Otterblog

A newspaper is obviously a lot more than a newsroom. I think we’re first among equals (as the word newspaper suggests), but we have lots of dedicated folks—from advertising to circulation to the printing press who work hard every day to get the paper out. We’re a big company, and like a lot of big companies, people tend to keep to their own. There’s not a lot of—or as much as there ought to be—interaction between departments.

A rare exception to that isolation was a guy named Mike Bullin, an electrician and building-maintenance staffer at the Journal. He died Sunday of cancer, and his funeral is today. Mike’s day was spent going from department to department taking care of things so that the rest of us could have a more pleasant day at work. Little things, like adjusting the air-conditioning ducts across our newsroom, so that the people who like it hot are happy and those who don’t are too. Or fixing the water fountain or the locking doors or anything else that makes it easier for folks to do their jobs.

Mike knew how to use duct tape to fix a problem, but his preferred method was to figure out what was wrong and take care of it. And he was often relentless in those efforts. He wasn’t satisfied until the problem was solved.

And in his trips throughout the Journal, Mike would tell funny stories—about himself, about his family, about the Journal. If we were all trapped in our cubicles, Mike wasn’t, and he as much as anyone knew we all needed to pull together to get the job done. He was some of the glue that kept us connected.

Young reporters often ask me what the essential skills are to be a journalist. I think they include: a desire to help others, the ability to take apart an issue, and the persistence to make sure things get done right. So, I’ll remember Mike as friend and a colleague and—yes, as a journalist, a part of our newsroom.

Obituaries are a staple of newspapers. We run paid ones inside the local news section, and we also run news obituaries of important people. Important is a relative term and a subjective term. People can and do disagree about whether somebody is important enough or interesting enough to deserve a news obituary.

Obituaries can be tricky. Sometimes, the reasons people are newsworthy are not the most favorable to their legacy, and there’s a real balancing act between being true to a person’s actions in the community and also not speaking ill of the dead (There’s an old newspaper adage that “You can’t libel a dead person,” but we’ll save that discussion for another day.).

Two recent news obits highlight the tension. First, our news obit on Mark Corts, the long-time pastor at Calvary Baptist Church. He was a charismatic figure, and he built his church into the county’s largest house of worship. Our news obit reflected that passion and his vision, but some readers felt that we were too charitable to him, that where his supporters saw an unflinching belief in biblical teachings other saw meanness and intolerance for those who choose to view the Bible differently. Second was a brief we carried on the death of Jim Daulton, a former police officer. He was one of the original investigating officers in the death of Deborah Sykes, and—rightly or wrongly—he became a scapegoat for the WSPD’s bungling of the case. He’s not a mover or shaker like Corts, just an important footnote in our city’s history.

News obituaries are important. They’re a way of marking time, of taking stock. And sometimes, with the power of time and distance, we can reflect on the controversies people were involved with and give them new context and meaning.

More competition: I’m not a big fan of tofu, but I do like the occasional vegetarian meal, so I’m excited about the debut of Veggin’ Out, the latest blog on journalnow.com. It’s written by Cassandra Sherrill and Julie Harris. Cassandra is a graphic artist at the Journal, and Julie is our library manager.  Julie’s first job at the Journal was as my clerk when I was business editor way back in the late 1980s, so she and I go way back. They’re smart and funny writers, and good cooks. Check ‘em out.

A word I just created: Schadenflood It means taking a perverse pleasure in somebody else’s water-related damage. There’s a little of that in our story today about the collapsed culvert on Knollwood Street, near PB’s Takeout. It’s hard to laugh at what happened in NOLA with Katrina, but there’s something slightly—or very—amusing about a jury-rigged culvert that comes crashing down in a storm (providing nobody gets hurt).

Newspapers are a serious business and sometimes journalists are too serious and we take ourselves too seriously. The culvert isn’t going to win the Pulitzer Prize, but as entertainment, it can’t be beat. It’s easy for us to forget about the importance of entertaining people as a way of capturing their attention.

Our travel piece on Foamhenge reminded me of the other American henge, Carhenge, which is in western Nebraska. Here’s the link. Never been there, but my guess is it would be an epic road trip, and with gas at only $2.70 a gallon, this may be your last, best chance.