If you can keep your head when all many about you are losing theirs ...
My colleague Joe Killian had an excellent story in Friday's paper on the arrest of antiwar protesters Thursday evening. He followed it with an even better post on his blog.
As I said in his comments, and several local bloggers have said as well, I wish we ran more blog posts like that in the N&R. I almost said, "wish there were a way we could run more blog posts like that," but the fact is that we could start doing it tomorrow.
That's not a criticism of JR. (When he wants my criticism, he can, and no doubt will, beat it out of me.) It is, rather, an acknowledgment that the quality of the writing isn't the only factor that must be considered in running blog posts of this type. Such decisions, to put it a slightly different way, aren't made in a vacuum. Having been an editor, I know a lot of the factors that must be considered. But not having been an editor lately, I wouldn't dare presume I know them all.
Besides that, Joe's blog is a personal one, not affiliated with the N&R. I haven't discussed this issue with him, but for all I know, he likes it that way because it gives him a kind of freedom that he wouldn't have here (and I'm not just talking about dropping the F-bomb).
I'm not sure there's any larger point here, other than that I continue to marvel at what an outstanding hire he has been and how much he adds to the paper and Web site.
UPDATE: Joe, having read some of the same comments I have, has some thoughts on the subject of getting blog-style writing into print that are worth reading. And just as some of us have been wrestling with these questions for a while, so has he -- literally from the day he came to work for us.