News-Record.com

From today's front pages of North Carolina newspapers:

The Winston-Salem Journal
North Carolina's jobless rate may have been unchanged in April, but economists cautioned yesterday that the rate staying at 10.8 percent is more a reflection of the state's economy nearing a bottom rather than beginning a recovery.

The Greenville Reflector
North Carolina's unemployment rate remained steady for a third consecutive month, indicating the job market may have stopped contracting.

The News & Observer
The economic storm that has roiled the state's labor market for months relented in April, a sign the downturn might be near bottom.

The Durham Herald-Sun
DURHAM -- The state's unemployment rate held steady from March to April, offering a small sign of relief for workers even as job cuts continued across the state.

The Fayetteville Observer
North Carolina’s unemployment rate continued a gradual leveling off in April but remains in double digits, with economists warning against unfettered optimism.

The stories all say basically the same thing, despite the fact that each story was written by a different reporter. The reasons for the similarity are that each reporter used the same figures and many of the same experts. I mean, how far can you go when the report is what it is?

The News & Record? We published the unemployment rate story on the front page, too.

RALEIGH -- North Carolina's jobless rate for April was unchanged at 10.8 percent, marking a third straight month the rate was nearly flat and offering hope that the worst of the state's job losses may be over, the state Employment Security Commission reported Friday.

We used a story written by Emery P. Dalesio of the AP. We didn't think we could add much to the AP story, and we didn't want to use one of our writers to try. They could work on something else that AP wasn't reporting. This is one of the reasons we pay AP.

I'm not saying we were right and the other papers were wrong. That's one of the wonders of having independent newspapers; editors at each makes their own decisions based on what's right for them and their readers. Another day, perhaps when the news was bigger, we have run to duplicate the wire story. I'm sure we will in the future.

But we are learning that we don't need to put our own stamp on a story that stands alone perfectly fine. And I'm pretty sure readers don't notice.

We like people to like us. It makes sense, given that we're also asking people to pay for us. It's one thing to be distributed free; it's another to charge.

Yet we often publish stories that drive people batty: recruiting in public schools, for instance, or questioning how a developer can sell homes in the path of a highway, or recording the financial troubles at Greensboro College, or reporting how the county commissioners are violating the public trust. Or even those about the police department.

I've been thinking about that as I have read the comments by Neill McNeill, the Fox8 anchor, about coverage decisions at the station. I understand them, but it seems to me the first questions you ask about a story is whether people will be interested in it and whether it something they should know. I suppose it is true that we have to worry less if they will "leave" us. But we tend to think more in terms of what will attract them and, again, what we think is important for them to know.

It brings me to this, recommended by Adrian Monck. We aren't really supposed to be popular. We are supposed to chronicle the life of the community and help people to participate best in their democracy. Sometimes, these things make you unpopular.

Is it news when a local television station doesn't renew the contract of one of its two primetime anchors?

It is to me. Many of the visitors to our site agree, and it is drawing for more traffic than the other news stories today.

Given the amount of personality branding that TV stations do of their "on-air talent" it seems like it's a legitimate story. Apparently not to WFMY.

Not meaning to pick on WFMY, whose report I respect, except that I've been thinking about this study on the differences in how newspapers cover the news business and how television news covers the television news business.

“The television networks have basically not been very interested in talking about television’s problems,” said Michael X. Delli Carpini, dean of the university’s Annenberg School of Communication and one of the study’s authors.

Update: I asked Neill McNeill of Fox8 via Twitter whether they would report the news that an anchor from a competing station was leaving. He said: "I won't say we won't ever do anything with it. But reporting on competitors in this day of remote controls is usually avoided. We don't want to risk our viewers flipping over to the competition. If we reported it, they might do just that."

Update II: Neill elaborates in the comments.

We expect this announcement to disconcert some traditional readers, but probably not you Web denizens.

We are combining our two news sections into one beginning on Wednesday. As the publisher writes, we're making the move to save newsprint -- given the economy, like you, we need to save money wherever we can.

The move also essentially codifies a practice we've been following for a while -- we're a local newspaper first. Two sections made sense when the front section was for national and world news and the second section was for local. But in this day and time, when we normally fill the front page with local news, having the two sections seems disorganized.

I don't believe we will need to eliminate any of the content you care about. I will write more about it on Wednesday, but basically, we're dropping two of the maps on the weather page and cutting a few charts from the stocks package. Both of these items contain information you can get anywhere well before we publish. We will also cut some wire content, but it won't be much and that, too, will be information that is readily available in a more timely way on the Web. My guess is that its absence will scarcely be noticeable.

Still, eliminating a section will be noticeable. We've been a four-section newspaper since 1992, and we don't make a change like this on a whim. We aren't alone in making this move, either. Newspapers across the country are doing the same kind of thing.

None of it will affect our commitment to bring you the best in local coverage.

It isn't unusual for newspapers to feature the same stories on their front pages. UNC wins the national championship? A1 across North Carolina. Unemployment hits a record high? Lead story in papers across the country.

But enterprise stories without the breaking news relevance? It's not only uncommon, it's unfortunate to those of us trying to distinguish our paper from others.

So, this Sunday is interesting in its rare, but coincidental news judgment.

Both the Charlotte Observer and we wrote about separate churches worshiping together on Easter Sunday.

Both the News & Observer and we wrote about the 2010 Senate race faced by Senator Burr.

I don't remember this happening before. The editors of the N&O and the Charlotte O and I have talked on occasion, but not recently and not about this. Too competitive. But this is an interesting opportunity for people to read and compare stories on the same topic.

Sometimes I wonder if, back in the 19th century, journalists greeted the newly invented telephone with the same disdain they greet new social media today. "Why, how can this talking device compete with the face-to-face interview?" I imagine them asking. "It's preposterous!"

That's what I think of when I read about journalists belittling blogs, then reader comments on stories, and now Twitter. Everyone who spends any time on Facebook or blogging or Twitter knows that they are valuable informational tools, which makes them valuable journalistic tools. It's not rocket science.

Here are some recent real-life examples right here in River City:

* Yesterday we wrote about an Elon University professor killed while riding his bicycle. The tip that alerted us to the story came from someone I've gotten to know because I'm a blogger and she's a blogger.

* This morning we published a short story about WFU sophomore James Johnson saying that he is going to turn pro. That tip came from someone I'm following on Twitter. He linked to the Cheyenne story. I followed the link, read it and alerted our sports department, which rewrote it for our newspaper.

* Reader comments on this story about Time Warner's new pricing system drove and greatly informed this follow-up story we published in print this a.m.

* Jeff left a comment on my blog about a random acts of kindness that we're going to turn into a newspaper story.

I suppose that a generation ago all of these stories could eventually have made their way to publication somehow. But they wouldn't have been as timely or connected or insightful.

And I'm thinking my examples of the benefit of social media outnumber your examples of the detriment.

Last week, Lenslinger posted about American Idol contestant Anoop Desai. Erin Zureick posted a piece about him today.

The Carolina grad student is a lock to make it through tonight's voting, according to my daughter who says he has a strong voting contingent in Chapel Hill. (67,700 Google results returned on his name and Idol.)

When do we start actually paying attention to him? Fox8 is already all over him, but that's pretty much a network tie-in.

In the past, we've covered the Idol contestants from here when they've reached the final 16. (Fantasia being the only winner, but Daughtry being arguably more popular now.) At the time, we heard from readers who wanted more and from readers who wanted absolutely no information on a television talent show, local contestant or not.

Is Chapel Hill local enough? Is now too soon? Or should we wait until he's in the final half-dozen? Or should we spend our energies elsewhere altogether?

In the 52 weeks since we started Guilford's Most Wanted, we have featured 104 suspects. Seventy-eight of them have been found. That 75 percent success rate is much higher than I would have predicted.

The fact is, four of every five animals that passed through the shelter during the third quearter of last year were put to death.

If you own a pet or have owned a pet or care about animals, you can't help but cringe as you read this story about overcrowded animal shelters and the resulting euthanasia of dogs and cats.

We write stories about this problem every few years and get complaints from queasy readers each time. They don't like to read sad stories about pets being put down. I don't blame them. I don't either.

But in the news business, awareness is important. Keeping something out of sight and out of mind may be emotionally protective, but it isn't civically helpful. Awareness drives change, and change is needed when it comes to how we treat, warehouse and dispose of unwanted pets.

Almost coincidentally, we also published a story on the front page about the training law enforcement officers need to protect and serve mentally ill people in the community. Right now, officers in Greensboro and Guilford County don't get much. This story has life-and-death ramifications, too.

It will be interesting to see which gets the most reaction in comments and letters. Right now, neither story has any comments, but it's early.

Monday update: For what it's worth the animal shelter said this about Jonnelle Davis' article in an e-mail newsletter: The article focused on the struggles of local animal shelters, with the vast majority of emphasis being on Rockingham County. What amazing exposure!!! Our campaign website hits quadrupled after the newspaper hit the stands! We just couldn't have asked for better timing.

One of the more morbid things we do is anticipate the death of good people who are still alive. And plan for their passing.

The past few days we've been assigning value to people's lives, anticipating where we should publish their obituaries should they die.

Today's was former Rep. Horace Kornegay, an acquaintance of mine who passed away yesterday. We published his news obituary on the front of the Local section. We had some discussion about playing it on the front page, but he hadn't been in office for more than 30 years.

We also discussed Kay Yow, who entered a hospital in Raleigh yesterday. Yow, who was born in Gibsonville, is battling cancer. Is she an A1 obit? Yes, we decided.

When Sen. Kennedy collapsed on inauguration day, we talked about how to play his obituary should he die. On that day, we would have been hard-pressed to get the news on the front page, but we would have figured it out.

Admittedly, it's difficult to sort out the news value of a life. Is the person widely known? How significant was his contribution to public life? Will people be shocked by the news? Is the person local? And the ever-present, what else is going on that day?

A ghoulish business, almost.

I occasionally get requests in person and on this blog to give advice to PR folks about how to get information into the paper. (They have never asked me about getting information online, which could mean they don't care about online or don't need us for that. Whatever....)

Now I have a good starter, courtesy of the Influential Marketing Blog. He breaks them down to six quick-and-easy bites:

1. Your BS is obvious.
2. Timing trumps all.
3. Reputation matters.
4. Features are not as important as an angle.
5. Speed and contactability can make a difference.
6. Peer pitching works.

I'd add another:

7. Despite what you think, it's not about you. We care about readers much, much, much more than we care about companies or good relations with PR folks. Journalists want to know how the reader will be affected by your pitch. If it's a big deal for the company -- a new vice president -- but not a big deal for anyone outside the company, then it won't get much attention. But if it's something that has universal interest or is going to improve lives, bring it on.

Jeri Rowe got this e-mail question from a reader the other day:

Are the layoffs/job concerns of employees in the media areas causing excess negative bias by reporting staff in the daily news shown to the public? Reporters/editors are only human. If they are worried about their jobs/overworked, the "tone" of reporting can have a negative impact on the public. This can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Jeri responded in part:

Short answer is no. I believe we journalists -- or the ones I've worked with over the past two decades -- have been trained to be critical observers, to observe both sides of the story. There's an old adage many of us follow: Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable. Or as Mark Twain says, "Print the truth and raise hell." Some see that as having an agenda. I see that -- and others do, too -- as watching our collective back.

I want to add to that.

We are often accused of focusing on the negative. And it's true that there is more negative news in the paper than positive. Two reasons:

First, good journalists are skeptical by nature. Tell us X and we'll ask whether it shouldn't be Y. Politicians and business people tend to dislike us because we try to sort through the spin of the day. That questioning often comes across as negative. Sometimes it is. Most times, I submit, it is warranted. (Other times, not so much, I admit.) That said, the layoffs and downsizing in the news industry does strike close to home. At home, in fact.

Second, people expect things to work. They expect people to be law-abiding, politicians to govern, bridges to stand up, money markets to run. When things don't work is when they become news. One adage is, "'Train arrives in the station' isn't news. 'Train derails' is."

So, when layoffs mount -- and the news business is only one of many industries facing rising unemployment -- foreclosures climb and bankruptcies go through the roof, we write about it and it seems negative. People read it, begin to worry and stop spending. But there's no way to put lipstick on that pig, to coin a phrase. It's news.

Still, we do look for stories that fuel and inspire the human spirit and, in most news publications, you can find them all over the place. During these times, though, they don't have quite the same impact.

Like probably every newspaper in the country, we have gotten letters about our biased coverage of the current war being waged in the Mideast. It happens every time Israel and Palestine Hamas shoot at each other. I was thinking about writing about it, but Clark Hoyt, public editor at the Times, does it for me, and so much better.

David K. Shipler, a former Times correspondent who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book "Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land," said in an interview that each side firmly believes it is the victim in the struggle. "Any fair-minded coverage has to shatter that paradigm," he said. "Both sides are both victims and perpetrators at the same time."

Most of the criticism I've received centers on the use of photographs that show the destruction of one side or the other. If we show the results of Israel bombs, we must give Palestinian attacks equal time. One correspondent complained specifically about our use of AP photos by Hatem Moussa, noting that his first name says it all.

Hoyt points out that Israel has barred journalists from entering Gaza and newspapers must rely on pictures taken by Palestinian photographers.

But most of the destruction is in Gaza, and news photographs are not about blame but about showing what happened. Demolished buildings and dead bodies provide dramatic images; fear in Israel is more difficult to capture with a camera. "There’s nothing fair in war photography," Witty said. "It's tragic."

Some discussion here on the merits of the Josh Howard story. No, "merits" isn't correct word. No question it's worth reporting on more fully than the news release, which simply announced his sponsorship of a high school basketball tournament. It quotes Howard as saying, "I am excited about being a part of this tournament which showcases the best of the best. This is not just about dribbling a ball but about keeping your grades up and being an all around good student."

It seems natural and appropriate to add some context and to include his recent comments about marijuana use and the Star Spangled Banner.

But is it more than a sports section story?

My answer: it's on the front page in the morning paper, not necessarily because it is important, but because it's one of those stories that makes you shake your head. Yes, he's done some good charity work, but is this the role model we want for high school athletes?

Yours?

P.S. It also includes my favorite quote this morning, coming from the Josh Howard Foundation's PR manager: Honestly, some of the things that have been published have been negative.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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)

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

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.

Jim Schlosser writes about Thanksgiving 1929 at the dawn of the Great Depression. In it, he makes a quick comparison between news coverage then and now.

The difference now -- as stock markets plunge, banks falter and General Motors nears bankruptcy -- is public awareness of just how bad the economy has become. Bad news saturates the front page, 24-hour cable channels and National Public Radio.

Such gloominess was frowned on in late 1929. Newspapers gave bad news a positive spin. The state labor commissioner talked of a "labor surplus" in the state's big cities. He refused to say "unemployed."

Newspapers tended to quote business people with rosy outlooks or who could easily pinpoint blame. Local business leader Pierce Rucker castigated Wall Street "financiers." They had "exploited" the market by recommending risky stocks in Northern companies while ignoring strong Southern outfits.

Some business people tell me they wish newspapers were still that way. Their position is that news about the downturn in the markets undermines consumer confidence, which, I suppose, is true. Some readers, too, ask for "good" news, almost as relief from the stock declines, joblessness and bankruptcies.

So a recent piece in American Journalism Review by UNC-Chapel Hill professor Chris Roush is interesting and timely. He evaluates how the print media has covered the run-up to the latest market collapse. In this case, newspapers may have changed, but reader habits haven't.

The business media have done yeoman's work during the past decade-plus to expose wrongdoing in corporate America. In fact, a review of the top business publications in the country shows that they blanketed the major issues, from subprime loans to adjustable-rate mortgages to credit derivatives, that caused so much economic pain.

Here's the issue that financial journalism faces: No one likes a nattering nabob of negativism, especially when the stock market is climbing and all of our 401(k) plans are tied to it. So we shut out what we don't want to hear because it conflicts with what we'd like to happen.

Many newspapers all over the country played "Troopergate" findings out of Alaska prominently. Some examples, and sorry for the pixillation:

The home paper:

The big West Coast paper:

A more conservative paper:

I just like the rest of the Chicago front page

Next door

Raleigh and Greensboro treated the story similarly

We thought it was front-page news, but, given the findings, didn't think it was such a huge deal that it needed to dominate the news cycle, particularly given the other things on people's minds.

How would you have played the story? Other front pages here.

Do headlines such as "World markets tumble" and "No end in sight as losses rise" and "'We're in a hell of a mess'" fuel the panic over the financial collapse?

Some members of our readers advisory panel think so.

I think the media is helping to drag down the economy. All we hear is gloom and doom. People are afraid and you contribute to it. Don't be a Pollyanna, but could you not be so totally negative. How about a story about media negativity?

I'm tired or reading about gloom and doom. We need some uplifting stories. All we hear on the news every night is more of the same. At least give me something worthwhile to read.

This illustrates one of the balancing acts that some request of the news media: Report the bad news in its full glory while still providing a sense of hope. With some news stories -- particularly these scary ones -- there's no way to put lipstick on the pig.

Do we fuel the panic? If so, what should we do with stories like these that affect every single person negatively?

Between the nasty political campaign and the even nastier economic meltdown, the front page is overrun with, well, dreadful news these days.

We search for some bright spots, but they have a hard time muscling themselves into A1 prominence when confronted with 500 point Dow drops, candidate debates, disintegrating 401-Ks and, oh yeah, the $700 billion bailout revitalization.

Am I so desperate that I would shove some cute animal story onto the front page to break the depression? I am. Although I guess this satisfies all the people who write me to say, "Stop putting all that light stuff on the front page. The front page is for serious news like the war, the sinking economy, the election and the madness in Washington."

After all that, an Obsession DVD came in the mail today, addressed to my wife. That darned Redbook must have sold its list!

As I said, it's hardly a free speech issue.

More here.

This is the front page of our Life section today. Every week, Thursday's Life front is a photo page, sometimes based on the news, most times using feature photos.

We had many more good photos of the Obama rally on Saturday than we could run in Sunday's paper.

We decided to focus the photo page on scenes from rally, whether it is shots of security eyeing the crowd, people dancing or people praying. One photo shows the backs of the candidates and the size of the crowd. The smallest photo is of a grinning Obama.

A few people called today to suggest that this page was too much like a campaign ad. We did discuss that point yesterday. I decided to run with it for these reasons:
* The presidential election is arguably the biggest news event going these days (arguably because the economy is competing strongly with it).
* 18,000 people -- most probably from our readership area -- turned out for the rally.
* We had compelling people-oriented photos.
* We hope to do the same if McCain comes to town, or Palin schedules a public event when she's here on Oct. 16.

Some pretty sharp journalists here objected, saying it could communicate a bias. Thoughts? (I expect political partisans to weigh in, but also encourage those with more neutral political stands to voice an opinion.)

One thing has bothered me about the discussion of the distribution of the "Radical Islam" DVD. Some of those papers explaining their decisions to distribute the DVD to readers suggest that not doing so is censorship. And that they are erring on the side of free speech.

Of course, it's not free speech. It's a paid advertisement making the case for one side of a complicated, controversial issue. The papers will distribute the other sides, presumably, if they can come up with the money to pay for it. But most likely, the papers will not publish their information because the other sides won't take out ads.

As for censorship, not distributing a paid advertisement is not censorship. Newspapers decide not to publish information every day. Most of the time we call it news judgment. Other times we call it lack of space. We never call it censorship...particularly when the information is readily available elsewhere, as it is in this case (on YouTube).

Just saying.

As word of this decision gets around, my e-mail and phone have been busy. We've been called true Americans. We've been called politically correct. We've been called a lot of things.

One man from Miami called to ask why I was sheltering readers from the evils of Radical Islam. I told him I didn't think anyone was unaware of the events of the past seven years.

A blogger called us gutless. Jihad Watch wanted me to "explain what exactly we should do with those jihadist preachers preaching death and destruction in the video."

Hmmm. A better question for Obama and McCain.

Another Miami man wrote: Your publisher and your editor John Robinson should be commended for refusing to distribute a fear mongering DVD about Islam. I am ashamed that the Miami Herald chose to distribute this right-wing trash.

As I said, I wasn't in on the decision so I can't take the credit for it, although I believe it was the right one. As one editor told me on Twitter, the News & Record probably wasn't the only newspaper that turned down the distribution of the DVD; we were just the only one to write about it.

Many newspapers across the country distributed a controversial DVD today about Islam, titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West."

The documentary showcases scenes of Muslim children being encouraged to become suicide bombers, interspersed with shots of Nazi rallies, says the Editor & Publisher article linked above.

It was shown on Fox News just before the 2006 mid-term elections, and conservative activist David Horowitz screened the film on college campuses during 2007. An article at the group's site, www.radicalislam.org, endorsed John McCain as the strongest candidate this past week, then was pulled down. The DVD carries on-screen text near the outset that it is not indicting most Muslims.

We did not distribute it. I was not involved in the decision; it was an advertising call, in keeping with advertising policies.

I asked our publisher about it. He said it was divisive and plays on people's fears and served no educational purpose. The revenue it would have brought in was not a motivator.

As I've said on other occasions about news decisions, just because you can publish doesn't mean you should.

We knew we wanted to centerpiece something about the 9.11 anniversary on the front page today. We just weren't positive what. After all, many of the stories have been told; we didn't want -- we didn't think readers wanted -- another rehash of the day seven years ago or how "the world has changed."

National editor Janet Brindle Reddick found what we thought were good stories, including one featuring a student at Wake Forest University, giving us a local connection. But the photography available was, shall we say, less than compelling.

In steps designer Melissa Umbarger, who worked with Reddick to create something good out of not a lot.

Sometimes, we're making some fine lemonade.

Update: And I provide the lemons. I forgot to recognize artist Tim Rickard for the shadows.

Bloomberg's accidental premature publication of Steve Jobs' obituary makes me wonder: Are obituaries obsolete?

...In the print world, with rare exceptions a person's death was the only occasion that would justify the publication of that person's life story. But the Internet has changed the way we deal with time, just as it has collapsed space. Everything is available now ... and that isnt limited to reports of recent events.

-- Steve Yelvington

The modern obit writer may serve the subject better by amassing a collection of suitable links: to a biography, video interviews, best writings, most famous quotes, etc. Yelvington may be right: The traditional obituary is already in the grave.

-- Steve Outing

I have great respect for Steve and Steve, but I think they're off target on this one.

Eventually, I suspect, an obit of links will do the trick. But we're not close to it yet.

If the Steves are talking about canned obits of celebrities and newsmakers, fine. But the other 99% of the people who die aren't Google-able. Or if they are, information on them and their life is hard to find and, once found, is incomplete. I know. I've tried it on the people on our obit page today. In addition, many of the people actually interested in reading obits are the core audience of newspaper readers.

These days, someone -- whether it is the newspaper or a family member -- needs to write up an obituary about a person's life.

Update: In a subsequent Twitter exchange, Yelvington suggests creating basically a people wiki of the area's population. The entries grow and mature as the people do. "Write 'em up while they can still enjoy it," he said. I like that.

How interested are you in reading anniversary stories about Sept. 11, 2001? If you are, what angle(s)?

Lifestyle changes? Security concerns? Economic impact?

Our community was directly touched with the death of flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw. Interested in an update on the family?

A reader writes:

Concerning the news about Ruffin Hobbs' death:

It just didn't seem necessary.

This is the offending reference: "Jones said a neighbor found Hobbs' naked body about 9 a.m. Monday at his home on McBane Mill Road. He appears to have hit his head on his stone front stoop, and a subsequent autopsy revealed a broken neck and a fractured skull."

The bulk of my response:

I understand your concern. That's actually why we did not make a big deal about the fact that he wasn't wearing any clothes. Had we wanted to titillate, it would have been in the first paragraph rather than the sixth. We included that detail because we thought it was unusual. So
much about the story is unusual -- the doorway opening into space, the cob webs, and, of course, the death itself -- this, to us, was just another piece.

How about you: Was including the detail that Hobbs was naked when he plunged to his death helpful or unnecessary?

For those interested in the Mark Hoffmann story, The Catonsville Times updates it today.

Bottom line: He's still there and still gracious.

One person who keeps an eye on him said: "Those people were good to him and made him feel like he was OK," she said, referring to churchgoers, merchants and residents in Greensboro. "I can't imagine how scary it would be to live out on a bench or in the woods. That would terrify me."

The best thing about this story -- well, no, not the best thing. The best thing is the story of these all-American men -- but one of the next best things about this story is how it ended up on the front page this morning.

John Appel, with whom I have traded e-mails and blog comments over the years -- it would be fair to say that he and I don't always see eye-to-eye -- sent me a link, recommending I read the Stars and Stripes story about the firefight that involved two of the Triad's fighting men. I did.

It was Saturday morning and I didn't think I had much chance of reaching anyone at Stars and Stripes, much less getting permission to reprint the story in today's paper. But I gave it a shot. Went to their Web site and shot an e-mail to about six different people telling them we wanted to reprint it and asking about the rights.

I got an immediate response from the editor of S&S, granting the rights. Knowing something about deadlines and press schedules, he said we could handle the paperwork later this week. I suspect it helped that the editor, Robb Grindstaff, is an alum of the Asheboro Courier-Tribune and knows where Haw River is. Update: Writer Steve Mraz is a 1998 UNC Journalism School grad so he knows where Haw River is, too.

Readers often ask us to reprint articles published elsewhere; they are usually columns that affirm the reader's position. Most of the time, they come from publications or writers that don't permit reprints or by the time they reach us, the columns are a bit moldy. Either that, or they are stories from the Internet with origins that are either obscure or impossible to track.

Maybe it was because everything fell together nicely, but I like how this worked. A reader alerted us to a good local story we were unaware of and it was on the front page of our next edition.

A side note: An editor working Saturday asked me if they should call the families of the two men from the Triad as a courtesy to let them know the story was being published in our paper. (Presumably they knew it was published Saturday by Stars and Stripes.) I said I didn't feel strongly either way, and I don't know if they did.

"It was some of the bravest stuff I've ever seen in my life, and I will never see it again because those guys," Stafford said, then paused. "Normal humans wouldn't do that. You're not supposed to do that -- getting up and firing back when everything around you is popping and whizzing and trees, branches coming down and sandbags exploding and RPGs coming in over your head ... It was a fistfight then, and those guys held ' em off."

"Just hardcoreness I guess," he said. "Just guys kicking ass, basically. Just making sure that we look scary enough that you don’t want to come in and try to get us."

That's end of a story in Stars and Stripes this morning about the firefight in Afghanistan that killed Cpl. Pruitt Rainey of Alamance County and wounded Sgt. Matthew Gobble of Thomasville.

The piece by Steve Mraz is powerful. Read the whole thing and listen to the multimedia. It's a the latest exhibit of how compelling journalism can shine a light into places most readers fear to go.

You might think -- at least I do -- that the traditional wire services would send us more like this. I guess they are too busy running with the pack following Obama in Afghanistan. Fortunately, the good people at Stars and Stripes are going to allow us to reprint this story. (Robb Grindstaff, a former GM at the Asheboro Courier-Tribune and now executive editor of Stars and Stripes in Europe, made it happen. Thanks, Robb.)

Don't you love the description of the men from the Triad: "Just guys kicking ass, basically."

Related: We have memories of Rainey and a little bit of inside baseball on publishing a story about his death.

Update: I should have credited John Appel for tipping me to the S&S story. Thank you, sir.

We published a story today about Pruitt Rainey, who was killed Sunday in Afghanistan.

The Burlington Times-News had the story, too, but didn't publish.

Editor Madison Taylor writes: We actually had a story ready to go Monday night that was at least as documented as the current one by the News and Record (sic). By Tuesday night we had a lot of information the N&R didn't have -- including the rank and base where the young man was stationed.

From our perspective the News and Record story with only two sources, no military rank, no base is way to skimpy to publish.

Our reason for publishing wasn't complicated. The death of a local serviceman in fighting in Afghanistan is news, and we believed it to be true. We had family and church confirmation of his death. There was a lot more information we wanted for the story, but couldn't get. Still, we didn't think much about holding the story to await the military.

The Times-News went ahead and published its story on its Web site this morning, presumably without military confirmation. Because the News and Record (sic) has a story on its Web site about this incident and Channel 2 does as well, I’ve decided to post ours so readers will at least have more information.

But I’m not comfortable with it.

I would not have changed what we did, but I understand the Times-News decision. When to publish what you have on sensitive topics is often a tough call.

Does this story about Rep. Howard Coble and its display seem as if we are giving him an advantage in an election year?

The question was raised yesterday. We decided that it is noteworthy that Coble has become the longest serving Republican in the state. With the election a long four months away, we didn't think the story would unduly sway any voter now. Had we been trying to parse his views and votes over 24 years, we would have handled the story differently.

Of course, Dr. Bratton may not see it that way.

Yesterday the N&O published photos of a terminally ill child cradled in his parents arms right after his death. The photos illustrated a feature story about Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, a group of professional photographers who volunteer their time to make memories for moms and dads with children in dire medical circumstances.

Ted Vaden writes about why the paper decided to publish the photos, which made some readers queasy.

We wrote about the same organization in 2006 -- discussed here and here -- and it looks like the N&O made the same decision about the photographs we did.

We had discussion as to whether the story about Gettysburg and the Confederate Flag was too much on the front page. Or too high on the front page. Were there were too many images of the Confederate Flag on the front page? (The Confederate Flag is a divisive issue 'round here.)

You can see where I stood on those questions. How about you?

We get occasional complaints -- normally when we mention Sen. Obama on the front page -- that we give him preferential treatment.

Today, your paper, once again, put Sen. Obama on the front page under "Quick Read" with a headline story on p.3, again with picture and plenty of coverage, while relegating Sen. McCain to "Washington Brief", two paragraph story farther down the page. In sales, we call this Position-Position-Position. Just another of your many ways to try to show Sen. Obama in the best of circumstances while trying to downplay his opponent. If you can't see this for yourself, you need to have your eyes checked.

That was yesterday. Obama was on the front page because his proposal to expand efforts to send money to religious groups is a decent news story. It breaks with his more liberal positions for one thing, and it expands upon a program that began in a Republican White House. On the other hand, Sen. McCain's visit to Colombia was much less newsworthy. He essentially asked the country to do a better job with human rights. Worthy but hardly surprising.

Still, we're going to track our presidential coverage to see who gets what sort of coverage day in and day out. The one caveat: When it comes to politics, we try to be fair, but we can't always give equal coverage. Sometimes candidates make news by what they say and do. And attempting to be equal cannot trump news judgment.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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:

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.

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.

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.

We're in our morning planning meeting -- a bunch of hardened, cynical, ink-stained wretches -- talking about what's going on today, including whether we should write about a car bomb exercise drill that local law enforcement is conducting near A&T.

The photo director's walkie-talkie screeches and out comes the voice of one of our shooters who just happens to be on the way to photograph the drill. He reports that a real fire call has gone out from a site at A&T. The photo director looked east out of a window two rooms away and said he could see the billowing black smoke.

In the same way that everyone stops to watch a fire engine pass, everyone in the room looked, and, effectively stopping the meeting, two of us got up, crossed the two rooms and looked straight out the window.

Gotta love the news business.

As it turned out, the smoke we saw was as a result of the drill. Some people who didn't know called it in as a real fire.

In the old days, when a tornado spun through the region at midnight or thereabouts, newspapers were a journalistic casualty. Because of deadlines, you can't get much of anything into the next day's paper. Your first real coverage comes 36 hours after the storm strikes. I've lived through those days, and I felt forlorn because of the missed opportunity. Big news happens in your town, and you are dead in the water.

No longer.

Now, the worst timing for a newspaper is the best timing for the newspaper Web site. When the tornado struck Guilford County Friday morning, we didn't get anything in the newspaper, but we posted what we knew until about 2 a.m. Friday and started up again at about 5:45 a.m. Reporters and photographers posted news updates, victims' stories, photos and maps throughout the day and into Friday evening. John Newsom, our main online reporter, Twittered.

Meanwhile, because so much had already been written and posted, we could plan the next day's newspaper with much more information than we usually have. We knew exactly what sort of information and visuals we had. We watched television to determine what people already knew and didn't know. We focused our newspaper coverage on giving them new information, providing perspective on how the storm formed and where it went, and showing photographs.

In the end -- now that we have more than one method of news distribution -- it worked out well for both the newspaper and the Web site. (Putting aside the death and destruction of the storm itself.) Had the storm hit an hour earlier, we would have gotten a story into the Friday newspaper and patted ourselves on the back for our hustle. I wish we could have. But, to be honest, I know it probably would have been out of date the moment it landed on driveways Friday morning.

If there are any journalists left out there who don't understand or appreciate the value of taking your journalism digital -- where people can get it even if the paper isn't scheduled to be delivered for 24 hours -- then our experience Friday should be a lesson to them. Readers seemed to appreciate it, too.

Seth Godin reminds us that William Randolph Hearst built his newspaper empire by understanding that the goal of newspapers is to sell newspapers, not to report the news. That was 110 years ago, but still....

Godin adapts that idea to news Web sites. The product they sell is drama. He makes the point effectively using a screen grab from CNN and big fat green check marks.

I'm not going to disagree with him, either. We do sell drama. We know what happens when all we give the people is spinach. (Those that eat it become strong like Popeye -- OK, a little misshapen, too. Those who don't, well, you have Bluto.) We want to grab attention. We have a bias in favor of drama, which is a nicer way of saying we have a bias in favor of conflict.

I don't see anything wrong with it either. Looking at the CNN example, the headlines don't pander. They don't link to nude celebrity photos or crash diets. As Seth notes, they simply emphasize drama on the political front.

For comparison purposes, our Web front. It probably doesn't market enough.

Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston-Salem and Asheville papers all put stories about the cyclone in Myanmar on their front pages this morning. So did many of the newspapers around the world. From the Newseum's front page analysis of the day's papers: Numbers make the difference. Yesterday, when the death toll stood at 350 for the cyclone in Burma (aka Myanmar), a few U.S. dailies carried the story on Page One. Today, with the guesstimated toll in the multiple thousands, it's Page One news on an international basis.

We published a promo on the front with a small photo, but put the story on page A9. A reader questioned that news judgment.

Certainly, playing the story on Page One was the safe bet. I know 10,000 deaths anywhere is tragic and big news. Yet I read about it online yesterday. The story was played prominently on the evening's network news programs yesterday. That story got even older -- and worse -- overnight and today as the death toll is now estimated to be more than 22,000.

We try to publish stories on Page One that are new to readers and/or have a direct connection to their lives. We want stories to be fresh and to avoid repeating what people have seen online or on television all day. Our election package today isn't necessarily fresh information, but it has a direct connection to citizens.

For the record, Myanmar isn't going to be on the front page tomorrow, either.

Wednesday update: Scott Karp has a somewhat related piece about redundant news stories that is well worth reading.

Traditionally, newspapers shy away from giving last-minute controversial political statements high visibility on Election Day. Certainly not on the front page; probably tucked inside the paper, if we publish at all. We're old fashioned that way. Several reasons:

* The statements often cannot be vetted in time
* Publishing on the day people vote risks giving the statement more influence that it deserves
* The "other side" doesn't have much time to respond to the "hot" story

If I could do it over again, this story would have been inside the paper today. (It was on the Local front.) A week ago, an article about two school board members urging voters to vote down school bonds would have been worth notice. Today, it violates at least two of the reasons above. Unfortunately, they successfully played us. It's not a mortal sin; more of a low-grade venial one. Still.

Allen has more. Right now this feels wrong, like a political sucker punch..

An editor asked me this morning why we were not giving this homicide of the A&T student the same visibility in the newspaper we gave this homicide of the UNC student body president.

Stories about Eve Carson's murder in March were on the front page a couple times. Stories about Derek Hodge have been on the Local front.

Both deaths are tragic for all the reasons you can think of. But for both philosophical and procedural reasons, the two were not judged the same way when we're putting the paper together. At least, that's how I responded to the editor. Here's why the difference in the coverage:

* Eve Carson was student body president and held a variety of high-profile positions within the university community. She was a mover and shaker who made news often by the things she did well before her murder.
* Her murder went national quickly, creating an interest in the story well beyond the Triangle or even North Carolina.
* A murder in "idyllic Chapel Hill" seems less common and therefore more newsworthy than one in Greensboro.
* The Chapel Hill police held regular news conferences and were relatively forthcoming with details and progress. That's not how Greensboro police do things.
* The case moved fast. Homicide of student then photos of suspected perps then arrests...all over the course of a few days. The progress created a sense of momentum.

But Hodge was a student at a local university, which carries a lot of weight here. Should we raise the visibility of his case?

At what point does covering the presidential candidates' visits become repetitive? How many times does Hillary come into the region before her visit doesn't make big news? Or, better still, how many times do Bill or Chelsea campaign here before they assume the mantle of "routine?" (Both are coming to N.C. again this week.)

We did not write a news story about Hillary's second visit to Winston-Salem Friday, although we have video of her appearance. For the paper, we opted instead for Columnist Lorraine Ahearn's take on Sunday.

Of course, we covered both Clinton(s) and Obama when they came to the region the first time a few weeks ago. And it is a wonderful thing for civic engagement for presidential candidates to care so deeply about North Carolina (democratic) voters for the first time in many seasons.

But unless the candidates come into the counties where we sell papers we are probably going to let the AP send us reports. Yes, we miss the possibility of some gaff. Yes, we miss something amiss occurring. Yes, we miss the possibility, however slim, slight and non-existent, that the candidate may make news.

But we can use our reporters for other stories, and the AP does send reports of the candidates' visits.

Is it wrong? Should we sent a reporter and photographer if Obama or Clinton skip Greensboro but return to Winston or, say, Durham?

When the various markets tumble as they've been doing lately, we often get calls from real estate agents concerned about housing market, politicians concerned about joblessness and members of the public concerned about the overall business climate. Their issue is that stories about the depressed economy are a self-fulfilling prophecy, scaring consumers who then won't spend.

Chris Roush at UNC and Talking Biz News points to some valuable information from Andrew Leckey, director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University.

"Even though more depressing words have been written in the blogosphere, on other online sites and in print than were written in the Depression, it isn't changing the course of economic events.

“"Journalists don't make recessions," Leckey said.

As part of our bicentennial coverage, we have digitized some of the more historically significant papers in our archives.

News librarian Diane Lamb explains:

This assignment was like going into a candy story that has all your favorites but you are told you can choose only 2 pieces.

Stay tuned -- we hope to scan more of our historical microfilm in the future.

We have looked into digitizing the total archives. Way too expensive...now.

It is interesting to wander around in these editions, looking at how news judgment, design and advertising styles have changed over the years.

I may be wrong, but it strikes me that the articles that appear in nearly every newspaper every day that describe a particular day's stock-market movements are pretty much worthless.

That's from a post at Freakonomics yesterday.

Howard Weaver piles on a bit: I think the honest answer is that collective ignorance about markets and economics leads the press to a herd mentality in which we all just repeat what a handful of business writers tell us.

I've thought the same thing recently as I've watched the talking heads at ESPN and CBS talk about the NCAA tournament. Three weeks ago they said (as did we) that we shouldn't count on all four No. 1 seeds making the Final Four because it's never happened. So what do we have? We heard that Carolina's weakness is defense. Hmmm, not the games I've watched. And the chances anyone gave Davidson? Ha!

You can add your own examples of "expert commentary."

OK, it's not exactly the same because one involves "explanations" for an occurrence and the other involves predictions of behavior. Still, there is a feel of herd mentality and worthlessness to both.

A reader called today to give us grief us grief for the photos about gang tags that ran on our editorial page today. She thought we were promoting tagging in the sense that gang members would be motivated to paint gang symbols more often if they thought their work would be published.

I bring that up because one reason we don't write much about April Fool's pranks is for the same reason: they may reinforce the prankster and give them credit when they deserve, well, none. Riding to work this morning, I listened to one radio show doing an interview with a government official that sounded legitimate until you thought about the premise for about two seconds and remembered what day it is.

We aren't alone in our fuddyduddiness. Is that a sign of good sense or paternalistic news judgment? Wouldn't writing about the goofy pranks lend a bit of desperately needed humor to the paper? Or would it contribute to the "dumbing down" sentiment people sometimes have?

We don't pull the April Fool's wool over our readers' eyes with our own pranks because we don't want to contribute to the confusion. Besides, we've found it is hard to commit humor in the newspaper. The comics page is proof of that. (That's a little joke.) We aren't alone, either.

Of course, it could also be that most of the April Fool's pranks are not all that interesting or newsworthy. A good, public one -- say, getting a news release published that said President Bush endorsed Kay Hagan over Elizabeth Dole or that Terry Grier had changed his mind about leaving -- now that would be a different story.

Journalists are on heightened alert this week. More on that in a moment.

We're late on the death of hall of fame radio disk jockey Jack Armstrong. And it is a good example of why sometimes it is more important to make sure you're not wrong than simply ending up right.

Reporter Joe Killian saw the note about Armstrong's death on Cone's blog Monday night. He began tracking it into Tuesday, interviewing those who knew Armstrong -- getting some good remembrances -- and putting together a news obit. Problem was, he couldn't find anyone with first-hand knowledge that the larger-than-life radio personality was dead. No funeral home. No family member. He saw the MySpace announcement and tributes but, you know, it was a MySpace message. Could have been true, could have been a hoax. An obituary is too important to take the chance.

With no verification, we wouldn't publish.

We finally got e-mail verification from Armstrong's daughter Wednesday afternoon, and published what we had online then, and in the paper this morning.

Tuesday is April Fool's Day. People often try to punk newspapers, with some success. Radio DJs are notorious for April Fool's pranks.

"I hate that we didn't have it the first day, but I wouldn't have wanted to run it without confirmation," Joe says. Exactly right.

His obituary, published today, is here.

Update: A colleague asked if I was suggesting that Ed should have checked before he published. Not at all. Ed told readers his source and linked to the MySpace page. Our publication standards are different than bloggers. If the obit had turned out to be bogus, Ed could have corrected it immediately. Published in the newspaper, of course, we would have been stuck in a 24-hour news cycle.

Is that being old-fashioned?

A reader called to complain that we didn't mark the 4,000th American death in Iraq on the front page yesterday. (Actually, we published a blurb on the front with the story on page A7.) There's a great deal of discussion about newspaper play of this story on media sites.

A number of factors go into decisions about the front page, and they vary in importance from day to day. They have also changed over the past 10 to 20 years.

On national stories -- stories that get big play from television and online -- a key question I ask is, what new can we add to readers' understanding? If the answer is not much, the story has a hard time climbing onto the front page.

Thank, among other things, the death of the 24-hour news cycle. The reports of the 4,000th American death were on the TV news and Internet throughout the day on Sunday. By the time our Monday paper hit the driveway, I'm thinking most people knew the story. (In Sunday's paper, we published a story saying the number of deaths had hit 3,996 and 4,000 was imminent.)

In addition, the days in which the front page is a record of the day's most momentous events have passed. We want the front page to add information/insight/value to people's lives. The number of times that the typical reader scans the front page and thinks, I know that already, should be minimal. That's one reason we emphasize local news over national and world news on the front. It doesn't mean we don't care, which the caller about the American death speculated. It simply means that telling you something you already know doesn't help you or us.

We watch television and know what stories they track. We know what stories are "most read" and "most e-mailed" online. Attention spans are short. When something has been out for much of the day, it loses its value quickly. Newspapers must be sensitive to that.

That is why we don't have Clinton's misspeaking about her time in Bosnia on the front page, and why we haven't given a great deal of high visibility to Obama's minister. (No, it's not a liberal bias.)

There are exceptions, of course. We're still old-fashioned enough to give good play to a world-altering event. We also understand the historical value of a front page. But with news as a commodity -- free just about everywhere -- then the newspaper must add value.

From the Readership Institute last week: Celebrity news seldom pops up among the topics of local readership studies. The celebrity television shows are facing ratings issues, and the ratings for awards shows like the Oscars are a shadow of their former selves. While there is a flurry of questions from newspapers about celebrity news in newspapers, the celebrity magazines are in a death plunge.

From Women's Wear Daily today: Jennifer Lopez's twin babes helped people.com break records in terms of traffic to its Web site on Thursday, the day the issue hit newsstands. People.com hit an all-time high of four million daily unique visitors who viewed the first picture of babies Max and Emme online from the magazine's exclusive photo shoot with Lopez and husband Marc Anthony.

J-Lo's babies won't be on the front page of the paper or the Website; we agree with the Readership Institute that the daily newspaper (or its Website) isn't the place people looking for that sort of info go. Still, 4 million visitors provides a pretty good parachute from the death plunge. With Branjolina and Jessica pregnant, the future is bright!

Everyone I know agrees with me.

I hear that sentiment a lot, primarily from people who don't like something we have done. I have learned to discount it as an argument because while it could be true, it doesn't mean anything.

I mention that because we have just begun using a new measuring tool that asks people a variety of questions about specific items in the newspaper. This week, we asked about this story about police misconduct investigations. The group surveyed is small -- please join up! -- so I'm not drawing any conclusions yet. One result is interesting, nonetheless.

One hundred or so people who said they read the story were asked "Have you looked or will you look for more information as a result of the article?" 40 people answered no and 28 said yes. The rest were non-committal or did not answer.

Some of the no's explained:

No. Greensboro gets too tied up with items that are better left alone.

No. I'm tired of the topic. Even though I might agree with the information -- and though I know it's important to some people -- it's like beating a dead horse. Leave it alone for awhile.

And the yes's:

Yes. I like to be kept abreast of issues that relate to our daily lives in the Greensboro community.

Yes, there is so much going on with the Greensboro police & fire departments and also with city council. We want to know what is REALLY going on & the recent articles are shedding some light on the answers and briefly explains why they can't tell more.

Reader interest or lack of interest aren't the only thing we consider. Journalists keep reporting some issues despite the seeming lack of public interest because the issues are important. But I understand the sense of apathy/weariness with the story. It has been going on for nearly three years with no end in sight. For the casual follower, it is hard to know what is what and even harder to keep it all straight.

But I digress. On the police investigation, I've heard both "Nobody cares about that" and "This is the biggest story in the city." Both views come from passionate, engaged citizens who believe they are doing what's best for the city.

ReadWriteWeb mentions an email from Business Wire, a press release service, that claims it bypasses the blogosphere and traditional media and directly reaches its markets by showing up on aggregators and in search results.

I would never say that we don't want releases or get valuable information from them. In fact, news releases from local companies and agencies are invaluable. But if I could eliminate all the faxes and e-mails from PR firms and companies "not from round here," I'd save a ton on paper and my productivity would skyrocket. So I say more power to you Biz Wire.

Update: So, appropriately, the very next news release I get? What's Good for Your Heart Is Good for Your Brain from the Alzheimer's Association and the American Heart Association.

On Saturday, we published a story about a case of MRSA at Southeast High School. In that story, the parents of two wrestlers, one who has MRSA and another who has a staph infection, spoke on the record that they thought their sons contracted the staph through wrestling. The parents said the wrestling coach knew about it but encouraged the boys to wrestle anyway. School officials were unavailable for comment, although they knew we were working on the story.

On Tuesday, we published a story in which the wrestling coach said the two parents were disgruntled, but he declined to elaborate. He said school officials told him not to comment. The school principal and the school system's athletic director were unavailable for comment.

On Wednesday, we published a story in which the school principal said the complaints of the parents were investigated beginning in December and found no wrongdoing on the part of the school or coach.

We have heard from people who said we should not have published the original story with the claims of the parents. That we should have waited, gathered more information -- information that would have shown the parents as having a vendetta against the coach -- and, presumably, killed the story. I appreciate that position, I really do. But stories that have different "sides" rarely come out fully baked. People don't always tell everything they know. Government institutions rarely do, in my experience. Information comes out in dribs and drabs.

Here's what we knew Friday: A case of MRSA is reported at Southeast. It involved a wrestler, who said he thought he contracted a staph infection at a wrestling match. His parents said he was encouraged to keep wrestling anyway. We're not going to report that? It is a public health issue. Did we try to get response from the appropriate school officials. Oh yeah. They knew we were working on the story.

Finally, Tuesday, the principal responds with the school's version. This couldn't be told on Friday?

I've said it before, I'll say it again. When a reporter calls with questions, tell what you know even if you don't want to. If you stonewall, you put yourself at the mercy of those who WILL talk to the reporter. This could have been a one-day story, but it spun into, at least, a five-day story.

The school system is pretty bad at volunteering information on sensitive issues in a timely way. The city is becoming that way. Unfortunate, for many reasons.

Whenever someone robs a bank, are you interested in knowing how much they took? Do you notice that the newspaper doesn't usually tell you that information? (The police department usually doesn't release it.)

Earlier this week, we published the amount stolen in a series of bank robberies. (The information was on the arrest warrant.) As a result, I've had conversations with a banker who has politely objected. The banking industry's position is that we should never publish the amount of money taken in a heist. It gives would-be robbers too much information, which could be enough to tip them from "would be" to "actual." In addition, that so-called encouragement would mean more robberies and more banking personnel put in danger.

Now, I think people know that a great deal of money is stored in banks, and that people rob banks because that's where the money is. While we have no desire to harm the innocent, it's hard for me to buy that by publishing the amount of money taken in a robbery, it encourages other robberies.

But I could be wrong. I checked with a couple other newspaper editors in the state. Both said they would publish the info if they had it.

Then the banker said that the reader doesn't care about the amount of money taken anyway. They just care the bank was robbed.

So, is the amount important to you?

Ryan at Greensboro Politics pointed me to an interview that he did with County Commissioner Skip Alston about the International Civil Rights Museum. He references some comments made on the Debatables blog.

Skip answers: They are misinformed and not involved in the process and are ignorant to the facts of what are taking place with the museum. They are likely reading the News & Record which is full of misinformation and no facts at all who has proven to be an enemy to this project from the very beginning.

Ryan: Skip the News & Record is a donor correct?

Skip: Yes, you keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

Ryan was surprised that Skip took such a shot at a donor. I wasn't. It's par for the course.

We have been aggressive in our reporting about the status of the museum since the late '90s. Skip has been equally aggressive in criticizing our reporting. We believe our stories have been on the money and that the numbers speak for themselves.

The News & Record contributed $150,000 to the effort in 2002. At the time, our article about the gift quoted then president and publisher Van King as saying: We've long thought the museum is a wonderful community asset that must be done well. We've been impressed by the progress and from our standpoint of corporate giving, the timing is right for us to add our dollars.

I really applaud the leadership of Earl Jones and Skip Alston and others who were persistent from the very beginning.

I don't know why an "enemy of this project from the very beginning" would donate such a sum to help it get built. But Van also said, correctly, that the newsroom would continue to ask tough questions about where the money is going and the progress of the museum.

And that apparently still sticks in Skip's craw.

Ken Otterbourg at the Winston-Salem Journal writes about a not uncommon occurrence at newspapers: Photo subjects messing with you.

We've had high school students give us fake names to go into captions or, worse, give us a real name of one of their pals as a prank on us and their friend. Those are hard to prevent short of demanding a photo ID of everyone in a photograph.

I don't recall a photo we took with someone inconspicuously or inadvertently giving the camera the finger, but I've seen it in other photographs. Otterbourg tells of a picture they published that inspired one reader to complain about the coarse gesture. (Unfortunately, Otterbourg printed the letter from the reader verbatim, an action with no discernible purpose except to embarrass the writer.)

I'll end as he has: You be the editor. Would you have run the photograph?

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that many newspapers are dropping their full-time higher education reporters. Charlotte, Providence, Memphis, Montgomery and Savannah are mentioned. (Via Romenesko.)

Coverage of elementary and secondary schools is closer to readers' hearts, editors argue. Higher education, by contrast, generally operates better and involves lots of out-of-town students. So out goes the higher-education coverage. At many papers, the only reporters covering colleges and universities write about basketball and football.

We have cut back some coverage areas, and the decisions were tough. But we're not going to cut higher ed. With seven colleges or universities in Guilford County alone, how could we? Right now, we've shuffled some people around, and our new higher education reporter, Amanda Lehmert, has been preoccupied with Terry Grier's departure. She's been on that because our elementary and secondary education reporter has been on maternity leave, and we -- that is the stupid universal me -- thought that Christmas holidays would be slow on both the school beats.

But the reporter on maternity leave -- Morgan Josey Glover -- is back next week so we'll be at full steam.

Besides, there are too many important stories.

With Terry Grier outta here, I remember a joke he told before a speech at a Rotary meeting: "What's the difference between a dead possum on the road and a dead school superintendent on the road?" he asked, and paused. "There are skid marks in front of the possum."

It got a lot of laughs. I went up to him after the meeting and thanked him for being in Guilford County. I said that as long as he was here, I wouldn't be the most hated man in town. He laughed. (I'm pretty sure it was no contest.)

The San Diego school board frustrated us on this end. The board met, deliberated and adjourned several times over the past few weeks without taking any action. We had no sources among board members, for obvious reasons, and apparently neither did the San Diego paper. (Its Web site has nothing about the new superintendent yet.)

Reporter Amanda Lehmert, new to the paper and filling in for our schools reporter Morgan Josey Glover while she is on maternity leave, dogged that board night after night. running down countless leads and rumors. "No, nothing yet," she told editors about 1,000 times. Sometimes more colorfully. I know she's happy he's going. It's nothing personal; she can move onto a new story that will be happening here, not 2,473 miles away.

As long as I've been here, superintendents have left with a sizable -- though I'd bet still a minority -- population of people happy to see them go. I'm not one of them. The man made news.

Sunday update: The Chalkboard is looking to help in the search for a replacement.

What kind of leader do you want at the helm of the Guilford County school system? Do we hire from within, or recruit someone new? What should the new superintendent's top priorities be?

Leave comments there.

For a couple years now, I've been half-heartedly discouraging editors from doing much in the newspaper with stories about impending weather. Are we telling readers anything they don't already know? TV and online have won that battle and newspapers have lost. I doubt many people look to the paper for a prediction about an approaching storm when the blanket "team" coverage is ubiquitous -- and more timely -- on television and the Internet.

Ever since I've been in this business, reporters have hated writing weather stories, primarily because they seem so silly and predictable. When we were at the News & Observer, Howard Troxler wrote an "impending storm" story as if it were an investigative piece, full of skulduggery and secret sources at the weather bureau. It was bounced back to him by a dour and unappreciative editor. Twenty five years later, here comes Meranda: Raise your hand if you hate writing weather stories....It's like writing about traffic lights changing colors. Everyone knows it's going to happen, and they can kind of figure out for themselves what comes next.

We try to write them compellingly, but there are only so many ways to write an interesting weather story and an armless man can count them on his fingers. No, that's harsh. There are a couple ways, but not many. To put it another way, how many times do you need to see a TV reporter standing by the side of the road with a yardstick preparing to measure the inch of snow that's fallen and hear her tell you not to drive if you don't have to?

Deepening the issue is that, despite meteorologists' boasts about accuracy, weather predictions are notoriously wrong. Last night the forecast was for it to be snowing right at this minute. Not happening. It's 38 degrees.

But it's a newspaper tradition that's hard to shake. As the storm approaches, it becomes what people talk about. Schools let out. Businesses close. How can a newspaper not write about it? Besides, with everything focused on a snow storm there isn't much else going on to write about.

* We need to log the coming storm in the paper in a small way somewhere, but it's an online story. Now, after the storm hits and power is knocked out, schools are closed and life is changed, then that's a different story.

Was this homicide overplayed in today's newspaper? That was a question discussed last night.

We don't play every potential murder in the centerpiece position on the front page, although we publish many of them on A1. But editors raised some prickly questions about the victim's race (white) and the neighborhood (pretty darned nice). Specifically, are we giving the story more prominence because of the demographics?

We gave the story that kind of prominence because it occurred in a region of the city where violent crime is rare, and homicides rarer still. This doesn't appear to be the "typical" homicide involving two drunks or a drug deal gone bad, which makes it even more rare. All of those factors make this news.

Plus, we had photos.

And it's one day in which the difference -- good and bad -- between the morning newspaper and the morning television news is obvious. Weather is monopolizing morning TV, as it probably should. (And our Web site.) Because we can't compete in the paper on weather, we focus on three other stories on the front page.

The "In and Out" list this morning required knowledge of pop culture, a sense of humor and, in some cases, a thick skin. As these things go, then, we got some quick and negative feedback.

Some excerpts of e-mails I've gotten:

When "16 and pregnant" is considered IN, it is no longer fun. It is in fact thoughtless, irresponsible, glamorizes teen pregnancy, and certainly sends the wrong message to families in general and teens specifically.

I cannot share this article with my daughter because it is hard enough to explain why a girl (emphasis on girl, not woman) should not get pregnant, nor should she be experimenting with sex, at 16. It may be a fact of our society that this happens, but that is not the lesson in our family.

Further down your list you write that FedEx is OUT and HondaJet is IN. While this is certainly less harmful than the reference to a pregnant 16 year old, it is an irresponsible comment probably done for cheap shock value. At least the people at FedEx are adults and will recognize the comment for what it is -- one person's uninformed opinion. FedEx will bring many sorely needed jobs and much revenue to the Triad. It may even have influenced, in some way, HondaJet's decision to settle here. To do anything short of welcoming FedEx with open arms is short-sighted and, once again, irresponsible. This goes for any company coming to the Triad.

The "16 and pregnant," obviously referring to the Spears' sisters, came from the original Washington Post list. We added the offensive FedEx-HondaJet item.

*****************************

I am Mormon and am very disappointed in what you published on D1 today in the "Out or In" article. I am referring to the second item in the vertical column, which notes that "Mormon undergarments" are "out" and "Spanx" are "in."

I am hurt that you have blasphemed such a private, sacred matter and am disappointed that religious bigotry is alive and well in my hometown newspaper.

This one also came from The Washington Post's original list. I admit I don't even know what Spanx are.

*****************************

I see your team couldn't resist another shot at cheering for a move of the tourney to Sedgefield as part of the "In/Out list." Of course, according to their story last week there has been no decision made. I don't really expect your reporters to do much work in digging out facts but it isn’t hard to find out what is going on at Forest Oaks.

Because we continue to track the efforts to move the Wyndham from Forest Oaks to Sedgefield, everytime we write about it we get letters saying that we're biased.

****************************

These lists are designed to engender debate and discussion and maybe a few laughs. They aren't editorial policy, endorsements or words to live by. (I know they aren't all funny. Written word humor is always a matter of taste.) Not surprisingly, Ed gets it and gives the list all the respect it deserves.

Every year newspapers publish "the year in review" during the week between Christmas and New Year's. I rarely read them because they tell me things I already know, which pretty much makes them irrelevant. Do I need to remember that Virginia Tech was rocked by a massacre or that Anna Nicole died or that the Red Sox won the pennant?

Do you read them?

Would it have any more value if we wrote local year-in-review stories? If we reminded you that City Council told the police chief to do something about gangs, and that Skybus is coming here, and that while the Grimsley girls basketball team lost in the state championship game, the Dudley boys football team won?

I don't think so, but I'm probably too close to it.

Personally, I prefer the stories that tell me what's coming up, which are harder to do, but at least tell me something I don't know.

Psst...the dirty little secret is that newspapers write those stories to fill space during the one week of the year in which news takes breather -- unless you're in Pakistan -- and filling up the paper with quality content is tougher than getting a Hannah Montana ticket at face value.

*** I'm not counting the top 10 best stories: best movies, best books, best CDs and the like. Those have value to me.

Top story of the year? Virginia Tech killings.
No. 2: Mortgage crisis
Iraq comes in at 3 and the presidential race slips into the top 10 at No. 9.

I didn't vote in the survey because I didn't see the point. While I see the value of such a ranking back in, say, the 80s, I can't imagine how relevant it is now when so many papers, big and small, are focusing on local stories. Seems to me as if it has outlived its usefulness.

In any case, I don't have a strong opinion of the rankings, although I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have voted Tech No. 1 so that the memory of Cho wouldn't get the satisfaction. Hmmm, Putin is Time's Man of the Year, but he doesn't scratch on the AP survey?

But I love this: Among stories about pop culture celebrities, the saga surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith got the most votes, finishing in 32nd place ahead of such stories as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the departure of Tony Blair as British prime minister, and the military crackdown in Myanmar.

"Anyone who picks the Anna Nicole Smith story in the Top Ten should be beaten with sticks," commented Mike Bailey, managing editor of The Courier News in Elgin, Ill.

He's right. Anyone who picks Anna Nicole over Britney is an idiot.

I don't recall the photo spread in the New York Times fashion magazine referenced by public editor Clark Hoyt in his column today. The magazine apparently has some photos of a 17-year-old model that were considered inappropriate by some, including Hoyt.

Whatever. I've commented on fashion photo spreads in the Times before.

To me, the more interesting point the column illustrates is the disagreement among top editors of the Times about what's publishable and what's not. The editor of the Times thinks the photos are OK. The editor in charge of standards at the Times does not. The editor of the magazine does. Hoyt does not.

Many people think newsrooms operate in lock-step -- a liberal conspiracy!!!??? -- and that decisions are simple and consensual. Hardly. While I don't know the Times hierarchy, my guess is that, like most newsrooms, such disagreements are considered healthy and part of the operating structure.

Washington Post Editor Leonard Downie takes a shot at Romenesko for not being discriminating enough in the sorts of stories it links to. You can read it all for yourself. It's one of those things that is a huge dust-up for 24 hours and then disappears because, really, who outside the Beltway cares?

Still, it's rare to see a big-league newspaper editor raise a question about Romenesko's judgment. And a fair question it is. Romenesko exerts outsized influence over the journalistic discussion because so many journalists read him. He's like everyone used to think the New York Times was -- whatever its editors put on A1 influenced news judgment at papers across the country. What Romenesko chooses to link to -- and chooses not to link to -- makes a difference, too. And these days, it's a constant drumbeat of bad news and press criticism.

Romenesko links to this blog often enough. Sometimes I solicit it because it means my traffic goes up. But I haven't figured out a rhyme or reason to when he does and when he doesn't. My guess is that Downie and editors everywhere wonder the same thing.

Here is Romenesko himself describing a day in the life (pdf, page 5).

I've come to the same conclusion as Doug Clifton, retired editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: Its strength is breadth. Its flaw is indiscriminate selections. Third rate stuff from an alternative can be given equal weight to a serious piece in AJR or CJR....Because it is so widely read by journalists the echo effect can be overwhelming. I’m convinced Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd lost their jobs because they couldn’t escape the Romenesko undertow. That said, it provides an essential and immediate forum for discussion of important journalistic issues.

Romenesko is mostly a personal Web site and as such, he can post whatever he pleases. Sure his judgment is goofy sometimes. Sure it dwells more on the negative than the positive. But I'm sure Downie realized that he was acting just like the reader of the Washington Post who complains about that newspaper's judgment on a story about, say, Bush and Iraq.

It's a funny, even awkward, position for a newspaper editor to be in.

Boy, this is the kind of paper that makes community boosters cringe. A public school teacher had a criminal record. Toll roads are in our future. Man who may have scammed millions commits suicide. Investigation into embezzlement at the High Point Housing Authority. A&T reassigns its athletic director.

Of course, we have more positive stuff: cutting down a Christmas tree; getting a local Apple store; a family safe after a house fire.

But still today's emphasis on crime, corruption and cost sets a tone that boosters tell me hurts the image of the city to outsiders. It is certainly not the sort of city I see when I'm out and about, that's for sure. But bad things happened, and they are important for people to know about. (We weren't even the first to report some of them.) They don't define the community, by any means, but they are part of it. And tomorrow's paper will be different.

Could be worse. The top story on the Web site is "High Point man charged in Internet sex sting."

Less than a month ago, we published some reader tips on dealing with the drought, conserving water and still keeping your plants alive. More than one reader suggested catching shower water and dishwater and using it in the garden. Makes sense.

This morning, after reading a similar story in The Charlotte Observer, we published a story saying that practice is illegal.

Hmmm. Our bad. But the idea has been around since at least the 2002 drought when we published handy Q&A with city water folks, including this answer:

If you want to water flower gardens or other landscaped areas around your house, you must recycle `"gray water" from inside.

"Use discretion," says Williams, coordinator of Greensboro's water conservation program. "Gray water can be dangerous.'"

And illegal. Who knew?

Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill, told the audience at the annual Conference on Public Administration that the major newspapers in the state bore some responsibility for the scandal at the state Department of Transportation. (Doesn't matter which scandal; there have been enough to go around.)

Ferrell's point was that when newspapers stop assigning reporters specifically to cover the department and the Board of Transportation, then the shenanigans of corrupt and inept bureaucrats flourish in the darkness of neglect. Consistent coverage can shine a light into the darkness.

Disregard the fact that when Ferrell and I were at the News & Observer in the '80s, the paper had a staffer assigned to the DOT and one of the big stories he wrote about was a statewide highway bid-rigging scandal. But I hear Ferrell's point. (And I enjoy his assumption, proved true over the centuries, that money and corruption go hand-in-hand.)

It is not a new complaint. Ever since President Bush began making his WMD case, charges have been made about the news media's failures in reporting the truth. Truth be told, it wasn't that difficult even in 2002 to find dissenting opinions about the case for war. But the point still stands: More coverage means less monkey business.

Welcome to the world of hard choices. It's always been this way. We don't cover everything. We don't even cover what we used to. Newspaper staffs are getting smaller, yet the number of meetings and events, of commissions and government agencies grows. Partly as a result, newspapers are also moving away from devoting as much energy to covering "buildings." Not only are there fewer reporters, but there is evidence that readers aren't as interested in what traditionally is produced by that coverage: stories about meetings and bureaucracy. For every big scandal story, there are 100 smaller process stories required to get there.

And it gets harder and harder to devote the resources where they are needed, which, honestly, is about everywhere.

Even the scandal stories don't always strike readership gold. Case in point: Reporter Taft Wireback wrote about the wasted money spent by school systems on recycled school bus tires. It made for a potent combination: wasted tax money and child safety. But if it resonated with readers, we didn't hear from many of them.

So, we are forced to make decisions where to place our bets: What will benefit the audience the most? Is it important? What can we do that others aren't doing? Will it save tax money? WIll it prevent or right an injustice?

Do we do enough? No. Not even close.

How do you watch over things when the watchdog has to cover acres and acres of corruption and countless miscreants? Employ honest public servants? Well, that's a start, and most of them are. But it only takes one.

Journalistic options:

* Citizens? I like this social network idea by Jay Rosen's NewAssignment.Net.

Maybe a beat reporter could do a way better job if there was a "live" social network connected to the beat, made up of people who know the territory the beat covers, and want the reporting on that beat to be better.

It makes sense when you consider the potential of the two-way Web and the inevitable march of the thinking world online. We're trying to pull together a proposal to participate.

* Ryan Sholin has an interesting idea with ReportingOn, as I said here.

* Citizens can and do report independently on all sorts of issues and government agencies. But the research is time-consuming and occasionally expensive. And it is difficult for most people to get enough mass so that people will pay attention.

Yet, in the NewAssignment.Net mode, Douglas McGill describes what he has learned from teaching basic journalism skills to citizens.

The insistence on telling the absolute truth that journalism requires, often forces students to reveal personal knowledge beyond what they had ever dared to publicly share. One of my students, a retired business consultant, wrote an article decribing his inner struggle at becoming a peace activist while his son was serving in the Army in Iraq. His story created a sense of solidarity in the room that was mystically strong. This is perhaps a microcosm of how journalism could ideally work in society, creating community day by day. "My view of journalism has changed," one student emailed me after the course. "At its best, it serves like an amazing expansion of our personal experience, bringing truth into our consciousness." Bingo.

Encouraging and enabling that Bingo Moment is the challenge in this time of tight and tightening resources is one we must figure out. Our future depends upon it.

Two stories:

My friend Sam Zealy was killed last week in a traffic accident. I got a phone call about it late Thursday night from a friend of the family. We had a story about the accident online late Thursday and it was updated first thing Friday, but we didn't include his name either time because police had not released it.

Victims of the Ocean Isle fire tragedy are identified in today's story from The State newspaper. The State didn't get the information from the police, who hadn't released it. The paper credited "other officials, family members, friends and other sources."

Why identify one set of victims and not the other? The Ocean Isle fire has gotten national media coverage since it happened Sunday morning. There is intense public interest. Because the victims were identified only as attending South Carolina and Clemson, tens of thousands of people -- students, friends, parents, other relatives, alums -- were left wondering, who? The paper could answer that for those of us who didn't check Facebook and MySpace.

Sam's death, while tragic, was smaller in scope. The old-fashioned grapevine moved quickly. My guess is that lots of people knew Friday morning. I don't know why the police hesitated in releasing his name -- his family certainly knew -- but out of respect and caution, we waited, too. There didn't seem to be a public hunger for the identification.

But I could be wrong about that. Consistency in policy is something I like. It makes decisions easier, and it sets forth clarity when others are deliberating. This isn't consistency. On the other hand, it's a judgment call, which I also like.

Want to help clarify?

What a week! First, Dumbledore is determined to be gay. Then, Jim Neal, a Senatorial candidate, confirms he is gay. Now, today, we publish a story about Bob Page, a recipient of this year's NCCJ Brotherhood Citation award, on the front page. Page is gay and has been out of the closet for years.

I guess sometimes it gets to be too much. One caller, who identified himself as Carl, let us know that he would no longer read the paper. He said, in so many words, that we shouldn't promote the homosexual lifestyle by writing about it without the appropriate condemnation.

When we wrote about Bob Page and his partner adopting a child in 2000 we were showered with cancellations. Not so much with today's story. Maybe times are changing. Then again, maybe we've already lost the readers who might complain along those lines. (We also got some positive comments in 2000.)

Anyway, I suspect that publishing stories like this is a reason some people consider us "liberal." If so, I plead guilty.