What's Inside UDJ?
Well, here I am in - what century is it? - joining the millions of people out there blogging on the Web.
Oh, by the way, this is KC Meadows, managing editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal and this is my new blog.
Here at the Daily Journal we hope to add more bloggers to our site and we want to find those bloggers right here in our community. But we have found (having waited this long to dip into this blogging thing) that most blogs probably aren't that interesting. The ones that seem to do well are those in which the blogger has some expertise in a field that allows them to provide useful information that our readers probably can't get elsewhere. I guess what I want to avoid is a lot of opinion blogs. Those are everywhere. But if you are an expert on something (and you don't have to be THE expert, just really knowledgeable) and you think it would be fun to have a blog on the Daily Journal site, contact me at udjkcm@pacific.net and pitch me your idea.
Remember that blogging is a commitment. It means you have to be willing to go online regularly to add to your site and, don't forget, anyone can respond to what you have to say.
On that subject, you, the reader, are invited to comment on this or any other blog we present on this site and we want this to be fairly freewheeling and useful as an interactive method of communication.
However, I will of course be reading the comments and will be taking down anything I think is over the top. And I urge readers to email me immediately any time you see something you think shouldn't be on the site. You don't have to give your name to comment - but you will have to give us your email address which will not be for publication, but will allow us to track you down and shoot out your porch light if you're misbehaving on the site.
This blog, Inside UDJ, is intended to be a place where I can share with you some of things that happen in our day to day effort to get the news out to you. We make decisions about what's news every day and how to go about getting stories and writing them and goodness knows we're not perfect. But there are days when I say to myself that I wish I could just explain this or that to the readers.
Now I can.
So here are a couple of things I want to explain that happened while I was on vacation for a couple of weeks earlier this month.
First, the Rainbow headline. AGH! If you read the story about the court date set for Rainbow Construction vs Ukiah Unified School District on line, you didn't get the headline that pronounced Rainbow Ag as the company suing UUSD.
First, let me explain that the reporter of that story, Laura Clark, did not write the headline. The reporters rarely write the headlines, so it is important that the editor of the story read the story carefully so as to put an accurate headline on it.
In this case, since I was on vacation, our features editor Richard Rosier was putting out Page 1 on my behalf on a Monday night when there are no other editors in the newsroom. Richard saw "Rainbow" in the story and his brain told him," Rainbow Ag" and that's what he wrote in the headline.
He was as horrified as everyone else in the newsroom when he realized what had happened and that's one of the things that is challenging for newspapers that TV, radio and on-line journalists don't face - when you goof it's in print for everyone to see and hold up to you. How does it happen? Well, while it doesn't make it any better, Richard was not only covering for me that night, he was training a new assistant in the newsroom and editing and laying out a special section at the same time.
The second thing that happened while I was gone was a letter to the editor got in that should not have run. The reason it should not have run is that it made comments about a local law enforcement officer (using a last name only) which I would have edited out. It was letter from a member of NORML, the people looking to change marijuana laws and it was seeking information about possible police corruption in marijuana cases. The letter was emailed to us and it was run on the letters page. After the fact, the person who wrote it contacted us to berate us for running it, saying that it wasn't meant for publication (he did admit to writing it and sending it out). In fact, the person said it wasn't really meant to come to the newspaper in the first place.
That's the problem when you use email. That "send" button is all too handy.
So I am not going to feel sorry we ran the letter for that reason, but I am sorry that the officer's name was used. I would have edited that out.
These are just examples of the kinds of things that happen when you publish a newspaper seven days a week with a small but earnest staff of human beings.
Speaking of staff we have some new staff in the newsroom whose names you will get to know.
Katie Mintz is a journalism school graduate who is covering government for us, including the city of Ukiah, the county and state and federal issues as they relate to us locally. She can be reached at udjkm@pacific.net.
James Arens is another journalism graduate who is covering a newly formed planning and land use beat. His beat also includes environment, and agriculture. He can be reached at udjja@pacific.net.
Also new at the Daily Journal is our online editor Brittany Dashiell. Brittany used to be our news assistant and showed such enthusiasm for all things Internet that we decided it was high time to create an online position. Brittany, by the way, was the one who made it possible for me to start this blog. She is also working on making us capable of running audio and video on our site and other fun improvements - check out our news and sports polls now on the site as well. She can be reached at udjonline@pacific.net if you see an error on our Web site or have suggestions about making it better.
So there's my first blog. I can't guarantee I'll be submitting every day but I promise not to let this site languish. If you're wondering how we do the things we do here, or want to make suggestions just use the comments section for this blog. Remember everyone will be able to read it. If you want to communicate with me privately any time I am at udjkcm@pacific.net or 468-3526.