Back from a little R&R ... so I hope this post isn’t too dated, but I think it’s on a more universal point.
Our Sunday story was about the drought. We started working on it in earnest on a Monday, and by Wednesday, the rain was conversation topic No. 1. Sunday stories of the heft and context that we like to publish don’t just get plucked out of thin air. And so, as the weather remained soggy, we were faced with a choice: Bag the drought story and find a substitute or Run the drought story and try to provide the background and spin to show that a few days of rain aren’t the end of our water woes.
We chose the latter, of course. But we had a lot of good discussion about whether that was the right thing to do. I thought it was then—and still do. And not just because it was less stressful than finding another centerpiece. One of the things that newspapers get accused of far too often is switching gears and moving on too soon. What I thought our Sunday story did was outline a larger problem that is bigger than a few days of rain. That said, would I have preferred a week of sunshine before it ran? Of course. You can’t get everything.
Separately, this is an interesting column from the editor of the News & Observer in Raleigh about their changing use of descriptors in police briefs. It’s different from what we do. Would like to hear your thoughts on this.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
I frankly avoided the story on purpose mostly due the mutitude of doom and gloom stories on TV for a couple of months. Every day,every night, every newscast, every weather forecast abd so on and so on. Enough is enough. The subject has been overkilled by overkill and I feel,over time, people stop paying attention.
That’s certainly one way to look at it. I think a lot of folks approach the news that way. Overkill can be an issue, although some times that is in the eye of the beholder.
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