Otterblog

We learned Tuesday afternoon that Sen. Ham Horton

had died of cancer.

Ham Horton was far from perfect, but he was in many ways a journalist’s dream senator. He understood issues, gave good quotes and wasn’t afraid to be on the wrong end of a losing battle against what many people considered progress. And he saved

as we know it.

I thought of Ham Horton when I watched the president’s

today, it’s clear that Ham Horton had friends on both sides of the aisle.

Realistically, what works best is partisan politicians who also revere the institution in which they’re elected to serve. In my book, that puts Ham Horton in the same category as U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W. Va. You may not agree with their votes or their positions, but they have respect for the rules of their chambers, are frequently entertaining and enlightening to listen to, and at their best make our government seem more noble.

You sort of wonder what old R.J. Reynolds must be thinking today, with the

is said to be considering introducing a smokeless version of his beloved Camel cigarette. I kept wondering whether the can would be shaped like a hump.

In the marketing business, this is what’s called a brand extension, where companies try to attach the clout and cachet of one product to a new product that bears the same name. Like when Quaker Oats started making oatmeal bars.

You have to admire RJR’s willingness to try new things.

There’s an interesting parallel between newspaper companies and cigarette companies. In terms of volume, both essentially reached their peak in the United States many years ago and have slowly drifted downward. Here’s the

.

Is there a reason these two vastly different industries seem to track each other? As the folks in the tobacco business like to point out, correlation doesn’t always imply causation, but the decrease come down to essentially the same issue: consumers choosing to spend their money and their time elsewhere. Lifestyle choices. You adapt by one of two ways: either convincing your existing customers they were wrong to leave you or by finding new customers.

That’s what smokeless Joe—if it happens—is all about.

We spend an enormous amount of time thinking about what will be on our front page. That makes sense. It’s our front door and the first thing that readers see when they pick up the paper, even if it’s just to thumb through the sections looking for Sports or the Jumble.

Today is a day filled with news—and most of the big stories are national. There’s the POTUS/SOTU (President of the United States State of the Union), the confirmation of Sam Alito to replace Sandra Day O’Connor, and the death of Coretta Scott King.

They compete with each other for the prime real estate on the front page, and with local stories that may be exclusive to us and have more immediate impact on our communities. The trick is to have a front page that tells what happened, why it happened, and doesn’t look dated by the time it hits porches, yards and newsracks tomorrow morning.

So we juggle and adjust. And then we juggle again.

Having inadequate tools for the job doesn’t guarantee that the final product will be inferior, but it doesn’t help. That’s the situation facing the Deborah Sykes Citizens Administrative Review Committee, the subject of a story this Sunday

.

The committee’s task is to look at the Winston-Salem Police Department’s handling of the investigation into the death of Deborah Sykes in 1984, an investigation that led to the wrongful conviction of

.

The

lacks subpoena power, and it can’t compel people to consent to interviews. Many key players have so far declined to be interviewed. The result is that the committee’s final report is likely to be not as complete as it could be and that its findings may be less clear and less accepted as the “truth.”

This is familiar ground to journalists. We’re armed with a notebook and a pencil (or a laptop and 10 fingers) and little else. We prod. We ask. We plead. But in the end, we can’t make people agree to be interviewed.

This isn’t to simply commiserate with the Sykes Committee. These are the rules the city chose to play by. But we understand the difficulty of getting reluctant people to talk.

Parade magazine

is a staple of our Sunday paper. It’s comfortable, like slippers and a cup of coffee. There’s James Brady, Marilyn Vos (I’m smarter than you are) Savant, and the celebrity gossip on Page 2.

I look at Parade third, after the front page and the comics. Last Sunday, the cover story was about dictators around the world. Parade tried to make the subjective—who are the world’s worst dictators—into the objective, the 10 worst. Like David Letterman meets William Shirer.

has a fun interview today with the Parade editor who put the list together, what it means and what it doesn’t mean.

It’s not quite in the category of Dewey Defeats Truman

, but most newspapers headlines—particularly in early editions—missed the Hamas Party’s victory over the Fatah Party in the Palestinian elections. Through most of the night, exit polls showed Hamas surging but Fatah holding a plurality. Only after 1 a.m. did the wires change and report of the Hamas win.

Its victory raises some interesting questions about terminology and how the media defines groups.

The United States and many western nations have condemned Hamas as having ties to terrorism, and that

. The Associated Press and other wire services typically call Hamas a “militant” organization. Sometimes they call it “radical.”

This debate over terminology is familiar ground in the Middle East. One person’s insurgent is another one’s militant is another one’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

That’s why words matter. It’s not to say the truth is whatever you want it to be or can call it. A duck is not a chicken. But where you are coming from and where you are going quite often changes the view of what you are looking at.

Life’s too short to argue over where the best BBQ in the state is. Personally, I prefer BBQ from 336 and the northern part of 704, but that’s just me.

But a friend had told me about a little place in the country called Allen and Sons in Orange County, and I went yesterday on the way back from Raleigh. Outstanding. As befits the geography, the food is a bit in the middle as well. Smoky taste, good sauce. Excellent meat. Great sweet potato pie.

Worth a visit. It’s about a mile or so on NC 86 north of Interstate 40 in the New Hope community. 86 itself is a pretty diversion, caught between North Carolina’s past, present and future. In the stretch between I-40 and I-85, you drive past farms selling goats, a volunteer fire department, a Zen retreat and the Wal-Mart.

There was an important hearing about differing interpretations of North Carolina’s Public Records Law yesterday. Here’s our story

on it, for those who missed it.

Public records are incredibly important for a democratic (with a little D) society. Lots of people think newspapers and other media want special status in public records. We don’t. We want everybody to be able to get the records they think are important for helping them understand how government works.

In this case, our argument is with the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office over 911 tapes created during two high-profile incidents. The 911 calls are raw and emotional. But our reason for wanting to examine wasn’t just about their visceral power. We’re also keenly interested in how law enforcement responded to these crises. These emergency communications give one clue.

The sheriff, the DA and the defense attorneys have their own reasons for not wanting to release these tapes, and their lawyers and ours made compelling oral arguments to the N.C. Court of Appeals yesterday. I’ll keep you apprised of the ruling.

I got the following email question late Monday:

How many of the stories do you actually read before they go to print?

First, let me assume that this is not a subtle dig at my work ethic.

The answer is it depends on what I’m doing that day. On occasion, I fill in for other editors while they are on vacation or assigned to a project. In those instances, I’ll read a lot of stories. From a supervisory standpoint, myself and the executive editor manage the newsroom, but it’s not feasible or practical for one person to read everything before publication. On a typical day, I may be personally involved with anywhere between half a dozen to a dozen stories—from sketching out how to approach a topic to the writing and the graphics etc. I try to read the stories that I think are most significant and most complex.

If nothing else, having a third or fourth set of eyes—and hopefully a fresh set of eyes—on a story is very helpful.

Some of you might be familiar with a concept called the Stockholm Syndrome. It sort of means that the kidnapped start to identify with the kidnappers. Editors and journalists have to guard against a similar type of effect while working on a story. We can become too familiar with a topic and that can alter how we present a story, what we include or what we think can be left out.

I wanted to take a few seconds to tell you all what I hope OTTERBLOG will be about. First and foremost, journalism as practiced by the Journal and JournalNow. Mostly print, but I will get into broadcast or multimedia if I think I have something worth adding to the conversation.

Fair topics include ethics, public records, open meetings, election coverage, the culture of newsrooms, good headlines (see earlier post), bad headlines, blown stories, missed opportunities, great writing, great reporting, etc. etc. We can also as needed discuss other forms of writing—books, magazines etc., along with two other topics—food and regional history—that I care about.

I have a pretty thick skin, and I am used to getting criticized. So I don’t mind if folks have disagreements with my perspective. There are frequently and often several plausible views on any issue. My one request is to keep it reasonably civil and the e-decibels down below the full-blown yell.

Thanks for reading.