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It’s a political year
Newspaper editors and political reporters don’t need a calendar to tell them that it’s an even-numbered year. Even-numbered years are election years. We can tell that because those are the years when we get complaints from politicians and their handlers. It’s as predictable as Rick Wagner staking out a position to the right of just about everybody else.
We got a couple this week, and I think they are instructive. One was nothing more than a political handler trying to bully a reporter, the other a legitimate question about why we failed to do something. One was ugly, the other a genuine discussion between people who saw the same thing differently.
First the ugly.
Early in the week Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall proposed the government quit stockpiling gas in the strategic petroleum reserve.
Reporter Mike Saccone, as any good reporter would do, called Udall’s opponent to get a response. Republican Bob Schaffer is very seldom available. He called Dick Wadhams, Schaffer’s campaign manager. I don’t think he ever even got to tell Wadhams why he was calling. The minute Wadhams got on the phone he launched into Mike, telling him he was a biased reporter, that he’s taken cheap shots at Schaffer and asking when we were going to do the same thing to Udall. I listened to the tape of the conversation. Mike seldom got to complete a question. Every time he tried Wadhams interrupted with yet another complaint about Mike and/or our coverage. He did manage to ask Wadhams for specific instances of biased reporting or cheap shots and Wadhams provided none.
The exchange was amusing. I don’t know what Wadhams was trying to accomplish other than to try to get our reporter to go easier on his candidate in future stories. Whatever it was it will have no effect whatsoever on how we cover the Senate race. We’ll continue to cover it as completely and fairly as possible.
Then there is Mesa County commissioner candidate Jim Doody, a pol with much less experience than Dick Wadhams, but one who chooses not to come out guns-ablazing when he doesn’t like something we did - or in this case didn’t do - but instead just wants an explanation.
Former state representative Matt Smith very publicly helped Doody gather signatures for Doody’s candidacy petition on Tuesday and we had nothing in the paper about it. We had a reporter and a photographer there and the reporter returned and wrote a long, and very good feature story about the event. We opted not to run it. Doody politely asked why. Here’s my response and Doody’s:
“Jim,
“The call to not run anything today was ultimately mine, and it came down to whether we thought it was news. The story as written was a feature, and a very good feature. The problem was that had we run it, then we would have been committed to doing the same thing for every candidate in that race. Had we not, readers might perceive the story to be nothing more than an effort on the part of The Daily Sentinel to drum up support for your candidacy. We decided we didn’t want to commit to doing more stories about that race at this time. We will do stories about all the candidates when there are significant dates looming, i.e., the deadline for filing petitions, the primary election, etc. It’s a problem we run into virtually every election cycle, and it is, admittedly, difficult. Just as I’d hope readers wouldn’t read any institutional support for your candidacy had we done a story, I hope you don’t think that our lack of a story means we are opposed to your candidacy. We haven’t taken a position on your candidacy, and, on the news pages, won’t. I hope that answers your question. Please feel free to get in touch with me if you’d like to discuss it further.”
“Denny -
“Thank you for your reply. Though I disagree with your logic I respect your professional opinion regarding local politics and the high standards you hold for the Daily Sentinel. I personally do not consider myself as a candidate (either does my opponent) just an aspiring one that may happen when I obtain enough signatures to get on the ballot. I do believe there is reportable news when a prominent person (Matt Smith) in the community wants to publicly announce his endorsement of another who has distinct differences about what our future could hold.”
We weren’t quite sure whether Matt Smith had formally made an endorsement on Tuesday, and that’s why we ran nothing. We typically run a brief when a candidate gets an endorsement. On second thought we decided that Matt did indeed endorse Doody and we ran that brief today.
Dealing with rants from handlers like Dick Wadhams goes with the territory of being in the newspaper business. But it’s a lot easier to deal with the likes of Jim Doody.
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Everything you wanted to know about The Daily Show
You probably won’t find this interesting unless, like me, you’re a Daily Show junkie.
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Guidelines for Community.GJSentinel.com
Some of you who read and participate on Community.GJSentinel.com, our user-driven website within GJSentinel.com, know that we’ve had a some problems with civility in the discussions that go on there.
Those problems have caused no small amount of discussion in the newsroom. Some of us think the site at times has been out of control. Others think such sites should be free-for-alls and require little if any moderation.
So we decided to let a committee of fairly young staffers decide what our policy should be. The thinking was that they are more savvy in the ways of the online world than some of us who are a little — no, a lot — older.
The group got together yesterday. They listened to my thoughts, along with those from Editorial Page Editor Bob Silbernagel, GJSentinel.com Content Editor Todd Powell, GJSentinel.com Content Coordinator Chris Froese and Managing Editor Laurena Mayne Davis.
Our recommendations were all over the board, from do nothing, to moderate the heck out of it.
The committee, which included Feature Writers Sam Stiles and Melinda Mawdsley, Reporters Mike Wiggins and Mike Saccone, Intern Alex Carlson, Action Desk Reporter Richie Ann Ashcraft and Assistant City Editor Duffy Hayes, took their job seriously.
Here’s their report:
1) Community.GJSentinel.com should be moderated to a degree only because it is tied to The Daily Sentinel/ GJSentinel.com brand.
2) If a comment meets any of these conditions, then it may be taken down:
Profanity.
Words that incite violence or criminal behavior.
Libel.
Hate speech.
3) When a comment violates any of the above conditions it may be taken down with no explanation on The Daily Sentinel’s behalf.
4) Registered Community users may express concerns or questions regarding other member comments to a designated email address. The Daily Sentinel does not have to heed the user’s advice unless it meets the above conditions. We understand user moderating already exists.
5) Editing of user comments must be all or nothing.
I think those are thoughtful recommendations and we’re going to follow them. They will soon be posted on the site.
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Nary a peep
I don’t know whether Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was ever associated with terrorists in Iraq.
Hussein was held by the U.S. military for two years but was never brought to trial before being released two weeks ago, presumably because the military finally determined there was no case.
I do know that during those two years both Hussein and the Associated Press were savaged, viciously, by the right-wing blogoshpere, whose members became huge megaphones for the military.
Here’s a good take on what has happened since Hussein was released. This blogger quite rightly wonders why the right-wing bloggers are so quiet now.
Those of us in the mainstream media hear similar complaints when occasionally someone who has been charged with a crime has the charges dropped. We try to keep track of those things and report them when they happen. Sometimes we miss one, and we get a call or an e-mail wondering why we haven’t reported that charges have been dropped against someone. When that happens we report it.
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What would the right-wingers do without the mainstream media
I’ve come to the defense of the “mainstream media” on more than one occasion in this space. After all, I’m part of it. But beyond that, I think the mainstream media do a pretty good job of telling people in this country what they need to know to make informed decisions.
But it has become an article of faith among the right-wing blogosphere and shout radio that the MSM is very much the root cause of all that is wrong with the country.
My friend Rick Wagner, who writes a column for us and has a blog of his own, certainly is a member of that side of the political spectrum.
So I found it not surprising, if a little illogical, that this morning on his blog, he wrote that the MSM gives a “pass” to the liberals by doing little or nothing about the fact that out-of-state interests, of the liberal persuasion, are targeting conservative candidates, in this case Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer. He then links to where he read the story. And lo and behold if it wasn’t … the mainstream media. That story came out of the Rocky Mountain News.
I e-mailed Rick and pointed that out. I also told him there have been two big stories about Bob Schaffer in recent weeks. The first was the story about the candidate’s ties to disgraced and now-jailed Washington insider Jack Abramoff, and the second was the one he cited. Both of those stories originated in the mainstream media, the Abramoff story in The Denver Post and the out-of-state financing in the Rocky Mountain News.
Indeed, that’s where virtually of the the blogosphere and shout radio’s raw material originates. They do very little if any original reporting of their own. They rely on the good ol’ mainstream media to do all of that for them — and then say the MSM doesn’t do its job.
Go figure.
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Check this out
Gene Kinsey over at Living the Grand Life has a great take today on Unity Fest at Mesa State. Be sure to read all the way to the end.
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Nothing good can come of this
I’ve written often enough in this space about my thoughts on what role — none, in my opinion — journalists should play in the political process.
So it’s discouraging to see stories like this. All it does is give a bunch of ammunition to all of you out there who think I’m either less than candid, or naive, or both.
For the record, if I were running CJR, Todd Gitlin would be fired before lunch today.
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New leadership at RMHP
Rocky Mountain Health Plans is in the midst of transition planning for new leadership.
John Hopkins, who’s been with RMHP since 1986 and CEO since 2001, is preparing to retire.
He’ll be succeeded by Steve ErkenBrack, vice president for legal and government affairs.
ErkenBrack, former DA and unsuccessful state legislative candidate, joined RMHO in 2001 after returning to Grand Junction from Denver, where he was in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
The transition is expected to be complete sometime next year. You can read more about it later this week on GJSentinel.com and in The Daily Sentinel.
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Worth a read
Dick Maynard sent this this morning. It’s cynically funny.
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Check Rock Jam lineup in your Daily Sentinel
Heard one of the radio stations, the one that is to “officially” announce the Rock Jam lineup later this week, was grumbling on the air this morning about our report today about the lineup.
Seems this station — I don’t know which one because, frankly, there are so many I can’t keep them all straight — was claiming that our report had no merit because it was “unofficial.”
It may be. Around here, though, we’ll just call it good reporting on the part of entertainment writer Sam Stiles, who, if memory serves, did the same thing last year.
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I don’t think so
Ralph D’Andrea has quickly become the dean of western Colorado bloggers. His Junctiondailyblog in a few short months has become a must-read for anyone interested in local politics. His analyses are usually spot on, and he’s not afraid to be hyper-critical.
But occasionally he misses the point completely, and sometimes his Democratic blinders are too obvious. Such was the case this weekend, when he, once again, accused a particular Daily Sentinel reporter, of not doing his job. To the contrary, I think the story in question did a darn good job of exactly what we wanted it to do.
D’Andrea’s sole complaint with the story about what highway projects might not happen in Mesa County because of a lack of funding was that the reporter only talked to Steve King and Josh Penry, both Republican legislators, and not his favored Democrats. He used that to beat up on the reporter, a reporter who is a frequent target of D’Andrea’s blog. That’s OK. He can like or dislike anybody he wants. But when his critique is as far off base as this one was, he can’t expect it to go unanswered.
Read the story yourself. If you do so without blinders, you’ll see the story isn’t at all about what legislators think about highway funding. It’s about what the people who build the highways are going to do as a result of what the legislators did or didn’t do. In this case, they’re not going to build some projects that they had planned on building if they had received enough money.
The reporter’s sources were exactly who they should have been: Colorado Department of Transportations officials, a highway commissioner, a transportation planner.
Frankly, I don’t know why we had any legislators in the story at all. The two we did quote both gave us self-serving, throw-away quotes. That’s what politicians do. All of them, the Republicans who D’Andrea doesn’t like, and the Democrats he does.
We have way too many of those kinds of stories in the paper already. Hardly a day goes by without stories that have politicians talking and talking and talking — and saying nothing that has any meaning whatsoever to a typical reader. In fact, we’ve been working to get more stories just like this in the paper — stories that tell readers what public policy means to them, not what the politicians say it means, but what it really means. In this case it means a local highway project isn’t going to happen.
If anything, rather than getting a Democrat to balance the two Republicans in the bottom of the story, I would have cut the two Republicans out of the story. The story wasn’t about what politicians thought and they had nothing worthwhile to say. Running their comments was a waste of newsprint.
D’Andrea has called us to task on a number of occasions. And many times I’ve circulated his criticism throughout the newsroom because he’s been right. But this time Ralph, you let emotion get in the way of the facts. We can talk about it next time we go to lunch.
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What’s on your mind?
As most readers of The Daily Sentinel and GJSentinel.com know, there’s a new cast of characters down here. We have a new publisher, I was elevated from managing editor to editor and we have a new managing editor, Laurena Mayne Davis.
Laurena and I have a goal: We want to make The Daily Sentinel/GJSentinel.com indispensable. We want everyone in our market to be unable to get through the day without the help of the printed product or the website That, of course, is a pretty tall order we’ve set out for ourselves. We’re realistic enough to know that 100 percent readership is an impossibility. Studies tell us our readership is already darn good, among the best in the country, actually, but we want to make it better.
Newspapers all over the country are trying to reinvent themselves in an effort to do the same thing we’re doing. The traditional plate of news, commentary, sports, business, comics, etc., is getting a second look, as editors question whether that is the right mix to attract the most readers.
Do we need to change the mix? Do we need more lifestyle stories? Are there topics that are important in the lives of our readers that we don’t cover enough? (Health care and faith come to mind.) Are there better ways of telling stories than the traditional narrative? Should we have more photos and graphics? Should we have more “how to” stories? We all have thoughts about all those questions, but we’d really like to know how you feel.
E-mail me, or post a comment to this blog entry, if you have thoughts or ideas. Laurena and I will also convene some focus groups of both readers and non-readers later this year, and if you’d like to be considered for one of those, let us know.
We’ll never abandon our role of telling you what’s going on in our community, but we’re always looking for better ways to do it. Let us know what you think.
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A kinder, gentler “You Said It”
Here’s the thing about “You Said It,” our popular Saturday and Sunday feature that lets readers vent on just about any topic they want: It seems just about everyone has an opinion about “You Said It.” They either love it or they hate it. But there are many more of the former than there are the latter. It is one of the top two or three most popular features in The Daily Sentinel.
And, as most of you know, there tend to be a lot more negative rants in “You Said It” than there are folks who have good things to say. That’s not by design. Editors look for every positive comment they can find when they assemble the column. There just aren’t very many of them.
That bothers some people. Dick Maynard, our Wednesday local page columnist, has made no secret of his dislike of “You Said It,” and was more than happy to pass on to me this suggestion he got from one of his readers: “Has anyone at our Daily Sentinel paper considered initiating a (new) twist on what I’ve always called the Complaint Column? (You Said It). It seems a lot of people get easily peeved at others’ griping, so why not have two columns, side by side: one for praises, compliments & one for complaints, criticisms?”
Well, here’s the deal: We’re more than happy to consider that. If we can get enough positive comments to fill a column, we’ll run it.
Spread the word.
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The value of blogs
We’re not going to give up blogging, but this study says getting big blog readership numbers may be difficult.
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Decorum on Community.GJSentinel.com
Earlier this year, when we created Community.GJSentinel.com all of us around here were pretty excited about giving readers a forum all their own.
For those of you who haven’t been there, it’s a website within GJSentinel.com where we do a couple of things. First, we use it to publish a lot of letters to the editor that don’t make it into the print product. Readers can, and do, comment on those letters and there have been some very good discussions on the site about a variety of topics. The second feature of the site is a place for reader-generated forums. Anybody can start a forum about nearly any topic and anyone who wants can join in the discussion. There have been a number of productive, high-level discussions there, too.
All of that is part of a concerted effort to get readers more involved in their daily community newspaper. We believe providing as many platforms as we can that allow readers to contribute their thoughts to various public issues make The Daily Sentinel and GJSentinel.com better, more useful products.
But, unfortunately, a couple of participants in the forums have stepped over the line of what we consider constructive public dialogue. Their rants have deteriorated to nothing more than name-calling, personal attacks and innuendo. Our initial intent was to let the forums go where they may, and we would do no editing whatsoever. But at least one went too far and we took it off the site. We still believe the reader forums are a service to readers and we have no intention of taking them down. The great majority of you realize their value and respect other’s opinions, even when disagreeing with them. We’d ask that those very few of you who think name-calling is acceptable public discourse to think twice before you post. We didn’t create Community.GJSentinel.com to be a soapbox for toxicity in the public discourse. Most of you understand that completely, and we are grateful for your participation.
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Thanks but no thanks
A PR person with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources called Editorial Page Editor Bob Silbernagel earlier this week with an offer that, frankly, we can refuse.
We appreciate DNR’s efforts to keep the editorial board of The Daily Sentinel informed about issues critical to our little part of the world. But the bottom line is the DNR’s offer did little for our core constituency, which is our readers.
The DNR, as do many other organizations, quite correctly concluded that The Daily Sentinel is the most important news outlet in western Colorado, and should be on the list of people and institutions that deserve to be briefed in advance on the draft regulations for oil and gas leasing. The problem is that along with the offer of the early briefing came a couple of caveats. First, a reporter could not attend the briefing and write about it. And second, we had to agree that we wouldn’t publish anything until the DNR publicly releases the document at 2 p.m. Monday, March 31.
Sure, we’d like to know as soon as possible what those regulations say. I know there are good people at DNR who don’t understand this, but if only four people on the editorial board know something, and we agree to not publish anything until 2 p.m. Monday, there is little upside for Daily Sentinel readers. There’s a good chance that some news organization (frankly, I hope it’s us) will get a copy of those regulations and break the embargo. Somebody is likely to write about the regulations before DNR’s arbitrary release time of 2 p.m. Monday. If we were to meet with the DNR and agree to the embargo, we essentially take ourselves out of the game. We would have to tell the DNR we won’t work on the story and just wait for 2 p.m. Monday to publish — even if somebody else publishes before we do. That’s a disservice to readers. I want to sincerely thank the DNR for its offer, and I hope those who made the offer understand why we think we must decline.
The editorial board has met with lots of people and lots of governmental agencies over the decades, and the rule has, for the most part, always been that those meetings are on the record. Reporters typically cover those meetings the same way they cover anything else. They listen, ask questions, take notes and write a story.
There may be some situation in which we’d agree to have an off-the-record meeting with someone. The question we always have to ask is this: Would such a meeting be in the best interest of our readers. In nearly all cases, and certainly in this one, I think the answer to that is “no.”
So thank you DNR, for thinking of us. But we respectfully decline. In the meantime we’re going to do everything we can to get a copy of those regulations before March 31 and write about them as soon as we can. We may or may not be able to do that, but we’ll try.
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The value of editors
Judging by the number of telephone calls, e-mails and letters I’ve received over the years after a grammatical, spelling or syntax error has appeared in the pages of The Daily Sentinel, I’m sure there are a few readers out there who think that there are no editors residing at 734 S. Seventh St.
That’s not the case. In fact, virtually every story that appears in your daily newspaper is seen by at least three sets of eyes. An originating desk editor — the sports editor, city editor or features editor — gets first crack at it. That’s followed by at least two more edits by copy editors. Page 1 stories often get yet another edit by a senior editor.
Most of that work is done during the evening, often very close to our midnight deadline.
All of those editors do indeed catch a lot of problems. But of course it’s the ones they don’t catch that we hear about — and rightly so.
I’ve always bought into the old-school reasoning that all we have to sell is credibility, and any reader can quite justifiably wonder about the accuracy of anything in the paper when they spot just one thing wrong. Why should they trust anything if the paper can’t spell a name right?
That’s why when I see stories like this it makes me worry a little about where we’re headed. This piece talks mainly about changing the editing process at The Washington Post, and with that I have no problem. In fact I hope all the editors around here read it and ask themselves if there might be ways to make our editing process more efficient and timely, particularly on GJSentinel.com copy. But the subtext here is that maybe the Post thinks it’s time to not spend so much money on editors. That, to my way of thinking, would be a huge mistake, one that would do nothing but put our credibility at risk.
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The case for the secret ballot
I’m not yet ready — and more than likely never will be — to publish a story that lists the political leanings and voting records of Daily Sentinel news staffers, as James Poniewozik proposes.
I’m content to keep Daily Sentinel guidelines the way they are. In a nutshell those guidelines say news staffers’ political activities are for the most part limited to voting, and not much more. Some have participated in their caucuses. I’m not totally comfortable with that, but it is part of the decision-making process, not part of the campaign. But that’s where we draw the line. No contributions to campaigns. No signatures on petitions. No yard signs. No attendance at political events other than for coverage purposes. No endorsements. Just voting.
I still believe voting should be a largely private affair and how my staffers vote, and whether they vote at all, is a matter entirely up to them. I also still believe that they can form private political opinions and still be professional enough to do their jobs. They’re smart enough to know that they are to have no agendas, and editors are smart enough to spot an agenda when they see it.
Nonetheless, Poniewozik’s point is well argued, and I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years at most, readers will know more and more about the political leanings of the staffers at their favorite newspapers and magazines.
And I’m pretty certain there are plenty of you out there who agree with him. I hope to hear from you.
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Covering non-profits
I heard through the proverbial grapevine that there are at least a few non-profits in town that think they don’t get enough coverage in The Daily Sentinel. They may have a point. We do indeed try to cover everything we can that goes on in this community. But even with the biggest news staff — by far — of any news organization in town, sometimes we don’t get to as many things as we should or get as many advance stories for people in the paper as we should or could.
There’s little doubt that we devote more resources to the non-profit sector than does anyone else. But if there is a perception out there that we should do more, then we will.
So, if you have some association with a non-profit and you think The Daily Sentinel should pay more attention to you, we want to hear from you. Give us a call and tell us what your group is up to and how we can help.
Chasing the elusive young reader
(The following will appear Sunday in The Daily Sentinel.)
I was visiting with a colleague in the advertising department earlier this week. He had just returned from an advertising conference and, among other things, had heard a presentation by some newspaper executive who said we do a terrible job of telling our own story.
It’s all gloom and doom, at least if you believe what you read, he said. And indeed, the old Google search trick of seeing how many pages turn up with the search “newspaper” and “decline” does indeed turn up a huge number — nearly 750,000 to be exact.
One would have to peer through some very rose-colored lenses to say that the newspaper industry isn’t struggling. My colleague’s point was that maybe it’s not as bad as we’re led to believe — and not nearly as bad as, say, the radio and television industry.
The conversation came just days after I’d returned from a meeting myself. Last weekend was the annual convention of the Colorado Press Association.
One of the sessions I attended was a far-ranging discussion about many of the problems that beset our industry. For the most part I simply listened as publishers and editors from around the state bemoaned our current predicament. I’ve been in these types of discussions before and this one, as do most, eventually got around to young readers, that huge cohort from high school age through the mid-30s. They don’t read the paper like previous generations did. Many of them don’t read the paper at all.
Among those in that group at the Brown Palace Hotel last weekend there was genuine alarm about the fact that the younger generation, the “Millennials,” in the lexicon of the trend-watchers, not only don’t read the paper, they don’t seem to be as connected to the traditional institutions that have made us a community for so many decades. They don’t care much about local government. They don’t care much about state government. They don’t care much about the local economy. They don’t care much about who is running for office and why. They’re disengaged. They aren’t good critical thinkers. And what does it say about society if they don’t read our newspapers and become interested in all those things?
Curiously, at least to my way of thinking, nobody wondered what that sad state of affairs said about our industry.
What those good editors and publishers were really asking was this: Why doesn’t today’s younger generation think the same way we do? The underlying message seemed to be what it’s been for as long a I can remember: We have to figure out how to change this group, how to make them the newspaper readers they are not, how to make them appreciate all the hard work we do every day producing a product that we think they should be interested in. We have to make them think and act just like we do. Well, there’s a Sisyphean task if ever there was one. Talk about a big rock and a steep hill.
Wondering why today’s youngsters don’t think the way we do is a good enough question, at least in an academic sense. It’s one I’d certainly like answered. But I don’t think for an instant that knowing the answer will change the reality. The reality is that if we want to engage the younger crowd we have to change. We have to give them a product that is relevant to them, presented in a manner that they want.
Conventional wisdom in the industry is that such a product will be online. I’m not inclined to disagree with that. To the extent that The Daily Sentinel is any kind of barometer of the newspaper industry, the numbers tell us that online is where more and more people are going. GJSentinel.com is got more than 2 million page views last month. That’s a far cry from just two years ago, when that number was only 1.3 million and one year ago when it was 1.5 million.
Many of those are young readers, young readers who aren’t much interested in a printed product but who are nonetheless perhaps not as disengaged as some people in that group in Denver last week thought.
That’s just one of the good stories about our industry that we should be telling.
What’s the big deal?
Anyone who reads The Daily Sentinel knows we’ve killed more than a few trees covering the election machine fiasco that threatens to turn Colorado into Florida circa 2000 this November when we go to the polls.
There has been more than one discussion around here about how much space to devote to that story, and yours truly has been in the minority most of the time.
Sorry, but that story doesn’t excite me, and I don’t think it excites the typical reader. Don’t get me wrong: The story is important and there are a lot of people out there who want to read as much as they can about it. I’m just not one of them.
A couple of days ago, a story was being pitched at one of our two daily news meetings about whether the county should lease or buy machines. Proponents of that storyline were convinced it was something that deserved big play in the paper. I wondered out loud why that was the case. Has any voter ever walked up to a machine at election time and cared one whit whether the machine was leased or purchased? I don’t think so.
All of the finger-pointing is mildly interesting, I suppose. Is the whole mess the fault of the secretary of state? The county clerks? The county commissioners? The legislature? The governor? Beats me. I don’t have a clue.
And I don’t really care.
Long ago there was a sports editor at The Daily Sentinel who constantly asked why we ran so many stories about water. None of them, he said, interested him. He said he would read a water story the day he turned on his tap and no water came out — and not one day before.
I think that’s what a typical reader thinks about the voting machine flap. We elected people to do certain jobs. One of those jobs is to run elections. This will be a story — and a big story — the day voters go to the polls and can’t vote. That’s the day we’ll know that some of our elected officials didn’t do what they were paid to do. And the day I’ll be a lot more interested in this story than I am now.
There are, though, plenty of people in this newsroom — and a lot of other newsrooms around the state — who think it’s a huge story right now.
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Latest comments
I don�t know what Wadhams was trying to accomplish other than to try to get our reporter to go easier on his candidate in future stories.
Denny, you hit the nail on the head. Based on Wadhams’ well-documented history of manipulating
... read the full comment by Bill Menezes | Comment on It's a political year Read It's a political year
Those sound like more than reasonable guidelines. In fact, aren’t they pretty reasonable rules of engagement for daily life in general?
... read the full comment by Lynn | Comment on Guidelines for Community.GJSentinel.com Read Guidelines for Community.GJSentinel.com
Speaking of Rick Wagner… The first thing I teach introductory students about critical thinking/writing is to avoid hyperbole and statements such as “how could anyone…” Clearly, this is something that Rick Wagner has not learned,
... read the full comment by tj | Comment on What would the right-wingers do without the mainstream media Read What would the right-wingers do without the mainstream media
No kidding. And of course, none of those groups such as the Sierra Club or League of Conservation Voters have any members in Colorado, do they? So it must have been because of the advertisement that the Rocky ran a story about their opposition to Schaffer.
... read the full comment by Bill M. | Comment on What would the right-wingers do without the mainstream media Read What would the right-wingers do without the mainstream media