News-Record.com

Last night, I'm watching this documentary on VH1 Classic called "Imagine: John Lennon." (John was always my favorite Beatle, I sheepishly admit, but not because he was the smart one, but because we shared a name. My only explanation for this superficiality is that I was only 11 when the Beatles played Ed Sullivan. He has remained my favorite.)

Anyway, I'm struck by the journalists on camera. During the famous bagism news conference in 1969, he and Yoko are in bed, half surrounded by reporters, all of whom are in suits. A few are wearing fedoras!

I can understand the discussion about the seemingly archaic times of newspapers in the 70s as shown in "All the President's Men." One great scene is the afternoon budget meeting in a room filled with editors, all of whom are white and male and wearing white shirts and ties and smoking. They're dressed like that, I thought, because they are in Washington, DC, bringing down the president.

The guys -- yes, still, all male -- assigned to cover John and Yoko in 1969 had every reason to dress the part in jeans and workshirts. After all, the famous couple was the epitome of the counterculture. Journalists, out of touch with those they write about. Welcome the rise of Rolling Stone.

Sigh. Maybe we have always been 10 years behind the revolution.

Steve Yelvington writes about one of the things that has always intrigued me about the Internet. It's not that I a world of information is "one click away." Long ago, I got used to that, even to the point of being irritated when it's two clicks away.

No, it's this idea that Minnesotans are discussing the Minneapolis bridge collapse at a New York Times blog. These aren't Minnesotans living in New York but Minnesotans living in Minneapolis.

It helps understand how community is redefined in the wired world.

Unbuttoned, our blog about dating and relationships, hasn't even got a month under its belt and it has already rocketed to No. 2 in traffic among our blogs. (No.1 is the letters blog, where there is an entirely different sort of discussion going on.)

Thus, more evidence to the notion that sex and the Internet go together like Victoria and secret.

The annual Harris Poll measuring public perceptions of 23 professions and occupations came out Wednesday -- and you can find journalists in the Bottom Ten.

Editor & Publisher says we're ahead of union leader, stockbroker, entertainer, accountant, banker, actor, and real estate agent/broker.

In addition to firefighters, five occupations are perceived to have "very great" prestige by at least half of all adults -- scientists (54%); teachers (54%); doctors (52%); military officers (52%); and nurses (50%).

Where's the news in that? I think they have more prestige than journalists, too.

For several years, Glenn Chavis has written columns for us. Most of them circulate only in our High Point editions because he lives in High Point and his columns are very local. Good for him, he's been discovered by the national journalistic press, Editor & Publisher magazine. The pub featured him in its July edition, but it's lost behind their subscription-only wall.

When pharmaceutical executive Glenn R. Chavis retired in 2000, he devoted himself to finding out more about the history of his African-American family and High Point, N.C., its home for generations. He says he found almost nothing at the city library, so he decided "to educate people about things that happened in their community that they know nothing about."

And Glenn's done just that. He's an exceptional writer and historian, to say nothing of being an all around good guy. But why was he featured in E&P?

For the High Point Enterprise earlier this year, he wrote a daily column taken from a feature the paper published in the 1920s and 1930s labeled "News of Interest to Colored People." Those items portrayed a profoundly segregated High Point, with its references to "Ossie E. Davis, supervisor of the Department of Negro Recreation," and accounts of the May 1932 "Colored Schools Field Day Competition," featuring the "famous 31-piece A&T College band."

Chavis described his columns for us as a "smack-you-in-the-face-style." I like that because that's what he wanted to do and what we wanted to publish. Chavis told the E&P reporter that "black history is often hidden in the old news accounts, which might reveal race by whether or not a man is referred to as 'Mr.' He explains: 'I'm looking for the language that reporters used at the time, all those things that were just a part of the South.'"

Unfortunately, E&P disrespected him. It didn't publish Glenn's photo, which we sent to them. Instead, it published a mugshot of Enterprise Editor Tom Blount, who was quoted in the story about Glenn once. Odd.

By the way, check out the Guilford Record on Sunday. His first-grade photo is on the cover, alongside Sandy Carmany's fifth-grade photo. Looks just like you, Sandy. It's part of a reader participation we're doing.

I just got back from Chapel Hill where I served on an SPJ panel in an afternoon long "jam session for journalists." And it was that. Run by SPJ president Christine Tatum, a former News & Record reporter, it was less a panel and more of a roundtable discussion of 50 people.

My panel's topic was "to explain how journalists might use the Web to connect with the public they serve."

I planned to say if desperation is the mother of invention, then after hearing Phil Meyer's opening talk, everyone should understand that we're desperate and it's time to invent. I figured that would get a laugh.

I then planned to say that it is truly a wonderful time to be a journalist because with all the new digital tools:
* We can reach more people with our journalism in so many different ways.
* With so many ways to hear people, there are more sources, more fact-checkers, more critics and more reporters in non-traditional guise.
* There's more diversity. If we truly believe the cliches about shining light into dark corners and giving voice to the voiceless, you've got to love all the tools that are available not only to journalists but to everyone.
* With news as such a commodity, we should have more time to pursue unique stories that matter to our communities.

And that our ultimate charge -- to produce compelling, truth-telling content that makes a difference -- is within everyone's power. It doesn't matter if it's online or print, words or video. Do that and people will find you wherever you are.

I'm convinced that most readers don't pay attention to bylines. They don't care who writes a story. They care that it's in the paper. They believe it to be true, generally speaking, because it is in a paper they believe enough in to pay for. Factuality is part of the brand. In the same way, fantasy is part of the Weekly World News brand.

So the discussion going on at the Society of Professional Journalists site about certifying professional journalists is interesting.

Predictably, deep in the comments, UNC prof. Phil Meyer makes the strongest point in favor of certification:

But what happens when the vandals storm the gates, the castle walls fall, and everyone is a journalist?

In that situation, where everyone, skilled or unskilled, public-serving or self-serving, has equal access to the audience, the truth tellers are going to have to find a way to brand themselves. I'm not sure that we can count on the Miltonian self-righting principle for truth to emerge on its own. The lies move too fast now.

Our old values were based on an environment in which information was scarce. Now information is in unfathomable surplus. For the truth-tellers to emerge from the noise and confusion, we will need a way to make them visible. We will need it sooner than you think.

Hold that thought for a moment.

As I watched John Isner play Andy Roddick in the Legg Mason open -- which he ultimately lost in the finals -- I couldn't help but reflect on the athletic excellence coming out of Guilford County lately: Joey Cheek, Anna Rodenbough, Xavier Jones, Myles Oliver, Drew Weaver, the Triad United Aces and the Gators Gaters.

Organized sports are doing something right.

I started writing this post yesterday. Coincidentally, the cartoon on my "Far Side" calendar was of a wolf peering into the window of one of the three little pigs' houses. A human couple is shouting out the window to the wolf: "Listen out there! We're George and Harriet Miller! We just dropped in on the pigs for coffee! We're coming out! ...We don't want trouble!"

I think a lot of the visitors to this corner of the Greensboro blogosphere feel that way.

Like everyone else, I have watched bloggers who wrote about civic affairs come and go. Good people have quit in disgust at the toxic atmosphere; some of them return refreshed. Politicians create blogs, get elected or defeated, and drop them. Bloggers declare that there is an in-crowd, insulated from the ideas and issues of the masses. I've even been accused of being part of it, although judging by the comments on my blog I'm not feeling insulated.

The Chalkboard and the Letters to the Editor blog are two of our most popular blogs in terms of comments and traffic. Yet they rarely feature discussion that strives for a common ground, greater understanding or improved community. Comments on this blog often devolve into a blame game. I routinely get profane e-mail messages from bloggers and commenters, to what purpose, I have no idea.

The public could lose access to certain arrest and court records, even those of people convicted of serious crimes, under a proposal being considered by the nation's largest organization of lawyers.

From the first paragraph of an AP story about a committee recommendation that will be considered by the American Bar Association next week.

The AP story does a decent job summing up the sides.

The text of the proposal and the National Press Club's position.

I know there are a few lawyers in this blog's readership. Please use your commitment to public records to oppose it next week in San Francisco.

This falls in the No-Good-Idea-Goes-Unpunished file.

I suggested that a good time to experiment with adding video to online classified -- a skill we want to learn -- would be when we advertise for our Digital Media Director. Next thing I know I'm paired with the talented Carla Kucinski in front of the camera. I'm playing the stuffed-shirt role of the newspaper. Yes, typecast.

To quote from Margaret Banks's one-line review: "Carla is great."
My review: It's a trifle of a thing, aimed at showing we can laugh at ourselves. And it was more fun than working.

Let the mash up begin!

Update: Who knew that trying video classified was such a bad idea. (I do like shiny things.) Via Howard Owens.

Update: I should have said what has happened to the current digital director. Kathy Lambeth, who deserves great credit for guiding our online efforts for the past three years, is going to become our New Ventures director. She's going to pursue acquisitions, partnerships and start-ups.

Hello green. Goodbye red.

The beta site of news-record.com is open for business.

The color change is the most obvious difference, but it's the smallest in terms of functional improvements. Well, that's my opinion; I know you'll be the judge.

This isn't our final destination...we'll continue to make it better. Help us determine what to do. Make suggestions in the comments or here. I'll keep you updated as we go along.

Let's start a new thread on expanding the voices reporting on and talking about civic affairs in our local blogosphere. The comments earlier pretty much covered the issue of a discussion degenerating into a shooting gallery where no one cares who's hit.

Let's refocus. In the previous post, a couple of comments that make sense to me:

Former blogger Marcus Kindley observes: The more I see of the blogging world the more I begin to believe that it has little or no impact on issues or social redeeming value. It looks to be the universe of the narcissistic.

Elizabeth Wheaton asks: Why can't there be a serious and sustained discussion of how we -- each of us -- can raise the blog-talk bar without degenerating into the kind of bickering that is driving many of us to throw up our hands in despair?

How can we avoid ending up in the universe Marcus describes and build the one Liz, I, Hardy and others want?

Saturday update: Then there is this thought on the decline of blogs.

Eric Townsend is leaving us to join the public relations staff at Elon University. We hired Eric three years ago as a night cops reporter. He made his mark in the day cops jobs with stories such as the investigations into the police department and Friendship Homes. Personally, my favorite was the burrito eating contest.

He just recently moved to City Hall, where he covered his first council meeting Monday. Hmmm, council Monday -- resigns Friday. Tough crowd.

Hate to lose him. As City Editor Teresa Prout said, "He's a reporter's reporter."

My Sunday newspaper column

Our younger daughter starts her freshman year in college next week.

My wife and I have been dreading this for months; she's so much fun to have around.

Yet, I believe that God has a plan to help those of us who don't want departure day to come. It's called summer.

Mix a cup of carefree summer spirit with two tablespoons of excitement of leaving 12 years of educational servitude, and add a pinch of the freedom promised by college, and you've got yourself a toxic recipe that will test the patience of even the calmest, most loving parent.

But that will be officially over in a week and she moves into a stage of adulthood. I think she's ready.

Mark Binker makes a suggestion which feels futile, honestly, but all the usual commenters have exhausted these threads anyhow.

Ask or ban those who have weighed in already from commenting. Just have them take a seat. The rule can be pretty simple: if you've commented on either of the two prior threads, sit down and shut up.

I don't know if that would create a safe enough space for others to chime in, but it's a thought. I somehow doubt the personalities involved would honor the request, though.

I like it. How about it? How can we get a more respectful place to discuss our differences and maybe collaborate? And, while we're at it, what has kept you from commenting before?

I will reserve the right to participate myself.

Jeff Jarvis writes about the latest Pew Research Center study on Americans' views of their news media, and it's got a lot in it to chew about. I'm going to chew on the least significant, but one of the more quizzical aspects of the report, which Jeff relates:

Finally, I remain befuddled by the continued high ratings for local TV news, which comes out only slightly behind local newspapers. Local TV news sucks. It's all fires, press releases, weather teases, and time-shifting ("Police this morning are searching for the criminals who allegedly performed a crime right here where I'm standing last night but in fact no one who's involved in the story is here right now and I could read this same script to you from the studio after I cadge it from the newspaper but standing here it seem so real and current, doesn't it? Back to the you, Sally Ann..."). There's no reporting. The faces we see are all transient as they head from market to market; they don't know our towns. They're often not too bright. But yet, they seem friendly. And I fear that the reason people like them is because they don't report. What's not to like about pap and predictability?

Some of that seems to describe local TV news reporting, some less so. I have friends in the broadcast business, and they're pretty bright, for instance. And they don't cadge everything from us.

Now, I know you all have opinions on newspapers. Do you have them on TV stations? Can you help explain?

1. Go to ConvergeSouth Web site.
2. Check out cool speakers.
3. Erase "annual physical" on calendar and pencil in Converge on Oct. 19 & 20.
4. Register. Note that it's free!
5. Sign up for dinner.
6. Aack! Discover I'm already on the list as a host! Sign up for dinner with me.
7. Think of new ways to thank Sue for organizing this monster for the third year.

Last Sunday, the cover of our special section for the Wyndham golf tournament featured four name golfers who were coming and had a good chance to win: Davis Love, K.J.Choi, Chris DiMarco and Bubba Watson. Yes, it was a risk, but they had committed. Then, one by one over the last three days, each backed out.

Jinx? Nah, it has to happen more than once. Next year, we'll use a conceptual cover.

Elvis died 30 years ago tomorrow. I wasn't a fan -- too old and fat; him, not me -- so I don't remember where I was when I heard that he died. I do remember, though, one thing about that day.

I was a reporter at the Asheville Citizen. The national editor, who was also in charge of designing the front page, comes out of a 7 p.m. meeting with the guy in charge of our presses and says, proudly, "Who says we can't print live color!" The next day we published a color photo of Elvis circa 1959 on the front page.

For those among you who aren't old newspaper people, it took an act of the publisher or the death of an entertainment icon to publish a color photo during the live press run at that paper. Yes, those were the days.

Let's say your court reporter has come across a pretty juicy divorce filing involving someone who, in your opinion, is on the borderline of being a public figure. That is, the person isn't an elected official or a public servant, but is part of the leadership of a well-known business and has what I'd guess is a moderate amount of name recognition. Your paper rarely writes about divorce proceedings because the truth is difficult to find in emotional he-said, she-said petitions and because there’s a salaciousness to them that's more akin to the National Enquirer than the daily newspaper.

But times have changed and the public appetite for celebrities gone wild seems insatiable. People who know the person and the company would be entertained, to be sure. But is that a good enough reason? Should you respect the privacy of the couple during a painful, none-of-the-public's-business trauma? Or is your policy about passing on divorce proceedings old-fashioned? Is this one more reason people are turning to other news sources?

I'd like to welcome readers of the Rumors column in the Rhino. Thanks for visiting. If this is your first visit, feel free to browse the Web site, leave comments and return often. As you can see, I post about every day and will talk with you about the paper and journalism and stuff. You will also find others simpatico here.

The video you're looking for is here. John Hammer treats this as something serious, but this was done as a lark.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the difference in being a journalist and a newspaperman is pretty simple. Journalism is a trade with standards and values. Newspapers are a product in which journalism can be practiced. I would link out to the Rhino reference, but it's not posted. (Another difference in being in the journalism business and the newspaper business.)

Hey! Hey! You can't blame me for being a bit snarky, can you?

I know I'm getting old, and I didn't need a newspaper story to remind me. I used to track memories by music. Now I've discovered that I also track them by the growth of Friendly shopping center. Michelle Jarboe writes about the 50 years of the shopping center and its expected sale in Sunday's paper.

As I read it, I thought about where I was when I heard about the closing of Green Valley golf course. That the first "restaurant" my wife and I ate in after we moved to Greensboro was Jay's Deli. When they booted out Fleet Plummer and Scott Seed. How I used to take my daughters to Ziggy's in the Forum VI after pre-school. How the Friendly folks really don't get convenient traffic flow.

I mentioned that to Michelle. She responded: "The hardest thing about writing that story was how many good anecdotes there were to choose from -- it's unbelievable how attached people are to a shopping center. :)"

I didn't need that little smiley face at the end of her message.

We've launched the new site. We got dozens of feedback messages, almost all positive. We're still working on it, building inside pages. Bear with us there. And keep the feedback coming. It's helpful.

A sampling of the comments:

I think the redesign looks great. It places more news stories on the front page. You don't have to page through other tabs for other sections like before because most articles can be retrieved from the front page. Great job.

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Nice clean look. Flow seems to work well scrolling down the page. Maybe people in other areas reading the site would want to customize the site for their weather. You all must be on the cutting edge of transitioning newspaper to Internet. Having read your paper for now 48 years and trying to stay computer savy, I appreciate your efforts.

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My newspaper column

We've gotten feedback since the launch yesterday about some problems with links not working and a few other issues. Bear with us as we fix them.

Two-thirds of people living in Guilford County are on the Internet. Half of those folks regularly check the news online, if local numbers mirror national ones.

As you might imagine, we think that should be our audience at News-Record.com.
It's one of the reasons that we launched a "new and improved" Web site Saturday. Before I describe the specific features, I must tell you that the most important thing we did, in my opinion. We made the site simpler: simpler to find what you're looking for quickly and easier on the eyes.

In this time when everything seems to get more complicated, simplicity with a touch of elegance fits the bill, at least for me.

Sue answers some questions about ConvergeSouth, which inexplicably seems to be plagued by controversy every year.

She doesn't directly address the annual misdirection/misconception that conservative voices are shut out. She does say this: We strive to have people of different backgrounds, genders and belief systems -- such a representation isn't easy to get (we don't pay speaker fees), which is why there are still "TBA" listings on panels. We've consulted with local bloggers to help us find panelists of all persuasions. We're still seeking a couple of panelists so if you have suggestions, please let us know.

As someone who was involved in the planning -- didn't do much but was there for some of it -- everything she says about the openness and access is true. And seeing a liberal bias where there is none is silly and self-defeating.

I'm interested in bias because so many people think they see traces of it in newspapers. Some of the commenters here seem to be obsessed with it. So I've added Overcoming Bias blog, hosted by the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, to my newsreader. (Thanks to Mark for the tip.)

Read the opening post and it's hard to argue against following the blog.

How can we better believe what is true? While it is of course useful to seek and study relevant information, our minds are full of natural tendencies to bias our beliefs via overconfidence, wishful thinking, and so on. Worse, our minds seem to have a natural tendency to convince us that we are aware of and have adequately corrected for such biases, when we have done no such thing.

In this forum we discuss whether and how we might avoid this fate, by spending a bit less effort on each specific topic, and a bit more effort on the general topic of how to be less biased. Here we discuss common patterns of bias and self-deception, statistical and other formal analysis tools, computational and data-gathering aids, and social institutions which may discourage bias and encourage its correction.

Sounds more technical and esoteric than it is.

I've written about this many times. I'm trying to understand inbred bias in our work, not only in our writing, but also in which stories we select and how we approach them. Bias isn't as blatant, purposeful and focused in the paper as our critics believe, but it does exist. The next challenge is what to do about it.

I encourage you to join me there.

I've been asked to participate on a panel at a public administration conference in Chapel Hill. The panel's topic: the impact of changing media on the relationship between government and media. Some suggested topics: how does government with good intentions deal with the information demands -- which cause a huge increase of work -- of "new media." How to respond when "new media" twist the information to suit their own agendas. How can the public get ethical and honest coverage?

We have all of 45 minutes.

I'm pleased that the conference planners understand that "new media" exists. I think I'm the closest thing to a "new media" journalist on the panel, though, which seems to be an oversight, if not a misnomer.

That said, here are my four initial talking points. I'm looking for additions and refinement:

* Get the boss a blog. The city manager's and county manager's voices are powerful only if they use them. A manager's blog that is active -- he posts often, speaks plainly and interacts with commenters -- will serve three purposes. First, it will deliver important information to citizens. Second, it will be a direct, easy conduit for citizens to deliver information to him. Third, it will be his invitation to the party. He can visibly join in the conversation that is already going on without him.

And most important, you (the universal you) don't have to rely on any media to get your information out. You have a direct outlet, unfiltered by the newspaper or the "new media" voices.

Jim Young talks about the stress (sort of) of voting in the weekly AP football poll.

Larry Keech, former sports editor who retired in 2004, might be able to teach Jim a thing or two about stress and voting.

We dropped out of the polling process back in 2004 when the poll was part of the BCS ranking system and bathed in controversy. The AP later pulled out of the BCS.

Feel free to go to SportsExtra every week and let Jim know who wrong he gets it.

We took some grief from readers who thought our coverage of the Wyndham was negative. This isn't unusual; it happens every year whenever we compare attendance to the GGO heyday. Or, in this case, when we write about the lack of big names at the tournament and the possibility of moving the tournament from Forest Oaks to Sedgefield.

On Sunday morning, when my wife saw the front page story about free admission to the tournament, she said, "Well, they can't blame you for not being behind it." I just laughed.

Compare our story today with the Winston-Salem Journal's. I'd also refer you to Raleigh, but it used the Associated Press for the tournament, which, I think, is a diversion from the past. Charlotte sent its golf reporter, but he primarily wrote news stories about each round, although he did write a scene-setter last week.

It's not the tournament it was, and that's not because of newspaper coverage. The tournament may get to where its organizers and sponsors want it to go, and that won't be because of newspaper coverage, either. Personally, I hope it regains its glory; it does a lot of good for the community. But I'm afraid that doesn't mean we are going to downplay the lack of luster in the field or the discussion over whether it belongs at Forest Oaks. (Or, for that matter, the stories about fun for fans, player profiles or commentary.)

I don't normally comment on other media Web sites. God knows, we have our own issues. But on the WFMY news tonight, as one of the station's series of news segments on the station's new Web site, their reporter was explaining the registration form. She said the station's asks for your year of birth so that "we know that you're old enough to use the site."

Well. That's a new one on me. I've always understood you ask the birth year for demographic information (for marketing).

She didn't say what the acceptable age range is.

Gary Goldhammer sums up the State of the News Media more succinctly and sadly than all the other reports combined.

Among his points:
* A fake news organization sends a fake reporter to cover a real war
* A real local television station in Texas hires a fake anchorwoman as part of a reality TV show
* Google News allows subjects of news stories who feel their quotes were faked to post real corrections, though the corrections are not independently verified as true or false

More than ever it seems as if you're on your own.

As I have looked through the Winston-Salem Journal every day, I've been thinking that our overall readership strategies are different. We push as much local as we can to the front page; the Journal seems to be more traditional in its selections. We try to play photos and graphics bigger. I think our coverage is less bureaucratic, but that could just be the eye of the beholder.

But in some ways, we're ending up in similar places. (Accompanied by newspapers all over the country.) They announced a few changes in the paper today, including dropping a daily standalone business section and adding two business pages in their local section, which is what we have. And a layoff of five people. Managing Editor Ken Otterbourg elaborates a bit.

I won't BS anyone and say that this is an improvement, but I would like to think that a smaller newshole and less display space will force us to change some of our approach to business coverage and place more emphasis on bigger stories and less on routine pieces.

Which is what we try to do.

My sympathies to everyone connected with the Journal today. Some readers won't like the changes to their paper. Employees won't like the loss of five coworkers. And five more newspaper people are out of work.

Opinions are a dime a dozen, but the solutions aren't obvious or simple. Yes, that's the understatement of the year. Audiences and advertisers will continue to fragment. Technology will continue to make information easier and faster to get. Convenience and customization will flourish. Business demands continue. Change to my industry must come faster and smarter than it is.

We did something yesterday that we have done before, although not on such a high profile story.

We linked to two "competing" Web sites -- The Business Journal's and WFMY's -- because they had a story we should have had, but didn't: the identity of the "mystery downtown developer." We have been covering the story closely over the past few months -- perhaps too closely given the opacity of the project's backing -- and needed to get a story about the developer's identity online.

Until we could get the story confirmed independently, the outward links in a short rewrite of the Biz Journal's story would have to do. After a few hours, we got the confirmation and put up our own story.

What makes this slightly unusual is that the Biz Journal published the story in print Friday. But they provide only a tease online and a subscription solicitation. Meanwhile, the entire Biz Journal story is posted on the WFMY site, with no mention that it came from the Biz Journal until a tagline at the end. The article's author, Justin Catanoso, is a regular on WFMY's Good Morning Show so this may be the off-shoot of some partnership agreement.

Some papers don't link out, particularly to competing sites. Why give the competition traffic and recognition, the argument goes. We're over that. If it helps visitors to know something on another site, our obligation is to send them there. The fact is, we should link out more than we do. It's still not our first instinct, which is to match the story.

My newspaper column

Last Sunday, I wrote proudly about the redesign of News-Record.com, specifically mentioning its simplicity, its search and its speed. I stand by the simplicity of finding things on the site and its search capability.

Speed? Well, not so much.

You've told us about a range of problems with the site loading: it's too slow; the whole page doesn't load; it shuts down the computer.

We're working to fix it. Not to get overly technical -- I am just about out of my depth already -- our programmers are cutting down some file sizes and rebuilding navigation tools. The loading speed also differs with the type of Web browser used. (For those interested in a more detailed explanation, go to the frequently asked questions link on the site.)

We're making improvements every day. Not surprisingly, private Web developers in the community have made excellent suggestions that have helped us with the bugs. Keep the feedback coming. It is the best way we can make the site better for you.

We intended to have Joe Killian's backstory on gangs posted with the front page story we published this morning. Thing is, the story was being worked on through yesterday, and Joe just couldn't get to it. He's away from any online access today, so it will need to wait until tomorrow. I'll link to it as soon as we get it.

Like any good journalist, Joe immersed himself in this story, even as we gave him other assignments. He worried about the colors of clothes he wore when he went out to interview, knowing that the wrong color in the wrong place could spell trouble. He conducted his interviews in daylight only. He always identified himself as a reporter, which didn't help him get an interview. He finally realized he had to promise anonymity to get anyone to talk with him.

He visited the foot bridge over U.S. 29, but wasn't charged a toll to cross. He was told to go away, in harsher words than that. (We cut the gang members' profanity-laced quotes -- and there were a few -- so as not to offend readers who get offended by things like that. We didn't want offensive language to obscure their view of a powerful story.) Joe discovered that gangs in Greensboro have their own YouTube presence.

Joe was concerned that people will think that we had glorified the gang members. Likewise, he wondered if others would think we had unfairly sensationalized the problem. Finally, he was concerned that people in the mentioned housing communities would think we had besmirched their neighborhoods' reputations. My response to all was, "Don't worry about it. Happens with every story that hits home."

His story is a good one. As soon as he files, we'll let you know.

Update: He's filed.

Our friend Mike Orren of Pegasus News in Texas visits Greensboro (his hometown) and proposes that by seeing Shiner Bock on tap at New Horizon Stadium that the Lone Star state's conquest of the world continues unabated. His blog post even gets a comment from former News & Record reporter and current Texas resident Kathryn Hopper.

I dunno. It'd be a stronger case if the Hoppers were serving Lone Star. Anyway, with all the Greensboro folk in Texas, seems to me that Greensboro is making the inroads into a conquest of Texas. 'Course, that's coming from someone raised in Oklahoma, a state that loves Texas about as much as Carolina loves Duke.

We've started a new blog dedicated to the local elections. There we'll post all the election/political news, analysis, gossip, short stuff, events, etc. pertaining to the municipal elections.

I like to recognize staff here for the awards they win and the recognition in the community for their achievements. Here's a new one for me. Randolph Community College is honoring one of its esteemed alumni, photo journalist Jerry Wolford, on a roadside in Asheboro.

Honestly, I'd have preferred an ad in the paper or on this site.

Before the workday was even done today, Greensboro citizens ratted out more than 100 of their fellow residents for water restriction violations on this first day of enforcement. Meanwhile, reporter Jason Hardin road around with a city enforcement officer who gave out 50 warnings. We'll have a full story about it tomorrow here..

The editorial folks have advocated snitching. Take it a step further: Should we publish the names of the watering scofflaws? After all, if you believe that we're in a water crisis, isn't it the responsibility of everyone to conserve...and wouldn't publishing the names of the offenders every day help people "do the right thing?"

I know that the editorial board is conducting individual interviews with each Greensboro City Council candidate rather inviting all the candidates per district in for a group interview. It makes sense; the board can dig deeper into each candidate's ideas and thought processes. (In my position now, I have nothing to do with the editorial endorsements.)

Still, there is something to be said about group interviews. They sometimes generate both heat and light. When I was editorial page editor in 1998, Steve Arnold and Mary Anne Busch were running against each other for the Board of Commissioners, and we had them in for a group interview. It was clear from the start that Steve didn't care for Mary Anne. When we asked him why he would be the better choice, he called Mary Anne unstable and unbalanced, and asked her point blank about her psychiatric history. I don't remember her answer, but I remember she responded with uncommon grace for a county commissioner candidate in those days.

We had endorsed Steve when he ran four years earlier. His behavior in that session pretty much turned the tide against him for that election cycle, and we endorsed Mary Anne. In any event, he won re-election handily, and has held onto that commissioners' seat since 1990.

We may not have had the time to explore their positions, but we did get a good picture of their behaviors. And it was exciting to watch.

An article in Chicago Magazine about the new focus at the Medill School of Journalism illustrates the arrogance and myopia of many in my chosen trade. (Via Dan Blank.)

The school's new dean, John Lavine, has brought in a new curricula. He declared that students needed to be immersed in "new media" -- Web sites, videos, filmstrips, video games, and podcasts. And the new curriculum would emphasize an understanding of "audience" -- who the customers are, what they want, how to reach them. The concept of marketing -- widely disdained by ink-in-their-veins journalists -- would assume a key role in the teaching program.

That approach upsets students, teachers and alums who prefer learning the traditional forms of journalism -- reporting and writing -- and, almost by nature, abhor the idea of marketing.

Against this backdrop, Dean Lavine argues, it is worse than wrongheaded to continue to turn out journalism students the old-fashioned way, preparing them for disappearing jobs in print publications and giving them little knowledge of the changing demands of consumers. "It is immoral," Lavine says.

Lavine is right and the position the others are taking is, frankly, embarrassing.

To learn to write or to learn what your audience wants is not an either/or proposition. You must do both to succeed. The marketing will tell budding journalists that people want tough, watchdog journalism. It will tell them that people want useful information. It will tell them that many people don't necessarily want what they are being taught. And it will tell them that if newspapers don't provide it, people will go to where they can get it. (Frankly, you don't need a marketing class to learn that.)

E-bay, Craig, and Google have all gone where newspapers should have gotten to first. Now Facebook and YouTube are the latest "dang-we-newspapers-should-have-done-that" phenomena on the Web. On Facebook, vibrant communities uniting around topics spring up overnight. YouTube tells stories in ways that used to be the purview of newspapers and television. But rather than peering over the hill, journalism educators and many professionals are worrying over crossing some poorly imagined line in the sand separating journalism, digital media and marketing.

Every journalist I know wants their work to be read or seen. You do that by creating compelling, worthwhile stories and taking them to where the audience is. How you do that these days without understanding the audience and without the skills of writing, video and audio, I don't know.

Full disclosure: I didn't attend journalism school.

"Resurrecting the Champ" unfairly beats up newspaper biz

Dana Parsons writes after seeing "Resurrecting the Champ": "I suppose I could just buck up and be a man about the new movie and forgive the filmmakers for their liberties with the truth. That'd be a lot easier if we weren't living in a time of declining trust in the media and when some of our fellow citizens seem determined to convince the American public that the mainstream press is biased and unreliable." -- From Romenesko

Yes, we wouldn't want Hollywood to take a shot at reporters.

In the good news-bad news department, the good news is that former N&R reporter Erika Bolstad is now part of the Washington Bureau for McClatchy newspapers, covering the capital for the Anchorage Daily News and the Idaho Statesman. It's presumably a step up and she joins former N&R reporter Ben Feller, who now works for the AP in DC.

The bad news? She's covering this mess of a story.