Last year, I listed a few things I’m grateful for in my little world of journalism. Here’s this year’s list. And in that spirit, I wish all OTTERBLOG readers (fans and critics alike) a good Thanksgiving.
1) Cell phone cameras. The ability to take and send images quickly and surreptitiously has [...]
On Election Day, I posted a squib about democracy etc., and a reader had asked about how we go about making our editorial endorsements. I forwarded the question to our editorial board, which responded to the reader, but I thought it was worth circulating the response to a wider audience.
Here’s [...]
What is a family newspaper to do when the most important research coming out of the big, flashy medical center down the street involves .... repairs to the male anatomy? The story Tuesday about research at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine involving the laboratory [...]
Let me state for the record that I love Election Day. Even if I wasn’t a journalist, I would love it. But the two combined is like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of the Constitution. They just go together. Free press. Free elections.
This has been a difficult campaign for us [...]
It is sometimes scary how much paper we use. Yes, it’s called a newspaper for obvious reasons, but all the stuff that happens before we actually put newsprint on the press too often seems like it’s driven by printers and copiers. Sometimes I wonder if we’re a newspaper publisher that [...]
Back from a few days off. Batteries charged. Phasers set to stun ... I’ve devoted a couple of entries to redesigns. Here is an ombudsman’s column from the Washington Post about their redesign.
Although the scale is different, the Post is facing many of the pressures, [...]
I am still digging out from answering letters and emails from readers about our redesign and our commitment to covering the news. What I’ve tried to tell people is that we’ve put local news first, are trying to write and cover as much as possible, and that—all things being equal—when [...]
We have had a lot of questions today about why we are not allowing comments on the stories on the shootings near the Bojangles’ on Peters Creek Parkway that left the suspect dead and two police officers wounded, one very seriously.
As many people know, we have a fairly open comment [...]
The news in our community is sad right now. Two officers shot. Another man dead. A computer plant is closing. These are not happy stories by any stretch. But they are stories that demand to be told, and they are what newspapers do very well. The whole story. The context. [...]
It’s been three weeks and change since we did our redesign, and as with all such launches, the devil is in the details. We’re making adjustments as we go. Some are more noticeable than others. First, national/international news. Readers have notice more national news on our front page. Not every [...]
First things first. I apologize for the absence. I was on vacation for a few days, and then yesterday was Yom Kippur, which is the day of atonement and the end of the High Holy Days that mark the start of the Jewish New Year.
I will not launch into a [...]
I’ve probably talked in some fashion to more than 100 people since we launched our redesign on Monday. Calls are still coming. I’m encouraged by what I hear so far. Yes, there are a lot of complaints, but many people also seem to appreciate what we are trying to do [...]
Well, I’ve spent the better part of the morning taking telephone calls from our readers about our new design/ presentation. Most folks like it, although there are quite a few who don’t. And there are quite a few comments in our Web site, most in the snarky category. Which is [...]
We got a tip on Friday that there was a case of swine flu at a local school. The tip never made it into print or online. We made our decision based on an email exchange with Dr. Tim Monroe, the head of the Forsyth County Health Department. He said [...]
No, this isn’t a reference to President Obama. 44 refers to a change happening to the Journal in the next two weeks. Our executive editor, Carl Crothers, has a column on it on Sunday that will go into more detail, but here’s a teaser.
44 is going to be our new [...]
Nick Weir is one of our designers and graphic artists. He’s responsible for many of the eye-catching relish covers and layouts that appear each Thursday. Apparently, that talent runs in the family. Attached you will find the handiwork of one of his nieces, who gave this to Nick, who showed [...]
I try very hard to not write about the comings and goings on our editorial page. The simple reason is that we keep that separate from the news pages. I am purposely not involved with the decisions over content on those pages or online. But I am going to make [...]
We started a new blog this week. It’s called Prep Forum, and its principal author will be Mason Linker, who is our prep-sports writer. If you go to high school sports in this area, you’ll invariably run into Mason. He knows everybody—coaches, athletes, ADs, etc. High-school sports [...]
We started a new blog this week. It’s called Prep Forum, and its principal author will be Mason Linker, who is our prep-sports writer. If you go to high school sports in this area, you’ll invariably run into Mason. He knows everybody—coaches, athletes, ADs, etc. High-school sports [...]
There is a little hullaballoo over our decision to pull comments Friday in a breaking news story about the Kirk Turner acquittal. Essentially, what happened is that a poster said she had been told that a juror had already made up his mind prior [...]
I think everybody can agree that there has been a coarsening of the American fabric during the past 20 or so years. Many of the words on George Carlin’s list no longer shock the ear. And sex, well it’s discussed everywhere.
The phrase “family newspaper” is bandied about alot, as in [...]
We had what I thought was an excellent front page on Sunday, anchored by two very strong stories. The first was a narrative piece about George and Nan Griswold and what it’s like when your loved one has Alzheimer’s. It was [...]
I’ve been hearing a lot of conversation about our story the other day on the health-care initiatives making their way through Congress. The story focused on the so-called “advance directives,” living wills etc. Accompanying the piece was a graphic from the Associated Press [...]
When I get a manila envelope in the mail that has my name in neat script and the address torn off the stick-on return label, it is never a nice note telling me what a fine job I am doing. And today was no different. Inside the envelope was a [...]
I am sorry for the sporadic posting of the past few weeks. Vacation days here and there, and also the belief that posting just to post is sort of silly.
Anyways…
Today’s paper was not your typical early August/horse latitudes of journalism/paper. There’s a lot going on: ball park, Natl [...]
North Carolina’s public-records laws are a tangle of good intentions and bad execution. Case in point is the story we had Saturday about the school board and a woman who accused her principal of fondling her.
The agreement sure reads like a settlement, [...]
There’s something of a Greek tragedy in the sentencing yesterday of three Winston-Salem businessmen to probation or prison for their roles in a fraudulent land deal. The one that most interests me is Ernie Pitt, the publisher of The Chronicle. I’ve only met him [...]
Let me state for the record that I don’t believe WS police officers went out Monday night to Kramer Court with the intention of killing a bear. And faced with the alternatives of shooting the bear or just letting it wander around the suburbs of Winston-Salem, well ... as they [...]
So, I spent a few days last week backpacking in the Shining Rock Wilderness near Asheville. An incredible place and a chance to unplug and unwind. On one of the days, we ran into a family of dayhikers, and while we were chatting with the [...]
Back from the Fourth ...
As I’ve discussed in previous posts, we’ve tinkered with our comments section on JournalNow. We’ve eliminated comments on spot crime stories, drownings, traffic accidents and the like. The reason is that the families of victims don’t need to read comments—frequently anonymous—about culpability and negligence intermingled [...]
Back from the Fourth ...
As I’ve discussed in previous posts, we’ve tinkered with our comments section on JournalNow. We’ve eliminated comments on spot crime stories, drownings, traffic accidents and the like. The reason is that the families of victims don’t need to read comments—frequently anonymous—about culpability and negligence intermingled [...]
As you might imagine, we spend a lot of time around here thinking about the future of news in general and newspapers in particular. There are lots of experts out there—real and imagined, helpful and adversarial—with all sorts of perspectives, but the real truth is that nobody is quite sure [...]
One of the abbreviations that has sprouted up in newsrooms in recent users is UGC. It means user-generated content. Essentially, it’s all the stuff on Web sites (and in print) that isn’t created by quote unquote professional journalists. It’s the letters to the editor, the comments on stories, the recipe [...]
Now that I have your attention ...
Tonight on the Oxygen channel is what I guess passes for a TV documentary on the murder of Brent Poole by his wife, Renee and her lover, John Frazier, at Myrtle Beach. It happened in June 1998 and she was convicted a year later. [...]
There is criticism in some quarters about our decision to write about the divorce case involving Andrew and Veronica Filipowski, which ran on our front page on Sunday. Essentially, the complaint is that people’s private lives are their private [...]
Many moons ago, on my first day at the Journal, I ate dinner with a young reporter named Dan Froomkin (We went to Mr. BBQ; I had the Miss Fried Chicken…). He was a piece of work. Skinny. Tall. Big mop of curly hair. Smart and very full of himself. [...]
Back after a few days away ... It’s always wild to read several days of papers at the same time. Invariably, you get out of order and wonder what’s going on. The baseball stadium deal has rightfully dominated our coverage, online and in print. As it should be. I wasn’t [...]
For years, I’ve seen this elderly woman at the Harris Teeter where I shop. She’s always there on Saturday mornings, in a wheel chair near the front. She’s smiling, and I try to say hello to her as I push my cart past. But I didn’t know her story.
Now [...]
If you read JournalNow or any other online news site, you’ve probably read the online comments that accompany many articles. As I’ve noted before, the commentosphere is a harsh and unforgiving planet. And there is often a shortage of manners. On the one hand, it is the mob, plain and [...]
There’s something slightly askew about publishing a story in the newspaper about the use of Twitter. Like hitchhiking to the Hummer dealer…
Digital communication is so different than that found in print. The velocity is amazing. The creation [...]
I came across an interesting story the other day about the journalist who is responsible for the crisis in the United Kingdom over the expense-account abuses by members of parliament. She’s an American who started the undertaking as a bit of a lark, to see how [...]
Back after a few days out of the office ... Inbox piled up. Mailbox piled up. It’s the employee version of leaving your car outside for a week after it snows. Where do you start with cleaning your windshield?
I got an email column this morning from Andy Serwer, a friend [...]
In general, newspapers have not done a very good job marketing themselves and their content. This is particularly so when it comes to showcasing our best work. When Star Trek was released, it didn’t just show up in theaters. There was a push of titanic proportions to make sure every [...]
As many of you are quick to remind me, the Journal isn’t immune to typos, dropped words, double entendres etc. Perfection is a goal, not necessarily a destination. But I got a chuckle over this mistake (I think it’s a mistake ...) on the front page of the New York [...]
A few months back, my son wrote a college application essay that was so superior to anything I wrote when I was 17 that I just wanted to scream, both with pride and frustration. Since the essay is not in the public domain, I will not embarass him by posting [...]
I have been taking phone calls the past few days, asking us to not refer to swine flu as swine flu. Instead, we should call it just the flu or by its scientific strain name, H1N1. The reason, the callers suggest, is that the name unfairly targets pork as being [...]
The Silk Plant committee voted narrowly last night to ask the city council to subpoena the Journal and former reporter Phoebe Zerwick. This is unfortunate, and you can read a discussion of the newspaper’s objections to this process on an earlier [...]
Let me state for the record that I am not one of those people who view going to see minor league baseball as merely an excuse to drink beer. I like watching and scoring baseball, and it’s a whole sensory experience out there beyond what’s happening on the field. That [...]
A few weeks back, I posted an entry about economic indicators and the recovery. This Sunday, we followed through on one such product: the humble box. The package on our Sunday business page, was the sort of local coverage and presentation we shoot for [...]
Many years ago, I sat down for an interview with a journalism student named Patrick Plaisance, who was at Syracuse University working on his doctorate. He was exploring decision-making in newsrooms, and how our values affect those decisions. That research is now available in published form, and you can click[...]
I don’t know if the bill approved by the N.C. House that would ban texting while driving is a good thing or a bad thing. To me, it seems obvious that you ought not to text while you drive, just like [...]
Where’s the sunrise service? That’s the question at least one reader wants to know after looking at our front page this morning. Instead, we featured an Easter story about the Potter’s House.
The Moravian Sunrise Service in God’s Acre is a big part of [...]
Two solar observations this morning.
One of my favorite magazines is a little publication from Chapel Hill called the Sun. It’s hard to describe. Vaguely Buddhist always comes to mind. Less political than the Nation. Defiantly unglamorous. And perhaps a template for all that ails the news business. [...]
If you’ll remember the early days of the Web, many news sites tried to charge for their content. Then they made their content free. Then it was aggregated, i.e., other news sites linked to these stories. In essence, you could create an online news site w/o paying for the cost [...]
If you haven’t, you need to read our bird story today about the rare tufted duck spotted at the Archie Elledge treatment plant.
I will admit that I am a sucker for a nature story of just about any stripe. But this piece, by one [...]
Some of you may remember the story we ran a week ago about the death of Moonshiner “Popcorn” Sutton, who killed himself to avoid a prison sentence. We got lots of online comments about the piece.
Larry Parnass, a former colleague of [...]
Our economy is so big and wide and diverse that it is really difficult to get a sense of movement at the margins. Most of the indicators that economists use are at least a month old—housing starts, unemployment claims, factory output… But we all have our own private “common-sense” indicators. [...]
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about small newspapers. While folks from big cities might imagine the Journal as a small paper, we’re not. By most standards, we’re a small to midsized metro. My cutoff for small is below 25,000 in circulation, with a little wiggle room on either side.
What’s [...]
For those who missed it ( and I include myself), here’s the transcript of the roundtable of CNN’s John King at Cagney’s restaurant on Friday. It’s about two-thirds of the way down, and you can see how much of it got trimmed. To read our story [...]
For those who missed it ( and I include myself), here’s the transcript of the roundtable of CNN’s John King at Cagney’s restaurant on Friday. It’s about two-thirds of the way down, and you can see how much of it got trimmed. To read our story [...]
As you might suspect, there are a lot of folks in the Journal newsrooom whose names never appear in the paper. They work behind the scenes, helping our operations run smoothly. They’re copy editors, page designers, line editors etc. We all have specific job descriptions, but everybody has a shared [...]
As you might suspect, there are a lot of folks in the Journal newsrooom whose names never appear in the paper. They work behind the scenes, helping our operations run smoothly. They’re copy editors, page designers, line editors etc. We all have specific job descriptions, but everybody has a shared [...]
This week, I am spending a great deal of time answering questions from readers, helping our staff answer SAM questions. As many of you know, our SAM columnist, Ronda Bumgardner, resigned, effective Monday, to take a job with financial-research arm of MIT. We’ll miss her, as she did a good [...]
This week, I am spending a great deal of time answering questions from readers, helping our staff answer SAM questions. As many of you know, our SAM columnist, Ronda Bumgardner, resigned, effective Monday, to take a job with financial-research arm of MIT. We’ll miss her, as she did a good [...]
Lots of businesses are closing these days. So, in one sense, it shouldn’t be any surprise that newspapers are joining the list. But it is. And they are.
The Rocky Mountain News published its last edition today. It was a great newspaper that chronicled all the exhiliration and contradictions of Colorado, [...]
Lots of businesses are closing these days. So, in one sense, it shouldn’t be any surprise that newspapers are joining the list. But it is. And they are.
The Rocky Mountain News published its last edition today. It was a great newspaper that chronicled all the exhiliration and contradictions of Colorado, [...]
A few months ago, I was involved with a corporate project on the value of social networking Web sites to traditional media. Some very smart people on my team, all much more tech savvy than OTTERFOG-Y. Anyway, the consensus was something similar to the joke that says the only thing [...]
A few months ago, I was involved with a corporate project on the value of social networking Web sites to traditional media. Some very smart people on my team, all much more tech savvy than OTTERFOG-Y. Anyway, the consensus was something similar to the joke that says the only thing [...]
A lot of the world is digitalized. Some of it still isn’t. Like our microfilm, which resides on the third floor of our building, and is only accessible through the use of a wheezing and temperamental machine. With all the comparisons to now and the Great Depression, I decided to [...]
A lot of the world is digitalized. Some of it still isn’t. Like our microfilm, which resides on the third floor of our building, and is only accessible through the use of a wheezing and temperamental machine. With all the comparisons to now and the Great Depression, I decided to [...]
We received an interesting letter the other day. It was from the US Dept. of Agriculture, and it was a response to a Freedom of Information Act request that we had made for documents related to the license of a circus-operator to own and keep zoo animals. The response was [...]
We received an interesting letter the other day. It was from the US Dept. of Agriculture, and it was a response to a Freedom of Information Act request that we had made for documents related to the license of a circus-operator to own and keep zoo animals. The response was [...]
I had the pleasure last night to attend a scholarship gala in honor of Robert A. Miller over at Winston-Salem State University. We had a small story today on U.S. Rep. Mel Watt’s speech at the event.
Miller was the second black reporter hired at [...]
I had the pleasure last night to attend a scholarship gala in honor of Robert A. Miller over at Winston-Salem State University. We had a small story today on U.S. Rep. Mel Watt’s speech at the event.
Miller was the second black reporter hired at [...]
We’re making some changes tomorrow in our A2 page, hence the really poor pun in the headline above. Sorry about that. It’s Monday…
Here’s what’s going on:
—We’ve slimmed down our reader-service information. And we’ve included email addresses, which many readers prefer.
—We’ve added more features from JournalNow, including the previous day’s [...]
We’re making some changes tomorrow in our A2 page, hence the really poor pun in the headline above. Sorry about that. It’s Monday…
Here’s what’s going on:
—We’ve slimmed down our reader-service information. And we’ve included email addresses, which many readers prefer.
—We’ve added more features from JournalNow, including the previous day’s [...]
So, what’s the deal with the toolbox? Careful readers of our paper may have noticed a new icon in the past few days on several stories, including our piece today on rice and beans on the Living pages/Food section.
The toolbox was an [...]
So, what’s the deal with the toolbox? Careful readers of our paper may have noticed a new icon in the past few days on several stories, including our piece today on rice and beans on the Living pages/Food section.
The toolbox was an [...]
It’s always a trip to see how the future was imagined long ago. Sort of like EPCOT Center… A friend forwarded me a newscast from 1981 about the early days of news through the computer. What’s fascinating is to see how much things have changed, and how much they haven’t. [...]
If you read Scott Sexton’s column today, you will note that it amounts to essentially a column-length correction. To paraphrase President Obama, we screwed up. Not in a libelous or malicious manner, but in our ethical conduct and framework which is more important than [...]
If you work at a paper the size of the Journal, one of the things you dread is when somebody sends you a link of a story from the New York Times that is datelined from your own community. Getting scooped in your own backyard is embarassing. I got [...]
I’ve tried to not have two obit blog posts back-to-back, but circumstances are what they are.
It would be nice to think that everybody buys the Sunday Journal for the stories we put on Page 1 or our awesome sports section or Scott Sexton’s finely crafted columns. But the truth is [...]
The news came today that John Updike had died. It’s hard to say who is/was the greatest living writer of the late 20th Century, but Updike is up there. His work ethic, command of language and observation and of relevant detail are just marvelous. And as a chronicler of the [...]
I spend a lot of time responding to readers about their concerns and complaints about coverage. Here’s one such exchange:
We are at a time in history where the newspaper business nationwide, if not worldwide, is facing a financial crises, in part due to loss of subscribers. One of [...]
Some of you may have seen the story on WGHP last night about the Journal and our inauguration coverage plans. It proved once again that I have a face for radio and a voice for print.
It was a good story, but the story that didn’t [...]
Four thoughts for Monday
1) The inauguration. If you put a NASCAR race, a Grateful Dead concert (showing my age) and the Million-Man march in a blender, my guess is you get something approaching the inauguration in tone, if not scope. We have several reporters working the event, here and in [...]
WOW! After so much bad news and uncertainty in the world, yesterday’s miracle landing of the US Airways jet in the Hudson is something to behold. Makes you appreciate all that you have in your life. This is one of those rare events: A big good news story with no [...]
As long as I’ve been in journalism, we’ve been wrestling with how to use witness descriptions (particularly the race of an unnamed suspect) in police stories, i.e. witnesses described the robber as a white man in his 20s wearing a ball cap. There are two theories to this. The first [...]
It’s no secret that this is not the best time to be in the newspaper business. There’s a recession. Consumer habits are changing. Technology, too. Did I mention the recession?
So, I have a lot of conversations, both inside and outside of the newsroom, about the difficult task of [...]
I’m not a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn’t surprised by yesterday’s ruling in what’s come to be called the Silk Plant Forest case. I was surprised at the quickness of the decision. The appearance of deliberation is sometimes as important as [...]
A few weeks back we ran a story on a group of businesses that are trying to “say no to the recession.” Interesting idea, and I applaud their spirit of can-doism. I was thinking about that story this morning when I was looking at our [...]
Vacations are over. The new year is here. 2009 is going to be an incredibly challenging time for journalism, for the economy, for the region. Here’s hoping that we come through with grace, dignity and our essential characteristics intact.
I had a few days off, and when I wasn’t working on [...]
The Journal is back in the news. The citizens committee investigating the Silk Plant Forest case is making another run at Phoebe Zerwick, the former Journal reporter who wrote our series on the case.
Phoebe left the paper (on good terms) this summer, [...]
OTTERBLOG will be operating on holiday mode for the next two weeks. The news cycle—from a local standpoint—is sluggish this time of year, and there’s no reason to elevate events to postworthy status.
When it’s all said and done, 2008 will be looked at by historians as the watershed year for [...]
The question I am getting asked today is “What do you think about Detroit?” And the people asking aren’t wondering about my views on the auto bailout. They’re talking about the decision by the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press to pull back on home delivery from seven days a [...]
The question I am getting asked today is “What do you think about Detroit?” And the people asking aren’t wondering about my views on the auto bailout. They’re talking about the decision by the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press to pull back on home delivery from seven days a [...]
