Otterblog

There’s a great line in Talladega Nights where Ricky Bobby’s Daddy (say that three times fast) tells his son: “If you’re not first, you’re last.”

I think it’s human nature to keep score. And even people who don’t keep score keep score on how much better they are than the rest of us at not keeping score.

We write a lot of stories about how our community stacks up. Today alone, there was a piece on the average incomes in N.C. counties (Forsyth is ahead of many, but behind a lot, too.); SAT scores (up generally); and the spread of obesity across this great land of others (The South is still the buckle on our ever-growing girth belt.)

Numbers mean something. And behind every number is a story, and sometimes the stories appear to contradict each other. A careful reader of all these stories could reasonably say something to the effect in Forsyth County of “Poorer, a little fatter and a little smarter.” Or not. Each of these numbers are aggregates, and at the anecdotal level things can be quite different. Your neighbor, for example, could be rich, thin and stupid. But as with all stories that look at how different groups compare with each other, they help define patterns and suggest ways for policy makers to target resources and programs to improve.

And for those who don’t subscribe to RBD’s philosophy about the importance of being first, there’s this important line from Episode 1: “There’s always a bigger fish.”

Dylan on Dylan: With all the back and forth on our Web site and in our paper about whether Dylan is dead, alive, or somewhere in between, Bob himself speaks in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Hustler? Reclusive genius? Weary old man? You decide.

Katrina’s one-year anniversary is tomorrow. The next two weeks are going to be awash (no pun intended) with Katrina stories and then a segue into the fifth-year anniversary of 9/11. You may even some stories that try to tie the two together (holy tongue twister!!).

Separate events, related events. Anniversaries aren’t news, but they are news. Because they are a way of marking time, and a chance to see what’s happened and what hasn’t happened. There’s an implicit public-policy component to both these anniversaries, an accounting if you will.

Close readers of OTTERBLOG will remember a post from a few weeks back called Naming Names. It discussed naming conventions and the disagreement about what to call Mumbai/Bombay.

Today, the Associated Press, arbiter of style for many American newspapers, issued this bulletin:

An AP Stylebook entry has been updated:

Editor’s Note: Changes in AP style, reflecting names as used by the Indian government that have gained favor internationally and in everyday speech.

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Mumbai

India\’s largest city, formerly known as Bombay. (Also, Chennai, formerly Madras.)

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Big organizations can and do change, although often it seems that change can be glacial. Good for the AP to catch up with the times. Next up for the AP, getting rid of the N.C. after Charlotte in datelines and usage.

August is often a bizarre month for newspapers. Lots of folks are on vacation. Government slows to a crawl. Businesses don’t do a whole lot, etc. And yet there is still a paper to put out. So it’s interesting to see what fills the vacuum, what stories that in different times might get lesser play or no play suddenly get a lot of play.

Two this week that taken advantage of the August lull are the Jon Benet Ramsey case and the reassignment of Pluto to “dwarf planet.” OUCH

First, JBR: I have a good friend who was a top editor at the Denver Post when the JBR story broke, and he said it was an overwhelming story, so much reporting for so little news (He also was at the Post when Columbine hit, which was overwhelming for different reasons). The Ramsey story, I think, plays to many of our secret desires and fears. The fears of our children dying in some horrific crime, our desires about the fallibility and failings of the super-rich, etc. And the lack of an arrest back then didn’t dull interest. If anything, it enhanced it. The crime was now a mystery, with Jon Benet’s face frozen in beauty-pageant perfection staring out at us. Ten years is a long time, but not a long time. So one of the reasons it’s still getting so much ink and air time--besides the fact that it’s seen as a diversion from the wars—is that many of the people who covered it before are still in the media business. They may have been reporters then; they’re editors or producers now. It’s a chance to replay part of their lives. And it doesn’t hurt that Mr. Karr is so ---- creepy. What did the NY Daily News and Post both use as their headline: Snake on a plane.

Second, Pluto: There’s two back stories on this one. First is the rise of Geek Chic. The nerds will inherit the earth. Science and technology rule these days, and the images of debates between the pocket-protector set are irresistible. Hard-core scientist wannabes, such as myself, have been following the demise of Pluto for a while, and I’ve slowly watched it get laundered into the national press, ever frothier, and nastier. The second reason the Pluto story resonates so much is that it challenges a basic tenet of our knowledge base that generations of kids have learned. Nine planets is a user-friendly amount. Easy enough to memorize, hard enough that it takes some work to recall. Sort of like the 50 states or 100 counties. It just made sense. If there aren’t really nine planets in the solar system, what other fact is going by the wayside? Next up: removing Europe as a continent!!!

There is a great online debate raging about the harsh review our pop music critic, Ed Bumgardner, gave of Bob Dylan’s concert at Ernie Shore Field.

There are a couple of pages of back and forth on our Web site, and Ed’s gotten 60 or so emails that run the gamut from praise to ridicule. To summarize: Many folks said that Ed missed the point and the boat, that Dylan has never been better, and that his husky voice is the voice of reason in a world that has sold out to flash and the insubstantial. Others said Ed was spot on, that Dylan has become a hologram of himself, that his contempt for his audience is palpable, and that the diminution of his musical skills are being masked by his “reinterpretation” of his songs.

One of the old adages of newspapers is “If everybody’s mad, we must be doing something right.” Maybe. Maybe not.

Criticism and journalism aren’t the same things. We expect our critics to play from the same set of ethics and conduct as a news reporter, but we look for informed commentary, the ability to use their experience and judgment to interpret a set of facts. Will everybody agree with them? Of course not. That would be dull.

I was at the show. True to my nature, I come down somewhere in the middle. Dylan wasn’t awful. but he wasn’t great. And by the end, many of my expectations had been lowered sufficiently so that what would have in another context been viewed as so-so now seemed pretty exceptional. But that’s just me.

As a final thought, here’s what the critic in the Washington Post wrote two days later ...

It’s been more than two-and-a-half years since Darryl Hunt was released from prison after being wrongfully convicted in the murder of Deborah Sykes, yet twice in the past three weeks, the Journal has had front-page stories—on Sunday, no less—about criminal justice issues closely related to the Hunt-Sykes case. Yesterday’s was about the high expectations and lower realities of the state’s new innocence commission.

There’s a lot going on in the world these days—globally and locally—and it can make you wonder whether the newspaper is devoting too much of its resources to an issue that many people and readers might think is old news.

Our continuing interest in the criminal-justice system stems from a couple of areas: First, it’s a serious public-policy issue. There are few other areas where people’s liberty and freedom are so evidently at stake. Second, it’s important for newspapers to follow through on issues, to not drop coverage halfway through or just move on when they get bored. As long as public officials continue to make news from the Hunt-Sykes case, we’ll be there. Third, it’s our franchise. The Journal has done some groundbreaking work in exploring flaws in our criminal-justice system in recent years. And to the extent we get to play to our strengths, we’ll continue to do so

The balance between what the newspaper wants to report on and what the public wants to know is a constant. Most often, there’s an overlap. Sometimes, there’s a disconnect. On the best days, there’s enlightenment. It’s healthy for us to continually and consistently challenge ourselves on where we are devoting our resources and see if these moves make sense in light of what’s happening in the world. There’s no formula, thankfully, and the quirkiness and differences with what newspapers decide is news in their communities is still one of the hallmarks of journalism.

Good to get away. Good to be back. I missed you all. Winston-Salem is not a perfect place by any means, but it only takes a few days away from here to realize its charms and attractions and sense of self. Traveling in rural Pennsylvania and Upstate NY gave me a chance to read a lot of newspapers. In remote corners of the country, where Internet access is still all dial up and TV stations are few and far between, newspapers dominate. Some of them use that domination quite well. Others don’t. That’s a shame.

One of the big issues with newspapers is credibility and transparency. We showed that today with a story that essentially corrected a previous story on census figures. As an editor, I can tell you that it is incredibly painful to read a story-length correction that is on the front page. But it’s essential. We don’t do it to embarass the reporters or editors involved with this. We do it because it helps keep our bond with readers. We make a mistake. We own up to it in a manner that makes sense for the story. Then we move on, hopefully with some lessons learned.

Cold cuts: In my time in the North Country, one of the delicacies we got to experience was something called ”Croghan Bologna,” which is sort of like Lebanon Bologna, but smaller with a redder skin. Don’t want to know what’s in it, but it is tasty indeed.

It’s often instructive to see how different papers cover the same event. There’s an interesting example of that today, with Fulton Meachem, the interim director of HAWS, taking a job as the head of public housing in Pittsburgh. Here’s our story, and here’s the story published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Different perspectives. They don’t contradict each other. And yet, each journalist emphasized different things. Understandable, given that Meachem is leaving here and going there. Was our story too negative? Is their’s too positive? I don’t think so. Instead, they play off the respective histories of public housing, and Meachem is a mirror with which to look at those successes and challenges.

A brief break: The OTTERBLOG will be largely inactive for about 10 or so days, as I pursue a little R&R. We’ll see you all on the other side.

We are in another battle over 911 calls with local law-enforcement officials. We had asked for tapes from calls made for help with a stabbing death and with a fire on Brownsboro Road. On Monday, we reached agreement to get transcripts from the stabbing, but a judge sealed several of the fire 911 calls.

What’s interesting about our story is that although we got the stabbing transcripts, we only mentioned them at the very end and didn’t make a big deal of them. The reason is simple: there wasn’t much on them.

Now, one argument would be Why are you wasting time and money for something that turns out not to have much news value? The reason is simple. We don’t know what’s on the tapes/transcripts until we see them, and we believe that the public ought to have the right to judge their value, rather than have the law-enforcement/legal community judge on their behalf.

We’re still evaluating our options on legal strategies. I’ll keep you informed.

Memory Lane: Mike Decker’s guilty plea brought back a lot of memories from the 3+ years I spent covering the General Assembly. Decker was a more interesting politician than a lot of people think. Socially awkward, uncomfortable with the back-slapping go-along-get-along world of the General Assembly. In a profile from 1991, I wrote: He has a phrase for life at the General Assembly: fun, food and frustration.

And what about IHOP, where the deal between Decker and House Speaker Jim Black was allegedly hatched. Love the place and their pumpkin pancakes. You wonder if there is an ad campaign in the whole thing: Pancakes and politics, They go together at IHOP.