News-Record.com

I understand the frustration and anger inside some parts of the newspaper business these days, but isn't this behavior by adults embarrassing? Even when it's done by journalists?

Especially when there are smart people who are suggesting you channel your energy in other, more constructive ways?

We redesigned Go Triad, our entertainment magazine, today. (GoTriad.com will be redesigned later with different elements and for a different audience.) As editor Carla Kucinski Seward said in her message to readers: The biggest difference you'll notice is the overall design; it's fresher, cleaner and more reader friendly. We've changed fonts, renamed features, reorganized the layout and given it more of a magazine feel.

We also introduced a new feature to our Life front: a photo spread that tells its a story in images each week. Sometimes they will be staff photos, others they will be the best photos from around the world.

Newspaper readers, let us know what you think.

DJ Chris Kelly on Rock 92 invited media outlets to bid to be the exclusive publishers of photos of his new baby, in that way that celebrities do. While he specifically called out the News & Record -- well, he also mentioned Auto Trader and the Thrifty Nickel -- he said his preference was Yes! Weekly because of the suck-up coverage the tabloid did on the station's recent Bubbalympics.

Fair enough.

Should we bid? The baby is due this fall so the photos may be a welcome break from the diet of boring political coverage. On the other hand, some people may accuse us of pandering. Or worse.

This is new territory for us, so I solicit the advice of you, dear readers.

Update: One in-house wag suggests we go for photos of Rosemary Plybon 's twins. Way more followers of the WFMY morning show announcer.

A couple bloggers noted the News & Record's appearance on Letterman last night.

Here it is. Thanks to our friends at WFMY, who passed it along. Update: Here's WFMY's story. Bottom line, bird still lost.

Update: News researcher David Bulgin passes along the link that the N&R was mentioned in "Small Town News" last month, too. Here's the clip. Greensboro is the final item, at about the 4:10 mark. (Personally, I liked the one at the 3:05 point better.)

Some folks on the Debatables blog are debating our photo of Maurice Green, the candidate for school superintendent from Charlotte-Meck schools. One e-mailed me and the editor of The Charlotte Observer about the photo.

While the published photo probably won't qualify as a mug shot, it appears to be one more associated with a criminal than that of a professional. Clearly public perceptions of these type of images can not be understated, and it simply was not a good impression for a man who has less than 48 hours to make one with the residents of Guilford County. The sad reality is that many have already formed their opinion of this man solely based upon this published picture.

When the names of the two superintendent finalists were announced Monday evening, we requested the home papers of the candidates -- the Observer and the Laurinburg Exchange -- to send us photos. When the photos came to us, we had a traditional posed photo of Dr. Prince at her desk and an action shot of Mr. Green. To make them size equivalent, we cropped both down to mugshot size. While I quibble with the e-mailer that Mr. Green's makes him look like a criminal, I understand his point.

Here's the original photo we received from the Observer.

Seeing the entire photo shows the context of Mr. Green's facial expression. He was standing, clearly about to answer a seated questioner in the audience. Cropping the image down to a mugshot makes him look less flattering. That wasn't intentional.

We will have different photos of both candidates today as they make their first public appearances in Greensboro.

Amid all the hecticness over 24/7 publishing deadlines, stretched-thin staff and the challenge of understanding a new business model, it is hard sometimes to remember to stop and take a deep breath.

This column in The New York Times reminded me. Unfortunately, you have to register to read it. But it's worth it.

It is about a geriatric doctor going about her rounds and how she falls into the trap of treating death as just another part of her busy day. The nut graf for me: I learned that day that I needed to slow myself down, to appreciate the gravity of the moment, the power of time and the depth and proximity of my work. It was a very big deal.

In this business, we don't deal in death, most days. But we do start the day at a run and end the day in a sprint, with a bunch of 50-yard dashes in between. And then the run starts all over again. It is, I know, not unlike many other businesses. This just happens to be the one I know and love.

It is worth remembering that we should stop every so often to reflect on what we have: the pleasure of going wherever we like and asking all sorts of impertinent, important questions of others; the opportunity to learn new skills as our craft evolves and expands; the joy of working alongside inquisitive, passionate and funny people; and the attention of tens of hundreds of thousands of people who look at our work, including many of whom who pay cash money for it.

That's worth appreciating.

Now, back to work.

The Fox affiliate in Las Vegas has begun featuring McDonald's coffee in a prominent product placement on its morning news/talk program. Invariably, this will be met with calls of outrage from journalists all over.

Not here.

Assistant Sports Editor Margaret Banks is all over this revenue enhancement opportunity. She proposes "selling sponsorships to the afternoon budget meeting: 'Here's Wednesday's sports lineup, brought to you by Duracell. Duracell … the world’s best rechargeable battery. Period. OK. We’ll have coverage of East-West all-star soccer …"

Me, I'm happy with the sticker ad that occasionally adorns the front page, but Margaret is an innovator and I don't want to dampen that spirit.

I've read a number of reports about the latest survey of newspaper editors by Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. I haven't read the actual report yet, and I'll get to it, but the stories seem consistent.

We march right along with most of what the other papers report: smaller staff, smaller newshole, less world news, more local emphasis, more movement to digital.

One point to make before I read the whole thing. Some commentators bemoan the cut back in space devoted to international news. We scaled back some years ago because our research showed that a vast majority of readers said they got that elsewhere. Why use the newsprint to give readers something that they don't look to us to provide?

(I was surprised that 15% of newspapers over 100,000 reported not having reduced their staffs over the past three years. I wonder where those papers are. I know they aren't in N.C.)

The best thing about this story -- well, no, not the best thing. The best thing is the story of these all-American men -- but one of the next best things about this story is how it ended up on the front page this morning.

John Appel, with whom I have traded e-mails and blog comments over the years -- it would be fair to say that he and I don't always see eye-to-eye -- sent me a link, recommending I read the Stars and Stripes story about the firefight that involved two of the Triad's fighting men. I did.

It was Saturday morning and I didn't think I had much chance of reaching anyone at Stars and Stripes, much less getting permission to reprint the story in today's paper. But I gave it a shot. Went to their Web site and shot an e-mail to about six different people telling them we wanted to reprint it and asking about the rights.

I got an immediate response from the editor of S&S, granting the rights. Knowing something about deadlines and press schedules, he said we could handle the paperwork later this week. I suspect it helped that the editor, Robb Grindstaff, is an alum of the Asheboro Courier-Tribune and knows where Haw River is. Update: Writer Steve Mraz is a 1998 UNC Journalism School grad so he knows where Haw River is, too.

Readers often ask us to reprint articles published elsewhere; they are usually columns that affirm the reader's position. Most of the time, they come from publications or writers that don't permit reprints or by the time they reach us, the columns are a bit moldy. Either that, or they are stories from the Internet with origins that are either obscure or impossible to track.

Maybe it was because everything fell together nicely, but I like how this worked. A reader alerted us to a good local story we were unaware of and it was on the front page of our next edition.

A side note: An editor working Saturday asked me if they should call the families of the two men from the Triad as a courtesy to let them know the story was being published in our paper. (Presumably they knew it was published Saturday by Stars and Stripes.) I said I didn't feel strongly either way, and I don't know if they did.

"It was some of the bravest stuff I've ever seen in my life, and I will never see it again because those guys," Stafford said, then paused. "Normal humans wouldn't do that. You're not supposed to do that -- getting up and firing back when everything around you is popping and whizzing and trees, branches coming down and sandbags exploding and RPGs coming in over your head ... It was a fistfight then, and those guys held ' em off."

"Just hardcoreness I guess," he said. "Just guys kicking ass, basically. Just making sure that we look scary enough that you don’t want to come in and try to get us."

That's end of a story in Stars and Stripes this morning about the firefight in Afghanistan that killed Cpl. Pruitt Rainey of Alamance County and wounded Sgt. Matthew Gobble of Thomasville.

The piece by Steve Mraz is powerful. Read the whole thing and listen to the multimedia. It's a the latest exhibit of how compelling journalism can shine a light into places most readers fear to go.

You might think -- at least I do -- that the traditional wire services would send us more like this. I guess they are too busy running with the pack following Obama in Afghanistan. Fortunately, the good people at Stars and Stripes are going to allow us to reprint this story. (Robb Grindstaff, a former GM at the Asheboro Courier-Tribune and now executive editor of Stars and Stripes in Europe, made it happen. Thanks, Robb.)

Don't you love the description of the men from the Triad: "Just guys kicking ass, basically."

Related: We have memories of Rainey and a little bit of inside baseball on publishing a story about his death.

Update: I should have credited John Appel for tipping me to the S&S story. Thank you, sir.