News-Record.com

Good explanation, Lex, and I appreciate it for at least my edification. In blog-world many ears can hear the message.

I was interested in this event --partly because of what was reported so I attended the special announcement.

In the case of this news getting stale we have three years it seems for this to come to fruition. On being scooped by another print media the N&R will be first to produce a mature article unless one of the two larger weeklys decides to get to their stands in a special run--not likely.

And again, I'm responding like JR in that we have committed enough ink to the Mayor vs N&R. (which incidentially is my favorite of all of Greensboro's papers)

Glad to help, Sam. One minor point: On many stories, we don't see ourselves as competing only with print media. Cheers.

Maybe I'm the only one who finds this amusing, but I
couldn't help but notice a few things about the "story behind the
story" of the city's new initiative to cross racial lines that
you and John Robinson have made such a big to-do about on these
blogs.
You wrote last week about how the mayor in announcing a
press conference about the initiative without revealing details
was just throwing red meat to your starving, Pavlovian reporters.
A day later, Robinson wrote about how he had rebuffed an unnamed
organizer who called to ask him not to publish any more articles
because it might endanger the plan's funding.
Today, you offer a number of justifications for giving the
public half-baked meat, or as you call it, incomplete stories.
One of those is that publishing partial information may cause
somebody to come forward with more.
Then came the press conference on Monday and today's edition
of the paper with the presumably complete story. But it is only
in the paper's editorial that we come across this curious bit of
information: your publisher is a member of this initiative's
advisory board.
Was this a position that just fell to him out of the blue on
Monday? Or had he accepted it earlier?
If the latter is the case, which seems likely, surely he
would have inquired about what he was getting into. So the
question is this: was the red meat that your Pavlovian reporters
were chasing actually stashed just a floor below the newsroom in
the publisher's plush quarters? Was the publisher sitting on the
details while his editor was justifying incomplete stories? Was
the newspaper itself involved in a conspiracy to keep it from
publishing the full facts?
If so, it's not very good evidence for your contention that
publishing partial stories might bring forth sources with the
details. It's a pretty short elevator trip, after all, from the
first floor to the newsroom.

"The publisher's plush quarters?" You've been in that office, Jerry, and if that's what you think is plush, well, you'd better consult your dictionary.

A couple responses: First, we included in our story last Friday that the publisher was a member of the advisory board, information which we discovered on Thursday afternoon. We published it the first chance we could. And, of course, we published it in the editorial today.

Second, as you well know, the publisher isn't a member of the news staff. He's not a reporter. He leaves the news department alone when it comes to the news. When we learned he was on the board, we interviewed him, as a news source.

Third, the story we ran on Friday was mostly complete, except that it didn't include the comments of the main players, which we did include in today's paper. Neither the publisher nor any of the advisory board members could have helped us there.

Finally, I didn't "rebuff" anyone. The person involved and I had a cordial discussion, and, at the end, she understood my position, and I understood hers.

Well, John, I'm sure that to a person of your wealth, whose
family business dealings have been played as front-page news in
your own newspaper, the publisher's office may not seem plush.
But I spent 20 years in the newsroom in threadbare jeans. Sure
looked plush to me.

The question here is why did it take you until Thursday afternoon
to discover that your publisher was a participant in this story?
Did he come forth, or did you learn that from other sources? And
if you had to learn it elsewhere, why?

Admittedly, he's not a reporter, but shouldn't he have some
passing interest in what appears in the newspaper over which he
presides?

Yeah, right, Jerry. Let's see, how many movies have been made of your best-sellers? Peddle that poor mouth stuff elsewhere.

The publisher doesn't feed the newspaper news stories, a fact I'm sure you know. As there is a wall between news and advertising, there is a similar one between the publisher and the news department. He doesn't meddle in our pursuit of the news. He also doesn't pass on everything he hears as he goes about his day. It's our job to find it out. But you know all this, having worked here for so many years.

Sad to see what an old bitter coot Jerry Bledsoe has become. Everyone get off of his yard, dammit and shoo! Shoo, I tell you!

Now we all know who the anonymous and allegedly mysterious Mr. Sun is. It's John Robinson. We also know from John's previous post that he avoids answering direct questions and that the N&R publisher clearly wouldn't come to his own paper with news even after the paper published only a partial report about something in which he was he involved. Was he, like so many others, afraid that the paper wouldn't get it right?

OOps! I was wrong. I just saw something posted by Mr. Sun that made me laugh aloud. Couldn't be John Robinson.

Yes! That's the Jerry Bledsoe I remember -- just a little pinch of nasty. I wish I could duel you like Zell Miller because I could definitely defeat you with my advanced Kung-Fu techniques. I just wanted you to know that.

Woah! Jerry Bledsoe and Mr. Sun, paint ball guns at 30 paces. I donno, Mr. Sun, I know you're pretty bright, but Jerry's still quick on the draw. I'd say it's like the Bush-Kerry race-- too close to call.

Ya'll be sure to tell me when and where, I'll bring a case of Laureate Red Wine, "tm" the red wine choice of redneck poet laureates and Blogging Poets everywhere.