How we got the story
My newspaper column
Last Sunday, we published a gripping story about the firefight in Afghanistan that killed or injured at least 24 American soldiers, including two from the Piedmont Triad.
The battle against about 200 Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province was, at its core, about American tenacity and courage. It was all the more personal to Piedmont Triad readers because Army Cpl. Pruitt Rainey of Haw River died there and Sgt. Matthew Gobble of Thomasville was injured.
We had written about Rainey and Gobble earlier in the week, but this story of the battle was different. And it is worth noting how it came to be published on our front page.
John Appel, a longtime News & Record reader, read the article about the battle at the Stars and Stripes Web site Saturday morning. He sent me an e-mail recommending it. He later told me that for in-depth news about the men and women on the ground in the Middle East, he reads Stars and Stripes and the Fayetteville Observer, which makes sense.
The story grabbed me by the throat. It was up close and personal, told through the eyes of the Americans in the middle of the battle. We don't often get such an intimate look at what our soldiers face in the war zone. I thought it would touch readers the way it touched me. Every chance we have to help citizens understand what soldiers are going through in a war zone -- and how tough the men and women are -- we need to handle it right.
But we can't just cut and paste the story off the Stars and Stripes Web site. We must get reprint rights, which often takes time. If we wanted to publish the story the next day, we needed a little luck.
We got it. Robb Grindstaff, executive editor of Stars and Stripes, just happened to be working Saturday morning. He gave us the OK and offered to send us photos of some of the survivors.
He didn't say so, but I suspect it helped that Grindstaff used to be general manager of the Asheboro Courier-Tribune. He knows where Thomasville and Haw River are. He knows that this is an important story to local readers. By the way, the writer of the story, Steve Mraz, is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill so he, too, is familiar with the territory.
It wasn't a pleasant story; nine American soldiers died that day. But the war isn't pleasant. I hope you were inspired by the bravery of the soldiers, including the two from the Piedmont. And I hope you learned something. I did.
On a much lighter note, we have added a new wrinkle to our Thursday newspaper. Go Triad, our weekly entertainment guide, has new content and a new look. As editor Carla Kucinski Seward said in her message to readers on Thursday: "The biggest difference you'll notice is the overall design; it's fresher, cleaner and more reader friendly. We've changed fonts, renamed features, reorganized the layout and given it more of a magazine feel.
"We also added a few new features that are fun to read and highlight the richness of our local arts community."
If you're not a regular Go Triad reader, I encourage you to check it out Thursday.
At the same time, the front page of the Life section on Thursdays will feature a photo essay. Many Thursdays, our photo staff will lend its talents to the page; for instance, last week, photographer Scott Hoffmann recorded a visit by Lexington's Grace Episcopal Church to Pisgah National Forest. Other days, the photos will come from around the world.
We hope the page becomes a destination for you on Thursdays.
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