Bo let Carrie back in the game

I thought Bo had an off night on AI last night. Carrie didn't hit a home run either, but if people were undecided, Bo didn't hit the home run he needed. I thought for sure he would win, but now I think Carrie might take him.

Btw -- a 2 hour finale? I think I'll be tuning in when it's 1 hour and 55 minutes old.

Diversity works for race, gender, etc., why not political ideology?

I've been making the case for years to friends at the Poynter Institute in St. Pete (at which I was fortunate enough to be invited to be an journalism Ethics Fellow in 2001) that newsrooms needed to get more ideologically diverse or face extinction.

Studies have shown that journalists are overwhelmingly liberal (although many of them call themselves moderate, the percentage of journalists who voted for Bill Clinton over Dole was more than 80 percent, according to one survey).

Anyway, columnist John Leo has written a column right on point.

Question: What logic applies to say, racial diversity in newsrooms that does not apply to ideological diversity?

For Sports, Dial 1; For news, dial 2 ...

You won't be put through to voice mail if you are trying to reach someone in The Star's newsroom between 8 a.m. and about 1 a.m. This column is a great (and funny) explanation of why not. Take particular note of the writer's line about somebody being on a pay phone trying to call in breaking news.

A scary quote

Here is what former newsman and now, allegedly, respected journalism scholar Marvin Kalb has to say about the White House reaction in the wake of the Newsweek fiasco:

"This is hardly the first time that the administration has sought to portray the American media as inadequately patriotic," said Marvin Kalb, a senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. "They are addressing the mistake, and not the essence of the story. The essence of the story is that the United States has been rather indelicate, to put it mildly, in the way that they have treated prisoners of war."

"They are addressing the mistake, and not the essence of the story?"

Is he joking?

I always thought that FACTS were what we were supposed to be reporting, not "essences," whatever they are.

If we get to a point where we gloss over factually incorrect stories because we THINK their "essence" is true, it's a sad, sad day for journalism.

Here is a link to the entire New York Times story, by the way.

Academia -- the left's dictatorship

Right on point to a comment I made a couple days ago regarding the sad state of affairs on American college campuses is this column I found by Roger Kimball for the Wall Street Journal. Very powerful stuff.

Worst songs ever

We were having a discussion in the newsroom about our LEAST favorite songs ever:

Here is my preliminary list:

"Take these broken Wings" by ????
"Against the Wind" by Bob Seger
"Don't you forget about me" by Tears for Fears
"I want to know what Love is" by Foreigner

Care to add to the list?

City of Shelby violates public records law

Here is the link to today's story in The Star as well as an editorial on the issue.

My question: Are people so out of touch with government that they don't even care that major decisions involving their tax dollars are made in secret?

Post-EOG week

So, with EOGs in the rearview mirror, we should be getting the scores back this week -- most will pass, of course, which leads us to "Post-EOG Week." That's when the kids who did not pass get 2 weeks of intensive remediation, while the rest of the students ... watch movies?

Let's try this -- check with your child and see what SCHOOL WORK actually gets done in the last 2 weeks of school. Post (anonymously if you must) in the comments section and let's compare notes.

Who's in?

Phony racism

Here is an interesting and quite provocative column by Steve Chapman.

Question: Howmuch real racism exists in Cleveland County? What is the hard evidence of this racism? How does one PROVE rampant community racism?

Anybody else have "Cujo" for a dog?

Sometimes my cock-a-poo is the kindest most gentle dog in the world. Then, there are mornings like this morning. I was loading up my youngest for school and the dog jumped in the car. Normally I'm able to quickly shoo her out, but this time the dog WOULD NOT MOVE! It took my 15 minutes of cajoling, yelling, prodding with a broom, bribing with food, etc. to finally get her to move.

Other times, lately, she just growls or even snaps for no reason.

Any advice?

Panthers trades

Trades made during the NFL draft don't receive nearly enough attention. To wit, the Panthers made two terrific trades during the draft this weekend.

1) First, the Panthers moved back in the second round 9 spots (from No. 45 to No. 54) and, in return, got a fourth-rounder from the Seahawks.
2) Then, the Panthers traded two OTHER fourth-rounders to the Packers for a third-rounder (Pick No. 89)

If you put those two trade together ..
The Panthers gave up:
Pick nos. 45, 115, 126
The Panthers got:
Pick nos. 54, 89, 121

In other words, they moved back 9 spots in the second round and moved up 26 spots from the fourth to the third round and another 5 spots in the fourth round. And even more beautiful is that the Panthers were clearly targetting Eric Shelton in the second round -- a player they still got at No. 54.

Those kinds of trades can make the difference between a contender and a pretender.

Had any school papers come back recently with purple ink?

This excellent column by George Will discusses the new trend to "protect the feelings" of children by never having them lose or be subject to anything upsetting. Question: What happens when they grow up and enter the real world?

Had any school papers come back recently with purple ink?

This excellent column by George Will discusses the new trend to "protect the feelings" of children by never having them lose or be subject to anything upsetting. Question: What happens when they grow up and enter the real world?

Had any school papers come back recently with purple ink?

This excellent column by George Will discusses the new trend to "protect the feelings" of children by never having them lose or be subject to anything upsetting. Question: What happens when they grow up and enter the real world?

Had any school papers come back recently with purple ink?

This excellent column by George Will talks about our new "sensitive society" where there are no losers, only children with feelings who need those feelings protected at all costs and never harmed. Question: Then what happens when these children grow up and enter the real world?

Terrific column on the new pope

Lot's of simplistic talk about Pope Benedict XVI being "conservative" and "right-wing." But columnist Michael Novak writes in the National Review that Benedict's fight against relativism is much deeper and much more complex.

The REAL problem with newspapers?

This is former Durham Sun editor John Ham's answer to that question, in a column he penned recently.

I'm not sure I go as far as Ham does in blaming circulation declines on this mentality, but I sure do agree that the mentality exists.

Rational Risk Assessment

This is a fascinating term which I've learned about at some conferences. A loose translation of the term is this: What are the REAL chances of something bad happening?

I've heard it applied in two main areas -- terrorism and child abduction. Doing a rational risk assessment totally quantifies the ACTUAL risk of the typical person being affected by one of these things.

Here is a paper (PDF) on the the real threat of terrorism done by the Cato Institute.

One sentence that sticks out:
"Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer or severe allergic reactions to peanuts."

Now, think about HOW MUCH MONEY we've spent "fighting" terrorism just since 9/11.

I'm going to try and find a rational risk assessment on child abductions.

Crystal ball column writing?

Many of you might have heard of Mitch Albom of the Detroit newspaper. He's an award-winning columnists who wrote "Tuesday's with Morrie" and other books. He appears on ESPN's "The Sports Reporters and other TV shows.

He's in hot water.

Albom wrote a column on a Friday to be published in the Sunday paper. Nothing wrong with that -- I often write my Sunday "this and that" column ahead of time since the section in which it appears prints Friday night.

But Albom made a big boo boo when he assumed things were going to happen and included them in his column.

Here is the column. Here is his apology. And here are a bunch of journalists taking him to task for both.

My view: Albom's explanation falls short. Note in the column how he described how the players traveled to the game. Not good.

Firing offense? Probably not. But he should be disciplined somehow.

Guns at Thomas Jefferson

I've had a few inquiries over the past weeks about our coverage of the gun incident at Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy.

Police say a boy brandished a weapon in a classroom. It was a major deal.

It happened late in the week and we didn't have anything until the following Tuesday.

Why?

Quite simply, we didn't know about it. While we make daily -- sometimes multiple times a day -- checks of police reports in Cleveland County, we do not make those checks in neighboring counties, for obvious reason (the cops reporter would spend her entire shift driving and wouldn't get any work done).

So, unless we are tipped off about something in a neighboring county, there is no way for us to know. What makes this situation unusual is that we are dealing with an out-of-county school that is attended by a number of "in-county" students.

Anyway, the first I heard of it was late Saturday night at the Heart Ball.

We got on the story Monday, but by then it was old news and it didn't seem right to have a screaming headline on 1A four days after the fact.

Some have juxtaposed our play on the TJCA story with the story about the parent complaining about her sons' suspension. I don't see the connection. They were totally different issues, one in a school in the middle of our coverage area, one in a school outside the fringe of our coverage area.

If we had known about the TJCA situation when it happened, it would undoubtedly have been a top-of-the-fold 1A story. But it wouldn't make sense to downplay a compelling story about the boys' suspensions just because we were out of the loop on the other matter.

By the way, I'm not sure I follow those who accuse us of being sympathetic to the family affected by the suspensions. We just reported what they said and gave the schools a chance to respond.