News-Record.com

Thanks for your comments.
I see I wasn't the only person who had an "inquiring mind."

The fixation the N&R has on the color of the skin of a successful candidate demeans the candidate.

The reasons Obama won includes a awful economy, an unpopular incumbent, and a poor campaign by McCain.

The last time the incumbent part won a presidential election when the economy was heading south was 1900.

I believe we are best served by a color-blind society. I wish the N&R would help educate the readers that Obama is no more responsible for his skin color than I am.

The N&R's job is to report, inform and educate not to be a cheerleader for those that have a particular characteristic.

Go back to Martin L. King, Jr. Content of their character is more important than skin color.

The N&R should bring us together rather than continue to divide us into groups based on who our ancestors were.

You can do better.

This just re-assures one that the pre-election press coverage was completely neutral and unbiased also, as indeed it should be.

Ohhhh....I feel good.
I knew that I would now.
I feel nice....

It's not cheerleading to recognize a historic election for what it is.

The fact that the newspaper sold out of Wednesday's paper not once, but twice (after printing 10,000 additional copies) shows that our readers, too, see this is as big news.

We nearly sold out of newspapers the day after the 9/11 attacks, too.

Some people recognize history as it happens and want to remember it, good or bad.

Obama didn't win because of his skin color - but it's amazing that we have reached a point where a black/white biracial American can be elected President of this country that in the past would've counted his "black blood" against him and counted him as less than a full person!

This society is NOT color blind (I think several people have been arrested for plotting to kill Obama because he has African blood) and this IS a historic event.

Has everyone forgotten that Africans were originally brought to this country as slaves? Slavery, lynchings, discrimination, etc.?

It's history that this man has ascended to the Presidency and makes the whole world think better of us. The first woman President will get similar treatment I'm sure. Anything this historic in nature deserves unusual attention.

I know that those who voted for McCain are upset, but I hope they can get through the grieving process and come together with those of us who are estatic about the win to make this country better. We need a President who can motivate us to do that...obviously the majority of this country thinks that Obama is the one who can.

You can't kill our joy.

The bottom line is, no matter how you rationalize it, for your paper race matters. I agree with Joe, your paper could do much better.

Your candidate lost. Get over it.

If you don't think race matters then you're blind...or white.

I agree with John, he would have had McCain on the front page, with all the pictures of Obama voters, rioting.

The News and Record published an article on November 9 in which the meaning of Barack Obama's election as President of the United States was discussed.

However, I was disappointed to note that, for the most part, once again you chose to emphasize lines of racial separation. The story cast supporters of President-Elect Obama as black and those who would prefer not to have him in the White House (but might reluctantly accept this reality) as white.

This article, regardless of its intent in raising the question of national unity, overlooked the very real fact that even before the election of Mr. Obama to the Presidency, unity across lines of race and class were forming in his campaign here in Guilford County.

I am white. My income is well above the median; I own a business; I am a Christian. Although a stereotypical media view would be to assume that, with these indicators, I must be a conservative Republican, this is not the case.

A registered independent voter, I was a volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign in High Point.

I know many whites who either worked on the campaign or who supported Mr. Obama's candidacy in other ways. Mr. Obama could not have carried this county and this state without an alliance of blacks and whites working together. Where was this in your "Country United" front-page story?

Euro-Americans supporting unity, reconciliation and hope are here too - we who did not judge a man by the color of his skin but by the hope that he will work to carry us far from the polarization, the struggling economy, and the international embarrassments of recent years.

There were plenty of supporters of Mr. Obama who chose him because the McCain campaign did not persuade them, and of course some were voting against the incumbent Mr. Bush and his administration's policies. For those voters, the determinant was not "is he black or is he white" but "he is different in his rhetoric and in some ways in his stances from the powers-that-be in Washington right now, and difference is needed."

Please - let's get over this "racial divide" perspective in reporting. The realities are more nuanced and complex, just like this vast and diverse nation of ours.

I'm not sure which story you are referring to, Ms. Carter. The lead story on our front page is this one: http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/11/08/article/a_country_united

It does not, in my opinion, emphasize the lines of racial separation. I agree that the issues that separate us -- North Carolina's vote for president was as close as any in the nation -- are much more complicated than race.

Another big picture of Obama on Sunday. There is so much to write about and so much we want to learn and shift is to tabloid presentations.
The more the N&R does this, the worse their financial condition becomes. Journalist want to write and managment should let tghem write.
Pictures are not bad if you beefed up the features. The N&R is not unlike General Motors, it can not right itself without entirely new thinking.

Joe, we've published large photos on the front page on Sundays for longer than a year. This Sunday is no different. Is there something about this past Sunday that caused you to protest now?

Photojournalists also want their art played large. Sunday gets more of a magazine treatment. That's new thinking. You're proposing the same old thinking. Lots of words and smaller photos...sort of like the way the paper is designed the other six days of the week.

We have subscribed to the Greensboro paper for over 35 years and have seen it move farther and farther to the left. These last few days after the election have been very interesting. One day Sen. Obama's picture was on the front of every section.
I wonder what the paper would have reported if, when Sen. Helms beat Mr. Gant, had the "white" churches celebrated.
A last thought: the News and Record should try to remember that Sen. Obama will be inaugurated, not coronated on Jan. 20.

Thanks, Dan. I'm not sure which paper you're looking at, but I don't believe we published a photo of Sen. Obama's photo on the front of every section.

I hope we would have reported that "white" churches celebrated a Helms victory, even thought I doubt it happened.

Your assumption that I have not complained before is incorrect. Pls check your archives. Your move to more pictures and less context has brought your paper less readers, layoffs and etc. We have pictures on 500 channels of TV. You cheapen Obama when you when you treat him like a Hollywood celebrity. Has this man ever written anything? We want to know more about his thinking. Who will advise him. I know in debth analysis is something you believe people do not want, but I sure like it and expect it. If you want to turn this paper around, you will go back to what you do best. Don't try to beat the TV in pictures. It will never happen.

Joe, you are jumping to a faulty conclusion. We don't have fewer readers because we publish more photography.

Take Sunday, for instance, are you suggesting that if we had a smaller photography of Obama, and, say, 500 inches of words in its place, that we'd have more readers?

Yes.

"Has this man ever written anything?" you ask...

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage) by Barack Obama (Mass Market Paperback - Jul 15, 2008)

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama (Paperback - Aug 10, 2004)

Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise by Barack Obama (Paperback - Sep 9, 2008)

The Essential Barack Obama: The Grammy Award-Winning Recordings by Barack Obama (Audio CD - Mar 10, 2008)

Barack Obama in His Own Words by Barack Obama and Lisa Rogak (Paperback - Mar 27, 2007)

In His Own Words: BARACK OBAMA - THE AMERICAN PROMISE: 500+ pages. The Speeches 2007 + 2008 by Barack Obama (Paperback - Sep 17, 2008)

Collectors Edition 2008: Barack Obama - Acceptance Speech 2008: Acceptance Speech DNC 2008 & Remarks Vice President Announcement by Barack Obama (Paperback - Sep 15, 2008)

and there's also:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/