Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

During the past week I've been working at the Willits News - a sister newspaper - while their editor was on vacation. It was a delight to work at this small twice-weekly publication, although I was working on an InDesign system, not the Quark Xpress system that we use at the Daily Journal.
A number of newspapers are beginning to switch to InDesign for one reason: budget.
Some background. In the past 15 years or so newspapers switched to desktop design systems through which the editors lay out the pages on computers instead of composing staff who printed out text and photos and literally pasted them onto big sheets of pasteboard that would then be photographed. The Macintosh computer was found to be the best platform for this and Quark Xpress was the ideal layout programming, because it dovetailed with a wordsmithing program called NewsEdit Pro made by a company called Baseview. NewsEdit Pro was designed for newspapers. It allowed editors to smoothly edit copy and transfer it on to the Quark page seamlessly. The Quark system allowed the editor much more creativity than the old paste-up method. You could instantly change the number of columns, move photos around, enlarge or reduce them, make headlines fit perfectly, all in the simple click of the mouse.
As with all systems, however, the dreaded updates came along. Every time Quark updated, it was hundreds of dollars per computer for new programs. Every time Mac updated, the same applied for operating systems. Baseview's contract for NewsEdit Pro got more and more expensive too. Finally, Mac went to the OS 10 on all its new machines a couple of years ago. The version of NewsEdit Pro we still had can't operate on that system. So we are using older operating systems, limping along with outdated programs because we can't move forward with new Macs (very expensive), new Quark systems (also very expensive) and no NewsEdit Pro (very inconvenient).
Instead, along comes InDesign, a program made by the same folks who make Adobe computer products. The InDesign program, as I learned this week in Willits, works a lot like Quark Xpress, plus it comes bundled with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, giving each editing desk a lot of creative possibilities. (Right now at the UDJ only the photo desk has Photoshop on it and only our composing department computers have Illustrator (which they use to create ads).
The further appeal of Indesign is that it operates on PCs which are vastly less expensive than Macs if your are looking to change out a whole newsroom of computers.
The drawbacks as I saw them this week was a far less smooth transition from the copy editing to the page. Microsoft Word was not created for newspaper copy so the program does not tell you how many column inches you have in a story - important to know as you are planning your page layout. It also does not format to your newspaper's specific text - at UDJ we use Times, size 11 pt. and News Edit pro formats everything into that font and size. With Microsoft Word and InDesign you have to import the copy to the page and then format it into your font and size.
There are a lot of extra steps like that which made editing pages a more lengthy process. I suspect there are short cuts and ways around that which we would figure out as we went along.
If anyone out there is an InDesign expert, I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of our specific challenges since I think we'll likely switch to PCs and InDesign in our next computer changeover.

Some of you may notice we changed our letters policy this week. We got a call this week from someone who was convinced that I would not publish his letter because I disagree with his views. As regular readers and letter writers know, we publish practically all letters unless they are potentially libelous or are really over the top in the hate or getting personal department. Sometimes letters get piled up and we have trouble getting them all published in a timely way. Sometimes letters get lost. It happens. But I have never not published a letter because I disagree with it and or don't like the person writing. However our publisher, Kevin McConnell, felt that our printed letter policy implied that we guarantee publication of all letters. I should say that in practice we do publish all publishable letters - with the exception of letter writers (there are a couple) who send something in five or six times a week. Then I pick the one that is most timely or responsive to something in the UDJ and publish that one. I also do not publish all the many letters we get from prisoners at the jail unless they are specifically discussing jail conditions or something which is of interest to the general public. The ones I discard are generally the long ramblings in legalese after they have spent a couple of minutes in a law library. Other letters that don't get published are letters from outside Mendocino County unless they are addressing a local issue, usually something they read about on our Web site. Finally, except for certain very timely ones, I don't generally publish poems as letters. In fact I was thinking abut hosting a poetry blog on our site. Any interest out there?
People often ask me why I publish long - or even short - rants from people who obviously don't know what they're talking about. As I've said before, I don't think it's my job to decide who should be censored. If there are people out there with views you can't stand, that's the way of the world, and wouldn't you rather know those folks are out there than pretend everyone feels the same way you do? As for thank you letters, I know lots of people who feel they're just boring and should be either moved somewhere else or abandoned. I guess I just feel that they reflect a lot of the good things that go on in our area and give credit where it's due. We do have a 20-business limit on lists of names mentioned to try to keep them short.
Anyway, here's the new policy:
The Daily Journal welcomes letters to the editor. All letters must include
a clear name, signature, return address and phone number. Letters chosen for
publication are generally published in the order they are received, but
shorter, concise letters are given preference. We publish most of the letters
we receive, but we cannot guarantee publication. Names will not be withheld
for any reason. If we are aware that you are connected to a local
organization or are an elected official writing about the organization or
body on which you serve, that will be included in your signature. If you
want to make it clear you are not speaking for that organization, you should
do so in your letter. All letters are subject to editing without notice.
Editing is generally limited to removing statements that are potentially
libelous or are not suitable for a family newspaper. Form letters that are
clearly part of a write-in campaign will not be published. You may drop
letters off at our office at 590 S. School St., or fax letters to 468-3544,
mail to Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 749, Ukiah, 95482 or e-mail them to
udj@pacific.net. E-mail letters should also include hometown and a phone
number.

Posted by K.C. at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jim Crelan and others - including former county union rep. Joe Wildman who is promoting, if as he claims, not hosting, the Why John Ball Got Fired Web site - continue to say that former county CEO John Ball's claims that county Board Chairman David Colfax wanted him to put extra money the county budget for Kendall Smith's travel and lodging expenses is unlikely.
But John Ball has shown me a memo he wrote on June 17 and says he sent to the County Counsel Jeanine Nadel, as well as read over the phone to Supervisor Hal Wagenet, outlines exactly the scenario he has claimed led to the closed session of the supervisors at which Colfax, Smith and Wagenet voted to fire him.
Ball, by the way, asked for an opening meeting as is his right under the Brown Act, but the three supervisors refused to discuss their political and personal dirty laundry in public. Instead, they scheduled a closed meeting about Ball on a day they knew he was scheduled to be out of town having his annual physical as required under his county contract. When he found out the closed session about him had been scheduled he asked for it to be open. No. Then he asked to at least hear what their problems with him were. No again.
In his memo - which he planned to send to all five supervisors but which he says Wagenet appealed to him not to send, so he didn't (and then Wagenet stabbed him in the back anyway) - he outlines Colfax's call to County Operating Officer Alison Glassey, demanding that the CEO add to the county budget $50,000 for travel and $50,000 for "Staff" for Kendall Smith. What Glassey says Colfax told her was that the CEO should add "the amount that Kendall wants" which she confirmed was the $100,000. Colfax told Glassey he was demanding this in his capacity as chairman of the board and Smith's capacity as chairwoman of the board's Government Policy Committee (which does not exist).
Glassey reminded Colfax that the board had taken no action to add this money to the budget nor did any committee of the board report out a line item for this addition to the budget. Colfax then apparently told Glassey he was surprised at her reluctance to do this, and that there would be trouble if she didn't do as he directed. According to Glassey, Colfax then said he wanted it done this way because it would be a political hot potato to do it in the regular course of public budget discussion.
Ball went on in his memo to the supervisors to explain that under the law, none of them has any authority to simply add things to the budget or rearrange spending outside a regular board meeting and without a vote of the board.
Never mind that this is apparently how a lot of the county budgeting has been done over the years which is why Colfax was so surprised to get resistance this time. And Colfax is undoubtedly not the only or the first supervisor over the years who has simply directed county admin staff - up until Ball lap dogs for the supervisors - to wrangle some pet project into the budget.
"All we need is for a majority of you to decide on a number - ANY number, ANYWHERE in the budget - and that's what the final budget will reflect," Ball wrote. "We're not playing games with the exec proposal. We're trying to show you the overall budget picture, include the priorities we've heard you express, provide you with a trial balance, and help you identify and perfect the changes you want to make for the final budget."
Nadel wrote a memo to Smith - apparently in response to a request from Smith on how the budget process works - at the very next supervisors meeting four days later.The memo reminded them that they could not mess with the budget outside a regular meeting of the board, citing the law that states " the board may make additions and changes to the proposed budget as it desires up to the time of adoption of the final budget, provided that any increase or inclusion of additional items shall not be made after the public hearing on the final budget unless proposed in writing and filed with the clerk of the board before the close of the public hearing or unless approved by the board by a four-fifths vote."
In other words, guys, you have to do this stuff in public.
It's certainly no secret that I believe the three supervisors that fired Ball made a huge mistake, one that will send this county backwards for a long time.
I think they are used to getting what they want. I think Kendall spent too much time working for Congressman Mike Thompson and thinks that, now that she's an elected official, she should be able to order staff around like congressmen do.
I want to know why the board of supervisors has no had a public conversation about Kendall Smith's demands. Why should she get any more mileage or travel expenses than any one else. She travels farther, and she gets more mileage payback for that. So what's she belly aching about? And if she hasa legitimate reason why the taxpayers should give her more money to do her job then she should come out publicly and say so, debate it with her colleagues and the public and accept whatever the outcome is. Not try to sneak money into the budget through the back door.
I notice that the supervisors do have Kendall's travel budget on their agenda for Tuesday and they are meeting in Fort Bragg (good excuse to meet there but they also know they'll likely get less audience there too. But our county reporter Katie Mintz will be there.)
As we've reported in the Daily Journal, the county's overall budget picture isn't a rosy one. The supervisors still don't seem to want to talk about it but the county retirement system is going to send the county into bankruptcy. You can't have people retiring at 50 and 55 at almost their full salary and living to be 75 or 85 years old and not cut spending and continuing raising those salaries and not go broke.
This county isn't making enough in taxes or investments (I'm told we're dead last among the 21 counties in California with independent retirement systems in return on investment).
So instead of tackling these hard issues - and I believe the county needs to switch to a 401k retirement system for new hires as soon as possible - they are worried abut their mileage checks.

By the by, remember that Piffero flag poll we had on the site? Well, unbeknownst to us, unless you tell the poll-making software otherwise, it deletes the poll after a certain amount of time without saving any of the results. So there goes that unscientific poll. But, we learned something and will have another poll up soon. Ideas for poll questions?

Posted by K.C. at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You read the story in Friday's UDJ. Here's the entire text of the contract as promised.

Contract of Employment with John Ball
Introduction
This Agreement, made and entered into this (date), between the County of Mendocino (hereinafter called “Employer�) and John Ball (hereinafter called “Employee�), an individual who has the required education, training and experience in local government management.
Section 1: Term The term of this agreement shall be for an initial period of 1 year from (date) to (date). This Agreement shall automatically be renewed on its anniversary date for a 1-year term unless notice that the Agreement shall terminate is given at least 3 months before the expiration date. In the event the agreement is not renewed, all compensation, benefits and requirements of the agreement shall remain in effect until the expiration of the term of the Agreement unless Employee voluntarily resigns. In the event that the Employee is terminated, as defined in Section 9 of this agreement, the Employee shall be entitled to all compensation including salary, accrued vacation, car allowance paid in lump sum plus continuation of benefits provided in Section 10 for the remainder of the term of this agreement.
Section 2: Duties and Authority Employer agrees to employ John Ball as Chief Executive Officer to perform the functions and duties specified in Chapter 2.28 of the Mendocino County Code and to perform other legally permissible and proper duties and functions.
Section 3: Compensation
A. Base Salary: Employer agrees to pay Employee an annual base salary of $131,000 payable in installments at the same time that the other management employees of the Employer are paid.
B. This agreement shall be automatically amended to reflect any salary adjustments that are provided or required by the Employer’s compensation policies.
C. Apart from the foregoing, Employer shall give consideration on an annual basis to increase Employee’s compensation.
D. The Employer agrees to increase the compensation each year by the minimum of the COLA increase granted to department heads of the Employer.
Section 4: Health, Disability and Life Insurance Benefits
A. The Employer agrees to provide and to pay 75 per cent of the premiums for health, hospitalization, surgical, vision, dental and comprehensive medical insurance for the Employee and domestic partner equal to that which is provided to all other department heads.
B. The Employer agrees to put into force and to make required payments for the short term County management disability coverage for the Employee.
C. The Employee may elect to submit once per calendar year to a complete physical examination, including a cardiovascular examination, by a qualified physician selected by the Employee, the cost of which shall be paid by the Employer.
D. Employer shall pay for $50,000 life insurance.

Section 5: Vacation, Sick, and Military Leave
A. Upon commencing employment, the Employee shall be credited with 40 hours sick leave. The Employee shall then accrue sick leave at the usual management rate and vacation leave on an annual basis at the five weeks rate.
B. The Employee is entitled to accrue all unused leave to department head maximums. In the event the Employee’s employment is terminated, either voluntarily or involuntarily, the Employee shall be compensated for all accrued vacation time, all paid holidays, personal leave, and other benefits to date.
C. The Employee shall be entitled to military reserve leave time pursuant to state law and Mendocino County policy.
D. The Employee shall upon employment be credited with 48 hours personal leave and annually on the first pay period in January be credited with 48 hours personal leave. This time may not be accumulated from year to year.
Section 6: Automobile Allowance
The Employer agrees to pay to the Employee, during the term of this Agreement and in addition to other salary and benefits herein provided, the sum of $400 per month as a vehicle allowance to be used to purchase, lease, or own, operate and maintain a vehicle. The Employee shall be responsible for paying for liability, property damage, and comprehensive insurance coverage upon such vehicle and shall further be responsible for all expenses attendant to the purchase, operation, maintenance, repair, and regular replacement of said vehicle. The Employer shall reimburse the Employee at the JRS standard mileage rate for any business use of the vehicle beyond Mendocino County.
Section 7: Retirement
1. The Employer agrees to enroll the Employee into the County’s 1937 Act retirement system under Sect. 31676.12 and to make all the appropriate contributions for the Employer and contribute 8 per cent towards the Employee share required.
2. In addition to the Employer’s payment to the local retirement system referenced above and to the base salary paid by the Employer to Employee, Employer agrees to match payments by Employee up to an amount equal to 4 per cent of Employee’s base salary into the designated 457 plan on the Employee’s behalf, in equal proportionate amounts each pay period.

Section 8: General Business Expenses
1. Employer agrees to budget for and to pay for professional dues and subscriptions of the Employee necessary for continuation and full participation in national, regional, state, and local associations.
2. Employer agrees to budget for and pay for travel and subsistence expenses of Employee for professional and official travel, meetings, and occasions to pursue necessary official function for Employer including payment of annual lCMA dues.
3. Employer agrees to provide the department head management training benefit to Employee.
4. Employer acknowledges the value of having Employee participate and be involved in local civic clubs or organizations. Accordingly, Employer shall pay for the reasonable membership fees and/or dues to enable the Employee to become an active member in local civic clubs or organizations.
Section 9: Termination
For the purpose of this agreement, termination shall occur when:
1. The majority of the governing body votes to terminate the Employee at a duly authorized public meeting.
2. If the Employer, citizens or the State legislature acts to amend any provisions of the County Code pertaining to the role, powers, duties, authority, responsibilities of the Employee’s position that substantially changes the form of Employee’s responsibilities, the Employee shall have the right to declare that such amendments constitute termination.
3. If the Employer reduces the base salary, compensation or any other financial benefit of the Employee, unless it is applied in no greater percentage than the average reduction of all department heads, such action shall constitute a breach of this agreement and will be regarded as a termination.
4. If the Employee resigns following an offer to accept resignation, whether formal or informal, by the Employer as representative of the majority of the governing body that the Employee resign, then the Employee may declare a termination as of the date of the suggestion.
5. Breach of contract declared by either party with a 30-day cure period for either Employee or Employer. Written notice of a breach of contract shall be provided in accordance with the provisions of Section 13.
Section 10: Severance
Severance shall be paid to the Employee when employment is terminated as defined in Section 9.
If the Employee is terminated, the Employer shall provide a minimum severance payment equal to six months salary at the current rate of pay. This severance shall be paid in a lump sum unless otherwise agreed to by the Employer and the Employee.
The Employee shall also be compensated for all accrued vacation time, all paid holiday, and personal leave.
For a minimum period of six months following termination, the Employer shall pay the cost to continue the following benefits:
1. Health insurance for the Employee and all dependents as provided in Section 4A.
2. Life insurance as provided in Section 4D.
If the Employee is terminated because of a conviction of a felony, then the Employer is not obligated to pay severance under this section.
Section 11: Resignation
In the event that the Employee voluntarily resigns his position with the Employer, the Employee shall provide a minimum of 60 days notice unless the parties agree otherwise.
Section 12: Moving and Relocation Expenses
Employee agrees to establish residence within the boundaries of Mendocino County within one month of employment, and thereafter to maintain residence within the corporate boundaries of Mendocino County.
A. Employer shall reimburse the expenses of moving Employee and domestic partner and personal property from Portland, Oregon to Mendocino County. Said moving expenses include packing, moving, storage costs, unpacking, and insurance charges.
B. Employer shall reimburse Employee for actual lodging and meal expenses for his family in route from Portland to Ukiah. Mileage costs for moving two personal automobiles shall be reimbursed at the current IRS allowable rate.
C. Employer shall pay Employee an interim housing supplement of $1,500 per month for a period commencing 5/1/05 (date) and shall continue for a maximum of three months or until a home is purchased and closed on, within the limits of Mendocino County, whichever event occurs first.
D. Employer shall reimburse Employee for transportation costs for a total of four round trips for Employee and his domestic partner at any time during the period April through July, including meals, lodging and rental car, to assist with house hunting and other facets of the transition and relocation process.
Section 13: Notices
Notice pursuant to this Agreement shall be given by depositing in the custody of the United States Postal Service, postage prepaid, addressed as follows:
(1) Employer: Chairman of the Board, County of Mendocino
(2) Employee: John Ball,
Alternatively, notice required pursuant to this Agreement may be personally served in the same manner as is applicable to civil judicial practice. Notice shall be deemed given as of the date of personal service or as the date of deposit of such written notice in the course of transmission in the United States Postal Service.
Section 14: General Provisions
A. Integration. This Agreement sets forth and establishes the entire understanding between the Employer and the Employee relating to the employment of the Employee by the Employer. Any prior discussions or representations by or between the parties are merged into and rendered null and void by this Agreement. The parties by mutual written agreement may amend any provision of this agreement during the life of the agreement. Such amendments shall be incorporated and made a part of this agreement. Each party to this Agreement acknowledges that he or it has received legal representation in connection with the execution of this document, or has been advised of the right to seek such representation, and has had a full opportunity to review it and propose changes prior to executing it. This Agreement shall not be interpreted against either party as the drafter of this agreement merely by reason of that drafting.
B. Binding Effect. This Agreement shall be binding on the Employer and the Employee as well as their heirs, assigns, executors, personal representatives and successors in interest.
C. Effective Date. This Agreement shall become effective on May 8, 2005
D. Severability. The invalidity or partial invalidity of any portion of this agreement will not affect the validity of any other provision. In the event that any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid, the remaining provisions shall be deemed to be in full force and effect as if they have been executed by both parties subsequent to the expungement or judicial modification of the invalid provision.
In witness whereof, the parties hereto, by their duly authorized representatives, have affixed their hands on the day and year this Agreement first above written
John Ball, Chief Executive Officer
Bos Agreement# 05-079A
Amendment to Employment agreement between county of Mendocino and John Ball, Chief Executive Officer
This addendum shall modify the agreement of May 8, 2005 (BOS #05-055), between COUNTY and JOHN BALL, as follows:
1. Pursuant to Section 14, paragraph A, Section 4, paragraph A shall be amended to read in its entirety as follows:
‘"The Employer agrees to provide and to pay 75 per cent of the premiums for health, hospitalization, surgical, vision, dental and comprehensive medical insurance for the Employee and for Employee’s fiancee by way of enrollment in the Mendocino County Employee Health Plan.�
2. In all other respects, the terms of the agreement shall remain as set forth in the agreement of May 8,2005.

Posted by K.C. at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those of you who know the local kids who just left for Europe in the People to People student ambassador program, I have talked to one of the kids’ mothers and have offered to have them email us updates and photos of their adventures. She wasn’t sure that would be possible, but we agreed that at the very least we would be happy to run a story on them when they get back with their photos and great memories. If you know of any one of these students who is over there and is able to get to a computer, we would be happy to share their thoughts and experiences while they are over there.

Thanks for joining in Elaine. I appreciate your feedback on the content and the online edition. You should be able to get the letters, calendars and just about everything on line now. The ads are controlled by our advertising department and our advertisers don’t always choose to go from the print edition into the online edition, but many do.
As for the archives, we do have free archive search for any previous two weeks then there is a paid service that allows you to search everything. Look in the left hand lenu for "Fee based archives." In our early on-line editions unfortunately, not everything got posted regularly but there is still a lot of information out there.
I like the BBS idea and I know there are other newspapers that have something like that. I’ll ask our online editor to find out how it’s done.

I guess I knew that at some point just being up front about things would get me in trouble. Of course I would love to have a staff of long term reporters with real roots in the community and great sources they’ve developed over years. That goes - I thought - without saying. And anyone who’s been reading this newspaper for a long time knows that it does happen and in fact many of the people we’ve had over the years were long term folks. My point about young reporters on a career track is that it is simple reality for me and more money is not what would keep them here. Should I refuse to hire a talented young reporter because I know he or she is likely to leave in a year or two? Plus, I think the assumption that they will do no serious or worthwhile reporting while they’re here is unfair. Reporters catch up pretty fast. But it does take some time.
The “business as usual� one commenter picked up on is simply an observation that many people on the street feel unaffected by this turn of events. If you’re frustrated with them - and the ones who don’t care about what their government is doing in Iraq - take it out on them.
As for Schat’s, anyone should feel free to join in any time for a face to face. It’s been called a cabal before, now a support group. Well I guess I prefer the latter, but wish people would show up and see for themselves what happens. And maybe that commenter would be delighted to know that lots of the conversation at Schat’s is about national politics and the problems our nation is facing from interesting and well-informed local people.
And yes, we are getting a copy of Ball’s contract and will share that with our readers.

Posted by K.C. at 05:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike Valley wonders if we are soon to start charging for on-line content. The answer is no. Our industry is convinced at the moment that charging will drive readers away. Especially readers in the 18-25 range that we are trying to attract to our sites, the ones that are less and less likely to turn to a print product any time in their lives. Having said that, the newsaper industry is also trying to figure out a way to make on-line pay us more. Advertising is certainly doing well and that will continue. Another avenue we are looking at (and by we I mean the industry, not the UDJ specifically) is getting search engines like Yahoo and Google to pay us for the content they are taking from our Web sites and posting on their own. Yahoo, for instance, now has its own news site, but all the content comes from traditional news sites, mostly newspapers. Yahoo has a contract with Associated Press which they write a big check to each month for its content . But newspapers get nothing for all the stories Yahoo posts on its site from us. Thus far, Yahoo has told our industry "We're doing you a favor, when they click on the headline to read the rest of the story, we send them through to your Web sites." That's how they have avoided copyright infringement lawsuits, because the newspaper industry has thus far bought that argument. However, studies are showing us that many people who visit Yahoo news, never get past the headlines and first graphs of those stories and hence, to us. Instead Yahoo is charging big bucks for advertising on that site and making millions from our content, while we get nothing. I predict that will change, that some sort of "partnership" between Yahoo and the print world will soon emerge.
As for not putting everything online in order to keep the print product valuable, that's not our strategy. We didn't put everything online simply because we didn't have the staff time to do it. Now that we have a full time online editor you will notice that more and more of our content is going online. You'll be seeing pet of the week, the Sunday Streets column, and births, marriages and engagements going onlne soon as well.
On the John Ball story, there are as many opinions as there are rumors about how this all happened. The op-ed piece in Sunday's edition by Jim Creland was just that. His opinion only. He is a retired real estate guy who served at one time on the grand jury. I called him to ask where he got his information, thinking perhaps he was a county employee or something but he simply said he talked to some people about it.
I have talked to some people about it too and even people who are in the know around here are largely unsure what exactly happened. Hindsight is usually 20-20 and it's easy to wonder now how we wouldn't have known about it, but it's one thing for people to talk about a thing, and quite another to get them to go on the record for the newspaper either before or afterwards. If employees leave because they are unhappy with John Ball, they're probably not going to say that out loud for publication. We sometimes get the "inside scoop" on something like that but it is often because one side or the other has an axe to grind and wants it in thenewspaper, or a reporter has a long standing relationship with t he beat. In her defense, Katie Mintz has been on the county beat for a matter of weeks and it takes time for new reporters to get inside their beats. I know people wonder sometimes why we have the turnover we do in the newsroom. It's simple. For the most part, the young people we hire are on career tracks in journalism. They know they have to start at a small daily right out of college and we give them great and needed experience to get to the next level. But - unless they fall in love with the town (or someone in it) - they are going to move on and it is my job to make sure they're ready and help them up the next step.
I think over the next weeks, we'll find out more about what happened with Ball - although I think it was indeed sudden. I heard the supes' excuse as to why they didn't review his contract in May is because he didn't bring it up - does that sound like five people you want in charge? But I also heard some supervisors didn't want to bring up the contract in May, because they knw how popular Ball was and didn't want to rock the boat just before the election - that sounds plausable and begs the same question.
On the other hand, at Schat's this morning here were some people who said, "So what? Business as usual, it doesn't really affect most people."

Posted by K.C. at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think some of you may be reading too much into the "power" of this blog. There's not much here that you can't hear on any given Thursday at Schat's. This way you don't have to get up early in the morning. Nonetheless I am happy that the conversation is up and running.

As for the typos etc., it drives us crazy too and I wish we had a full time proof reader. But mostly it's page editors trying to put out several pages on deadline without a second pair of eyes, we just don't have the people. And when someone is on vacation as is the case this week, it's gets even tighter. But we do the best we can and most days I think we do a pretty good job - and, except for the sports pages, I would disagree that we are 80 percent wire copy. I'm still not sure what happened in Saturday's edition when the jump line was incorrect except that there appears to have been some mixup about whether there was open space on Page 13 for news copy. The page turned out to have a full page ad scheduled so I'm guessing the editor switched the jump to Page 19 when she found out about the ad, but then forgot to go back and change the number on Page 1. I know that on Friday night we were focused on making sure the story and photos of the funeral of Sgt. Buzzard were appropriate and sensitive and as things like that go, we erred somewhere else. Believe me we don't take it lightly.

The Another Voice pieces by Mr. Johnson and Mr. Walls had nothing but their home towns on them because that's all I know about them. Mr. Walls has written a number of times in past years on a variety of topics and I have met him once, and Mr. Johnson handed me his copy in person, but I don't know any more about them.

Thanks for the input on polls. As I said here earlier, they're certainly not scientific and they're just a fun way for our readers to weigh in on things and get to know our Web site if they hadn't already.

The site itself has been a yo-yo this past week. Up, down, up, down. There have been technical problems that have been driving our on-line editor Brittany Dashiell crazy but I think our Web hosts have them under control. Maybe.

Posted by K.C. at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)