Good afternoon,

I am saddened to say that News is a Conversation is closing down for now, although it may return in some other form later.

All blogs have a lifespan and I believe this blog has reached its end with me serving as lead poster and admin.

I'll bring it back at some point, but with someone else at the helm.

I remain dedicated to newsroom transparency. Our new web system will allow me to set up single topic "blogettes" from time to time. In fact, we'll do just that to report back on the newsroom reorganization.

I will launch a personal blog soon where I can discuss journalism and newspaper industry issues. But I won't be posting anything specific about The Spokesman there.

That blog is under construction, but you'll be able to find it at stillanewspaperman.com

I've really enjoyed my two-plus years in this space. I've made quite a few friends, received enormous support and learned a great deal about my shortcomings. Believe it or not, I think I have learned something about patience and tolerance here.

And I'll never forget the support I received on the death of my father last December.

Thank you.

steve

Good morning,

I find myself in a position where I can walk to the office -- 20 minutes to a half hour each way depending on pace.

But in the few weeks I've been doing this, I find myself essentially running for my life as often as I stroll.

I have met other walkers with the same stories.

Downtown area drivers are, to be blunt, too often insane. Crosswalks mean little or nothing. Red Lights mean little.

I've come within a foot or two of being hit on several occasions and not long ago was literally brushed back by a car that ran a red light. My briefcase left a scratch, I'm sure.

I always cross with the lights, figuring that my family will have a better chance in court if I die.

Maybe it's time for another crosswalk emphasis patrol by our overworked cops (who really have more important priorities).

Are there other solutions? Or is this just an isolated problem? Maybe I have a target painted on my chest.

Steve

Warning: The following is "inside baseball" and will be of interest to only those few really interested in knowing what is going on inside our newsroom.

As you will recall, I've had two staff groups studying our processes, priorities and structure with an eye to yet another newsroom reorganization mandated by our downsizing late last year.

After receiving the report of the Content Study Group, I asked them to go back and return with some specific suggestions about subjects we should be covering, subjects we should drop and how our reporters, especially, could be allocated to cover it all.

They sent me their report late last week and it already has been the subject of a newsroom discussion.

But because I've posted the earlier reports on this blog, I felt I should share this addendum, as well.

I think the study group, both in the first report and in the addendum, did an enormous amount of work.

I thought they skirted some of the hardest questions in the addendum by suggesting that reporters take on more than one "beat" and that most reporters should also be able to do "general assignment," meaning whatever else needs to be covered at any given time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good afternoon,

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge ruled today on several motions filed in the Joseph Duncan sentencing case by regional news media, led by The Spokesman-Review.

In his first rulings of the day, the judge ordered the unsealing of several documents previously closed to public scutiny. He denied access to others, including the one document most sought by the media -- the results of Duncan's mental evaluation which prompted the judge to allow Duncan to represent himself in court.

Here is a link to that story by our Boise reporter, Betsy Russell.

In his later rulings, the judge agreed to let the press see the video evidence presented to the jury.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good evening,

I just returned home from the three-day innovators summit in Stevenson, WA.

I need some time to synthesize what I learned. Suffice it to say for now the innovations most helpful to newspapers probably won't come from our own industry. This conference was a chance to spend time with innovators in a variety of business and non-profit roles. The ideas I will steal from them will help push our own transformational change, I hope.

But today's end-of-conference discussion did have an epiphinous moment worth sharing.

We were discussing the writings of noted social activist Dorothy Day.

This line jumped off the page for me.

"No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do."

Words a weary editor, all weary editors and newspaper people, need to take to heart.

steve

Good evening,

Our new hour-long radio show, On the Record with Rebecca mack, debuts Monday at 11 a.m. on KJRB, 790 AM.

Here's the the story describing the show:http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=15975

We started our daily, on the half-hour newscasts in April. The new show, which will air each weekday, represents a major step forward in developing a more substantive radio platform for SR journalism.

Rebecca brings name recognition and a respected, sharp edge to the show. Dan Mitchinson will provide the news reports and SR columnists and reporters will make occasional appearances.

We hope to develop additional long-form programming later this year.

Give it a listen then tell me what you think.

steve

Good evening,

I'm writing from Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, WA, at the annual Public Innovators Summit organized by The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. Of the 50 or so participatns, I am one of only a handful of journalists and the only active editor in the commercial newspaper business. Most here are from the non-profit world, organizations dedicated to fostering democracy, protecting children and doing any number of other good things for their communities.

I came here for the most personal of reasons. I really wanted to spend some time with non-journalists whose world view is amazingly optimistic even though many work to solve the darkest problems we face. Optimism is a force multiplier and so the weekend has been a tonic. I may get back to some of the important issues discussed here, but one discussion today really connected with the reaction to my Still a Newspaperman thread.

What is the role of memory in driving needed change?

My thread drew an enormous amount of personal communication and unusually high traffic for this blog. But there was a real difference in the responses.

Personally, I heard from literally of dozens of people who connected with what I had to say, reacted to it in very personal ways and found some value in their connection to my personal memories, which really grow out of our craft's collective consciousness.

On the blog, maybe the most dominant response (aside from the pissy scolds who pop up occasionally) was a dismissal of memory as a contributor to needed change. If you go back to the responses you'll see any number of comments that say, more or less, "you can never move forward while you're stuck in the past." Or, "You are dying because you can't let go of the past." And so on.

There is a bit of irony here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Good evening,

Well, first my thanks to all who have weighed in on this thread. And thanks to the dozens of people who have sent me personal e-mails. It will take some time to wade through it all and recycle some of it to this blog.

I didn't intend for this post to take on such an astonishing life. I was in a nostalgic mood, saddened at the loss of so many good journalists from newspapers all over the country and by the loss of yet another of my mentors from the early days.

There was no hidden message to my staff in the post. The staffing situation at the SR is no better and no worse than it was a few days ago. I can't promise there will be no more layoffs, though I will move heaven and earth to avoid that.

And i wasn't signaling my resignation. I'm still the editor, at least last I checked. As many as might be pleased at that bit of news more will be distressed. No editor can win a popularity contest, with the public or with his own staff in these troubled times.

Nope, I was just indulging in a moment of nostalgia for an era that was important to me and, I know from my e-mails, important to many other newspapermen and (yes, I got it) newspaperwomen.

The larger issue is buried in my first post. Newspapers have served as the public square in the communities they have served. As newspapers decline and morph into niche publications, the public square goes away.

The new media create virtual squares, but rarely around large geographic communities. And by their nature, new media are linear. The beauty of the newspaper's public square was that all views could be brought to the public's attention at the same time creating a shared base of knowledge and an understanding of conflicting values.

In the linear, new media people can easily limit the information they receive to ideas that coincide with their own. See the thread below on liberal vs. conservative for the proof of that.

Of course the core of my reminiscence was personal. Yes, the newsroom was too much a boys' club. Yes, all that drinking and smoking was detrimental to our physical and mental well-being. Yes, some of our peers and colleagues were hacks and a lot of newspapers were crap.

But...for those of us who were there, it was more fun. I'm not having so much fun these days. And from what I heard today, I am far from alone.

So, no apologies. I will mourn the death of the American newspaperman.

Again, thanks to all who posted here. It has been a lively conversation. I've really enjoyed it.

Thanks,
steve