization of which I'm a member.

Newspaper editors don't claim to be infallible in all judgments. However, the First Amendment makes it clear no person or branch of government has the prerogative to usurp any American's right to speak or print what he or she believes is important and relevant truth. We believe honorable debate would focus on the issues raised by the reporting, not on attacks on the truth-tellers.

Members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors abhor terrorism and share all Americans' desire to defeat it. We also believe patriotism demands the clarity of focus on the conduct of our government that is often provided only by determined professional reporting.

Saturday update: The editors of the N.Y. Times and the L.A. Times explain the balance of national security and reporting the news:

Our job, especially in times like these, is to bring our readers information that will enable them to judge how well their elected leaders are fighting on their behalf, and at what price.