Otterblog

It’s not quite the Million Man March, but getting 2,500 people to march in Yadkinville on a beautiful Saturday in late April is still an amazing feat. The occasion was a rally to get the Yadkin County Commissioners to change their position and allow sectarian prayer before their meetings.

I find this debate really interesting. For all the talk about liberals vs. conservatives and godlessness vs. god-fearing, it’s really about how we as a country and as individuals interpret the constitution and set values. And civil debates about the constitution should be encouraged. Again, the First Amendment is a mighty, mighty bit of writing, and I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness or vagueness that we’re still trying to figure out what our framers meant in those 45 words. I’d like to think that James Madison and Co. are getting a chuckle and nodding approvingly somewhere.

Our principal reporter on this issue says she gets called frequently and asked to help out. And she politely tells people that’s not her job—to advocate for either side. What we can do and try to do is to explain each side’s position as well as the legal history of this issue to date and the political and policy implications. 

As a backgrounder, I’ve included a link to Marsh v. Chambers, which is cited by both sides as supportive of their positions.

WK_FRST_paper_--Newspaper_struggles.doc

This morning I was part of a panel discussion regarding whether newspaper circulation declines are related to the professional press’ general rejection of public journalism. The findings, by Burton St. John III, a professor at Old Dominion University, are attached above. Also on the panel: Mayor Allen Joines, Mary Martin Niepold, a journalism instructor at WFU (and occasional reviewer and contributor at the Journal), and Justin Catanoso, who is the exec. editor of the Triad Biz Journal weekly.

I rejected the author’s conclusion. As the good folks at RJR say, correlation doesn’t imply causation. Public/civic journalism sounds like a good idea in theory, but in practice it leads to gobbledygook.

Newspapers are having a hard time of late, and we do need to keep working at keeping close tabs on the concerns and voices of average folks, rather than just experts, but the answer isn’t in journalism by committee or by poll.

Here are the remarks I gave:

The press’ problems are not unique to newspapers, and it’s simplistic to say that the answer is public journalism. Broadcast journalism, both network and local, have also lost viewership, and you could argue that television has always been by default a much more interactive medium.

The problem as I see it is that newspapers are a general interest product in a special-interest world. And American society over the past 50 years, arguably since the end of World War II, has been about the rise of the individual and the decline and fracturing of geographic-based communities.

Look at Forsyth County, the most important county where we circulate. 30 years ago, there was Winston-Salem and Kernersville. That was it. Now we have 10 municipalities in the county. Each with its own demands. And there’s been a hardening of what people expect in their news. The idea of objectivity has been pushed away. Conservatives listen to Fox. Liberals listen to NPR. The middle—where objectivity and dispassionate reporting live—is getting pushed and squeezed like never before. Some of what we do comes off as arrogance, but I’d like to think our attitude is earned. It’s a tough business. And where one of the few enterprises that regularly and purposefully writes stories that are guaranteed to anger its customers. It comes with the territory

I agree with the author that newspapers are a unique and profound cornerstone to citizenship, but I don’t think public journalism gets us very far. News is a funny commodity. What we think is important isn’t always the same as our readers, and we ignore them at our own peril. We’re a business. Each day, we put together a newspaper that we think enlightens, informs and entertains. And then we put it out there for people to decide whether they agree.

Basically people don’t want to be preached to by newspapers about what they ought to think. They want—I think—a newspaper with the guts to challenge the conventional wisdom, with the integrity to listen to all sides and keep pushing to get it right, and with the common sense to understand there isn’t a formula.

Many newspapers, this one included, have had a hard time recognizing Hispanic spellings. Often for technological reasons, accent marks and tildes have been difficult to use on surnames, and although for us, it might seem like no big deal, for others, it is a huge deal, because everybody deserves to have their name spelled correctly. As somebody whose last name is always being misspelled, I’m sensitive to this problem.

Anyway, we have started adding accent marks and tildes to Hispanic words, when appropriate, in the paper. The tilde is the little squiggly thing that goes over an ñ, and the sound is a ny sound, as in El Niño. I’m sure there are people out there who think that if Hispanics are going to live here, then they need to leave their accent marks at the border, but that’s wrong on a lot of levels. Spelling people’s names right is about respect.

On the flip side, there’s been a lot of discussion about the proper way to use the name of the Va. Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui. Most Koreans put the surname in front, which is fine and their prerogative. but on second reference, American journalists were calling him Cho. That confused a lot of people, who thought Cho was his first name. So the AP and the New York Times switched their nomenclature on his name, and he’s now called Seung-Hui Cho on first reference. 

Tucked in the bottom of the latest news out of Blacksburg, about Cho Sueng-hui’s video that was mailed to NBC, is the statement that the network delayed releasing the video at the request of the police.

These sorts of requests are not common, but they are not unusual. We’ve had two in the past few months. Both involved requests by the WSPD to delay running mugshots of people arrested. In both cases, the police argued that they were still doing witness lineups and that running a photo could corrupt that process. Because of our community’s history of bad lineups with the Darryl Hunt case, we agreed to delay publication for a short period. Not ideal, but workable.

Although some law-enforcment officials have criticized NBC for airing the video, many of the victims apparently found the message strangely cathartic, in that it gave them an explanation of why Cho did what he did, that it wasn’t them. It was him.

Another view: One of my co-workers is dating a Korean woman, and he pointed me to these newspaper Web sites that show how this story is being covered in South Korea, where Cho and his family are from.

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/

I appreciate everybody’s great debate over Imus last week. Some smart comments and clever insights. Civility with an attitude. As repugnant as Imus’ remarks were, and as important as it is for us to be nice to each other, the fate of a shock jock seems pretty trivial right now, with the tragedy unfolding in Blacksburg, Va.

We have a reporter on the scene, and we’ll be up there reporting and trying to make sense of this rampage that left more than 30 people dead. It will change that campus forever. And it should. How it does is the unanswered question.

From a journalism standpoint, one of the things to watch for in the coming days is how new technology influences the coverage. Blogs. Cell videos. etc. If you think back to the London train bombings and the cell phone images that were part of the attacks. VT is a savvy, wired place with savvy, wired students, and they are going to be active participants in how this story gets covered and what gets covered.

Yesterday, we had an important decision about whether to name the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case. She is the college student/dancer/mother who was hired to dance at the party and then made accusations that led to charges that were dismissed by the Attorney General.

Most news outlets don’t name the accusers in rape cases, although there are exceptions to every rule. Several newspapers that I respect, including the News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, both decided to name the woman. Her name was widely available prior to this decision. Here’s the explanation of the N&O’s exec editor, Melanie Sill.

We decided not to. Here’s what our rape policy says, in part:

In the event that an accused rapist is acquitted or released after being charged [and that charge was reported by us], we will make significant efforts to detail the story behind the defendant’s success. In these narrow cases, we may choose to name the accuser if there is competent evidence that the charges were deliberately bogus. Even in this event, however, we will not use the names of any victim under 18 years old.

I think the key word here is “deliberately.” To my mind, what AG Cooper said yesterday is key, that the accuser may actually believe her stories. I’m not sure her charges were deliberate lies.

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry over the world of trouble that Don Imus has gotten himself into. On the one hand, it’s the sort of natural progression of a lot of talk radio, especially the big-time national shows, where audiences are fickle and if the host’s comments don’t make the water cooler conversation then there’s a serious problem. On the other hand, there’s the whole business of a person’s right to say what they want to say—regardless of how offensive it is.

As I’ve noted before, journalists take the first amendment very seriously. Free speech/free press. It also includes freedom of religion (an issue careening across Forsyth County right now) freedom to petition the govt. and freedom of assembly.

It’s important to note that the Bill of Rights doesn’t say anything about broadcast radio and shock jocks. At the time, even a thinker and futurist as brilliant as Thomas Jefferson had no idea what was coming down the pike. But we treat broadcast different from newspapers and just shouting out your window or what have you, because the airwaves are seen as a public domain. In essence, the government can’t control what you say, but they can determine the size and existence of your broadcast equipment. That hasn’t happened yet with Imus.

Instead, the marketplace seems to be doing its job, with various businesses and marketing executives evaluating whether they want to keep advertising on his show. If they do, he’ll be fine. If not, he’ll probably end up in a greatly reduced role.

My guess is that Imus will survive in some fashion for several key reasons. First, he’s got a huge audience. I’m an occasional,once every three month listener, but my guess is that before the YKW hit the fan, lots of people chuckled at his remark about the Rutgers bball team. He says what many people think. Two, his support base among elected officials and the powers that be is broad. He has a lot of chits to call in. Three, Americans love nothing more than a story of redemption. If Imus can sell group two that he’s serious about three, then he is good to go.

You have to wonder about a field trip that costs $2700. That’s what kids at Paisley spent to go on a trip to Europe that included a cruise in Greece, and that ended with their cruise ship sinking just off the coast of Santorini. Luckily, the kids were unharmed. I just keep thinking about how much band fruit you would have to sell to bring that price down. When it comes to field trips etc., it’s hard to draw a line that says “This is too much.” Is it $1000, $2000? Don’t know. But $2700? Yep.

We had an obituary today for a man named Anthony Washington, known as Ankie. He was one of the crew at Murphy’s Lunch, a downtown institution and a good place to eat. Many folks like to go there on Tuesday and Thursday, when it is fried chicken day. Me, I like Friday, when they have fish. Their Mac and cheese is among the best I’ve had. The Murphy’s crew is a good group of people. Friendly. Quick to forgive if you change your mind halfway through an order and decide you want pintos instead of greenbeans.

It’s not often the words “Tobaccoville” and “World’s Sexiest Man” get used in the same breath, but yesterday they were, more or less, and we had the photographs to prove it. Our story about George Clooney, and the filming of Leatherheads in the Donnaha area of western Forsyth County was a great little diversion from our world of problems small, large and extra-large.

The photograph that we ran on Page One by Lauren Carroll was a real grabber, with a wonderful interplay between the starstruck and the star who is striking her. We had a brief discussion at our budget meeting yesterday about how to play the Clooney story, whether we should give it more prominence at the expense of a well-crafted story about the investigation into the shooting at the Red Rooster. In the end, it wasn’t close. The Red Rooster story moved to the front of the Local Section, where we were able to give it a nice display

Does that mean Hollywood won? Yes. And no. There are a lot of parts of the definition of news: What happened. What people are talking about. What is important. Quite clearly, nos. 2 and 3 are subjective. The best stories touch all three of these. The worst, barely touch one. News is serious. But it’s OK to have some sizzle with the steak.

We had a interesting discussion yesterday about trying to define Gangster Rap, and how one person’s definition might not match up with another’s. It had to do with what the bouncers at the Red Rooster said was being played when the problems at the club started. I don’t claim to be an expert on rap or hip-hop or really any music, but I do know that shorthand often gets people into trouble.
Which reminds me, National Geographic has a very good article called Hip-Hop Planet in its current issue. Beautifully written By James McBride, who wrote “The Color of Water.” A great book.

The Council of State is the group of statewide elected officials (Governor, Lt. Governor—known as the Lite Gov, Labor Commissioner, etc) who meet once a month. One of the main things they do is approve the sale and purchase of property. Today, they approved the state taking control of two important properties: Chimney Rock, and SECCA.

Both reflect the changing economics of our times. But they are interesting for other reasons. Chimney Rock will eventually become a state park, like Mount Mitchell. SECCA will be probably be some mini N.C. Museum of Art, with a nod to modern/contemporary art.

SECCA’s move was driven in part by the cost of maintenance and repairs at its facility off of Reynolda Road, but there is something a bit troubling about museums becoming part of the state. Art is expression, First Amendment and all that, and inevitably, when the government gets involved with the First Amendment, there is a change. SECCA made its bones by being provocative and taking risks, challenging the government over what constitutes art. Can that happen when it’s part of the government? Maybe. But don’t bet on it.

In answer to a question below, I’ve put in a link to SECCA’s latest filed tax return on Guidestar.