Otterblog

For all its success in economic development, from Dell to pharmaceuticals, North Carolina has never landed the silver tuna: a car factory. As the foreign car makers have set down roots in the mid-South auto belt, away from Detroit and its unions, North Carolina has been a perennial bridesmaid. BMW got past us to S.C.; Mercedes went to Alabama. Nissan to Mississippi, etc. etc. It can give you a bit of a complex.

Now come reports that Toyota, which is poised to overtake GM as the world’s biggest car company, is looking at Greensboro and three other states as a site for a car plant.

Potentially big news and big money. Reporting on incentives is tricky business. The folks involved don’t want to discuss anything, but the public input that is part and parcel of the incentives process requires openness. Invariably, the deal makers gripe that that publicity kills deals. But it doesn’t. We went through this with Dell, and it’s virtually impossible to find an instance where reporting on a reputable company that wanted incentives sent that company to another site.

Worth a read: The Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday. Print journalism’s annual salute to itself. It can be self-congratulating and a little excessive, particularly in this era, but some of the work is outstanding. I recommend the series in the Rocky Mountain News on a Marine whose job it is to tell the families of Marines that their loved ones have been killed. In the wrong hands, a subject like that can drown in cliche. This is sparse and unflinching. It won for both feature writing and photography, a rarity.