News-Record.com

My newspaper column

The last issue of TV Week, our weekly television guide, was delivered Saturday.

Beginning next Saturday, the daily listings in the Life section will feature more channels and expanded hours to help you decide what to watch.

The daily list will include 62 channels, an increase of 14 and equaling the number in TV Week. We are also expanding the time frame for which we list programs, from 9 a.m. until midnight. Currently, the daily listing runs from 8 p.m. to midnight. Sports events on television will be on the daily listings grid and are on page C2 in the Sports section.

We continued to publish TV Week as long as we did because we know that some of you rely on it. But the tipping point came as its readership continued to decline, its cost continued to rise, and on-screen cable guides grew in popularity.

During housing downturns, we frequently hear from people in the real estate business who want us to be more positive in our reports. Things aren't as bad here as they are in other places, they say.

Now the New York Times visits Greensboro.

The market here isn't like those of Florida or California, which have followed a boom-and-bust pattern, or of Cleveland, where foreclosures have overwhelmed entire neighborhoods. Instead, what's playing out here is a kind of paralysis, with wide swaths of the market frozen and only the very top end showing signs of life.

This may hint at what's in store for other real estate markets around the nation that managed to avoid the excesses of the last decade but still find themselves struggling now. Indeed, the recent economic trajectory of Greensboro, a city of 242,000 smack in the middle of the rolling Carolina Piedmont, has run parallel to that of the country as a whole.

After all these years, I am still surprised when readers tell us they don't want to know when elected officials say silly or offensive things. I always want to know when the people elected to represent me say or do something that I might find embarrassing...or wise, for that matter.

For the record:
* The meeting he covered did result in a "real" news story that we published a day earlier.
* Gerald did not park in my parking space. I don't have a reserved space.

Steve Berry, who covered education here in the 1980s and who won a Pulitzer in 1993 while with the Orlando Sentinel, has written a book, Watchdog Journalism: The Art of Investigative Reporting, due out in August.

Steve was a tenacious reporter here, writing about school merger and school fire code violations, among many other topics. I'm not surprised he's writing about investigative journalism. Given the book's $35 price tag, I'm thinking that Steve, who is now an associate professor of journalism at the University of Iowa, is looking to get it used as a textbook. The Steve I know would have said, "We should take a look at this racket!" :)

Reporter Dick Barron sends a message out to the newsroom: Anybody got any Advil?

Seconds later, he sends out a second message: Got 'em. Thanks.

Then a third: By all the responses, the newsroom functions on pain relievers.

Ain't that the truth...especially when they're washed down with the Jim Beam in the bottom drawers.

One of my reporters asked me this very question a few weeks ago. How many years will it be until there is no print edition of the (News & Record)?

The editor of the L.A. Times says at least 35 years for his pub. I told our guy 30 years. Our reasoning was the same. Boomers are core newspaper readers, and there is a lot of life in them (us) yet. Couple that with the expected growth in the Triad with Fed Ex and the planned Interstates, we should have at least a couple generations of life. I also agree that the growth of digital journalism and the evolution of a strong business model will come.

But the newspaper will look and read differently than it does today, and the changes will come much faster than they have in the past. That, more than whether there is print or not, is the biggest challenge both for readers and journalists.

Thursday update: Shows what I know: Steve Ballmer says 10 years.

We have tried to tell readers about the demise of TV Week and the new daily listings in a variety of ways, including ads in the paper, stickers on the front page, announcements on the front of TV Week and my column.

As of yesterday, we had heard from three dozen or so people objecting to the elimination of the weekly guide, which isn't as great a number as I thought we'd get. We will certainly hear from more when Saturday's paper comes and the guide isn't there.

Most of the concerns have come from people who say they plan their television watching for the entire week. Many are angry, but those who pause for the discussion say they understand, they just wish things could be different.

I do, too.

We violated an unwritten cardinal rule of newspapering this morning. It is June 6 and we didn't have a story about the 64th anniversary of D-Day. A reader writes:

It was very disturbing to my husband and me to read today's News & Record and find no mention of WWII: D-Day. The beginning of the Allied Invasion of Germany with troops landing in Normany. It is because of the bravery and love of country of the troops of that war and other wars that we enjoy the freedoms of this great country of America. Other newspapers in much smaller cities have headlines and articles on this historical event. On June 6th, 1944, many young men gave thier lives, others were wounded physically and emotionally. Families lost love ones.

My question is why did the Greensboro News & Record not publish articles on this. Will husbands, sons, and wives be forgotten in the future who have fought so bravely in the wars of the past and continue to fight. How about their families who picked up the paper today to see no mention of something that is very real to them.

Actually, we published a short item on Page A2 about the special anniversary and directed readers to three different Web sites for more information on D-Day. But it is true, it wasn't a traditional story.

But we tried. Our national editor, Janet Brindle, looked for wire stories about the occasion yesterday but found nothing of merit. We expect to have something in Saturday.

The reader's message -- this isn't the only one we've gotten -- gets to the notion of the newspaper as more than just a container for the day's news. It is also a touchstone for people, something that marks a moment in time, rekindles a memory, pays a respect. That is an emotional bond that is often forgotten when we talk about what a paper should be.

As I was answered calls and e-mails from readers unhappy with our TV listings change, I stumbled upon this bit of information today:.

While the average number of channels received by American households hit an all time high in 2007 -- 118.6 -- the number actually viewed was only 16, only a fraction more than the 15.7 channels tuned to in 2006, the 15.4 channels tuned to in 2005, or the 15.0 channels tuned to in 2004. The finding suggests that while the supply of media options is expanding, consumer attention may have reached its limits.

Now, if they were all watching the same 16 channels....

Today, we received the first phone call and letter since Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee complaining that our coverage has been "too Obama."

It is true, too.

On Sunday, we published a story on the front page about Obama challenging McCain in the "red states" including the news that Obama was coming to Raleigh first.

Today, we published a story on the front page about his Raleigh visit with a distinctive photo of Obama and Gov. Mike Easley giving each other an enthusiastic thumbs up. As Easley was an ardent Clinton supporter a month ago, it is an interesting photograph.

We will get to the point in the campaign in which we give each candidate a close approximation of equal time. We will do that on the issues. We will do that on fundraising, campaign styles, profiles and the like.

But we won't do it all the time. Political coverage isn't like grade school when everyone gets the same number of crayons. The news doesn't permit it to work that way.

When one candidate comes to Greensboro or Raleigh or Winston, his visit will get priority. When one candidate proposes a program that has a distinct impact on North Carolinians, we will cover that program and candidate closer.

It works the other way, too: When one candidate gets into trouble, he will get more press.

In this case, Obama had just clinched the nomination; Clinton had finally conceded; he was about to start a two-week campaign tour in North Carolina. He and the state were in the national news. It deserved to be on the front page both days. At the same time, McCain, who has been the Republican candidate for months, was in Washington and Virginia.

I hope that Obama holds true to his initial strategy to campaign in the traditionally Republican strongholds. The campaign automatically becomes much more interesting. Both candidates will visit -- neither can take a victory or defeat for granted -- and voters will have the opportunity to see each in person. Being able to make a personal connection with a national candidate is increasingly rare these days.

Anyway, over the course of the campaign, our coverage should even out to be fairly apportioned. But there are no guarantees: If Obama never makes it back to NC, but McCain comes three or four times, I fully expect to hear from Democrats complaining about unequal time.

Thursday update: For those who think the national media is in Obama's camp, from this month's Vanity Fair: "I love the guy," professed New York Times columnist David Brooks one Sunday on The Chris Matthews Show, that church service of chipmunk chatter. The lucky guy on the receiving end of Brooks's blown kiss was John McCain, the rare politician with the magical property to make otherwise finicky journalists go misty and let drop the chastity belt of objectivity. As MSNBC's Joe Scarborough wisecracked about the reporters on the campaign beat this season, "I think every last one of them would move to Massachusetts and marry John McCain if they could."

Some people have responded to our elimination of the weekly TV book by describing it as the arrogant act of a monopoly.

The local daily newspaper is hardly a monopoly any longer and that is especially true in Guilford County. We are one of two daily newspapers located here, and one of four that are delivered to people's homes. (I am counting the High Point Enterprise, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.) For your TV listings, you could subscribe to TV Guide or use any number of Internet services.

Meanwhile, in addition to the dailies and the Internet, there are at least three weeklies and four television stations that carry local news.

We may be a lot of things, but monopoly isn't one.

Amid all the blowhards and loudmouths on all sides of the discussion about the future of news and journalism, there is one voice that is clear, provocative, intelligent, respectful and, I think, on target: Jay Rosen. He knows Greensboro; he was a guest force at the first ConvergeSouth.

If you aren't a reader, be a watcher. ScribeMedia.Org has a video interview with Jay that is worth the hour. It will bring you up to date with the changes in media and what the future could be.

(I can hear my own staff now: "An hour? Robinson complains about our videos that are longer than three minutes!" I do, too. It's worth an hour to learn about your future.)

Inserted in The Charlotte Observer bought here:

It is with great sadness that we must end the delivery of The Charlotte Observer in your community, beginning June 22, 2008. For a number of years, we have supplemented the cost of delivery in your community, and we cannot continue to do so.

Personally, I've been surprised they've come this far north for this long. Many newspapers -- us included -- have purposely eliminated circulation far from its primary base because of the cost and because local advertisers don't want to pay for the circulation miles away from their stores.

Jack Lail points out that Wikipedia posted news of Tim Russert's death before the Associated Press moved an alert.

Who's surprised? Reporting by many with instant publishing skills beats media bureaucracy every time.

As a related whine, we're a member of the AP, but it does so many irritating things suggesting that it has forgotten it is an association of members. An example of the bureaucracy's bad judgment is aptly described by Jeff Jarvis.

Whenever we're out with friends, I make mental notes on what everyone is talking about. It's beyond being sociable, although it annoys my wife to no end. It's professional. (And I'm pretty sure that half the journalists out there do the same thing.)

Last night, at a dinner party with nine other people, the conversations were, aside from family gossip, about the smoke outside, the heat, gas prices, how far a dollar doesn't go, the alligator in Lake Hamilton and, among the men at least, a bit about Tiger and the Celtics.

Nothing about the "big news" that's traditionally on the front page of newspapers: Nothing on the Iowa floods, the death of Tim Russert or the presidential campaign.

We had a number of those stories on our front pages this week, both the ones we talked about and the ones we didn't. The interest of last night's group was clearly and predominantly local. I didn't try to direct it by mentioning Obama's baby mama or the lake that is Cedar Rapids' downtown. These folks are intelligent and informed; they would talk about what interested them.

One group's conversation isn't the sole arbiter of news judgment. But it is one way to test the winds. (Another is watching the traffic numbers on individual stories on the Web site.) Unless we reflect what people are interested in talking about on our pages, we'll never be considered relevant, much less indispensable.

Update: Angela Tuck, public editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a related view.

My newspaper column

For most people, the presidential race began in earnest last Saturday when Sen. Hillary Clinton conceded and threw her support to the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.

That cleared the way for Obama and Sen. John McCain to go right at each other.

For me, I knew the campaign was on last Tuesday when I received my first complaints about bias in our coverage of the campaign.

The message, in essence, was "too much Obama."

Looks like the expected layoffs at The Charlotte Observer and The N&O are happening today. I know many people at both papers and I have no doubt they will still continue to produce strong, impactful journalism. Still, the layoffs are bound to diminish the papers.

I certainly understand why corporate feels this action is necessary. Interestingly, both Charlotte and Raleigh have stable economic bases (financial and state government) -- at least compared with the Triad's. If memory serves, their recent circulation numbers declined at a slower rate than the industry average. But you can't fight the loss of classifieds, the ad market's downturn and corporate debt.

I asked our Readers' Panel if they wanted more or fewer stories about crime on the front page. (It was pegged to this story June 7 about a hostage taking.)

Of 139 responses, 43 people said they wanted less, 38 said more, 13 said no change and the rest qualified their answers in some way.

Some didn't want crime news sensationalized. Some said that it becomes more important to them when it happens in or near their neighborhoods. Some wanted more good news. Some liked the "most wanted" Monday feature. A few didn't like the photograph of the victim with her torn shirt and sports bra showing.

A sampling of comments; be sure to read to the end:

Discussion around here this morning concerned whether we should have done more on the front page with Tiger's U.S. Open win yesterday. (More? I should say, something, anything.)

Many North Carolina papers played a photo of Tiger raising the trophy at the top of the page in what we call a skybox. A nice photo of Tiger and Rocco Mediate was the centerpiece on the front of the Charlotte Observer. A look at the front pages around the nation shows others played it as the main photo on the front page, too.

We didn't. We originally planned to put it above the nameplate in the skybox, but went instead with the three returning Carolina basketball players. That story broke 45 minutes or so later than the Open and wasn't televised live on NBC. I thought it was more local and might attract more casual newspaper buyers than the Open.

But the Open wasn't just a golf story. It was a compelling spectacle: an injured Tiger gutting it out, a gritty challenger who seems local, given that Rocco won the tournament in Greensboro twice, and drama, drama, drama.

Instead, our A1 centerpiece was about people trying to unload their SUVs in the face of high gas prices. A fine story and photo -- and local, too -- but not necessarily memorable in the way the Open story and art could have been.

I'm thinking I made a mistake. You?

That is is the police department's mugshot of Jonathan Newell, who was arrested last night and charged with first-degree murder.

Is it just me or is it disconcerting to see the guy accused of strangling a 26-year-old woman in her home smiling at the camera?

Does it bias your perception of his guilt or innocence?

From Lex:

We need more readers this devoted.

Indeed. But can we get copies to the southern provinces in time?

Some of us have been trying to figure out how to use Twitter to extend our journalism. I know there are a lot of journalism apostles out there, and they make sense, but it's "one more thing" for a staff that is already awash in "one more things."

Terry Heaton cites a study that underscores the why -- if not the how -- with a heavy black marker. And it is a big motivator.

But the big story -- and it is huge -- is that nearly nine of ten in the age group 18-34 use (text messaging, blogging and social networking), making it the most dominant form of communications for the group.

Then he quotes an article about the study in Online Media Daily:

Text messaging, meanwhile, proves that mobile media also is becoming a dominant source of personal communications beyond the cell phone, even if mass marketers haven't yet figured out how to crack the potential of marketing through the medium. The percentage of U.S. adults who say they've never sent a text message fell to 41% this year from 49% a year ago. And among 18- to 34-year-olds, it dropped to 22% from 38%.

As Terry says, the number of people getting info through texting is only going to grow and become more connected.

If you believe that you need to go to where the people are -- the days of them coming to you automatically are certainly over -- then this is pretty clear directional evidence. And a strong motivator.

The multiple talents of reporters. First, Taft Wireback sings. Now Tom Keller cracks wise. See for yourselves.

At 10 p.m. tomorrow, Tom is competing in the Ultimate Comic Challenge at the Idiot Box on Elm Street. And here your vote counts. Go jeer him on.

Sunday Update: Tom advanced to the next round! So cheer him on this coming Friday.

From Michael Grossman, our Web content guru:

We recently launched a test site of News-Record.com using an online publishing platform called Drupal. In the coming months, we hope to transition entirely to Drupal, an open source system that offers us the tools to more quickly develop our own dynamic, data-driven, interactive products.

You shouldn't notice many differences immediately. Our initial goal is to simply replicate what we offer under the old system (though we couldn't resist adding a few new features, such as more photos). We're confident the new platform will be faster than the current site, but we want to make sure we understand the new system and how to optimize its performance.

We need your help in benchmarking that performance. There is still work to be done on the beta site, including creating missing pages and cleaning up the little differences between how various Web browsers display the pages. But we invite you to explore the site here.

Dan O'Mara, a reporter and editor here in the 1990s through 2001, has been named senior editor at the Herald in Rock Hill, S.C. Dan has been an editor at The State in Columbia since 2001. He'll be a good one.

Deborah Howell, ombudsman at the Washington Post, writes about a common "problem" newspapers have -- deciding which historical anniversaries to write about. We didn't publish a full story about D-Day on its anniversary earlier this month, and we heard about it. (We published a story of the commemorations the next day.)

I got nailed last weekend by a reader who was angry we didn't make a note of Flag Day. It is, he told me, an issue of education and an issue of respect. I suppose. I can't think of any event in which I would feel disrespected if an anniversary story didn't show up in the paper. But maybe that's just me.

Howell writes:

How long must a newspaper commemorate an event of historic proportions? Not forever. No one who lived through the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy will ever forget it, but The Post didn't have a story last Nov. 22, and no one complained to me.

It makes me wonder when will be the time, far away, when a Sept. 11 passes with only a brief -- or no -- mention.

A friend asked me if I was disappointed with the judge's ruling in the libel case against the Rhino and Jerry Bledsoe.

Disappointed? I asked. Why would I be disappointed?

It was a rhetorical question. I know that there is this idea that if something is good for the Rhino, it must be bad for us. Hardly. That’s the product of simple minds. It confuses disagreement with animosity. We are different publications, with different ethics and different purposes. To position the two of us as competitors is as inaccurate as to suggest that we both compete with neighbor chatting over coffee..

While I don’t care for the Rhino's or Jerry's intensely agenda-driven journalism, I care greatly for press freedom. Consequently, I am thankful and pleased that the judge apparently decided that Jerry did not have to turn over his notes. (I say apparently because the judge's formal order has not been entered yet.)

Turning over notes means revealing sources, which most reporters and their editors resist. I doubt that such a ruling would chill investigative reporting. But it would certainly change the way reporters take notes. Many have already created their own codes that are hard for someone else to crack.)

Anyway, the ruling doesn't mean the case is over. It means the police officers will have to make their libel case without being able to look at all of his notes. (Apparently a more specific request may be considered.)

In an exchange about something else, Cara Michele writes:

My mom and I joke about technology. If you want to reach her, you have to call her. She checks her voice mail regularly. She checks her email every few days, if that.

And my kids and I have these weird hybrid online/out loud conversations when we're in the next room from each other. Wonder what it will be like for the next generation?

(Reprinted with permission)

Reminds me of being at a family birthday party. I'm seated in the middle of the table. To my right are the 50- to 60-year-old adults talking about car engines. To my left are the 20-somethings talking about motherboards. That was five years ago.

Now the youngsters at the table would be talking about what their phones can do. And they'd be texting it back and forth.

The layoffs at the McClatchy papers has caused some reorganization -- yes, synergy, between Raleigh and Charlotte -- that makes sense. In fact, some of us have being waiting for it since McClatchy bought the Charlotte Observer. By combining the political and sports coverage, they've made both papers better.

Andy Bechtel has a fine roundup.

Both papers have strong reporters covering state government and politics in Raleigh. Why duplicate efforts? Do I think less of the N&O when I read a Jack Betts article in it? Heck, I wish we had Jack, who used to work for us back in the day.Today's N&O has a piece on the Bobcats and the NBA draft written by an Observer reporter. I didn't even notice who wrote it until I went back to look.

The tradition is that my reporters can do better than your reporter when covering the same event. That's why we 1,000 reporters staff the Super Bowl. But the fact is that that is true in limited cases. Some traditions must die for other, smarter things to grow. When the two papers decide they are partners rather than competitors -- at least in these two areas -- both papers will be stronger for it.

Does it seem odd that there are all these stories about journalists in the running to be the next editor of The Washington Post, and they are all based on sources? I mean, these are journalists. They know the dangers of not skulking around and no commenting. Come to think of it, aren't they the same guys who make reporters sit outside McCain and Obama offices to watch who might be seeking the vice presidency?

I understand it, but it seems strange. Is hypocritical the right word?

Jaycee makes a reference to an old newspaper joke in the comments here. It's gotta be at least 10 years old. (Joke below.)

Which started me thinking that it needs to be redone. After all, this was before Rupert bought the Journal. When the L.A. Times, Herald and Chronicle had different owners. It was before newspaper circulation went into a free fall. Before texting and maybe email alerts. It was before Yahoo News became the No. 1 Internet news site. Before Google, probably. Here's our chance to create a viral phenomenon. Let's do it. Make suggestions for the new list.

Here's the old one:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheists who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Atlanta Journal & Constitution is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.

Which is the bigger story from the Supreme Court yesterday, the death penalty ruling or the Exxon Valdez ruling? The N&O and us went with the death penalty. The Charlotte O and Winston-Salem went with Exxon. (Correct answer below.)

The New York Times went with both, but then it's a newspaper that throws design to the wind and starts a dozen stories on its front page. Unfair comparison.

The answer? None of the above. The winner? The New York Post, which went with titillating over important, always a good gambit.

Bodie McDowell, outdoors editor for this paper for, like, forever, is being inducted into the N.C. Guilford Sports Hall of Fame.

I know Bodie a little bit. I never went fishing with him or anything like that because he retired from the paper in 1992. That and I don't fish. But my sense anyway is that fishing was a secondary byproduct of hanging out with him.

I don't know what he thinks of the Hall of Fame deal. He's already got the greatest honor any journalist can achieve. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission has named a fish in his honor: the Bodie Bass. Now that's cool.

Hell hath no fury like a NASCAR fan without his Confederate Battle Flag. Or at least sportwriter Rob Daniels discovered when he wrote a column gently suggesting NASCAR ban it at races. OK, maybe not so gently. It's a good column.

Many, many readers responded. Here's a sampling. Many called him names and some telling me to fire him. Sorry. Ain't gonna happen.

Now, granted, it's not hard to get the NASCAR nation riled. How many decals of Calvin urinating on a Ford logo do you need to see to know that?

It is also a badge of honor for a columnist to get calls to be fired and to have his life threatened. (If you are a reporter and your life hasn't been threatened, what have you been doing? Even I've been threatened!) It means you've struck a chord and provoked people to think. Or, perhaps in this case, to brush up on your Civil War history. Always a good thing to know what you're talking about.

Ted Vaden, public editor at the N&O, writes about the strong reaction that paper got after publishing the McClatchy series on Guantanamo detainees.

Ted notes with surprise that the series didn't get more negative reaction. I note with surprise that we published the first two days of the series on the front page, but didn't get much reaction, positive or negative.

Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix notes that the series has flown under the radar of the agenda setters in the national media.

As of this writing, for example -- and despite both the aforementioned Supreme Court decision and a new Physicians for Human Rights report that accuses the Bush administration of torture and war crimes -- the New York Times hasn't mentioned "Guantánamo: Beyond the Law," even on its op-ed page. The Washington Post has, but only online. The various network news programs, including the Sunday-morning political talk shows, seem uninterested. And despite the fact that US detention policy has emerged as a major point of contention between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, neither the candidates themselves nor their campaigns have publicly discussed McClatchy’s findings.

Doug Fisher -- and Terry Heaton before him and Steve Boriss before him and Vin Crosbie before him -- has adapted the Kubler-Ross model on death and dying to newspapers.

It's not a bad fit, either.

As decribed by Wikipedia, the stages are:

Denial: "It can't be happening."
Anger: "Why me? It's not fair."
Bargaining: "Just let me live to see my children graduate."
Depression: "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"
Acceptance: "It's going to be OK."

Heaton suggested in April that, as a whole, the industry is at the depression stage. Today, after last week when roughly 900 journalists, according to Mark Potts, lost their jobs in announced layoffs, my guess is that the depression stage is standing room only, all right.

Everyone I know feels the instability of the marketplace, the job insecurity and the fear of the unknown -- unknown future, unknown skills. Part of it is certainly inept management; I'm working on that here. Guiding folks through the stages is among the most difficult things I've done as a boss.

Industrywide, it is time for acceptance, and I think more journalists are there than the reports on Romenesko would suggest. That's the only way to focus on the challenges before us. While we enjoy, understand and, perhaps, privately cheer on the Angry Journalist, we also know intellectually that economic reality means we look to the future. Like, yesterday.

That means we understand how the world has changed, and we understand how our journalistic skills and assumptions must change. For instance, learning what it takes to be a digital journalist is vital. Reaching readers -- information consumers, really -- where, how and when they want it is good for journalism. Listening to and learning from them is even better.

Nostalgia for the good old days is a new form of professional shackles. What we did back then doesn't work any longer and isn't coming back. We control our own destiny by embracing the new opportunities to practice journalism. And if you truly love journalism, why wouldn't you want to reach and engage with new people? For instance:
* Thousands of people watched our video of Obama's speech as well as read about it online and in the paper.
* Hundreds of gearheads read about pit crews in the paper and watched the video online.
* Every day citizens discuss issues of the day at the coffee shop and lunch counters and online at our site and others. And they aren't just the predictable hot button topics. They include topics such as daycare for jurors, organ donation and problems a neighborhood is having.

And that's just us and we aren't even leaders in the field. Other opportunities lie with microblogging and beat blogging and social networking. As noted journalist Jerry Seinfeld told us, we should look to the cookie. In this case, Oreos, which has gone from one vanilla creme filled cookie to a dozen different types of Oreo, with different flavors and shapes and coatings. Journalism is in the process of reaching different customers in the ways those people want to be reached.

Clearly, I am optimistic about the future of good journalism. How do we pay for it? Smarter people than I -- thank goodness -- are working on that. Potts proposes solutions. So does Newspaper Next. So does Jeff Jarvis. (Link fixed.)

In the old way of thinking, it will be a rough road. If you think of journalism as ink on paper, your paradigm is breaking apart. If you think of journalism as telling good stories the best way you can, the world is opening like a brilliantly colored Chinese fan.

Monday update: Jay Rosen brings a different, more apt, metaphor into play.

I get a lot of phone calls every day. I try to return them within the same day. For the first time in forever I returned a call and no one or no thing picked up the phone. That is, no answering machine.

What's the proper etiquette? How many times do I call back trying to reach them before I give up?

I know some people don't have cell phones. I have heard from a lot of people who don't have computers. But no answering machine? How do they screen their calls? How do they keep their dinner from being interupted. How do they record calls from the presidential candidates asking for their votes? How do they remain on the grid?

Oh, wait. I'm beginning to understand.

Last time we published a story about a Nelson Johnson-called news conference, we got some flack from commenters that we overplayed it on the front page.

How do you recommend we cover this story in tomorrow's paper?