News-Record.com

Katie Reetz, award-winning feature writer, video star, and journalistic troublemaker, has resigned to work for Elon University as assistant director for admissions communications. (With all due respect to Elon, we don't have any real desire to be a feeder paper.)

Katie came to us straight out of UGa. two and a half years ago and has done fine work. Part of her job will be to begin the school's efforts to reach students digitally with podcasts, Web casts, blogs, etc. I'd like to think we helped prepare her. We'll miss her.

Nate DeGraff, our reporter keeping a watchful eye over county government, has resigned to go to work in marketing and media relations in the engineering school at N.C. State. (State! He's a Guilford and UNC grad.) Nate has been here for three and a half years, much of it covering the county. He is a regular Scoop contributor, of course, and he's done good work covering the exploits of Skip, Billy and Steve.

I'm hoping that the old saw, "Bad things happen in threes," is true and it stops here.

We have hired Amanda Lehmert of the Cape Cod Times to cover higher education. A graduate of Emerson College, she has covered Falmouth and the Mass. Military Reservation at the paper.

She participated in ConvergeSouth last month and still she decided to throw in with us. Here she is with her friend and now fellow N&R reporter Joe Killian.

Lanita Withers, who currently covers higher ed, is moving to write about business.

Amy Dominello, our reporter devoted entirely to reporting stories for our Web site, is joining Media General's D.C. bureau as a multi-media reporter covering federal government issues affecting the Deep South. No, she’s never covered the federal government or the Deep South, but she’s a helluva reporter and has the digital chops.

In her five years here, Amy has shown incredible range and depth in her writing and reporting. She traveled to Meridian, Miss., to volunteer with a hurricane relief effort and write about it. As part of the health beat, she hosted a blog, created to record her weight-loss challenge. She was part of a team that won a Society for News Design award. She filed live online reports from Blacksburg during the rampage at Va. Tech. She won first place in features in our annual in-house Landmark Awards.

Media General landed a good one.

Mark Sutter, who as much as anyone has helped shape our news report over the past decade, will become the editor of the Business Journal.

It doesn't come as a surprise. Nearly 18 years ago, Mark came here as a business reporter and later was business editor. If I were the publisher of the Biz Journal, I'd hire Mark. A short list of his accomplishments here:

* He was metro editor/Greensboro editor for seven years, smoothly steering our local news coverage through tremendous change, including a couple staff realignments and redesigns
* He has had a hand in every big news story in the Triad since the 90's
* He developed dozens of reporters and editors, many of whom have gone on to bigger jobs at bigger papers
* He was the author of our Town Square plan that has guided much of our recent innovation

When he left, he was i helping develop some new ventures for us and was in the middle of a updating Lex's Public Square white paper. We'll miss that, but I plan to continue to plumb his thinking on things, even as he is a competitor now.

We've hired Jayme Elrod as a designer on our night desk. Jayme was the lead designer at the newspaper in Grand Junction, Colo. Her name may be familiar because this is her second go-round here. She left us as part of the layoffs, and we're delighted to be able to get her back. She has a great eye for design.

Today we had staff meetings at which we talked about the 10 things we plan to do in 2008. We're doing all of them right now to some degree. To the outsider, these may seem, like, duh. Everyone on the staff is at various places on each. Some are well along in their digital savvy, for instance; others aren't. Some are guided by traditional news judgment -- I suffer from this myself sometimes. Others have an impressive understanding of what resonates with the audience. Some learn something new every day; others maybe once a month.

In each case, we will ramp up significantly. We expect the rising tide to raise all boats.

In all, it's a team activity. Editors may direct, but everyone will drive; no one rides.

It will be challenging and fun.

* We will be audience-centric. Our decisions will be guided by our understanding of what the audience wants and needs. We will listen and interact with the audience. We will circulate audience information to the staff.

* We are smaller and we will act like it. That means we will make hard decisions about things we want to do and things we can't. We will move faster to stories and respond with flexibility. We will restructure for speed and mobility.

* Reporters will work on their best stories. We will emphasize enterprise and storytelling. (This isn't to the detriment of breaking news, as one person asked. We'll keep pushing hard on that. Rather, this will be to the detriment of those stories that have little impact on people -- those stories we do because we always have done them.)

John Newsom started this week as a fulltime online reporter. He replaces Amy Dominello, who was snapped up by Media General's D.C. bureau.

Newsom has been with us since 1995, when he joined our Rockingham County operation. A year later, he was in Greensboro covering education. For the past three years, he's been assistant sports editor and resident gearhead. Expect some cool stuff.

We've hired Tom Keller, who interned with us during the summer of 2006, to join our sports copy desk. He replaces Jeff Mills, who is becoming a reporter.

Tom was most recently a reporter for MLB.com, helping to cover the Florida Marlins. He's won his share of journalism awards, but his biggest asset is his humor. He was voted best stand-up comedian at Michigan State in 2005. His act.

While I'm at it, I should announce, too, that we've hired Brian Ewing as a reporter. Brian's from around here, graduating from UNCG. A former Guilford schools teacher, he is now a staff writer for the Eden Daily News and Reidsville Review.

Some of his work.

Jim Schlosser is retiring.

Let that sink in for a moment, and let me compose myself.

Jim has been a reporter here for 41 years. No, that's not precise enough. Jim has been one of the best and often the best reporter we've had for 41 years. He's been the first reporter in the newsroom every morning, and often one of the last to leave. He's done as much as anyone to educate people about the history of Greensboro. He was one of our early bloggers. He's our institutional memory. Better than that, he's an institution.

He has a few more weeks, and he's not gone even then. He has written some stories that we've saved to publish during the run-up to Greensboro's bicentennial, and then he will return as a weekly columnist.

More later.

We've hired Robert Lopez as a feature writer. He has been with the Beaumont Enterprise in Texas for the past two years. He's also worked for the Houston Chronicle and the Times Union in Albany. Some of his work in Beaumont is here.

My newspaper column

I first encountered the work of Jim Schlosser when I interviewed for a reporter's job at the News & Record in 1984.

An editor asked what I thought of that day's paper.

The best story in the paper, I responded, was on the front page of the local section. It was about an old Oshkosh advertisement painted on the side of the Belk department store downtown.

The editor smiled. "That's Jim Schlosser. He's the best we have."

I should have noted that Jim has left behind some stories for us, including today's column, that we will publish over the next several weeks. That he retired before Greensboro's bicentennial celebration is unfortunate, given his ability to write the city's history in such a personable way. But he stockpiled some pieces for us that we will publish over time.

Our friend and colleague Jeff Carlton died today after a long and valiant fight with brain cancer.

Jeff was first diagnosed several years ago and went through surgery. He recovered and returned to work covering sports. The cancer returned and he's been battling it for months. He carried this horrible burden with grace. I never saw him down in the dumps. In fact, he was planning a bright future. Last Friday, we talked for an hour about his interest in becoming assistant sports editor. He was passionate and eager to lead the change in sports.

Two days later, though, he was admitted to the hospital and never left.

Jeff had been a copy editor and reporter here for 10 years, much of the time covering high school sports. He was a heckuva writer, broke his share of stories and won his share of awards. But his journalistic legacy -- one of his legacies, I guess -- is that he earned the trust and respect of coaches and players. He treated people fairly and got it right.

For us here, we lost a dear friend.

Update: A story here. And a nice piece at Greensboro Sports.

Update 2: Robert Bell's tribute this morning.

I hope others feel free to leave thoughts and memories here.

If you've ever wondered about the measure of the impact of a man, read the comments about Jeff Carlton. They inspire me to be better.

Jim Young describes a friendship:

His cubicle at the News & Record sat next to mine. In the long stretches between interviews, during the frequent bouts with writer's block or while trying to avoid tedious transcriptions, we'd engage in conversations that could drift any which way at any moment. Frequently they were about minutiae that would only interest the two of us -- what other movies was Yaphet Kotto in besides Live and Let Die? Was there a better villain than James Earl Jones in Conan the Barbarian? Was Sammy Khalifa the only Arab-American to play in the Major Leagues? -- but they were always entertaining. They were talks I looked forward to every time I'd walk into the office and he would spin around in his chair to greet me. Our boss, Joe Sirera, used to joke that we could create a radio show just by recording the random conversations Jeff and I had and putting them on the air.

I realize that doesn't sound like the storybook version of friendship. Jeff never pulled me from a run-away train. I never introduced him to the love of his life. But in the real world -- the one that now has a huge, unfillable void it in now that Jeff is gone -- this is the true way friendship works: two guys, sitting around, having a conversation about nothing, sharing moments that, when you look back on them, mean everything.

Update: Fox8 came over to talk about Jeff. Unfortunately, Jeff's co-workers who know him best were all out working. That left me.

His dearest friend, Alina Wilson, writes about Jeff in a way that no one else has or can.

We'll all read in the next few days about Jeff Carlton the writer, the reporter, the UVA alumnus, and the sports aficionado. But I have had a different experience with Jeff. I knew Jeff, the man, the friend, the devoted confidant, the loving son and brother. I will talk about things few people knew or maybe fewer people noticed.

And then she does just that. Read the whole thing. It is a wonderful, mournful, loving tribute.

Wednesday update: Jim Young posts his comments at the memorial service for Jeff.

The Order of the Long Leaf Pine is the highest civilian honor that can be granted in North Carolina.

Past recipients include Michael Jordan, Charles Kuralt, Maya Angelou, the Rev. Billy Graham, William C. Friday, Doug Marlette, Fred Chappell, and artist Bob Timberlake.

And now, Jim Schlosser, who got it last night.

Update: Seth Effron, a former colleague of mine and Jim's at the N&R, presented Jim with the award on behalf of the governor. His comments at the presentation ceremony -- which, regrettably I missed -- are here.

Our friend and columnist Glenn Chavis was featured on Fox8 last week talking about his special interest in black history in High Point. Check it out.

Margaret Banks, our city hall reporter and veteran Inside Scooper, is making the leap to the dark side. She's becoming our assistant sports editor. (Listen as editors across the country go screaming out into the night!)

Margaret is ready. She has covered city hall for nearly two years and has also been a religion reporter, a general assignment reporter and a reporter in Rockingham County. No direct sports coverage experience? We're in interesting times and that calls for interesting experiences. She's got 'em.

And for everyone who thinks we have a Tar Heel blue tint, she graduated from UNCG.

We did well in the annual Associated Press Sports Editors contest.

In our circulation category:
* Jim Young is in the Top 10 in the Game Story category for his report on UNC's loss to Georgetown in the NCAA basketball tournament.

* Ed Hardin is in the Top 10 in the Projects category for his Changing Landscape series.

* Our Sunday section was an honorable-mention choice, meaning it was in the top 11-20.

It's a national contest and very competitive. We continue to try to do new, different things with our section. It's nice that the individual and section efforts are recognized.

We have moved some folks around. Amanda Lehmert is going to cover City Hall and Tom Keller will cover high school sports.

For those who feared we would assign a "rookie" to City Hall -- I've heard the whispers -- rest easy. She's been a full-time reporter for five years and won first place awards from the New England Press Association for investigative reporting, education reporting and environmental reporting.

I didn't get my first reporting job because I wasn't tech savvy enough. This was back in the 70s and it meant that I wasn't a fast enough typist. True story.

Laugh if you must, but the same holds true today, only the technology has changed.

That's what I told Ryan Thornburg's brown-bag lunch gathering at UNC today. The more students learn blogging, Twitter, social networking, beat blogging, video, programming and the like, the better prepared they'll be to be on the front end of "if the news is important, it will find me" rather than choking on the dust trying to catch up.

When I ask job candidates if they do any of those things and they give me a befuddled look, that tells me something about them.

I don't want to be the smartest one in the room. (I know; no problem there.) I'm more impressed when someone discovers a useful new tool and adapts it to his/her work or tries to. If, say, a job candidate shows me the value of Twitter as a reporting tool, they have a leg up. It tells me that they're keeping up with what's happening in the field.

Innovation is more effective when it comes bottom up than top down.

Ann Morris, who has been managing editor here since 2003, is leaving us.

It pains me just to write that sentence.

Right now, she's going to enjoy spending the summer with her two daughters and doing volunteer work. Eventually, she plans to rejoin the official workforce, perhaps in a community service role.

It's a tough loss for us because Ann has been deeply involved in all the important moves we've made over the past five years, including redesigning the paper, revamping Sunday, creating more digital elements, and conceiving and editing much of the compelling journalism we've produced. She has also recruited some of the best young journalists around. Her decisions made the paper better every day.

It's a tough loss for me personally because she has been a valued counselor and mentor to me. I admire her for making the decision she did; I know how much she loves journalism. After all, she has spent most of her career as a journalist, including 12 years here as a reporter, editorial writer and editor.

But I also know how challenging it is to raise two pre-teen daughters. Ann is working on the right things.

I've always thought that the managing editor's job is a meat grinder. Responsible for the daily operations of the paper, daily operations that span from 8 a.m. to past midnight seven days a week without break. Pressure from people like me on items big and small. Pressure from reporters and other editors on everything else. While all the time listening to and responding to readers.

She handled it all seamlessly.

As for her future, she will make a huge contribution wherever she lands. Any organization would be lucky to have her. And I'm crossing my fingers she'll come back here.

My longtime friend and colleague Owen Davis is retiring in July. Owen, who is our sports copy desk chief, has only been with us for two years, but I've known him since the early 80s when we worked together at the N&O. In between the N&O and us, Owen was at the Detroit Free Press, where he spent 20 years as deputy sports editor.

He moved here to be closer to family and we knew we wouldn't have him a long time, but he's been a pivotal player while here.

As I was channel surfing the local stations watching the weather coverage last night, Fox8 had a crew in the field reporting back about the lightning strikes in the area. After a moment, anchor Neill McNeill in the studio told the reporter and photojournalist in the remote truck to power down so that they don't attract a strike.

I don't know if the crew did; I surfed on. But I bet they didn't.

I have been in Neill's position many times and told working journalists not to get themselves hurt in reporting a story. Pretty much been ignored every time. The drive to get the story is powerful. Reporters and photographers don't go to the scene not to report what they see.

*Running Toward Danger