News-Record.com

Earlier this month, the Media Management Center released serious research and suggestions on the kind of news Web site that would attract teenagers.

It didn't take long to produce a spoof titled "Internet already obsolete."

Here is perhaps the most surprising finding from a new survey of what teenagers want from online news: "BEWARE OF TOO MUCH SCROLLING AND CLICKING."

"I don’t know if it is just me, but scrolling down a bunch of information is more overwhelming to me," says William, 18.

"They fuzz out when confronted with long, uninterrupted blocks of text," the survey says. "They don't seem to be able to absorb information or become interested in it unless it's broken up and illustrated."

There is a solution: "Internet-age writing syllabus and course overview."

Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new "Lost Generation" of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t! Throughout the course, a further paring down of the Hemingway/Stein school of minimalism will be emphasized, limiting the superfluous use of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjunctions, gerunds, and other literary pitfalls.

Hemingway/Stein? Who's that?

Andy Bechtel, a refugee of both the News & Record and the News & Observer and now a UNC professor, writes about the confusion the national media have with the names of the newspapers in Raleigh and Charlotte. It's not really confusion so much as it is sloppy reporting.

We get the same thing, even from our own readers. I've heard people refer to us as the News & Observer, the Observer, the News-Record, the News, the Daily News (the morning paper 25 years ago) and the Record (the afternoon paper 25 years ago). And that's not listing the more indelicate names that are used on purpose. We've been located in Greenville, N.C., Greenville, S.C., and Greensboro, S.C.

It's no big deal to me, at least, although I suppose brand managers would disagree. Of course, I still get my Datsun filled up at the Esso station on the corner there by the Big Star at Friendly Shopping Center.

We are going to shutter the print edition and publish via Twitter with its patented 140-character news bursts.

Believe it? The Guardian made that announcement this morning.

Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet.

For example, Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by", eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original.

At the same time, The Mountain Xpress in Asheville made a similar announcement, calling itself the nation's first Twaper.

It's a great idea -- quick, low cost and fun. All it needs is a business plan.

Update: The Mountain Xpress folks insist this is not an April Fool's joke here and here. And I say good for them. But it was a joke.

Other April Fool's jokes here and here.

April 2 update: CJR rounds them up.

By the way, discovered these stories on Twitter where you can follow me.

For the second time in a month, all of the copies of Yes! Weekly are missing from the box on the street. Last time this happened, the publisher of Yes! sent me an e-mail saying that "someone obviously doesn't want people to read this week's issue."

Clearly, the same is true about this week's issue.

Don't tell my staff this, but photojournalist is the #3 rated most stressful job, behind surgeon and airline pilot, and reporter is #7. (Oh, heck, I think my staff knows it already.)

Since surgeons take a person's life in their hands every time they enter an operating room, it's not surprising that stress plays a big role, especially when they encounter unexpected issues. On the other hand, commercial airline pilots are responsible for the lives of their passengers and crew every time they fly. In the event of an emergency, they must handle rapidly changing situations from poor weather conditions and UFGs -- unidentified flying geese -- to equipment malfunctions. And while photojournalists tend to only be responsible for themselves, their jobs can require them to be on the frontline of every catastrophe, from wars to hurricanes to riots. However, one common bond between all three of our most stressful jobs is their demanding schedules, which often change at the last minute and may require extended periods away from home or long shifts while on the job.

So I'm doing them a favor by not sending them to the glamour assignments out of town, right?

For reporters, it says, newspaper reporters struggle with deadlines and an increasing scarcity of work.

Got that right, but check out the least stressful jobs; reporting and photojournalism are much more fun.

By the way, reporter comes in at 141 in the most satisfying job category. Photojournalist: 167.

Publication editor? #31.

So often delegations from Greensboro go to other cities to see how they have succeeded. It's nice that a delegation looked to Greensboro to see how it is that the city has such a fine public library. The Winston-Salem Journal wrote about the library on its front page today.

The resulting library -- the one that opened in 1998 -- had lots of touches that came from public discussions. It had a coffee shop and area for art displays. Even the arrangement of the study tables was based on what patrons recommended.

"What we were hearing was that people wanted to look at their library as a destination place," (Library Director Sandya Neerman) said.

We dropped the Motley Fool a year ago when we were cutting back on commodity content. We decided that stock advice was abundant on television and the Internet and that we could use the money the column cost and the space it used differently.

Now Fitz and Jen report that the Fool is panning newspaper stocks. It drops the New York Times and Gannett in with Countrywide Financial and the shoe industry. Dubious company.

True, many stocks are down because of overall market volatility, and prices will eventually reverse as our economy strengthens over time. However, some stocks may be down for more reasons than just general market movement. It's important for investors to distinguish how companies stand relative to these conditions, and whether the ones that are selling now are true values with the potential to rebound.

When we made the changes to the business section, I didn't get many complaints about the elimination of Motley Fool.

(The News & Record is owned by a private company and its shares aren't publicly traded.)

Last night's Carolina-Duke game was one for the ages -- or at least for February 2009.

Here are some additional photos that photographer Nelson Kepley shot.

But for a look at the more affectionate side of Nelson, check out photo 41 on the N&O's slideshow. That's Ty Lawson he's cradling in his lap.

Daily I hear from readers with ideas on improving the newspaper. But rarely are they as good as these. (The only one that competes was offered by a friend a few years ago. Mix nicotine into the ink to make the paper addictive. Jon Stewart used it last night.)

President Obama addressed Democratic senators at the Newseum, which, of course, celebrates the news business and features a 74-foot-high engraving of the First Amendment.

Journalists? Nah, they weren't allowed in.

Officials say such meetings always are closed, whether they occur in the Capitol or elsewhere, the AP reported.

Now the Newseum isn't journalistic hallowed ground or anything. After all, it costs the equivalent of a case of Busch just to get in. Still, you think that someone in the press office might suggest to Mr. Transparency that this could be bad form.

You think any of those senators had a video phone? I mean, if you can get photos of an Olympic champion puffing a bong, maybe it's time for senators to become citizen journalists.

(Thanks, Janet, for the tip.)

Did you hear the one about the contest where the first prize was a free week in Greensboro?

Rim shot, please.

That's how Don Patterson began his story yesterday about the sweepstake's prize given away by state's travel Web site. It's a fine story and, because we live here, we can poke good-natured fun at ourselves.

So, what are we to make of a D.C. based travel journalist's evaluation of the contest?

But let's be honest, Greensboro doesn't have the same allure as, say, Asheville -- or even Charlotte.

After appreciating the Proximity Hotel, where the winner will stay, she adds: But the rest of the prize package seems sort of lackluster: a golf outing, tickets to an event at the city's coliseum, a trip to the Natural Science Center. Other than the bicycle rental to enjoy nearby Greensboro Greenway, I'm not really feeling it.

It's always an interesting experience when an out-of-state journalist swings through to write about the area. She acknowledges she doesn't know Greensboro and asks: But perhaps Greensboro truly is a hidden gem waiting to be discovered. What do you think? Is Greensboro worth the five-hour trek from the District?

Tell her.

Even an astrologist and journalist has closed the door on newspapers.

Daily print newspapers have reached the end of their life cycle, and there’s no turning back. Twelve years from now they’ll probably have gained the status of a "remember when."

Two of the changes, the publishing of the design of the Internet and the advent of thousands of online newspapers, came when Uranus was in air signs, symbolizing a release of mass communication from specific equipment and anticipating its current ability to be reached through all sorts of wireless portable electronic gadgets.

The second element underscoring the end of the life cycle of daily newspapers is Pluto, the planet of death and rebirth in other forms, which has made one complete circuit of the zodiac during the era of the daily press and has returned to where he was when the era began.

Ah, the indignity.

Fortunately for me, my horoscope for today says: It is safe for you to tell someone who much you care about him or her. The language will flow easily when you do. There is nothing inappropriate about your honest emotions.

Well, there is something inappropriate about voicing my honest emotions about that prediction here.

Let me just say that I have bought lottery tickets using the lucky numbers the horoscope gave me on my birthday in September. Haven't won yet.

Via Elaine Helm on Twitter

I just finished reading "Black & White and Dead All Over" by John Darnton. Super novel about murder in the newsroom. Funny and suspenseful at the same time. Wanna know how journalists think? This is the book for it.

Many of the scenes were dead-on pitch perfect about life at a newspaper. I selected some that sounded so right. Unfortunately, these are generally serious. The funniest -- and there were more funny ones than serious -- were too long to include here.

A newsroom:
Butterby loved it like this, deserted and peaceful, a battlefield after the slaughter. Page proofs and notes and photos cluttered the editors’ desk like spent bandages and cartridge belts. The reporters' cubicles were darkened, burned-out pillboxes. Their desks were stacked with debris -- yellowing newspapers, thick bound reports, legal pads, loose notes, books, food containers, coffee cups.

The old days:
In the morning, you picked up the newspaper and there it was, neatly laid out with headlines whose size and placement told you what was important. The prizes and revenue poured in. It was like standing on the bridge of an aircraft carrier and believe that you, not the ocean, were actually keeping the damn thing afloat. But now, with the Internet, the blogs, MSNBC, fifteen-minutes news cycles, giveaway papers in the subway -- Christ, you turn around for a moment and the whole damn world is different.

Coming to grips with the disappearance of the old days:
And the old-time reporters and editors -- "the dinosaur brigade," he called them -- were whining. He knew they denigrated him, just because he tried to liven up the paper with imaginative features and soft news. You'd think they'd wake up and see that meteor spinning through space right at them. You'd think they'd want to avoid extinction.

Reporting techniques:
Judy had taught him some tricks of the trade, including what he called the "helpless orphan" approach -- that is, in certain situations, to come on as clueless and ask rudimentary questions that were apt to elicit colorful quotes.

Editing techniques:
Writing the story was agony. He had banged out the lede fast enough, but no sooner had he filed it and begun work on the next page than queries began pouring in from both the backfield and the copy desk. ("Are we sure she's inside that thing?" "Could she breathe in there? Maybe she's still alive." "What's the actual composition of the metal?") Everyone wanted something placed higher up in the article.

"How about I put it all before the first paragraph," Jude finally shouted, slamming down the phone.

The thrill and fear of the scoop:
For the first time in what seemed like ages, walking down the street, Jude felt the reporter's rush -- that wonderful excitement that children experience in coming to the finale of a treasure hunt. But as always, it was soon followed by anxiety. What if someone else found the same information? What if -- especially now that there was no paper -- a competitor beat him to the punch?

The corporate feel:
It's dross. The editors praise you to the skies. You get scoops. You work like a dog. I used to think that all added up. It was like putting money in the bank -- all those canceled holidays, those late nights, those planes you jump on to fly to the latest disaster, those kids' birthdays you miss. Then the editors who praised you move on. New ones come up. They don't know what you've done. You turn around one day and the slate's clean. The bank account's vanished. You get older. People don't return your calls so much. When you get right down to it, nobody remembers any of the good stuff -- nobody but you yourself.

Work-life balance:
The problem was that she resented his work. She worked in an art gallery in Chelsea. She had a leisurely lunch and left at 6 p.m. She couldn't imagine a job with irregular hours that you gave so much of yourself to because that was the only way you could do it. Recently, her resentments had made her shrewish. He could look ahead and envision a long line of missed dinners, forgotten appointments, apologetic calls -- her resentment expanding like a hot-air balloon. The trouble with people whose work was just work was that they couldn't understand people whose work was a calling.

Explanation of a plagiarist:
"I did it," she said softly, "because I was tired." She paused. "Just tired. It's so difficult, this thing we do. Talking to people who don't want to talk to us. Interviewing people who've lost their families. Listening to officials lying. Jumping on airplanes to go to famines or earthquakes. Running off to places other people are trying to escape from. It's exhausting. Especially as you get older. I guess I just wanted to take a few shortcuts."

The present and future:
"You know," said O'Donnell. "Writing those stories was painless. No editors, no second-guessing, no rewrites. I'm beginning to think this thing called the Internet has something to recommend it.”

Want a sense of some of the stuff we talk about inside the hallowed walls of our building?

I don't know if non-journalists recognize the conversations here, but I sure do, even if they didn't actually happen at the N&R.

Via Erica Smith on Twitter.

Former Sen. Jim Broyhill spoke to the Greensboro Rotary today. He told the story of a reporter who shot and killed a member of the House of Representatives...and was acquitted. It's worth retelling.

Seems that in the 1880's Rep. William Taulbee, D-Ky., was carrying on with a "woman not his wife," in Broyhill's words. Charles Kincaid, a correspondent with the Louisville Times, reported it. As a result, Taulbee's wife left him and he didn't bother to run for re-election. But he began threatening Kincaid every chance he got. In February 1890, they met once again:

At about 12 noon, Kincaid went to the Capitol to conduct an interview. While waiting in the corridor, Taulbee appeared. "I have no time to talk with you. I don't want any trouble with you," said the reporter, but he was shouted at, grabbed by the shoulder, and his ear was violently pulled. "I am a small man and unarmed," maintained Kincaid, but Taulbee replied in a malicious tone, "You had better be armed, or go and arm yourself." Two hours later, the two met again on the steps to the Capitol's basement restaurant. A shot rang out and a bullet hit Taulbee in the face near the eye. Kincaid made no attempt to escape and said, "I did it." Arrested, the reporter was later set free on bail pending any change in the former congressman's condition.

At trial, Kincaid's attorneys argued:

After Taulbee assaulted and threatened him, the reporter went home upset and frightened, but decided to return to the Capitol to keep an appointment. Before leaving his room, however, Kincaid picked up his revolver for protection. At the Capitol, he met with some other reporters, begged them not to print anything about his latest encounter with Taulbee (some of the earlier incidents apparently were picked up by the press), and then headed down the steps to the basement restaurant for lunch. Kincaid did not realize, however, that Taulbee and another man (Samuel Donaldson) were standing near the bottom of the steps. Once Taulbee saw Kincaid, the former congressman raised his left hand and started to approach. "You're going to kill me," said Kincaid as he backed away. "Stand back." But as the reporter drew his gun, Taulbee merely said, "I'll show you" and continued to march towards Kincaid as his intended victim retreated to the landing on the steps. Once Taulbee was almost within arm's reach, Kincaid was convinced that it was the ex-politician's life or his own, so he fired.

The whole story is told here. The New York Times detailed coverage of the shooting is here.

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

First, the Simpsons, via E&P:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man, I loved that conversation.

(Thanks K&D for the invite.)

Some people believe -- and I'm one of them -- that those political prognosticators will say pretty much anything if it gets them more notoriety or, better yet, more airtime. So, who can resist when their comments coming back to haunt them? Andrew Sullivan reminds us of some of the best ones about President-elect Obama.

My favorite: "Barack Obama is on his way to a McGovern candidacy," -- Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, March 29, 2008.

(Via E&P.)

Journalists -- well, print journalists -- have never been fashion plates. Truthfully, I should qualify that even more by saying male print journalists. Dressing up means throwing on a navy blazer if you can find one on the company coat rack.

But we're going to positively GQ beginning Monday.

That's when a federal regulation requiring us and anyone else working near a highway to wear “high-visibility safety clothes” -- in our case, an orange vest. (Comes from the jailhouse jumpsuit clothing line, I think.)

One of our criminal justice reporters, Ryan Seals, reminds us: "Don’t forget it if you run out to cover an accident.... Troopers can get darn right nasty if you don't follow the rules."

Applies to photographers, too.

So, as you're passing by a wreck or a search by a highway and see an orange vest, give a honk and wave.

There but for the grace of god....

(Thanks, Newsom, for the link.)

Andy Bechtel at The Editor's Desk compiles a list of the top 10 complaints about a newspaper's redesign.

As a veteran of several newspaper redesigns, I have heard them all. But he missed a couple:

* What have you done to my newspaper? It was fine the way it was.

* The Jumble? The heck with that; I can't find anything!

* Why did you get rid of (insert a feature or comic dropped from the paper years ago)?

Actually, reader complaints about redesigns aren't bad. They care enough to call and write.

The season premiere of The Office may have featured a piece of the News & Record.

In an episode in which the characters try to lose weight as part of a company contest, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) enters the office conference room in a fat suit. As a motivational tool, he pins five photos of overweight people/things: the fat Elvis, the Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man, Jabba the Hut, Big Momma and a photo of two huge guys on mini-motorcycles like the Shriners ride in parades.

Some of us think that John Page took that photo of the McCrary/McGuire twins in 1970. (It ran in the N&R and Life magazine.)

Almost immediate update: That's not Page's photo. It was a copy of the style of the above.

The true story.

Via Will Sullivan.

Howard Weaver at Etaoin Shrdlu gives us photographic evidence of the strict -- to say nothing of uncomfortable in so many different ways -- frugality at newspapers around the country. In this case, it is captured by our friends at the News & Observer.

Given the tabloids' well-earned political reporting credibility, I guess the red-faced mainstream news media has some new stories to follow:

And this one:

DEMOCRATIC presidential contender Barack Obama is caught up in a stunning new scandal as investigators scour the nation for a secret love child, political insiders reveal in a blockbuster GLOBE exclusive.

"Existing home sales down in the Triad" -- News-Record.com

"Triad existing home sales down 18 percent" -- Biz Journal.com

"Triad home sales increase in second quarter" -- DigTriad.com

And they're all accurate!

For the heck of it, we'll try to take another tack in the newsprint version.

Numbers for July blog readership are in. Normally, letters to the editor is the most visited site, and it was in July.

No. 2, though, is a newbie. Not only is it not a blog, but it is a single blog entry. And not only that, it is a blog entry from last November. And one more not only: it has more page views than the next three blogs combined.

What it is? Here's a hint: I'm not a monster...I'm just ahead of the curve.

Answer.

* Headline refers to this.

They just playing now.

Last night, Cuil gave me this when I searched my name.

Tonight?

Don't know him, either, and I don't think it's getting closer to my look. I think I like it, though.

Like so many others I tried the new search engine, cuil. Like the egotist I am, I searched my name. Here's what I got. I'm the third one down in the left-hand column.

Like so many others, I'm not impressed.

I don't know him. He's handsome enough, I suppose, but looks he just cuiled himself and pulled up a photo of me. Besides that, the link to me is correct, but the post featured is this one from June 27, a month old.

It's kind of fun, really, to think of how long it will take to fix it and to wonder who may have the bad luck to be stuck with my mug.

My more famous brother, however, gets two entries on the page but no photo with either. And, as an artist, he should have the photos.

Report from Teresa Prout, our metro editor working a late shift:

I got a call at 10:30 Friday night from a guy asking whether Canada is a state. I was stunned and sort of busy so I said: Huh? Then he repeated the question, and I told him that it most certainly is not. He said something to a bunch of other people in the room and then he asked what the last states added were. I told him Alaska and Hawaii. He thanked me and hung up.

I've been in meetings like this. Heck, I've run meetings like this.

In its own absurd way, it does describe the "new product creation process" that stymies the industry sometimes. Except that in real life more people get involved, and money gets discussed more. But, hey, a stop sign is a good idea.

Via Seth Godin.

DJ Chris Kelly on Rock 92 invited media outlets to bid to be the exclusive publishers of photos of his new baby, in that way that celebrities do. While he specifically called out the News & Record -- well, he also mentioned Auto Trader and the Thrifty Nickel -- he said his preference was Yes! Weekly because of the suck-up coverage the tabloid did on the station's recent Bubbalympics.

Fair enough.

Should we bid? The baby is due this fall so the photos may be a welcome break from the diet of boring political coverage. On the other hand, some people may accuse us of pandering. Or worse.

This is new territory for us, so I solicit the advice of you, dear readers.

Update: One in-house wag suggests we go for photos of Rosemary Plybon 's twins. Way more followers of the WFMY morning show announcer.

A couple bloggers noted the News & Record's appearance on Letterman last night.

Here it is. Thanks to our friends at WFMY, who passed it along. Update: Here's WFMY's story. Bottom line, bird still lost.

Update: News researcher David Bulgin passes along the link that the N&R was mentioned in "Small Town News" last month, too. Here's the clip. Greensboro is the final item, at about the 4:10 mark. (Personally, I liked the one at the 3:05 point better.)

The Fox affiliate in Las Vegas has begun featuring McDonald's coffee in a prominent product placement on its morning news/talk program. Invariably, this will be met with calls of outrage from journalists all over.

Not here.

Assistant Sports Editor Margaret Banks is all over this revenue enhancement opportunity. She proposes "selling sponsorships to the afternoon budget meeting: 'Here's Wednesday's sports lineup, brought to you by Duracell. Duracell … the world’s best rechargeable battery. Period. OK. We’ll have coverage of East-West all-star soccer …"

Me, I'm happy with the sticker ad that occasionally adorns the front page, but Margaret is an innovator and I don't want to dampen that spirit.

Newspaper.

My advice: Stay with black & white. You can do more with it. But before you start gluing, be prepared to change your room color scheme as newsprint yellows after a week or so of sunlight.

Happy Friday.

(Via Coudal Partners.)

Just for fun, we took a page from our magazine cousins today and produced two different Life fronts on the release of "The Dark Knight." The papers were spaced so that the same neighborhood got different versions, and the different issues made it into the same box.

Collect both!

Credit goes to assistant features editor Mike Kernels and artist Tim Rickard.

"They're making mountains out of a gnat's turd," said Regina VonCannon, a potter with a shop in downtown Seagrove, about the dispute.

That is the caption to a photo illustrating a front-page story about a feud in Seagrove.

The thoughts of one reader: Well, just when I thought the world was about as crass as it can get, I see that the News & Record wants to join the crowd. Regarding the caption under the photograph of the woman from Seagrove...how classy!!!! Come on...what happened to high standards?

Unfortunately, the world isn't as crass as it can get. Turd is not on our list of forbidden terms...when someone else uses it.

The truth is that sometimes a quote is so colorful and so telling, you just have to let that baby run.

Update: On the other hand, I just got an e-mail thanking us for publishing a story about the latest at the Mediterranean Union. Bravo on your article about the Mediterranean Union in section A of the newpaper today!!! It is always thrilling to read about earth shaking news from around the world. Even the television stations failed to note this momentous news this time. I realize that this was from The Associated Press, but I would very much like to know exactly what the names of these 40 plus nations are.

Specifically I would like to know whether or not Iraq or Iran would be included in this union(which would be even more difficult to believe). I also hope that the newspaper will continue to provide follow up information about this dramatic move.

We've had our share of what I consider frivolous lawsuits over the years, but I don't think any have been quite like this one against our friends at The News & Observer.

From a Courthouse News Service report: A subscriber filed a class action against the News & Observer newspaper, claiming its plan to lay off 70 workers will deliver an inferior product to customers who subscribed before the layoffs began on June 17 -- part of 1,400 layoffs in the McClatchy newspaper chain.

While I haven't seen a comment from the folks at the N&O, I suspect they would have gladly refunded his money in the way we do in the non-litigious world.

Thursday update: The N&O catches up with the story.

Good quote from Editor John Drescher:

"We've had some really good papers recently, and they're worth more than the 36 cents a day that Mr. Hempstead is paying us. In fact, he owes me money. So when he gets a lawyer, he can work with my lawyer and figure out how much he's going to pay me for the excellent coverage he's been getting recently."

A friend e-mails: "Isn't it just like Jesse Helms, whose dislike of newspapers is legendary, to die at the very worst time for newspapers?"

The reference is to newspaper deadlines, which are around midnight to 1 a.m., generally speaking. So Jesse's last act was to make sure that newspapers were the last to tell people the news. He must be smiling.

Juan Antonio Giner over at Innovations in Newspapers often posts photographs of newsrooms, both current and historic. Here's one unearthed from our archives that could serve as the beginning of a new series.

That's reporter Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane and me in our younger days, although somehow Dawn still looks the same today and I have no mustache and less hair on top of my head. Much less hair.

But anyway, that's not what this is about. This photo was taken at a company strategic retreat at least 10 years ago. Beer? We were drinking alcoholic beverages on company time on the company dime? In front of God and everybody? Boy, has that policy ever changed.

Hmmm, is it just a coincidence that newspapers were strong and dominant then, too?

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

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

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

Oh, wait. I'm beginning to understand.

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

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

Here's the old one:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In my house, my wife's morning mood is closely tied to coffee and the newspaper. When she has the caffeine and the paper and ink, she is on her game. When one of the two are missing, watch out.

I hear from a decent number of people that their mornings follow the same trajectory. (I love these people!)

Juan Antonio Giner has been posting photos of this worldwide morning ritual. It's a fun series. He refers to it as a new metric: The future of newspapers depends … on how many people drink coffee while reading newspapers.

(Personally, I'm thinking that he's missing the third element -- cigarettes -- but the tobacco industry has its own challenges.)

Anyway, I'm afraid his is not a new metric but rather it's an old one. This is a ritual that the Greatest Generation and the Boomers have. A part of me wishes that more of X'ers and Y'ers practiced it, too. But there are plenty of inspirational images to go around. The next photos to post, Juan Antonio, are of people drinking coffee and reading, listening and watching the news on their computers and PDAs.

Newsweek has a piece about professors pulling the plug on students using laptops in their classes. Too much Web browsing; not enough eyes up.

I've spoken to classes in which most students looked at laptop screens instead of me and what I was writing on the board. Imagine talking to a group of people while they were casually paging through magazines. That's how it felt. The non-laptop users were also by far the most active discussers, too.

My conundrum: Because much of what I was talking about involved digital journalism, I didn't say anything about the laptops. I did call on some of the students tapping away, though, just for fun.

A survey in England reports: One in three employees admits they have been to work with a hangover and more than one in 10 has been drunk at their desk, a study suggests.

I'm shocked!

Some occupations are worse than others with regard to drinking and the workplace.

Forty-one per cent of people working in media and creative jobs said they had been to work while still drunk -- four times the average.

Oh. Well, that's more like it.

I have been critical in the past of celebrity news coverage in the paper, explaining that we didn't spend any time and little space on the antics of Britney and Brangelina. Leave that to the Peoples and the Us magazines of the world.

Oh, how wrong I was. Little did I know that we have had nothing but celebrity-dominated front pages for much of the past month

From The New York Times:

Some of the most celebrity-centric, entertainment-obsessed news media outlets have added a heavy dose of political news to their lineups, taking space normally devoted to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and handing it to articles on people known more for wonkiness than sexiness....

Driving all of it, editors and campaign aides say, is the appetite for news on presidential candidates and their families -- people who have transcended politics to become bona fide celebrities. As the campaign stretches into its second year, in some corners it is simply seen as entertainment.

Entertaining, it is.

Joe Killian posts a couple photos on Decision 2008 of the extent to which some Hillary fans will go. (And Joe has a nice little riff about the music played for the candidates.)

Which media bigshot would you least like to be this week?

Katie Couric -- facing low ratings, a vote of confidence, and calls for her to move along
Mort Zuckerman of the NY Daily News -- hemmed in by Rupert Murdoch's latest newspaper gambit
Gary Pruitt of McClatchy -- saying his company isn't going bankrupt
Wall Street Journal editor -- facing a change in the paper. Oops, he's already gone

Editor's note: Last week was swept by George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson.

I never read much Arthur C. Clarke that I can recall. Heinlein and Dick were more my style when it came to science fiction. That said, Adrian Monck snags a great piece of the past with his salvaging of this from Liz Donovan.

From 2001: A Space Odyssey: An astronaut reads the news:

...he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him.

...Each (headline) had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort.

That was published 40 years ago. Happy Birthday!

These are the sorts of references -- and there are plenty of them -- that make me think we need to hire a science fiction writer to help us understand and plan for the future. I know that Orson Scott Card doesn't think much of us, but that's probably a good thing in this case. It would help us think broadly and grandly. I wonder if he's available....

Our team in the Reading Connections Scrabble Challenge faced off against a team of WFMY folk. Our group was nervously confident. They were veterans of the challenge; Dawn Kane, Romy McGinnis and Marie Inkenbrandt had been there before.

We won the first game, but lost the second when the FMY team bought a lifeline, a roaming expert who looked at their tiles and made a suggestion using all the letters. Paliest.

Paliest? Means most pale, at least to the 17 people in the world who know the word. Normal people would say palest.

The FMYers got 80-some points on that one, which pushed them over the top. Congratulations to both teams.

Remember, it was a fundraiser.

I know that spammers don't care who gets their spew so long as a fraction of losers people respond. Some professional PR folks seem to feel the same way.

I get a fair collection of both run-of-the-mill spam and PR spam every day. I distinguish between the two this way:

* ROM Spam -- The same junk everyone gets. Subject line: Can you make these commercial closings? and Insurance agent closers needed!! Two exclamation points!! It's important!! (Our spam filters apparently weed out the mail about Russian brides, although I do get the occasional Nigerian money transfer scam.)
* PR spam -- Please publish me in the paper or the Web site. Subject line: News from Pitt -- Dan Marino commencement speaker and Reminder: Start planning your Earth Day coverage now! and Creative Hong Kong in London.

They both take me about the same amount of time to hit delete.

Do news organizations exist that actually use the releases? Even the University of Pittsburgh item had no relevance to anyone around here except, perhaps, parents of Pitt seniors and I doubt there are many of those.

I know it doesn't cost the PR spammers anything to include me on their list, but it's so ineffective. I hope they're doing something else to earn their money.

I got a frantic voice-mail Saturday from someone at the New York Post asking to speak to the entertainment reporter covering the Jay-Z's "Heart of the City" tour with Mary J. Blige at the Coliseum that night. I wasn't there and got the message too late. We didn't staff the concert, either, darn it.

Turns out we missed a big story.

Here's the report from TMZ: Mary J. Blige basically just blabbed to a sold-out crowd of thousands in North Carolina that Jay-Z and Beyonce Knowles got married, by congratulating "my man Jay-Z" and "my girl B" and dedicating a song to them. The couple haven't officially acknowledged their nups.

Jigga teased the masses with a couple notes from "Crazy in Love," his duet with B, but didn't say anything about the wedding.

This is a better version, but whenever I can refer to Jay-Z as "Jigga" without sounding like an idiot, I want to do it.

Beyonce's photo at the airport here.

I actually knew Jay-Z was here; I just hadn't tuned into the reports that he might have secretly gotten married to Beyonce the day before so I didn't put the two together. In retrospect, I'd have rather been at the concert than doing what I was doing.

Wednesday update: The AP posts this video report raising a question about the nuptials, but the only support is a comment from alleged wedding guest Gwyneth Paltrow saying she doesn't know what anyone is talking about in that way that you might deny knowing anything, wink, wink.

I have had people tell me that the newspaper stinks, but it was always metaphorical.

Until I got this e-mail: I don't know if it is the ink or the paper but the newspaper smells awful ! It about takes your breath when it is taken out of the plastic bag. If you can stand to read it, washing your hands must be next!

After a bit of inquiry, I discovered that the plastic bags occasionally develop an odor if they are particularly old.

Hmmm. If we can develop the right smell -- ocean breeze? pine forest? -- maybe that will help sell the paper.

Another one of those lists. In this case, all 25 are true. Here are three:
2. Sources always call back well after the story has run.

4. Somebody somewhere will always be upset about any given story I've written.

Are there specific words you just hate?

I remember a discussion in high school English about examples of onomatopoeia. A girl offered "ugly." The teacher asked how that was an example, and the girl said, "Well, I think the word 'ugly' is ugly."

Anyway, some participants in the American Copy Editors Society forum have some they hate. How about utilize, spearhead, fruition, brandish and imprimatur?

Yeah, they don't bother me either. Do you have any?

Thanks, Pam, for the pointer.

A longtime reader sent me a copy of a Greensboro Daily News bill from 1922. At her request, I blocked out the name and address.

Six months for $3.50. Not bad. She wrote: "This is addressed to my father, who was a subscriber then and throughout his life. He saw newspapers as 'continuing education' and a necessary part of life."

I like the way he thought.

Howard Weaver at Etaoin Shrdlu points to this fun widget that will become an addictive game if you start.

He's interactive director with McClatchy so he connects it vaguely to online media company possibilities. Not me. It's just a fun brainteaser keeping me from doing real work.

Slate raises the question, based on this week's episode of The Wire, whether anyone has seriously been dressed down for cussing in the newsroom. And it was promptly answered. (Via Romenesko.)

Umm, OK. I'll say it: I've asked a reporters to tone down their language in the newsroom.

Before I'm drummed out of the two-fisted-drinkers, "Front-Page" journalism clubhouse, let me explain. Two reasons:

* Loud cursing in the newsroom does offend some employees who weren't brought up that way. It's a matter of respect for others. While it seems daintier than some journalists prefer, managers have to worry about everyone. I put the emphasis on loud because my experience is that newsroom staffers are more tolerant of language than most places this side of construction sites. Cursing among friends around the water cooler or in the cubicle hasn't elicited any complaint here.

* We have school groups tour the newspaper a couple times a week. Teachers and parents don't want their children to hear that. If memory serves, a middle school kid's vocabulary can shame the most hardened reporter, but that's almost irrelevant when the word gets home what they heard at the newspaper.

Because I've been known to curse as part of daily conversation, it's really not all that hard to ask others to tone it down a bit. Now, when I got a call from our human resources department several years ago that someone had complained about a female worker not wearing a bra, that was a conversation that was uncomfortable.

By the way, we don't allow smoking or drinking in the newsroom, either, although we drew the line at an IT demand we not place our cups of coffee near computer keyboards.

Ok, let my beating begin. But keep the language clean.

This morning, picking up the N&R and the New York Times off my driveway, I noticed that the papers felt different. That is, it felt as if the News & Record were bigger in size and weight. So I weighed them. The N&R was nearly 3 pounds to 2 pounds for the Times.

Practical and philosophical explanations abound, but what does it mean? Nothing.

Do you know the difference between God and an editor?

God doesn't think he's an editor.

How about this one:

An editor should have a pimp for a brother, so he'd have someone to look up to.

Courtesy of Steve Smith's blog.

Special sympathy for Robbie Perkins. He's reliving a moment -- and soon surgery -- that I had back in September. Both bicycle falls. Both less than spectacular. Both landed wrong. Both undergoing surgery to insert plate. I'm hoping his goes better than mine. I'm still in physical therapy.

Andy Bechtel at The Editor's Desk on the continuing power of newspapers. (I'm sure the player's covering of the word Picayune was inadvertent.)

I had not heard of the "curse of knowledge" until I read this nifty post by Maurreen Skowran, a copy editor at the News & Observer and host of News Atoms.

It's a curse, indeed.

Sometimes discovering that what you thought was legitimate is actually bogus doesn't lessen the enjoyment. Pam at Words at Work provides a list of purported "actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays" except that they probably aren't. Still, I can see myself reading them in a story and laughing outloud. A few of my favorites:

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

For all of us old newspaper wretches, this will drive you to the liquor cabinet.

During the afternoon budget meeting, the photo chief mentions a story about George Dickel distillery trying to reduce its inventory.

Faces around the room went blank. Finally, someone asked "Who's George Dickel?"

More than half the people in the room hadn't heard of the Tennessee whisky, forcing me to pull a bottle out of my desk drawer to show them.*

The daily news about the digital revolution doesn't signal a new media world the way that story does.

For some reason it reminded me of this George Thorogood lyric:

Now, the other night I lay sleeping,
And I woke from a terrible dream.
So I called up my pal, Jack Daniels,
And his partner Jimmy Beam.

And we drank alone, yeah, with nobody else.
We drank alone, yeah, with nobody else.
Yeah, you know when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself.

* For my friends in Human Resources, that actually didn't happen.

This is one of the things I worry about: mock story written for a departing staff member's going away party gets into print or pixels. In this case, a satirical farewell speech from a copy editor at the Santa Barbara News-Press was published on the paper's Web site.

Eventually someone got fired over it. (Thanks to Pam at Words at Work for the tip.)

It's a widespread newsroom tradition: departing employees get a mock front page that makes fun of them and some of the stories they've written and people they've covered. We have the same tradition.

Because newsrooms tend to attract some outsized, creative and occasionally dysfunctional personalities, we've had some pretty wild, creative and occasionally inappropriate pages. Some have been inappropriate enough that I have seen the need to tell the person in charge of our copy desk -- the people who are the ultimate safety net in a newsroom -- to make sure that the wrong photo or wrong batch of copy doesn't find its way into print. They look at me as if I'm an idiot, which is the correct response. (I'm pretty confident one of the eagle-eyed pressmen would catch if it slipped through to the press.)

Would I fire someone over it? It depends what happened, but I wouldn't be inclined to go that far.

Would I stop the tradition? No way. I still have mine from the day I left the News & Observer 20+ years ago. (It features a photo of me and Pope John Paul II. You had to be there.)

I'm reading Eric Clapton's autobiography and came across Jamie Oldaker's name. Oldaker is a drummer who played with Clapton for 10 years or so (post-Layla).

He was a year ahead of me in high school in Tulsa. I knew he had played as a session man with Leon Russell there, but hadn't known he toured with Clapton. Then I read that Carl Radle, bass player on Layla, graduated from the same school -- Edison -- albeit many years before I was there. Impressive enough.

Drawn to the computer, I discovered a Wikipedia entry on the Tulsa Sound. It reminded me of Dwight Twilley, who we knew as an artist; he drew the cover of the student phone book at Edison. I think I knew he was in a band, but wouldn't have predicted he would become a Top 20 artist. (His bandmate Phil Seymour was at Edison, too, a year younger than me.)

That then led me to Tuck Andress, Scott Musick and David Tanner, all of whom were in my class.

Unfortunately, I played the clarinet, which did nothing wonders for my cool factor. (Thanks, Sue.) The rest is history.

About using newspapers. Ignore that last one.

And about attracting visitors in the blogosphere.

Google the headline and, after you get links to a hip-hop artist, you get links to posts about the hit movie American Gangster, which stars Denzel Washington as the Harlem drug kingpin. The movie refers several times to his hometown as Greensboro.

Why would the scriptwriter falsify this factual detail?

Lucas was born in La Grange, N.C., and lived in Knoxville, Tenn., Lexington, Ky., and Wilson, N.C. before he was out of his teens. He says so himself in an interview with New York magazine. No evidence of a Greensboro connection that I can find. (If you liked the movie, you'll like the New York article.)

Still, it's unfortunate that Greensboro is mentioned so prominently in the movie. Because there are so many people who believe that the entertainment they see on television and at the movies is factually accurate, the last thing Greensboro needs to be known for is the birthplace of an American Gangster.

(Allen referred to the birthplace earlier, but I just saw the movie last night and needed to add my two cents.)