Otterblog

I am up in Richmond for a few days at a corporate training seminar. We had a presentation this morning about finance, and at the break our speaker was teasing me about reading USA Today. Even all these years later, it’s a paper that still lacks respect. Actually, I’m reading three papers this week. USA Today comes to the hotel room, which is convenient. And the Times-Dispatch is in our conference room, which makes sense since they are the flagship paper of our company, Media General. And I’m reading the Journal online between breaks and when the wireless service is up and running here (A storm last night knocked it out for a while.). It is still an unnatural habit, reading the paper online, but I’m getting better at it and better trained about how to make my way through the site. It’s an organic process. More hopscotching, less A1 to A2 to A3, etc.

One of our facilitators was talking this morning about why he still likes getting the newspaper delivered to his house. It was in the context of thanking our company’s CEO, Marshall Morton, for taking some time to address our group. He said he likes the comfort of the paper. That’s a new one for me. I’ve heard convenience, content, continuity. But not comfort. And he put it in the context of “comfort food,” mac and cheese, meat loaf, etc. That in these uncertain times, comfort is important and an attribute that shouldn’t be overlooked. So some food for thought as the media landscape continues to be redefined before our very eyes.

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Our coverage of the battle over the future of the Tourism Development Authority has stirred up a ton of comments. There’s a lot of anger out there, and as with many fights involving anger, it seems to me that personalities are often driving the policy and politics. This has been a difficult story for us to cover. Not from any emotional or personal involvement, but because of lots of whispered agendas and the like that people on either side expect us to print without checking them out to our satisfaction.
On the one hand, the TDA is not the most important agency in town. It pales compared to the schools, or the sheriff’s office or DSS. But a couple of million dollars is a couple of million dollars, and there are good lessons for journalists and the public about paying attention to these minor agencies, the money they spend and the bang they get for that buck.

Our story today on Ribfest was a delight. It made me hungry. BBQing is one of the great American arts. There are a few basic techniques and then a jillion variations. In the interest of sharing, here is what I consider to be the best all-purpose meat rub out there. It is from Field and Stream magazine. I don’t know where one gets juniper berries, so I just leave them out. Enjoy.

As Columbo would say. One more thing. Close readers of OTTERBLOG know about my affinity for the great state of Iowa. The floods out there are catastrophic. I’ve attached the front page of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, which is a very good newspaper. This is one of those iconic pictures and layouts that says it all.

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I don’t do much reporting these days. I do meet a lot of people and I speak with them about coverage, both general and specific. But as far as attending news events and writing up stories, that happens rarely. But every once in a while I like to go an event and watch it myself, rather than absorb it through the discussion with reporters and editors and the stories that ensue.
Last night, I went to the public forum where the four candidates for police chief were interviewed by members of the community.
Our story is here.
I purposely didn’t sit with our reporters and editors who were there, but instead took a seat in the back to sort of watch the whole thing as a member of the public, rather than a journalist. It was a messy democratic process, but a democratic process of sorts nonetheless. The nice thing about going to an event that you’re not covering is that you don’t have to take notes. You can just absorb it all and not obsess about the exact quote a person said.
One of the things that impressed me this morning when I read our story was how spot on the coverage was. I occasionally hear comments and complaints from readers that our version of a meeting or event was as if the reporter was at another function. But we got this one right. If I had been telling a friend about the hearing and I had 20 inches to do it, what they wrote and what we read is what I would have said.

Two other things:
First, have a safe and happy Memorial Day. In between the burgers and the pain at the pump, remember what it is all about.

Second, I’ve attached a photo taken a few weeks ago that I found somewhat amusing. I call it crossroads, and you will see why.

You should see some subtle but important changes in our business section, beginning tomorrow. What we’ve done is redesign the mast to make it smaller. The idea is to give us a little more room on the page for display and for getting in business news that is important to readers. We’re making a similar change on the religion pages as well.

It’s pretty clear that our business coverage isn’t as hefty as it once was. Part of that was the decision to eliminate extensive stock listings and with that change move the section into the metro section. Tough moves, clearly, and reflective of the changing ways that readers get information and what our staff can best devote its time to.

Anyway, take a look at the change and let me know what you think.

Nobody asked me, but here’s my top 5 list of Cheap Eats, inspired by our relish story today on same. If you have favorites, let me know.

1) Prissy Polly’s in K’ville. Two types of BBQ and free banana pudding if you get the trivia question right. I liked the old location better, but it’s hard to fight progress.
2) Lighthouse. Two generations of Doumases know their way around the kitchen. I have eaten more hamburgers there than I can remember.
3) The Thai place at the H-T on Cloverdale. You can rent a movie while you wait for them to cook your food.
4) Cookout. I don’t know how they make that many flavors of milkshakes in there, but they do.
5) IHOP. I am partial to their pumpkin pancakes.

And there you have it…

From time to time, I’ve included the updates that the Associated Press sends us on style changes. I think they’re interesting, because they speak to the ever-evolving use of words and the shifts in meaning as culture adapts over time. Like most large institutions, the AP tends to be fairly conservative, so when they change something it’s not done just on a whim.

Here’s what they sent out last night:

Latino

  Often the preferred term for a person from—or whose ancestors were from—a Spanish-speaking land or culture or from Latin America. Latina is the feminine form. Follow the person’s preference. Use a more specific identification when possible, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, Brazilian or Mexican-American. See Hispanic, nationalities and races, and race entries.

This is a little murkier than I like in a style guide. What does preferred mean? Most of the time?

Latino/Latina wasn’t in the old stylebook, but it’s gained in popularity through the years. And it’s just one of many terms that can be used to describe people who are from south of the U.S. border or even from parts of Europe. It’s not interchangeable with Hispanic. While a person from, say, Nicaragua, might be both. A person from Brazil would be the first and not the second.

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists has as its sub title: Increasing the influence of Latinos in U.S. Newsrooms. It’s not a pick one and only one solution.

The tempting thing for Anglos to do is to make a blanket statement to the effect: These folks can’t figure it out. Why should we bother?

To me, that’s a cop out. The world comes in more flavors than it used to. I’d like to think that’s a good thing, even when it causes confusion in trying to accurately describe people.

Taste Test: There was a story in the paper yesterday about making kosher pickles. I am a serious pickle person, and, while this is not the time of year to be making pickles, reading the story gave me a hankering. So, I got all the ingredients and followed the five easy steps. I will report back in a week on whether this recipe is worth its (kosher) salt.

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OK, so it’s not quite up there with who shot J.R. or (closer to recent memory) Mr. Burns, but I need to say a few words about our decision to reveal the identity of our restaurant reviewer. Today’s relish has the scoop.

When we started down the Dinner Belle path two+ years ago, we had some pretty simple and sensible reasons for Laura to have a nom de spoon. She was covering higher education, and we thought that it would be awkward for her to negotiate that public beat of objective journalism while wading into the subjective world of risotto and ribeyes. We did some juggling a month or so back and moved Laura to features, and now the world of food will take up a large chunk of her time. And because one of her areas of coverage will be culture/food/restaurants, it seemed silly to have her be a reporter for some bylines and the anonymous dinner belle for others.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Laura is a great writer about food, and as a reviewer she is painstakingly honest. It gives her no delight to be disappointed by the food at a restaurant.

A quick word about anonymity. Most restaurant reviewers go to great lengths to avoid publicity. In big cities, some have worn wigs, or used fake names to make reservations, etc. The idea being that if the folks at the snooty restaurant recognize the reviewer, he or she will get better service and an extra shrimp (the one that should have been in your appetizer ...). Winston-Salem isn’t at that place yet in its food culture. My guess is that Laura can wander in and out of restaurants with impunity. Still, she is preserving a shred of her anonymity, which makes sense. Our cover doesn’t show her face.

So what does Laura look like? As a special OTTERBLOG treat, I have attached my own artist’s conception/cartoon/courtroom sketch of the dinner belle, hard at work. And yes, I am going to stick to my day job. Now, let’s eat.

Careful readers of our Living section have probably noticed that during the past few months that we have de-emphasized the strictness of the day’s theme. In other words, Tuesday’s features section, which has a focus on health, is also likely to have stories on other topics. The idea is to offer readers a wide variety of topics on various issues. Take yesterday’s section, which has its focus on Food. The centerpiece was about a after-school program that teaches kids how to cook, but there were also stories about Monopoly going cashless and $5200 cashmere sheets (I thought all these stories could be lumped under a collective headline “Signs of the end times” but that’s just me.).
Today’s Living section had two stories about food, including the whole Chowhound phenomenon, and tomorrow, we’re previewing a new wine column by Michael Hastings. Michael used to be our only food writer. Now we have a second. Laura Giovanelli, a former metro reporter, has moved over to features, where she will cover the intersection of food and culture, as well as general assignment features. In these troubled times for newspapers, it might seem a bit frivolous to stick another journalist onto the eating beat. But Laura is a spirited writer who is as animated and knowledgeable talking about food as she was talking about higher-education policy in her previous role here. And all our research suggests that many of our readers (including this one!!) are passionate and curious about all aspects of food. We’ll have some additional coverage changes in features to announce in coming weeks, so stay tuned.

We launched a new political blog today (or maybe late yesterday). It’s called Trail Mix, and it’s written by James Romoser, our Raleigh bureau chief. James is scary smart, and a great observer and analyzer. There are a zillion political blogs out there. We hope ours will be distinguished by its quality of content, not just the sheer quantity of links being dumped onto a site. I hope you will check it out and let James know what you think.

James is in Iowa right now, which is one of my favorite places in this whole big country of ours. It’s big skies and the cliffs along the Mississippi and river towns and corn and campaigning as far as the eye can see. I told James to eat cheeseburger chowder soup wherever he can find it out there, but he wasn’t having any of it. I think it’s one of the great midwestern dishes.

Personnel files: If you read the story today about the conviction of Robert Watson, you’ll note that we have asked for the school system to release his personnel file to the public. Generally speaking, personnel files are not public, but the law allows school officials to release these records in limited circumstances. We think the public-policy issues here are important

This is a two-fer….

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Jones Sausage Road in Raleigh, the legacy of Slim Jims, and made reference to Jesse Jones hot dogs. I said I would get back with the rest of that story. Lenox Rawlings, our sports columnist, has the full tale in his Sunday column. As with all of Lenox’s column, there’s an incredible amount of history, grace, sports knowledge and—that rarest of commodities in most sports columnists—restraint wrapped up in 30 or so column inches.

Not everyone is a lover of the dyed-red hot dog, but those who are are apparently very loyal.

I’ve had several people ask me about the ads showing up on the front pages of several sections—sports, travel—and whether they are a permanent addition to our landscape. The answer is ... maybe.  You would be hard-pressed to find an editor who thinks they enhance the appearance of a front page, but the advertising premium for that display space is hard to turn away in this current environment. While it’s of little comfort to many of our readers, high-quality newspapers in many countries have carried front-page ads for years. That’s not a justification for doing something, but it does give you an idea of the varying sensibilities around the world.

Finally, two thoughts from the world of magazines. First, the current issue of Natural History magazine has a very good discussion of the global water crisis/issue. Sometimes, it’s instructive to get up at 30,000 feet and take a look at the big picture, beyond the Yadkin, Dan and Falls of the Neuse Lake. Unfortunately, the article isn’t online (yet.) Second, I ran across an interesting magazine this weekend, called Garden & Gun, which is published by the owners of the Charleston newspaper. It’s a strange mixture of southern lifestyle, the sporting life and whatnot. It’s very glossy. Not quite The New Yorker, not quite Town & Country. We’ll see if it makes it…

I was out of town a few days last week—more on that in a second—so when I read the Saturday paper I was reading it as a reader, not as a person who knows the back stories on a particular story. And when I read the front-page piece on the high-school sweethearts and the restraining order, my immediate reaction was: Why are we naming these students? Yes, there’s a restraining order against the former boyfriend, and there is a simple assault, but still… They’re high-school kids, 17 and 16. It seemed to me that the particulars of names was less important than the larger theme, how adult issues, such as domestic violence, keep getting thrust into our school system and forcing hard choices. My thought as the reader was that I don’t know these students, so their names are meaningless to me.

I talked with the reporter this morning, and what Dan told me was that naming them was unavoidable and impractical. The father of the girl essentially held a news conference, and the former boyfriend showed up—or thereabouts—to refute his actions. In a sense, they made it a public issue with names. Still, this is one of those instances where I wonder what happened to modesty on the part of parents. Our world is one big Jerry Springer show…

I was in Washington last week for the Associated Press Managing Editors conference. As you might expect, it’s not the cheeriest time to be at an editor’s conference. That said, it’s not all gloom and doom. The sense I got was that the days of hoping for smoother sailing are gone. The new reality is here to stay, and everybody is dealing with it, rather than hoping it goes away. The realities are: 1)continued financial pressure and their impact on news gathering and 2) the end of newsrooms as gatekeepers of information.

Washington is a city being remade before your eyes, but there are still plenty of institutions around. I managed to eat at one Friday morning. Jimmy Ts on Capitol Hill. Tin ceiling. Great waffles. Decent coffee. My guide for the meal says that Howard Coble is an occasional diner as well ...