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I was impressed with you heralding in the new era of "transparency" yeasterday, in the same column none-the- less that also referred to the Wray incident as a "resignation" without even the benefit of quotation marks. (although I guess if Chief Wray was locked out of his office he could showed some gumption and pitched a tent in the middle of the street and kept working, huh? ) Seriously John If you were someone from out of town you would think: "Gee, it looks like the police chief up and left".

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you were putting your own spin on it, the slant of which has been pretty transparent all along.

Well, I know that some people say he was forced out and perhaps he was. But the simple fact is that he resigned, which is how he referred to it officially.

I'm pretty much assuming that people in Greensboro are familiar with the saga of the chief. If they aren't, I doubt they read the column by the newspaper editor.

John, call me crazy, but don't you think a reasonable prudent person would interpret being locked out of their office on purpose by management as being terminated. I guess you took me serious above when I said he could have pitched a tent and kept right on working. I guess I should watch who I joke around with.

I'm loving this new transparency already.

New transparency? Nothing new about it, really.

He left office two years ago. He chose to resign. Whether he was forced out doesn't matter in the context of this column.

(I learned long ago to never assume anyone is joking when they leave comments here. Whenever I do and respond in kind, they get angry and say that I'm being condescending or arrogant, so I try to play it straight in the comments. Most of the time.)

You are, of course, technically correct, John.

JohnRobinson covering the Bataan Death March;

Several hundred members of the US Armed forces died in the last ten days on their outing in the Phillipine countryside.

or

Several hundred jews died last week while attending camp at Buchenwald.

You're right. The above would be correct.

John, if you've Allen-Johnsoned- off-to-Buffalo for New Years, have a good one.

After all is said and done, you and Allen and the rest of the crew actually do put out a pretty good newspaper. For whatever it would be worth, I keep reading it, obviously.

I think we can all agree, 2007 for the most part simply sucked. Let's hope we've bottomed out. Locally, nationally and maybe universally.

Thanks.

You know, of course, that what happens depends on your perspective. I'd guess that Mitch might say that an incompetent manager left before being fired. While you want us to take a side, you should know by now that we're not going to take one on something like this.

Of course, he would have said that. and of course the N&R would print it without the slightest editorial challenge. I think your guess is accurate.

Again, your incompetent manager "left" reference implies he should have camped on the street or the hallway and continued to function. It implies a passivity on the part of the people who eventuated the cessation of David Wray's employment. Allows Mitch to save face, as well as the N&R.

I mean, in lieu of David Wrays "resignation" as referred to in your column above, rest assured, nobody expects you to say "David Wrays ouster by a cabal of powerful local race-jockeys, dunderheaded mis-guided politicians and liberal wacko media". I think most of your readers would have just settled for quotation marks around the "resignation".

And you're right, everything is point-of-view dependent. The world is "as you see it".
It's just when you are really the only newspaper in town, people may expect you to have higher standards of objectivity which seem to be lacking.

Interesting perspective, but I think you want it to be more than it is. Wray is a tangential reference in this column. It is not about him; it's about the city council. Yet you want me to put quotation marks around resignation for that proverbial person from out of town, as if he would know what the quotation marks mean. Heck, I don't even know what they would mean.

He resigned. Look it up. No getting around that fact. That is objective. Putting quotation marks around a word is a weasel way of saying something without saying it.

And again, the column wasn't about Wray.

John the column was about openess.
I just thought it was kind of amusing putting this in a column about openess when the person who wrote the column himself has to maintain this constant disingenuous, obfuscation which has characterizied the N&R's position on this issue from the get-go.

If you want people to be open, why don't you take the first step?

Skeet, with regards to "openess" on the part of the "transparent" N&R, maybe you're confusing New Year's with April Fool's Day.

John,

I am curious about something. Why is your paper falling all over itself saying good things about this new council. So far I have not been impressed. Here are two recent examples. Why would this Council cut 49 positions (motion made by Barber) then turn around and approve a consultant to review the Police staffing and other issues? If anything, hire a consultant to review the entire City operations (all departments) to see if (1) staff size is appropriate for similar sized cities or not, (2) check into consolidation options with county services etc. To cut positions without the required research and information was foolish. This was was a very shortsighted move by Barber and the rest of the Council. Part of the complaints has been the City not being able to give timely answers or respond quickly. Cutting positions won't help this point. Next.....The recent emergency meeting, I thought Wade and Rakestraw were completely disrespectful to the Mayor by not attending the closed session. Who knows, perhaps they would have learned more in that closed session and be able to show true leadership instead of meanspiritedness and lack of working with the rest of the team.

For true transparency, though, we need to know the following:

(1) How often do factual errors occur because of a lack of fact-checking?

(2) When such errors occur, what changes, if any, are made to the process?

(3) What is the ratio of time spent reading and evaluating the content to the time spent "presenting" it?