It's a list labeled "Bureaucratese" and contains translations for the jargon...

When Carla Savalli was 10, growing up in a family subscribing to both Spokane newspapers, she started her own.

The first page was news, and gossip about her neighbors. The second page was art from coloring books. The third was a recipe page - This newspaper's first edition featured her mother's zucchini bread.

Savalli sold this newspaper in her neighborhood for 75 cents a copy.

This week she leaves The Spokesman-Review after 16 years. Her most recent positions were assistant managing editor, senior editor for innovation, and senior editor for local news.

She was known for being the editor most devoted to Elvis, and for feeding chocolate to her staff.

We had cake today to say goodbye.

Spokesman-Review publisher W. Stacey Cowles this afternoon announced the promotion of Gary Graham to editor-in-chief and both took questions from newsroom staff.

"I'm looking forward to regrouping and rebuilding our room," Graham said. Both Graham and Cowles emphasized their faith in and commitment to good journalism.

The S-R's mission is still the same, Mr. Cowles said, to deliver news and information to area readers when and how they want it. He also spoke about former editor Steve Smith and former assistant managing editor Carla Savalli's efforts in innovation, newspaper credibility, community conversations (and mention of Our Kids: Our Business, though not by name), Jim West coverage. Some of the key words Mr. Cowles used were information, connect, engage and distribution.

Other questions that newsroommates asked:

» Will there still be Spokesman Radio? Yes - "We may have to make some changes to that but we have a contract [with Mapleton Communications] That's an ongoing commitment," Mr. Cowles said.

» Will S-R still use news wire content from the Associated Press? We don't know yet. There will be a better answer to that question near the end of the year, Mr. Cowles said, but S-R is planning for the possibility of not having AP.

» Will Spokane7 exist, will it change? Would you consider combining the A and B sections of the newspaper? Not sure - "Everything's on the table."

» Is there a common vision for upcoming news operation? New editor Gary Graham said the goal is to put out the best local report with the resources that we have. Mr. Cowles adds that this vision includes a fair amount of online presence. In answering a separate question, Graham also said that newsroom structure and reorganization is going to be redone after we see how things shake out, because there was a reorg plan ready to go - but then layoffs hit.

» On cost-cutting: Mr. Cowles said some of the company's cost-cutting measures include paper size reduction (next June), dropping some circulation routes in outlying areas, reconfiguring press runs, and office space consolidation in the next 6-8 months. There will be an Idaho office as far as he knows, but the Spokane Valley bureau "is the most in question. We'll have to see what the timing is," and it will "probably be the place we'll get out of."

» What's being done to increase revenue? one staffer asked. "We're throwing a lot of things on the wall to see what sticks," Mr. Cowles said - Some of the efforts include niche marketing projects that will help S-R reach out for new revenue.

» What about the relationship with the newsroom union, renegotiation of union contract, possible changes in that? The company would like more flexibility in compensation of newsroom employees, more flexibility to change compensation to reflect market rates. "Contracts are rigid and we've got one that doesn't fit our future very well."

» Have you made any attempts to sell the newspaper? No, Mr. Cowles said. He also said his shareholders believe in this business and that "it is very important that Spokane have a newspaper that is independent."

» How do you respond to people who ask what's going on at the paper? "We have value in this community," Graham said, we still release a good product that people buy day after day, "The very best newspaper that we can."

He was previously the managing editor under Steve Smith. More details by the end of the day.

The voters guide is out today, inserted into the middle of the newspaper. In other news, some readers and bloggers are shocked that the editorial board is endorsing John McCain. Coming up tomorrow is a feature story on beans (because they're cheap and we'll be eating more of those next year), and a secondary story about people's behavior at Chinese buffets.

Kudos from editors for "Coffee climate a mixed barometer." And because we're winding down to the last opportunities for Muppets, see the effects of coffee on Beaker:

We watched the following video this morning, produced by Dan Pelle, about fly-fishing class.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

The circulation campaign in which The Spokesman-Review drops newspapers to subscribers and non-subscribers alike, for one day. In other news, we're also waiting for news about a new editor-in-chief. Announcement is expected this week. This person will probably have been an internal candidate. As for the staff, the layoff list will be adjusted and finalized next week after the voluntary resignation window. Meanwhile we work and wait.

Carla Savalli has taken one of the voluntaries - she will be counted among the four to six manager layoffs, editor Steve Smith announced earlier this morning.

About twenty hours after layoff announcement. There's been plenty of feedback from readers. It's been very quiet around here with a lot of people either gone or out in the field. We'll post updates as they come, and also more about how Daily Briefing and transparency stuff will be handled if there are changes made.

Procedural news meeting this morning, webcast, etc. We watched a video and did a quick rundown of what's coming for tomorrow.

Recently we've been using a new title clip on Spokesman-Review videos. It features a zooming S-R tower building with nifty radio waves and mouse click. "We can have one where the tower launches into space," suggested features editor Ken Paulman, for special occasions. Others suggested the Monty Python treatment with the giant foot, or a clip in which the tower falls over.

Spokane residents brace for weakening economy (Produced by Colin Mulvany) With all the talk of government bailouts and economic woes, Spokane residents share their concerns.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

Apparently when the economy is bad, some people run out and buy a piano (Daily Briefing included), morning breaking news editor Scott Maben said. Coming up in tomorrow's paper is a story about a new Steinway store in the area.

Also coming tomorrow: Planting bulbs, fall visual arts tour, reporters Karen Dorn Steele and Rick Bonino will be on "On The Record" with Rebecca Mack tomorrow to talk about the Kevin Coe case.

In a newsroom-wide multi-bureau meeting today, Spokesman-Review editor Steve Smith announced a tentative list of 21 layoffs and opened the door for voluntary resignations.

This tentative list is 21 out of about 104 employees in the newsroom. The exact number and positions won't be confirmed until about Oct. 16.

Smith also announced his own resignation, effective Friday. (see the press release from the director of Sales and Marketing) The S-R newsroom will have a new editor as early as next week, he said. Candidates will be internal.

More details:

• There are also between four and six newsroom managers who will be laid off too, but their names were not announced today.
  
• The tentative layoff list includes employees from all editorial departments. The company required a dollar amount cut from newsroom budget, not a number of people.
  
• Layoffs will conform to the requirements of the union.

  More news later.

Today was a very quick meeting. A few thick slices to get going:

COE: One of the most-read Spokesman-Review pages online today is the Coe coverage. Read today's story, or reporters Karen Dorn Steele and Rick Bonino are also blogging details of the trial.

THE STOCK MARKET: Despite the seriousness of today's lead story on the front page, the stock market is rebounding a little bit. "It means I can retire when I'm 90 instead of 93," joked managing editor Gary Graham, who is back from Turkey. Graham had been blogging about a travel fellowship for the International Reporting Project. Check out the most recent post here. But back to the economic news, editors thought the local reaction piece was awesome.

DONATIONS: "Donations sometimes work against charities" was an interesting read, editors said.

NEWSROOM NEWS: Yesterday was the first day of the relaunched, slightly bigger S-R breaking news team. The team is as mentioned earlier, with two morning editors and two morning reporters, staggering their shifts with the first reporter coming in at 5 a.m.

A recent audio slideshow

Added to our system last week but not posted on Daily Briefing. Produced by Jesse Tinsley. The Greek community of Spokane celebrates its heritage and raises money for the Holy Trinity Orthodox Church.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

said one staffer, having seen the Tambourine Man at Pig Out in the Park. Michael Ransford a.k.a. the Tambourine Man goes to various Spokane-area rock shows and goes wild in a full white disco outfit.

Most recently, featured in this video, a Japanther show.

S-R photographer Rajah Bose and Spokane7 music writer Isamu Jordan followed him around for a while to make a video story.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.Tambourine Man

Elvis Pigsley, at your service: Alisha Doolittle is training her pot-bellied pig Elvis to be a service pig.

"It's that hooker walk he has," Alisha said. "He walks on his tiptoes, and he swings his hips."

Story by John Craig, video by Rajah Bose.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

"Spokesman this is Jody. [pause] So you have the boa?"

- About 9 a.m., reporter Jody Lawrence-Turner on the phone with a source who returned her call about the unclaimed boa constrictor.

In other news

Tomorrow's paper will feature two completely different stories related to pigs.

The news section will have a story about a therapy pig named Elvis Pigsley. The Food section will have a story about curing meats.

Editors this morning did wonder if there's a degree of weirdness in publishing both stories this way (on the same day in different sections), the awkwardness of having live and dead of the same animal. Features editor Ken Paulman described the Food section photos depicting sausages made of other meat such as lamb and not, like, a hanging prosciutto. Everything is still a go.

DOUBLE KUDOS from the meeting: Providence will drop lawsuit against rival story was a late surprise | STA sees bus ridership jump was a multi-platform package.

IN 7, HAPPY 100 TO THE LIBERTY BUILDING: And happy 30th to Auntie's Bookstore. While the years since have presented venerable Auntie's with its share of ups and downs, the store remains Spokane's literary jewel - celebrating its anniversary this weekend. (Also see: A brief history)
Other things to do this weekend
See: Ghost Town | Lakeview Terrace | More movies
Hear: Living Legends
Events: Search the 7 calendar

REDESIGN UPDATE: Here's a sneak preview screenshot of how the redesign looks right now. The layout is subject to change of course, but the overall attitude of the site is fresh with lots of white space and breathing room, larger images, and more ways to "suggest" content to visitors and loop them around to different places on the site. If you liked X, perhaps you'll like Y. Similar visitors also enjoyed the following videos. View the top most-read stories on the web site. See more like this.

And for those of you who like news feed format, like Facebook news feed or MySpace's friend updates, or the basic idea of an RSS feed, the new Spokesman.com will have a sub-page that functions as a news feed. All content posted to the site, all users signing up, multimedia and blog posts, etc. will be listed in this live stream of site activity.

More news to come soon. There's about a week or two left before the developers launch publicly.

New video

Quick profile on EWU offensive lineman Charlie Wulff, produced by sports videographer Nick Eaton.

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Two of our senior editors are out of the office for the next week or two, and the other is overseas at an International Reporting Project trip to Turkey. (Check out Gary Graham's blog for details) Here are the remaining in-house editors' picks from this morning.
• Sacred Heart plans $175 million expansion
• John Blanchette: Hilarity ensues as UW makes bold move
• University seeks to close portion of Whitworth Drive
• Future of skate parks is in the hands of users: A look at skate parks in the local area, litter and vandalism and how folks can pitch in
• Model T-eamwork: Vintage car enthusiasts pool efforts to rebuild 1926 roadster Craig Nelson bought at age 14

A couple more interesting reads
• 'Virtual' colonoscopies helpful in finding cancer and polyps
• Woman pours soda onto counter, faces federal charges

To the editors at this morning's meeting, Today's story in the Features section was more of a great read than a call to prayer. While other folks poked fun at the taste, photo editor Larry Reisnouer said it's more about the word 'tofu,' after which deputy city editor Dave Wasson suggested calling it 'beancurd' instead. The story includes a series of recipes.

HAWKING THE VINYL: Spokane7 music writer Isamu Jordan produced this video as part of the recent multimedia storytelling workshop with multimedia editor Colin Mulvany. Watch for Isamu Jordan's column on the same topic in this Friday's issue of 7.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

Unified Groove Merchants - now more than ever - is truly a record store. Since the record shop opened its original location on Garland nine years ago it has been known as a hidden gem for top-choice hip-hop cuts, vintage jazz, rare groove and pretty much every other genre. The store is now located at 2607 N Monroe St.

AEROTREKKING Three wheels, one big sky: This story ran today and the accompanying video went live yesterday on the Video Journal blog.

TV LISTINGS: Some of the 'furniture' in the Sports page has been moved around - The goal is always to streamline and make things fit prettier. The TV and radio listings are now on the same page as Scoreboard. The location of Scoreboard changes daily but it's always inside the section. TV and radio listings used to be on page 2 which now has other added features.

HEALTH INSURANCE: Patients caught between Premera and Providence . Kudos to reporter John Stucke for making sense of this news, editors said.

The region's largest health insurer is in a high-stakes contract fight with Sacred Heart Medical Center's parent company that could pin higher medical bills on patients next year.It's a dispute among health sector leaders earning multimillion-dollar profits at a time when businesses and many workers are struggling to pay double-digit premium increases nearly every year, and medical bills continue to bankrupt families. Keep on reading...

Lots of kudos from editors, reporters and staffers for this video produced by Dan Pelle about light sport aircraft. The story will run on tomorrow's front page as the centerpiece story, story spot with the main photo.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

More editors' picks

• Jury selection continues in the Coe case. Here's today's breaking news item, Prospective jurors recall Spokane's terror.
• Page 1 today featured a thoughtfully-presented package on the economic bad news.

Coming tomorrow

in the food section, tofu and summer squash ("I'm morally opposed to tofu," one staffer said quietly). Expect recipes with this feature.

COMING UP: The Kevin Coe civil commitment trial starts today with the jury selection. Expect lots of coverage over the next eight weeks. Also, there will be a story about a very unusual pig.

DON'T MISS: Medical, dental students start studies in Spokane | Doug Clark sticks up for developers this time | The dreaded United Airlines second-bag fee at $50 | Palin, Biden could have sparred in Spokane

NERDY TIDBITS: Best Buy buys Napster | text messages and Metrolink crash | 31 reasons she doesn't call you back | Twittering with customers | Inside Yahoo's new social network

Recent video

Produced by Parker Howell: On the new 'green house' belonging to Jim Sheehan, who funded the refurbishing of buildings like the Saranac.

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Dane Ueland with the Shook Twins, performing Dane's 'My Wayfaring Queen'

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Shot by Rajah Bose, produced by Rajah Bose and Kate Clark

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Newsroom news

Editors have initiated launch sequence for this Reorganization plan. The first phase, announced not too long ago: a bigger, revamped Breaking News desk and a round of musical chairs.

Editors announced changes that will take place at the end of this month - The breaking news operation will have two editors (previously one), one main morning reporter (previously one), one reporter-slash-content rewriter (previously zero), one swing shift reporter (no change). The existing morning radio reporter has also been included in the Breaking News grouping.

There's been a six-way desk switch as a result, putting the assistant managing editor in the middle - to better coordinate content from various departments and desks.

In 7: Dine the night away

In the eyes of the local last-call crowd, the concept of late-night dining traditionally involves a drive-thru window, a pizza delivery guy or a long wait for a table at The Satellite Diner. But wait! There's more.
Other things to do this weekend
See: Burn After Reading |
The Women | More movies
Hear: Rancid, Cyrus Fell Down, others
Events: Last weekend of the Spokane County Interstate Fair | Search the 7 calendar

CNN take | New York Times take | 9/11 museum
Gothamist on this year's coverage of 9/11
World Trade Center in Photos, Then and Now
Staten Island's memorial | Newswire story in S-R today

Family members of those who died during the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center gather at a reflecting pool at Ground Zero during a commemoration ceremony on the seventh anniversary of the attacks, Sept. 11, 2008 in New York. AP Photo/Julie Jacobson.

Thin slices

• Missoula teacher, riding bike, crashes into a bear
• Doug Clark: Nothing filthy about this F-word
• High-end homebuilder to close
• Cop accused in Friday assault identified as department veteran

Coming up

Used furniture, late-night dining, and a game between Shadle Park and Rogers.

Ah, the interesting visitors we get at newsroom meetings. This morning we met mobile journalist Anne Jordalen from Drammens Tidende, the newspaper in Drammen, Norway. Jordalen has family ties to Spokesman-Review Voices correspondent Cindy Hval.

There are about 10 mobile/digital journalists on DT's online team (varies with current staffers' maternity leaves). Jordalen is one of the mobile journalists, writing stories and doing video and audio for Web, TV and radio. Reporters voice their own radio newscasts. DT is a converged newsroom that is owned by a media conglomerate.

The day starts very early for the online team - close to 5 a.m. with breaking news, and on through the day. A late-in-the-day staffer takes stories from the online edition to edit and prepare for print publishing. Some more notes:

• MAPPING! DT successfully geocodes all of its breaking news stories into points on a news map. If you click on a point, it will open up a link to that particular breaking news story. More importantly, people can look for news near their neighborhood or workplace. S-R is excited about this because we hope to launch a similar mapping feature.

• COMMENTS ON NEWS STORIES: DT allows comments on news stories, with a word jumble to filter out all the robots. News story comments don't come without some oversight, though, "We trust our readers to help us monitor it" for personal attacks, etc. Readers can flag such comments for deletion.

• TRAFFIC-DRIVERS: One of the biggest hits for site traffic are photo galleries of crowd shots at concerts and sports games, because their local Norwegian readers go looking for familiar faces in the crowds, seeing who among their friends attended these events. (Similar to the way Official Records usually get the most hits online for the Spokesman-Review online edition - readers who want to see who got divorced and who owes fines) One crowd-shot photo set, Jordalen said, got 15,000 views.

Other slices

Sports section looked good, said photo editor Larry Reisnouer. Sports editor Joe Palmquist said there's a new cool new feature on the second page of Sports (PDF). Quicker hits, shorter stories, cooler layout. "You're going to be able to read it like the Internet," Palmquist said. The middle of the page could soon have subjects like NBA and NHL reports, major league baseball... more updates to come when that happens.

The Idaho candidates story was a heck of a read, said reporter Jim Camden. Could have swapped the story prominence of the Kim Jong-Il story and the Idaho race, folks said.

Spokesman Radio will be back in studio again starting tomorrow. As always, the latest newscast and the latest On The Record with Rebecca Mack are available at the radio page as streaming audio.

It will be a long entry.

Rajah Bose photo. The Spokesman-Review

THE DOUG: Doug Clark: Photo-red viewed through different lens

THIN SLICES: State weighs shoreline plan intervention | Recalling the Terminator | Blanchette column | Aforementioned migraine-nuking machine | Should we raise the driving age from 16?

And... A sales tax increase should take effect soon. We'll have a news update on that.

In another round of quality brokerage; we're talking a tortoise, some obituaries for some dear loved locals, a Cougs game, orca whales, paintball, the works. Read up on editors' picks from this morning:

SATURDAY

• Spokane Army specialist mourned: Carlo Alfonso died while serving in Iraq
• D. Lish's founder, 64, dies after ATV accident: David Lish, who started popular Spokane burger joint in 1998, retired last spring
• Tortoise needs lift to warmer climes: Desert reptile found at U.S. 95 rest stop
• Cal hands Cougs a setback for the ages with a John Blanchette column
• Sea kayaking with orcas is absolutely killer. Outdoors editor Rich Landers also shot some photos and provided narration for an audio slideshow produced by Colin Mulvany:

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

SUNDAY

• Caught in a crossfire: Paul "The Slice" Turner's story about paintball. Includes a link to an audio slideshow by Jesse Tinsley.
• It doesn't get any weirder than crime like this that involves rubbing spice on your victim and whacking another with a sausage.

TODAY

• More and more grandparents taking on care of the kids
• Success in any language - about students for whom English is a second language, and how they tend to do better on the WASL.

Coming up

A feature story about a doctor and his migraine-nuking machine. (At the morning meeting, one staffer suggested quietly it's "a guillotine")

Also, don't miss the video buffet posted below.