News-Record.com

Too common assumptions/myths journalists hold about newspaper readers:

1. That holiday papers -- Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day in particular -- aren't read because people are looking at the ads and living their lives on special days.
2. That ads are a secondary reason -- after the news -- that people buy the paper.

Both are untrue if you believe the answers given by our reader advisory group, and I do. I asked them: "On a holiday like Thanksgiving, do you spend much time reading the news stories in the paper or are you busy with the advertisements and spending time doing holiday things?"

Some of their answers follow. Even though I'm not sure what it means, my favorite is the last one.

I am usually busy doing other things or looking at the ads. I usually look at the news briefly and go back to the paper later in the day.

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LOVE the Thanksgiving paper -- stories AND ads. Please try to find inspirational stories.

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On holidays I still spend time reading the news, I don't get to read it all at once, I read it for an hour or so, cook and come back to it. I read the news before the adv. flyers that come with it.

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I read Thanksgiving paper today -- Friday. Just too busy on Thanksgiving.

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We do not purchase the paper for the ads. We do use the Wednesday's ads. We do look for specific ads if we are interested in specific merchandise-cell phone, clothes, etc.

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I like to read how others spend their Thanksgiving -- which you do. I did spend most of my time looking for Black Friday sales and the day after I sought after the news about the sale results of the day to see how well businesses fared.

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I always read the top stories and then I spend time looking at all the advertisements to see what kinds of deals I can get the next day.

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There should be more news, everyday. The attention to the holiday is fine, but don't forget it's a newspaper.

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There is so much news that is depressing that I find myself avoiding it as much as possible just to save my sanity.

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Hard news does suffer by comparison with turkey and dressing and Black Friday forays. Really, there's not much that you can do short of doing full frontals of Victoria Secret models with thought balloons over their heads.

Our front page story today about the resurgence of racial "incidents" accompanied by a large photo of a group of Klansmen demonstrating in Georgia reignited the discussion of whether it is better to reveal or ignore such radical hate groups.

Obviously, we decided on the former, believing that the more information people have about events around them, the better. One incident cited here occurred in the Triad. Others cited here occurred in Boone and Durham.

Some readers thought the front page coverage was too much, believing the display promoted the groups. One comment is here: We can't give any hate group that type of publicity. It is confirming that your paper is supporting their philosopy of hate.

The mere act of publishing a story is not a News & Record "seal of approval" on the story's content. Rather, by publishing stories, we are signalling that the information is important enough to know about.

Did this one have to go on the front page? No, but given our history both positive and negative, it seems worthy of attention.

I was glad to read that the new chairman of the county commissioners, Skip Alston, is pledging, among other things, to be more open with the news media.

I hope he includes the News & Record in that pledge. He hasn't thought much of us for years, referring to us as an enemy and racist.

Perhaps he would consider returning to his short-lived blog? It was good for the month it lasted.

The generous folks in the newsroom raised $1,021 this year for a variety of holiday charities for families and children.

I write about this every year so I won't describe the auction again.

I remain in awe of the folks here and their ability -- no, their insistence -- to dig deep to help those who are less fortunate. Their generosity remains one of the things about this place of which I'm most proud.

I don't necessarily want to restart the comments about comments with this post. I think we've talked it to death for now. Still, as I was thinking about ways to make the discussions on this blog more constructive last night, I came across this compelling argument via Twitter.

How does the broken windows theory apply to online spaces? Perhaps like so:

Much of the tone of discourse online is governed by the level of moderation and to what extent people are encouraged to "own" their words. When forums, message boards, and blog comment threads with more than a handful of participants are unmoderated, bad behavior follows. The appearance of one troll encourages others. Undeleted hateful or ad hominem comments are an indication that that sort of thing is allowable behavior and encourages more of the same. Those commenters who are normally respectable participants are emboldened by the uptick in bad behavior and misbehave themselves. More likely, they're discouraged from helping with the community moderation process of keeping their peers in line with social pressure. Or they stop visiting the site altogether.

Jason Kottke wrote that. He's been around the blogging block before many of us were riding tricycles on the driveway.

That said, we require people to register to leave comments on our stories. While this is still a new option on our site, it is growing, people are behaving themselves, and many of the comments are helpful.

Ever wonder how those Important-stories-of-the-year pieces are pulled together every year? Sometimes editors simply vote. For instance, AP has asked me to pick the top athletes and top sports stories of the year. (Please disregard their bad judgment for choosing me.) Here are APs suggestions. Want to help me vote?

Athlete of the Year -- Male:

Michael Phelps, Eli Manning, Kobe Bryant, Padraig Harrington, Lewis Hamilton, Jimmie Johnson, Rafael Nadal, Usain Bolt, Francisco Rodriguez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Bode Miller

Female:
Dara Torres, Stephanie Rice, Lorena Ochoa, Nastia Liukin, Danica Patrick, Jelena Jankovic, Venus & Serena Williams, Candace Parker, Shawn Johnson, Yelena Isinbayeva, Lindsey Vonn

* Giants stun Patriots, ruin New England's perfect season, with Super Bowl win
* Chinese keep first women's gymnastics gold after being cleared of underage athletes charge
* Brett Favre retires, unretires, forces trade to Jets; then leads New York resurgence
* Boston Celtics complete NBA's biggest one-season turnaround by beating Lakers for title
* US men's basketball wins Olympic gold medal for first major title in eight years
* Tiger Woods has knee surgery following US Open win, can't practice until 2009
* Ireland's Padraig Harrington wins the British Open and PGA Championship
* Tom Brady injured in opening game, leaving NFL without one of its biggest stars
* After 46-hour rain delay, Phillies beat Rays in five games to capture World Series
* Swimmer Michael Phelps wins eight gold medals at Beijing Games, setting new medal mark
* Americans snap Ryder Cup drought, beating Europe for the first time since 1999
* Jimmie Johnson wins third NASCAR title, tying mark set by Cale Yarborough
* Sprinter Usain Bolt wins three golds, sets three world marks in Olympic track and field
* Cyclist Lance Armstrong says he will come back to racing in 2009
* Twice-beaten LSU thumps Ohio State to win college football's national championship
* Economy: Downturn hits baseball attendance, NASCAR sponsorships, LPGA Tour, among others
* Lady Vols win Tennessee's second straight women's basketball title, routing Stanford
* Big Brown wins two legs of Triple Crown but pulls up at Belmont; steroid use causes stir
* Underachieveing Spain beats Germany in Euro 2008 final; first title for Spanish since 1964
* At 23, Briton Lewis Hamilton becomes youngest and only black F1 champion
* Rafael Nadal upsets Roger Federer at Wimbledon, ends Federer's record stay at No. 1
* Danica Patrick becomes first woman to win a major open wheel race, the Indy Japan 300
* Kansas defeats Memphis in a classic NCAA men's basketball final
* As young stars emerge around the NHL, Detroit beats Pittsburgh for the Stanley Cup
* Hall of Fame lineman and longtime NFL players union chief Gene Upshaw dies
* Baseball owner George Steinbrenner officially gives up control of the New York Yankees
* After congressional hearing on Mitchell Report, feds investigate whether Clemens lied about steroids
* Champ Car World Series merges with Indy Racing League, unifying American open-wheel racing

We don't cover our corporate self all that well. Many times, not well. When the corporate side invests in a community project -- think Festival of Lights or Kids Voting -- the news side doesn't necessary promote it prominently in the news columns.

So, you might ask, when you splash this story on the front page, what makes Operation Greensboro Cares different?

I was asked the same question in-house. Answer: It's a good cause during a time of great community need. With the economy faltering and people hurting, the community should -- and knowing Greensboro, will -- rally to help. The newspaper ought to crusade to help those among us who are hungry and homeless. It is a way to fulfill part of Finley Peter Dunne's call to "comfort the afflicted."

Would we do it if we weren't a major sponsor? That's a tougher one to answer. I hope that we would. The worthiness of the cause is certainly still the same.I hope we would not be slower off the mark, although I fear we would. In any case, I'm glad we're part of this fund-raising. We will be writing more about the need and where the money will go. I hope it helps.

Friday update: Of course, we could have crusaded this way. Just don't tell Allen.

Lenslinger writes about covering this week's visit by President Bush. Then, yesterday, he waxes on about photographer Jerry Wolford's shot in yesterday's paper. (Last photo in slide show.)

For all the words I used trying to describe my ride on Flatbed One, Jerry Wolford summed it up in a single frame. Actually, I bet the News & Record photographer popped off more than one shot as he lay in front of that puddle of standing water. I myself watched him recline there for a good ten minutes, before turning my attention back to the jumbo jet in question. While I transmitted pictures that dissipated on impact, he triggered an image that'll last forever.

I asked Jerry about that shot. He explained in his usual droll style:

I had been riding in the Pool coverage van and we arrived as "W" was running up the steps to AF One. So I am thinking, that's good, I am in the pool and I am going to miss him falling down the steps.

I was lucky enough to get the picture before the Secret Service could take me out with their long guns.

Thanks for the notice, Lenslinger.

How much time did O.J. get? Who the heck knows. I do know that it's a wire editor's nightmare.

New York Times -- O.J. Simpson, the one-time football great who was acquitted in perhaps the most-watched murder trial of the 20th century, was sentenced Friday to a minimum of nine years in prison for his role in a 2007 raid on a Las Vegas hotel room in which two collectibles dealers were robbed of a trove of sports memorabilia.

ABC -- O.J. Simpson was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison today, with the possibility of release after nine years, for his role in an armed robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers inside a Las Vegas hotel room.

People -- O.J. Simpson has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, with consecutive terms that could extend his time behind bars 2½ years or more.

Newsday -- Despite a tearful plea for leniency from O.J. Simpson, a Las Vegas judge today sentenced him to 16 years in prison for the kidnapping and robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers.

(Thanks for the tip, JR)

The NCAA, that is.

According to Chris Korman of the Indiana Student Daily, Early in the second half of the game, reporters from The Herald-Times and the Indiana Daily Student were asked to stop posting commentary on a joint live blog they were hosting with two other outlets.

After the game, Shutt said that the ACC rule on blogging was probably not in writing anywhere but followed common practice.

Common practice? Where is that common practice?

It's not about practice. We talking about the NCAA and the almighty dollar.

As I wrote back in September: I can go to a game as a spectator, sit in the stands, and blog about it from my Blackberry (if I had one) as many times as I like. But if I'm in the press box someone is going to stand over my shoulder and count? Makes no sense.

Thanks to Steve for the tip.

At a holiday open house tonight, a neighbor approached me and said, "I have a question for you about the paper."

Normally, those kinds of statements are mood killers because they preface an anecdote about something we've screwed up or something we are perceived as having screwed up. I didn't know this woman, and this was the first thing she said to me. That's usually the worst kind. I braced myself.

"What have you done to the paper?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" I responded, thinking she was going to outline our shortcomings with the stocks, the TV book or the comics, which are the triumvirate of reader irritations.

"I use my old papers to go under the mulch to stop the weeds, and they aren't decomposing like they used to. It so wonderful and I was just wondering if you did something different because I want to tell you to keep doing it," she said.

Man, I loved that conversation.

(Thanks K&D for the invite.)

Some people -- although fewer than I anticipated -- didn't like Jason Hardin's story Sunday about undocumented immigrants in the area. Jason said he got about a dozen complaints about the story. Here's what Jason told me: Many say they don't like reading "sob stories" about immigrants who chose to come here. Some asked why are we writing about this instead of citizens who are having hard times with the economy, or why we don't ever write about immigrants who come here and do bad things (I replied that we have done, and will do, plenty of stories on both). Several, including those from the previous categories, said they disliked the term "undocumented immigrants" as opposed to "illegal immigrants" or "illegal aliens."

The anger that people hold is almost palpable. One reader wrote me: For a Sunday December 7 edition you should have published a story with a line more like: "Imagine what it would be like to bang the iron hull on the inside of a cruiser at the bottom of Pearl Harbor while one consumed the last bit of oxygen from a three cubic yard air pocket." But instead you found the loss of a car stereo installation business belonging to an illegal alien a more dignified and horrifying proposition.

Another wrote: John, I actually appreciate "reporters" like yourself, because now I feeeeel better. With your help, hopefully more illegal aliens will subvert American sovereignty, steal our lavish welfare benefits, have numerous anchor babies (At tax payer expense), free schooling, free medical care, steal our jobs, speak a foreign language, wave their national flag, and most importantly, with the help of the ethnic pressure groups like Maldef, "The Race" (La Raza) and courageous propagandists, call us xenophobes "racist" and "hatemonger".

Our story wasn't an attempt to glorify or excuse the lives of the undocumented in the Triad. Rather, it was an exploration of a side of the community that few people see, but which causes problems for both the immigrants, law enforcement and social service agencies.

An e-mail from the city of Greensboro about the arrest of one of "Guilford County's Most Wanted":

Alamance County Sheriff's Department received information that Quinton Lamar Johnson was staying with a cousin in their jurisdiction. Deputies responded out to the address provided and Quinton was taken into custody. Greensboro Warrant Squad officers traveled to Alamance County on 12/09/08 to take custody of Quinton and transport him to the Guilford County Magistrate's Office for service of his papers.

Quinton informed the warrant squad officers that he went to Alamance County after being featured in Guilford County's Most Wanted in the Greensboro News & Record. Quinton Johnson is currently being held in the Greensboro Jail under a $100,000.00 secured bond.

Who knew that criminal suspects on the lam were newspaper readers?

By the way, he's the 66th suspect featured in the paper to have been caught since February.

A reader called to ask why we focused on Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in our front page wire story this morning about the Gov. Blago scandal. We talked about the same issue in our planning meeting yesterday.

Were he any other congressman from Illinois, we would not have published his photo on the front page. I'm not even sure a story about the scandal would have made the front page without the Jackson angle.

But Jesse Jackson Jr. has a strong Greensboro connection. He graduated from A&T in 1987, 23 years after his father graduated from the same institution. He's been back regularly, including serving as the commencement speaker at A&T in 2002 and attending the 45th anniversary celebration of the Woolworth Sitins in 2005.

Right call or wrong call to put him on the front page?

This post doesn't have anything to do with journalism, per se. It's more of an advisory.

Kevin Kelly at The Technium advises that digital storage of records -- news stories??!! -- decay. The storage medium itself can decay. Turns out that paper is much more stable over the long term than most digital media. Magnetic surfaces flake, peel, shatter. And the supposed durable CDs and DVDs aren't very stable either.

I'm thinking of the 1899 copies of The Greensboro Patriot that I have stored, of all places, under my couch -- yellowed, a bit flaky, but quite readable. An ad on the first one I looked at reads "The Patriot and The Washington Post, One year-- only $1.40." Not bad. Anyway, Kelly continues:

We don't know what the natural movage respiration cycle is for digital media yet since it is still very new, but I suspect the cycle is much shorter than we think. I would guess it is 5 years. No matter what digital format you have your precious stored on, you should expect to move it onto new media in five years -- and five years after that forever!

Move it, move it, move it.

(Thanks to Jack Lail for the tip.)

That was quick.

Ten days ago, Jason Hardin wrote this about Skip Alston's election as chairman of the board of commissioners: Alston also said he wants more openness to the media, with more news conferences and a more open atmosphere.

I expressed hope that he'd be good to his word.

Last night, Gerald Witt reported on the commissioners' latest actions:

Alston also announced that he plans to hold closed meetings to scrutinize budgets in each of the county’s 26 departments, a move to circumvent the traditional role of the county manager preparing a budget for the board to alter and approve.

"We’re going to go by line item, and by March, we should have a proper budget," Alston said as he announced that the committees would consist of three commissioners and staff personnel.

"I don’t want the press to be able to put some actions out there before we have had a chance to hear about it," Alston said.

This occurred in the same meeting in which the county manager was apparently forced into retirement. But we're not talking about that because we're "moving forward and not looking back."

This isn't about being nice to the news media. It's about being open to the public -- on paper, at least, the commissioners' boss -- and open about how money is being spent.

I just heard a local television station refer to a story in the morning paper by saying, "as reported by a local newspaper."

We used to avoid naming competitors, too, to avoid giving credence to something they reported (and we didn't). Silly, really. It didn't help readers. We changed that several years ago, prefering precision to vagueness. And now that there are hundreds of "competitors" it makes even less sense. It's like refusing to link out.

I don't like anonymous comments, as I've said many times before. I think people should be accountable for what they say, especially when what they say attacks someone else.

Still, I wouldn't go so far as to make them unlawful, which is apparently under consideration in Idaho. The government doesn't need to get involved, and the potential harm is much greater than any benefit.

It's the responsibility of the host forum or the users to set the guidelines around comments, not the government. That said, I doubt this proposal will get very far.

Alan Mutter of Newsosaur writes about the newest endangered species in the newspaper trade -- the editorial cartoonist. At least 16 have departed the biz this year. One of those is my friend Dwane Powell of the N&O.

In a interview this weekend with Lee Judge, who recently was laid off at the Kansas City Star, NPR reported that there had been as many as 300 editorial cartoonists in the 1980s. "It's pretty hard to find a new job when your resume says you are a professional smart ass," says Lee in the interview.

Fortunately, we one of our professional smart asses is artist Tim Rickard, who has been practicing his bad attitude on the Sunday editorial page for two months. His cartoons are less biting political commentary and more humorous observations on the human condition. We're glad to have him and give him a platform to further develop his voice.

I've not read all of the latest Elon University/Pew Internet Project report, but it's interesting so far. Some predictions from "technology experts and social analysts:"

* 77% said the mobile computing device (the smartphone) with more significant computing power will be 2020's primary global Internet-connection platform. OK, I buy that.
* 56% said while Web 2.0 is bringing some people closer, social tolerance will not be heightened by our new connections. No kidding.
* They were evenly split over the notion that the greater transparency of people and institutions afforded by the Internet will heighten individual integrity and forgiveness. But we can hope, can't we?
* 56% agreed that in 2020 "few lines (will) divide professional from personal time, and that's OK."

Wait a minute. You can separate professional and personal time?

Gallows humor to be sure, but still worth a smile on a wet, dreary Tuesday.

First, the Simpsons, via E&P:

Then, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, courtesy of Kurt Greenbaum:

Still, out of loyalty to folks here, I must say this shows more of the fire and moxie we have:

After years moments of pondering whether we should wish our readers "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" across the top of the Dec. 25 paper -- and hearing from readers when we make the wrong decision -- we finally have some data.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Americans generally say "Merry Christmas" to greet people at this time of year, but 71% are not offended by others who say "Happy Holidays."

So sayeth the Rasmussen Reports.

I'm relieved. Last year, I wrote about the fight struggle discussion we had over the proper greeting for the Dec. 25 paper. Now that I know that 23% of the respondents -- nearly a quarter!!! -- are offended by the "Happy Holidays" greeting, it confirms that "Merry Christmas" is the way to go.

Except that, for some reason, the polling company didn't ask whether people were offended if they were wished a Merry Christmas, the idea of which is what started the whole "War against Christmas."

Sportswriter Rob Daniels is mentioned in the first post of this blog because he had already beaten me to the blogging trough. In all, he's made a dozen appearances here, usually because he's won an award, because he's tried something new and interesting or because he's made someone mad.

All of which makes it doubly sad to announce that he's taking the buyout and leaving at the end of the year after, appropriately, he covers Carolina, Wake and State in their bowl games. Rob is our version of Tyler Hansbrough; he works as long as the lights are on, dives for every ball, loose or not, and covers all of the court. Though his beat is college sports, he goes wherever we need him or wherever he sees a story. Of course, his true claim to fame is being able to drop an obscure rock band reference into any story he writes.

We will fill his position, but it'll be tough to replace him.

Pat Yack, my predecessor as editor here, writes in his Christmas card that he is the incoming Atwood Chair of Journalism at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

With Van King leading the School of Communications at Queens University, an academic network is building.

Business reporter Lanita Withers is going to work at the UNCG news bureau. In her five years with us, she has worked in Rockingham County, covered higher education and, now, covered business.

She's probably best known outside the newsroom for her Savvy Shopper column. Inside this place, she's better known for her sense of humor, her polite yet incisive questions of this editor, and stories that explain what the heck is happening to the economy.

Our loss is UNCG's gain.

"You don't publish enough positive news. Good things happen every day and you don't reflect that."

I suspect every journalist hears that. It could even be true. I have been talking with a reader -- a retired public school teacher -- who thinks that we overplayed this story about two students who hung KKK hoods at the school yard. She said her son in Charlotte knew about the incident, thanks to the Internet. Then she suggested to me that we played it dramatically "to sell newspapers."

There are numerous acts of kindness and charitable actions and interactions with handicapped and ESL students performed by individiuals or groups within our schools that could paint a more positive picture of our young people.

In this age of divisiveness and racial/religious/homophobic prejudice, emphasis needs to be placed on the positive side of things. I know that bad news sells more papers but attitudes might be changed and a better impression of our community given as an example to other parts of the state.

The fact is, we published it on page B5, hardly a prominent place. I doubt it sold a single newspaper. We put it "back in with the truss ads," as one editor used to say, precisely because we thought it was an isolated incident that didn't have much significance to the community, and probably not much at Central High School, for that matter.

I actually believe that we publish much more good news than bad about teenagers in the community. Here's today's example.

But I could be wrong. These are hard times. The news is bad...from the markets to the unemployment line to the crime blotter. Do we emphasize the bad too much?

A shoutout to Jennifer Burton, who is one of our page designers and who organizes a bake sale in the newsroom every year to raise money for Urban Ministry. People in the newsroom -- Journalists? Cooking? Uh-oh -- donated homemade and store-bought cookies, breads, pies, brownies, fudge and, even doggie snacks. The food was piled high on a couple of tables in the newsroom and everything was priced to sell.

(I brought brownies, but, fearing that my efforts would be deemed insufficient -- journalists are nothing if not insecure -- I supplemented them with some timely purchases at Cheesecakes by Alex.)

Jennifer's report: "In about 9 hours, we raised $600 for Greensboro Urban Ministry’s food bank. That far exceeds our total from last year (and it's gone up every year since we started this!). The bake sale would not be so successful without everyone’s generosity. It makes me proud that we are making a difference."

Me, too.

The bake sale is over, but you can still participate in the giving.

I gave momentary thought this week of overruling the holiday wrapping paper contest judging panel. It wasn't that I didn't think the winners were worthy; I just liked the runners up much better.

The two winners are #1 and #2 here. Personally, I preferred the sixth and the 18th entries in the slide show.

I didn't give any serious consideration to disrupting the proper judging; you don't empanel contest judges and then mess with their deliberations. That only happens in Pulitzer judging and NFL games.

With the recent buyouts, I've been asked more often than I like why I didn't apply. After all, the severance package was generous.

The easy answer is also the true answer: I love what we do. If you believe, as I do, that the purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing then no other job will do. The ability, the responsibility to pursue the truth as part of informing and nourishing a democratic society is a powerful motivator.

Of course, I could do this kind of journalism lots of places. After all, this isn't about newspapers; it's about independent-minded journalism. So, the answer to why I stay is more complicated. There are two other reasons: I love the people I work with, and I embrace the challenges facing the industry.

Journalism attracts such a variety of free spirits, creators, social misfits, intellectually curious idea people and risk takers that it is impossible to be bored. It's a stimulating environment that is never the same from moment to moment. The experience of leading and watching reporters chase a good news story, photographers frame a compelling photo, and designers and copy editors make a page come alive is just plain fun.

It is hard to imagine any group of people with more passion for what they do and less concern for the pay or the hours they work. When the entire staff is dedicated to telling the community's story, warts and all, it is easy to look forward to going to work.

Oh, I have bad days. The problems of the news industry are well chronicled. The challenges are daunting as the traditional business model crumbles. It isn't fun to say goodbye to colleagues with whom I have shared the trenches. Sometimes I think that it must have been fun to be an editor when newspapers were the only game in town and all you had to do to make a lot of money was to open the doors for business. But I suspect it wasn't fun so much as it was just easy.

The world has flipped that on its head. Riding the wave of cultural, technological and financial sea change isn't easy, but it is certainly fun. It is a wonderful time to be in journalism. With all the tools available, a journalist can do more now and reach more people than he ever could. The challenge now is to take full advantage of that.

How can we use crowdsourcing? Social networks? How, in this time of downsizing, can we expand our Web sites, our mobile offerings, our niche publications and maintain a robust and vital newspaper? How can we devote the time to tough-minded investigative and activist journalism? How can we help our community by nurturing citizen journalism efforts and local journalism start-ups? What should we be doing with video and audio, which aren't yet running through our veins the way ink does?

What is ahead? My friends at the Carnival of Journalism make some predictions for 2009. Working to figure out the answers to these questions is why I stay. If there is a journalism laboratory where innovations are tested, pursued or set aside, why shouldn't it be this newsroom? Yes, there will be setbacks and frustrations. What business doesn't have that? But there are a lot of good people around to help, to question, to innovate, to push and to succeed.

As Tony Kushner said, "The world only spins forward."

That's why I stay. I can't imagine doing anything else nearly as fun and fulfilling.

Was there any doubt that Barack Obama would be Time's Person of the Year? (Quick: Identify runner-up Zhang Yimou.)

Was there any doubt that Barack Obama's election would be the AP's top news story of the year? (The Russia-Georgia war came in at No. 10. Raise your hand if you remember that.)

I'm starting to get letters from college seniors looking for reporting jobs upon their graduation in May. The cover letters are written just like the books and, presumably, faculty advisers teach. They tell me the job they want, how they're perfect for it and why.

What would really grab my attention? A letter that suggests the applicant knows who I am. Mention a blog post about what I look for in applicants. Refer to a local journalism issue. Take issue with a larger issue involving the business.

Do something that suggests that you took enough time to research us. These days it isn't hard to do from anywhere in the world. Google my name and newspaper and you'll find out enough to go on.

One other suggestion: A cover letter without any reference to digital skills? Probably won't get you noticed.

Editors from The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun said today that they have agreed to begin sharing certain stories, photos and other news content.

This idea would have been heresy a year ago. Heck, it might be heresy now.

But markets change, people change and traditions that have no value to readers must change, too.

We have used stories and photos from other newspapers for years, as they were filtered through the Associated Press. Last year, we began working with McClatchy and have used stories directly reprinted a day later from our "competitors," including the High Point Enterprise, the Winston-Salem Journal, the Reidsville Review, the News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer. Included the name of the paper right in the byline, too. We decided we could serve readers better if we put aside the need to create everything here.

I haven't heard from many readers -- I can think of only one -- who has raised a question about it.

Do you care if we entered into explicitly coverage agreements to share same-day content with newspapers around here? Do you even notice the bylines?

We are planning a special section for the presidential inauguration. As part of that, we're going to create a photographic mosaic in the shape of Obama's face using photos of readers.

Want to help us? E-mail us a picture of yourself -- a mugshot, as opposed to a full body shot -- or a loved one. You'll be part of a unique front page and have a special keepsake.

This morning, the crawl on ABC's early newscast told me that Santa had begun his sleigh ride around the world.

This was a NEWScast.

I thought of all the local news programs that track Santa's journey on Christmas Eve. These are NEWScasts, too.

Like Al Tompkins, I'm a news guy and didn't know journalists could blend their principles with holiday mythology. Seemed contradictory to me.

Then I had children. And their nascent fascination with Santa merged with my own developing understanding of the role a newspaper should play with its readers. If you consider yourself a member of the community, you talk, you listen, you share experiences with each other. And you celebrate wonder together.

That's why, in our NEWSpaper, we published O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" across the top of the front page today. (Author William Sydney Porter was born in Greensboro.)

It's part of the magic of the season. Merry Christmas.

In times of war and violence, hunger and homelessness, layoffs and bailouts, I wish you peace and prayers for a better 2009.

So I leave you with two thoughts, one from a famous Jersey rocker and the other from a talented 8th-grader at Northern Middle School:

Honored that my friend Bill Mitchell -- well, we met once -- picked this post as one that brightened his outlook for 2009. That brightened my outlook.

I don't understand nanotechnology, particularly as it applies to clothes fighting deadly viruses.

I don't understand how GPS works.

I don't understand how some people confuse the laws of God with the laws of man.

And I don't understand why people harass a fellow human being who is hurting.

We published a brief item on Christmas day about what we call a domestic -- violence between loved ones. Because the police were involved and an arrest made, we published the details. They don't really matter here. But it was enough for people -- more than one -- to interrupt their own holiday celebration, look up the telephone number where the incident occurred, call the house and give their insight into the character of the people involved.

What is that about?

Allen Johnson writes eloquently today about the retirement of Becky Layton and the departure of Elma Sabo.

When I was in the editorial department, Becky taught me as much about reader response as anyone in the news business. We would get angry, personal letters in response to an editorial or a column or a point of view. As part of her job, Becky would open the letters, log them in and pass them to me for a decision on whether to publish. When I would remark on the viciousness of the sentiments, she would say, "You can't make everyone happy. Just let it roll right off your back."

Her lesson: In this job, if you aren't making some people mad, then you're not doing your job.

Driving into work this morning, I caught all the lights and didn't grit my teeth at a single cellphone-talking driver. That's because the roads into downtown were close to deserted. It reflects the news environment on the last week of the year, routinely the nine or 10 slowest news days of the year.

People are doing what they should be doing: vacationing, spending time with family, cocooning with sports on TV. Meanwhile, government runs with a skeletal crew; elected bodies don't meet. Businesses aren't doing much, other than finishing budgets and planning employee performance sessions. Thank goodness for death and destruction.

Wait. That didn't come out right.

Yet the paper still comes out every day. The Web site still publishes all day. But with little news, what goes in them?

While it may sound counter-intuitive -- and maybe it is -- the lack of traditional news isn't a bad thing. Newspapers and television are forced to become enterprising. We don't chase the same stories because there are fewer of them to chase. The result, for us at least, is that there's more time to do different stories and, I hope, unique stories. Less government-based coverage tends to mean more people-based coverage. We can look ahead and speculate and look back with authority. We can use the time to find interesting people who do interesting things and catch up on stories that we knew about but just didn't have the time to get to. And there's always time for the serendipitous.

So, if it is hard news you want, it's probably a good time to take a rest from the news. You won't find much of it anywhere, unless you're particularly interested in news from other parts of the world or small bore political items.

Reading the paper -- the Web site less so -- is a different experience during these 10 days. A good thing, I think.

Mark Binker interviewed Gov. Mike Easley last week and asked about his often frosty relationship with the press. The gov's response is here.

That interested the N&O, which wrote about it in today's edition. (Wish they had linked to the audio so people could hear it for themselves.)

I mention it because it is indicative of how many public officials -- and not just in Raleigh -- view the news media. Easley's comments illustrate a confusion about the role of the press and the role of public servants. That is, Easley has taken a public business issue and is trying to make it personal and private. Doesn't work that way when you're using public money and doing the public's business.

I'm pleased that Lex Alexander completed the year by completing my New Year's challenge. He's the third to do so.

I am disappointed that I didn't get more takers for an easy $100 that doubled as an investment in the future. 2009's challenge will likely be more directive and more immediately beneficial.

Oh, how far our industry still has to go:

Yesterday I wrote about the N&O picking up on the complaints about press coverage that Gov. Mike Easley made to our Raleigh reporter, Mark Binker. The governor's comments came in a wide-ranging interview, which Mark spliced and diced into topic areas for listeners' convenience. Do I need to mention that we're talking about the audio recording, not the written word?

Both the N&O and the Charlotte Observer wrote about it yesterday, without linking. The N&O editorialized about it today, without linking. Editor & Publisher wrote about the dust-up, too, without linking. And several North Carolina newspapers carried the AP story, without links, although the wire service offered it.

Sure, we want the traffic. But that's small change compared with the convenience, to say nothing of the credibility, that the news organizations could have provided visitors. Making it easy to hear precisely what the governor said, listening to his tone and inflections, is a key benefit to online news. It's an opportunity that we must embrace every chance we get.

To his credit, Jack Betts, an editorial writer at the Charlotte Observer, links to it from his blog.

Update: Scott Karp, CEO of Publish 2, twitters: "Failure to link to original sources should be seen as failure of practice of journalism generally, not just online."

Update II: Two responses from the N&O: Danny Barkin points out a link in the Under the Dome blog. Steve Riley comments that they'll add links to tomorrow's story.