The editor's blog

Why we need to know

Do you remember the name Aaron Kelley? Kelley was named dean of the Wall School of Business at Coastal Carolina University back in 2001 and was scheduled to start work that August. Kelley withdrew his acceptance of the job after The Sun News published stories about his background at Ohio University where he had taught since 1993. Kelley had served as dean of the business school there until 1996 when he stepped down from the post following an unfavorable evaluation.

From our story published on May 11, 2001:

A June 1996 Ohio University news release states Kelley resigned because of an "unfavorable faculty evaluation which indicated that Kelley's leadership style was no longer effective."

The report by a four-member evaluation team pointed to "an inappropriate relationship that [Kelley] maintained with a subordinate female staff member" as one of the reasons his leadership no longer was effective.

Kelley said he resigned as dean at Ohio University because his leadership style no longer was a good fit with the university. He said allegations about the affair were untrue.

We should have backgrounded Kelley earlier than we did for our readers before he was hired. Who knows if the outcome would have been different if this community had complete information before Kelley was offered what was then the second highest paid job at CCU? Either way, we try to be more diligent now in backgrounding proposed leaders who are paid with our taxdollars and direct the public's business.

Which leads me to the search for a new superintendent of Horry County Schools.

School board consultants have vetted a large pool of applicants and given the board the names and backgrounds on seven "semifinalists." The school board will not release the names or  information regarding this pool of applicants, any one of whom could become the next leader of our county schools. Taxpayers will pay the plane fares and other expenses to bring these people into town in the coming days. What plans the board may have for letting the sunshine into this process remain fuzzy.

Our role as journalists is to serve as watchdogs over these processes and decisions on your behalf. We attend the meetings, ask the questions, share the answers. Battling secrecy makes it much tougher.

A quick return to Presidents Day

"I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a system of censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable right to criticize their own public officials."  Woodrow Wilson, 28th U.S. President, 1917

"Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?' " Joseph Henry Jackson, author, date unknown

    

How many eyeballs

A discussion regarding how many editors you need in the journalism business continues in our industry as online gets larger and newspapers (in many areas but not the Grand Strand) get smaller.

In our newsroom, a typical local story for print is written and reviewed by the reporter, edited by a content editor for context, fairness, clarity and writing style, edited by a copy editor who writes a  headline and also checks grammar, spelling, context, fairness, clarity and then is reviewed by a copy desk slot who sends the story on to print.

Breaking online stories - typically just the top of the news - are written and reviewed by a reporter and checked by the online editors. Longer versions or entire stories, particularly those that will appear in the print version, go through the more rigorous checking that I describe for print journalism.

The industry discussion about editing focuses on how different an online reader is from a print reader. It basically centers on whether the tolerance for typos and less context is higher for an online reader who trades those qualities in favor of urgency and brevity.

I hear from readers regularly who find errors in the paper and demand higher quality. I don't hear nearly so much from online readers about these concerns. Interesting.

Figure it out

As we told you this morning on myrtlebeachonline.com and in The Sun News, millions of Americans are eligible to receive a tax rebate ranging from $300 to $1,200 as part of President Bush's legislation to kick start the economy. And we have an easy way for you to check how big your check may be. Go to myrtlebeachonline.com, click on calculate your rebate, fill in the blanks and find out.

We are looking for more and better ways to be useful and to help you make sense of the news. If you have other examples of helpful and searchable information you'd like to see on our site, let me know. We'll see if we can accommodate.

A caller asks -

Where can I find things in the daily newspaper? At the bottom of Page 1A, you will find a horizontal listing and page number reference for the most popular daily features, including obituaries and our two daily crossword puzzles. At the bottom of each section front, you will find a similar listing for features in that particular section.

The caller ask for the daily listing of movies. We publish the upcoming week's movie listings in Friday's Kicks! section. We also publish advertising from movie theaters every day inside the Local section except on Friday when the ads appear near the coming week's listing in the Kicks! section.

We try hard to keep standing features in the same spots in the newspaper and on our website because we know you value usefulness.

Have your say

We have begun asking for your comments on selected stories posted on myrtlebeachonline.com after about a six-month hiatus. Those of you familiar with our website remember that the comment function was a staple until last spring's motorcycle rallies. Sadly, several contributors posted virulent racial screeds rather than contributing thoughtful commentary on the two bike weeks and their impact on the Grand Strand or other subjects as well. We have restored commenting and invite you to share your views and thoughts. Comments can enliven the public debate and shed new light on topics and events.

If you choose to comment, please observe our rules:

No name-calling or personal abuse.

No profanity or vulgarities. Some people use them in their speech regularly, we know, but they still offend.

Back and forth exchanges between posters irritate other readers if they go on too long.

Make your point succinctly.

Don't pretend to be someone you aren't. Don't make threats.

All politics are local

We are moving ever closer to being the center of the national universe - politically speaking - as candidates, staff, the parties' faithful and the rest of us look toward January and the two presidential debates in Myrtle Beach and statewide primaries to follow. Even in the midst of holiday festivities, we continue ruminating over who our next president should be. Keep checking our politics blog, PoliTick-Tock, for the latest updates, candidates schedules and other tidbits of interest. 

Our reporting staff is pinning down the list of politics stories we are working on, many of them keying off the news and candidates' appearances. Some of the others involve ideas that readers brought to us in two forums we held here at The Sun News in mid-November. The forums included about 20 folks who shared their priorities on the issues they care most about along with some of the questions they would like the candidates to address. Watch for stories on immigration, health care, Washington spending among others in the coming days.

This Sunday we will publish the latest tallies on who's leading and who's lagging in a joint poll produced by McClatchy newspapers and NBC. See the Sunday edition of The Sun News and myrtlebeachonline.com that morning for all the details.

Stocks of local interest

We are considering some tinkers to our daily Money section and need your help. On weekdays we have listings for stocks of local interest at the bottom of the section front. Some of them now seem less relevant while others that may be more widely held are not included. If you have suggestions for stock listings of local companies or companies that are key to our local economy, please post here.

The darkening mood

One of the online sites I check each day is poynter.org, a journalism industry site put together by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. Institute faculty member Al Thompkins posts story ideas each day that editors and reporters may choose to pursue in their communities. Today's posting is intriguing. Here's a snippet:

"OK, so we all know the public is upset with President Bush. But the new Reuters/Zogby poll shows that the public thinks even less of Congress. Reuters says:

A paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively, beating the previous low of 14 percent in July.The Reuters/Zogby Index, a new measure of the mood of the country, dropped from 100 to 98.8 in the last month on worries about the economy and fears of a recession, pollster John Zogby said."Since the last time we polled we have had the mortgage crisis, and we are hearing the recession word a whole lot more than we've heard it in the past," Zogby said.

A score above 100 indicates the country's mood has improved since July. A score below 100, like the one recorded in September, shows the nation's mood getting worse.

I suspect a lot of people think their Congressperson is just fine. It's the rest of Congress that they think should get tossed out. It may just be the "institution" of government that angers people."

Thompkins suggests that covering how local readers feel about government would be worthwhile, given current market conditions.

Zogby calls the country's mood darker than dark.

Would you agree?

Too many words?

Staffers on our copy desk produce a collection of good headlines, grammar and style rules and other words of wisdom related to the language, entitled Notes and Notices, that is distributed to journalists across our newsroom. The latest issue has a reminder to avoid pleonasms, the use of more words than necessary to express an idea clearly. The examples cited appeared recently in The Sun News - free gifts (all gifts are free), underground tunneling, foreign imports and safe haven. Another personal favorite is tuna fish.

Have any of your own to share?

New online feature

We've launched a new weekly video feature on myrtlebeachonline.com as part of our fall prep football coverage. Josh Hoke, Coastal Carolina's star kicker for four years, has joined our sports staff and is now covering preps. Josh is previewing the week's games and sharing his picks in a video that you can check out each Thursday.

Josh is a pretty amazing young man. He has been a stringer and occasional part-time writer for us for several years as he completed four years at Coastal. He became a full-time reporter with us in January, covering any and everything in the early mornings, postings news and updates on the website and writing for the next day's paper.

His first love, as you can imagine, is sports. We're excited that he now brings his expertise as a high school and college athlete to his coverage for our sports readers.

Check out his videos, blog and other coverage.

He's still the King

If you're an Elvis fan, be sure to check out our coverage on the front page of The Sun News on Thursday as well as the stories and multimedia coverage from last Sunday's Coasting that are on myrtlebeachonline.com. Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death.

Thursday's coverage will feature local folks who had encounters with the King and who share their memories with you. We'll also have a look at two truly serious local Elvis memorabilia collectors.

I recommend two slide shows on our website as a special treat. Photographer Janet Blackmon Morgan captured the style and sound of two area Elvis performers, Eddie Miles and Ryan Pelton. The photos show you just how much these two men look like Elvis and the audio will have you singing along.

Brave new world

I hope you take a moment to check out a new addition to our website, Cooking with Johanna. Our food writer and long time Backroads columnist, Johanna D. Wilson, has now become a video journalist as well. She will interview area chefs and home cooks to bring readers some useful tips on cooking, recipes, techniques and hopefully a bit of history along the way. The new video will appear each Wednesday on myrtlebeachonline.com and will frequently pair up with stories that you will see on the front of Wednesday's Coasting section.

Johanna told me recently that she couldn't have imagined how different her job would be once she moved from local columnist to her present position. She's learning how to interview for video (she worries that she talks too much with her hands) and our web producers and photojournalists are learning how to shoot and edit the work along the way as well.

If you have suggestions or ideas, please let us know.

Do you YouTube?

About 20 years ago some newspaper editors began using questions from readers as part of political reporting and termed it public journalism. At the time, it was considered controversial by the more conservative members of the media, seen as a sort of abdication of responsibility by letting nonjournalists into the discussion alongside professionals. It was a return to the way newspapers had done things since their inception as the daily printed public forum.

Talk radio, the earliest broadcast version of citizen journalism, began in the 1920s, took off in the 1950s with Joe Pyne and others, migrated onto the FM format in the 1970s and became mainstream in the 1990s with the popularity rise of Rush Limbaugh and others. Beginning in the 1950s similar formats on television emerged although town hall type coverage on tv is a relatively recent trend.

Monday night's Democratic presidential debate on CNN featured video questions from citizens selected from YouTube entries. I thought it was terrific, primarily because it seemed to shorten the usual amount of political posturing and included questions that journalists wouldn't necessarily have in their notebooks to ask. Also, the range of topics was diverse. On the down side, some of the more substantive issues a new president might face were less than center stage.

I'd like to know what you think.

Should comments include real names?

Some of you may have noticed that we stopped asking for comments on local news stories we post several months ago. We took that step because the racist, sexist or just down right crude comments that accompanied many stories added nothing to the public debate and were taking time we don't have to closely monitor.

Our sister newspaper, The Sacramento Bee,  just announced a plan to require people who post comments online to identify themselves by name rather than remaining anonymous through the use of a screen name or by including no name at all..

Here's what The Bee's public editor, Armando Acuna, told their readers:

"By eliminating anonymity, the thinking goes, the amount of online bile will diminish, perhaps at the cost of fewer overall comments. At the same time, The Bee will stop its practice of online editors screening every comment, which has led to hours-long delays, and allow reader self-posting.

"So I asked readers what they thought of the changes and a few dozen responded. Like online postings themselves, the responses covered the gamut of opinion and were delivered with the ethos of their sacbee.com cousins -- with doses of zest and sincerity sprinkled with disrespect and condescension. The majority said they supported requiring identification. Some said they were tired of the rudeness and crudeness -- a few so much so they stopped commenting altogether -- and that the paper was naive in thinking that lifting anonymity would lift the level of debate.

"Several others though said The Bee was over-reacting and infringing on freedom of speech. A few said anonymity allowed those inside government institutions, such as law enforcement, the freedom to question and challenge supervisors higher up the food chain without fear of repercussions.

"But more were similar to this:

" 'Hooray!' read the e-mail from Dave and Patty Palmer of Georgetown. 'We did post several times regarding a sports article and used our real name (didn't find out how the others got their fake one), but so many of the posts were negative and derogatory name calling, etc., that we stopped. As a matter of fact, (we) stopped reading 'comments' altogether. So, we are happy The Bee has taken steps to bring good posting, debate and interesting comments for us readers. Thank you.' "

Here at The Sun News/myrtlebeachonline.com, we are discussing how and when to restore the comments to our coverage. We'd love to hear what you think. Post here, please.

Lying politicians

An anonymous voicemail message I received today:

"When Bill Clinton lied to the grand jury, you couldn't even find it in your newspaper. But now it's front page with Scooter Libby. How come? You people. I can't believe what you do. Good BYE." (The caller said his final word with extra emphasis.)

Some readers assume the journalists or at least the editors at The Sun News are ultra liberals and select, order and emphasize stories as one way to drive a political agenda. I know because I hear from these readers when they take exception to story play or heandline tone. Other readers are equally as sure that we're driving a Republican, conservative agenda in just the same ways.

We published the Libby story as the lead on today's Page one because it was, in our view, the most important news of the day. Until the wire services alerted us to the Libby news late in the afternoon, we were planning a Page one built around the British terrorist story and a local education update. Playing the Libby story as we did seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Still seems like the right decision to me. For the record, we played Clinton's grand jury testimony as well as many of the ensuing legal twists and turns on Page one as well.

Sick of Paris Hilton?

Thanks for realizing that Paris Hilton's troubles are not Page one news. That, in essence, summarizes a comment from Myrtle beach artist Harry Love last week. Harry and several other city leaders met with some of us from The Sun News to discuss ideas and views on news coverage and other topics. We have published reports of Paris' woes generally on Page 2A, our daily spot for news from the entertainment world. In our view, nothing she's done to date has warranted front page news.

Dave Barry for President

We've added a new feature to myrtlebeachonline.com which I encourage you to check out - news.mcclatchy.com. It is produced by the McClatchy Co. Washington bureau and includes national and international news updates, some of the most poignant and insightful blogs you'll find written by the bureau's national and international reporters and the best of political cartoons from our 31 newspapers. It also features video produced by the bureau staff and coming soon will be a feature on which readers can post their own videos.

The bureau staff will be especially focused on the race to the White House as we head deeper into the active political season. An added feature to the site is the return of Dave Barry who says he is running for president in 2008 and is answering reader questions as the campaign season proceeds. Barry's column used to appear each Sunday in The Sun News until he retired from regular columnizing. At least for this political season, he's back. Here's a taste:

Q: Dave, Since you've been running for President (unsuccesfully) since the Truman administration, what is it about 2008 that's different? Or is this going to be yet another heart-breaking, gut-wrenching disappointment to your loyal supporters?

Moosensquirrel, Melbourne, FL 6/20/07

A: I believe that, with every passing day, and every new candidate announcement, my campaign appears, relatively speaking, to be less and less of a joke.

Dave Barry 6/21/07

The Sun News is one of McClatchy's 31 newspapers and regularly publishes the work of the bureau journalists as well as coverage from our South Carolina reporter, Jim Rosen, who is based in the bureau.

Famine to feast redux

Some readers of yesterday's blog entry have called me to task for what they termed my inappropriate summary of breaking news on Tuesday that appeared on our website and in today's newspaper. Fair enough. My intention was not to suggest that any of the tragically sad events of Tuesday should have happened or that I take pleasure in tragedy. I should have have been clearer about my point.

My blog entries are focused on explaining what we as journalists do and why, an attempt, if you will, to demystify our decisions. Many readers complain that newspapers concentrate on bad news and never print enough good news. Editors, myself included, will answer that there is lots of good news in the paper each day although readers often recall only the bad or negative stories.

Our story selection on Monday's Page one about Al Parish's guitar collection was an interesting update in the ongoing story of the indicted economist's legal troubles. Had  it not appeared in the paper, however, readers might not have felt they missed important events in our world. The point of my summary of Tuesday's breaking news -  including the tragic death of nine firefighters in Charleston, the indictment of our publicly elected state treasurer and the announcement of Burroughs & Chapin's new chief operating officer - was intended to show that we strive to put the most relevant, most important and newsiest coverage on Page one. One of our roles as journalists is to select and order the news, playing the most important stories larger and the smaller stories in lesser ways. We spend our work days sorting through news that occurs around the world as well as in our communities so that we may bring you the most relevant news report possible.

Like you, we enjoy and appreciate happy events and we feel sorrow and sadness when tragedy strikes. I wish I had been more clear with yesterday's blog entry.

Famine to feast

During Monday's regular meeting of the Myrtle Beach Rotary Club, I paid a $1 fine (all fines support the club's scholarship funds) for publishing a story on Page one Monday about indicted economist Al Parish's guitar collection. It was a slow news day, as we say.

Deciding what we will play on Wednesday's Page one has been a decidedly different challenge for us today. We will end up not publishing two very good stories because of the crush of breaking news. A tragic fire in Charleston that killed nine firefighters has rocked our entire state and the nation as we all ask what happened and why. The new chief operating officer for Burroughs & Chapin Co.was announced this morning and we will bring you the beginnings of information and insight about who he is and why he has been chosen to replace longtime CEO Doug Wendel. The final up or down decision on casino boats is supposed to be decided before the day is over. And minutes ago, SLED announced that state treasurer Thomas Ravenel has been indicted on drug related charges. And that's just the news for the first page of tomorrow's paper. Then myrtlebeachonline.com picks up throughout the day with  further developments.

I love it when news picks back up.

Today's 911 tape

If you click on the link with today's coverage of a shooting outside a Garden City beachware store, you will hear the exchange between the 911 operator and the man accused of shooting a Myrtle Beach man outside the store last Friday. Eli Eliyahu, 22, is charged with voluntary manslaughter. Bradley Pope, a 23-year-old man who had visited the store that morning with this two children, wife and other family members, was killed.

The 911 tape is a part of the public record. We posted the tape online because we believe it is in the public's interest to know details surrounding this incident. The tape provides a rare and detailed look into an event that changed several lives and made many of us in this community feel less safe. 

Sunday screwup

Our good folks tried to correct one mistake in the Sunday edition and ended up making a bigger error in the process. Senior investigative reporter David Wren's latest coverage of the financial situation at Coastal Carolina University was supposed to lead the newspaper Sunday in the second edition, which goes to Horry and Georgetown readers. Our first edition, which goes to readers in Brunswick County, had another story at the top of page one about an increase in drug crimes in Brunswick County schools. That edition went off the press without a hitch.

Next up was the replate for the second edition in which the front page story and a jump page were changed. A few thousand papers came off the press when an alert employee noticed an error in an ad. The press stopped to correct the ad and unfortunately confusion ensued.

While the press was stopped to correct the ad, some pages in the sports section were replated to update stories. Somehow the plate for the Brunswick County jump page got back on the press instead of the correct jump page plate that contained the rest of the CCU story.

That's probably more than you want to know. Bottom line: the entire story was and remains available on myrtlebeachonline.com. We published the entire story beginning on today's front page as well.

Producing a daily newspaper involves many moving parts and the work of a few hundred people. When mistakes occur, we reexamine our processes in the hope that we will avoid making the same mistakes again. We regret them and appreciate the calls and emails to let us know when they happen.

Unnamed sources

We have a story in today's newspaper and online about Buzz Peterson's talks with the Bobcats basketball organization concerning a possible job. Peterson, in his third year as Coastal Carolina's men's basketball coach, told reporter Travis Sawchik that he is intrigued with the prospect of working with Michael Jordan and the Charlotte team in a noncoaching role. He said he will learn more next week about what, if any, offer the team will give him. 

We did not publish a story that moved earlier this week about Peterson's latest connection with Jordan because it quoted unnamed sources within the Bobcats organization. We don't use unnamed sources in locally written stories unless I personally approve it. We try mightily to avoid using them in wire stories whenever possible, although many other news organizations rely on them and use them liberally. Our standard at The Sun News is this: we will only use unnamed sources if the public's safety and well being is in jeopardy. This is our guideline. Exceptions, of course, can occur.

If the information is critical enough for us to publish, readers should be able to identify who is providing it. Readers can judge for themselves whether they believe the  information is credible based on the source. The story we didn't run, written by a well respected beat writer at The Charlotte Observer who undoubtedly had reliable sources within the Bobcats organization, said Peterson had already been offered a job. The next day Peterson told us he hadn't. Either way, the story didn't reach our threshold for use of anonymous sources.

We'll know the outcome next week. Stay tuned.

Are you watching?

I spend a little time every day browsing the internet. I'm not just playing around, I'm researching changes and innovations that we may want to know about or adopt for myrtlebeachonline.com. An oldie but goodie idea is on our website every day - a link to the state's Department of Transportation's local web cams. Where is traffic backing up? Is an accident blocking your route to work or other activities? Check it out. The cams regularly refresh the view. I think you'll find them useful.

Words we avoid

I frequently tell our news staff that we operate via guidelines and few rules. Our rules are basically report the truth and make the sources of information clear to the reader. The guidelines cover a wide variety of topics.

We violated one of our guidelines in Sunday's paper. A cutline on the Local section front contained a scatalogical reference as part of the description of the Homeless Night Out at Conway High School. I'm no prude. You see photos of visitors and residents alike in all manner of dress and circumstance. You read descriptions of news events that challenge and sometimes offend our sensibilities. That's life. But I also believe that the tone of your daily newspaper should hit a level of maturity that reflects the community it serves. Potty humor is funny to some but it doesn't belong in the newspaper as a rule. The same is true of curse words, racist labels and inappropriate slang.   

The daily miracle and your daily routine

I'm taking an informal poll. What do you regularly read in our newspaper and on our website? What time are you reading?

Newspaper journalists work in a 24/7 environment, producing news for the daily print version and breaking news and other content for our website. You can pick up the newspaper whenever it suits you to read or reread the print version. Afternoon newspapers are almost extinct but many of us save portions of the morning paper for evening reading or later. Our research shows us that readers use our website for different things throughout the day. You are looking for news updates in the morning and are more interested in things to do as the week goes by.

What do you look for and when do you look? 

Keeping secrets from you

"The balance between disclosure and secrecy can be difficult to strike . . . Yet there are many symptoms that the current government policies fundamentally skew toward secrecy in a manner that can only injure the public interest." David Stewart, president, Freedom to Write Fund, 2006.

Our ongoing reader research tells us that readers care most about how their tax dollars are spent. Decisions regarding public money that are made behind closed doors are frequently suspect. The doors are closed a lot and neither you nor journalists who are there watching on your behalf can know for sure what's going on or whether your best interests are part of the conversation. Local governments are in the process of setting new tax allocations between now and mid summer. If you want to know what's happening to your pocketbook, watch closely. 

Horsing around in Columbia

Each Sunday from January to June, our statehouse reporter Zane Wilson summarizes legislative action of local interest in a story on the Local front labeled "Week in the Legislature." She reports the day's biggest news events throughout the week and uses her Sunday column for updates or coverage of other issues moving through the capital process.

Sunday's lead topic was a bill that would have recognized the breed of horse called the marsh tacky as the state's official horse or state "heritage horse." In case you missed it, only a few hundred of these horses still exist. They were believed to be good sand and marsh horses and were ridden by South Carolina's famous Revolutionary War general, Francis Marion, known as the Swamp Fox.

Both Zane and the headline writer had some fun with the topic. The subhead noted the mulish argument on the House floor that preceded the demise of the bill. That refered to a move by a Greeleyville representative who wanted similar recognition for mules. Zane explained the "horse trading" that went on and told readers that the bill still has legs. It may get reconsideration Tuesday.

Zane used a conversational approach in Sunday's column that the headline writer used as well. Matching the tone of coverage to the topic is as important as the topic itself.

Tomorrow's coverage

We're deep into figuring out how to put Wednesday's newspaper together with news that has already happened and developments yet to occur. Some of the coverage is already on our website - the Rev. Jerry Falwell's death, for example.

Still to come are developments in the airport terminal saga with today's release of the consultants' report on how much the Myrtle Beach airport charges airlines versus airports of comparable size; the Horry County Council discussion and possible vote tonight on what's next regarding the airport and casino boats; what action, if any, the Horry County Board of Education will take tonight on choosing a new superintendent; how the Republican presidential debate being held tonight in Columbia will turn out.

And then there are all these motorcycles in the area and Brunswick County Schools are awaiting the report of a transportation study and the Georgetown County school board is considering its budget challenges. Well, you get the idea. Things are busy out there.

Our reporting and editing staffs are hustling to bring readers the latest developments and whenever possible, the why behind it all. Our design and graphic artist journalists are trying to figure out how to make it all come together visually. By early evening we hope to lock down decisions so designers can merge stories, headlines, photos, graphics onto the pages as they are completed through the night. Posting the top of the news on myrtlebeachonline.com along with headlines and photos occurs more quickly. Although technologically complex, changing the website means fewer moving parts, fewer elements to blend and far more opportunities to update and correct things as they develop. The relative permanence of newsprint demands that you make it as accurate as possible when the press prints that day's record of the news.   

How do we count them?

How many bikers show up for the spring bike weeks? Who has numbers you can count on and how do they arrive at the figures? Do you base the number on hotel occupancy? Police or chamber estimates? Your best guess?

Today's front page story about the beginning of the spring rallies said more visitors are expected this year. That projection is based on the number of visitors expected to fill area hotel rooms comapred to those that filled rooms last year. That may be the only quantifiable way we have to judge the number of bike visitors. What it doesn't include are people who don't stay in hotels or who drive into town for the day and don't stay overnight. How many are there really?

Those of us who live here probably base our best guesses on how hard it is to get around during the Harley and Atlantic Beach rallies or whether or not the noise levels seem higher or lower than years past or how much trash is piling up before crews can collect it in the morning.

It's important in our coverage because it helps readers understand the history of these events, their impact on our communities and the taxes we pay to host them. Our ongoing community debate is whether or not the rallies are good for us, good for our economy, good for our future. Now that economists at Coastal Carolina University have made capturing tourism numbers part of their ongoing research data, we've made progress toward more accurate numbers.   

Ordering, selecting the news

Among this morning's calls to the newsroom was a woman who vehemently disagreed with the decision to play Paula Deen's local appearance on page one. The caller didn't leave her name, only her complaint: putting coverage of a visit by the southern cook on the front page was "ridiculous" and that the world and Murrells Inlet and our area have far more important events going on that deserve such prominent play.

We look for stories that people talk about with family and friends, that perhaps include humor or serve to validate normal events and values that define our daily lives. Deen fans filled every seat Tuesday at the Pawleys Island Community Church for the chance to enjoy her wit and  hear her personal story of triumph over adversity. True, the coverage of her visit wasn't serious breaking news, the kind of story that almost always dominates our front page. In our view, it helped capture the rhythm of life in our community along with more serious subjects that played on page one today, such as the ongoing political smackdown over the Myrtle Beach airport and a thwarted terrorist plot at Fort Dix.

They're on their way

The arrival of our motorcycle visitors is imminent. Each spring we hold a series of newsroom staff meetings to talk about coverage plans, the logistics of getting our work done and the guidelines we'll follow on what we'll cover and by what method. Some reporters still remember all too well when U.S. 17 was shut down for more than an hour in the late 1990s because of traffic gridlock. Since then we make sure we have backup plans that will help us report news even if our staffers are stuck in their cars.

We cover the back-to-back biker events for our entire audience - residents who want to know how to avoid the bikers and their activities, residents who want to join in and visitors who look to us for useful tips and the daily documentation of sights, sounds and the news.

We always make sure we have maps of traffic and vendor hot spots along with daily listings of organized activities. A couple of times we've rented noise meter devices so we could report sound levels for our readers. Last year we began daily blogging by several staff members, a technique called mob blogging, which provided a method for several staffers to post news and updates throughout the festivals. We've also added video clips to our website and reader submitted photos along with our own staff photography slide shows.

We also take care to avoid the inevitable racial slurs and stereotypes that some folks can't stop themselves from hurling into the mix. Rumors always abound during these spring festivals. We reply on in-person reporting and credible facts from officials and participants as the backbone of our coverage.    

Breaking news

Blogs serve a variety of purposes. For example, I am using this blog to explain how we make decisions or to update you on changes under way with our website and our newspaper.

Sports staffer Kurt Knapek writes a regular blog on myrtlebeachonline.com about NASCAR, his particular passion. Kurt is a journalist of many talents - he reports, writes, edits, designs pages, copy edits, plans coverage and works with freelancers who call in stories and scores from our three-county coverage area.

He uses his blog, Pit Passes, to share his thoughts, opinions and to occasionally break news. Today's entry on his blog alerts readers that penalities from Saturday night's fight at the Myrtle Beach Speedway will be announced later today. Day by day we become more adept at bringing you the latest news as soon as possible and giving you the broader story in print. Newspapers used to be the sole source of news, then broadcast became the media of immediacy. Today, print journalists work on a 24/7 news cycle. Check out Kurt's blog for more breaking NASCAR news.

Terminal fight

JIm Naughton, who was the executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and later directed a journalism training institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., once summarized why news reporting, especially investigative reporting, remains the heart of a newspaper's mission.

"News is the part people don't ask for and should know. News is what can help people govern their nation, their city, their neighborhood, their school. By definition, news does not soothe. News breaks. Those big investigative projects help people understand how and why it broke and sometimes how to put it back together."

Jim's comments came to mind this morning as I read today's coverage of the fight among local leaders over the future of the airport terminal. Our ongoing coverage is less investigative in the purest sense of the term and more an ongoing attempt to tell you what is happening, who is involved, where lines are being drawn and how much it's all costing us in tax dollars. The role of journalists in the story is to follow the cast of characters and the flow of dollars. We'll also report solutions as they present themselves.

Celia's humor

For many readers, Celia Rivenbark's Sunday column is a weekly must read. In case you missed yesterday's installment, Celia has been asked to be the North Carolina Pecan Harvest Festival Queen, a distinguished honor indeed. As she notes, she is eminently qualified if for no other reason than she knows the true secret for a perfect pecan pie - light AND dark Karo syrup.

Celia shares her insights on mostly the routine matters of living, southern culture, motherhood, current events - all with a broad brush of hilarity. She writes with the particular lilt of a southern accent firmly in mind. You find yourself saying phrases from her columns out loud and you usually end reading them with a hearty laugh. That's excellent humor writing, a skill not many can claim.

Celia's original columns appear first in The Sun News and then are widely syndicated to other daily newspapers across the country. Commentary can be serious, ponderous, thought provoking, frustrating, pick your own adjective. It can also be organic and just plain fun, as Celia shows us each week in our Sunday Coasting section.

Issac's special series

The weeklong series we have published this week beginning last Sunday, Fatal Fallout, has taken our readers on a deeply personal journey with local columnist Issac Bailey, his family and the family of James Bunch, who was killed 25 years ago by Issac's oldest brother, Moochie. In this morning's edition of The Sun News, we printed Issac's answers to questions many of you have asked regarding this series. At the end is one final question that didn't appear in print.

Q. Why did you write this series?
A. It was time. Almost 25 years of living in the shadow of shame was long enough. Also, I
ask a lot of those I interview. I tell them that being open and honest is best, even when there is
pain. I try to hold myself to the same standard. And this particular slice of the crime story is
seldom, if ever, told. I hope families facing what we faced learn from our mistakes.

Q. How did you decide how much information to reveal about yourself? Your family?
A. That was the hard part. My first thought was to give only enough information to pull a story
together. That was because of the lingering feelings of shame and embarrassment. Then I thought
that would be dishonest, so I shifted into a journalistic mode and treated my family the way I do
other families who allow me to probe deeply into their pain.

Q. How did you explain the project to your family?
A. I told my brothers and sisters first, telling them the 25th anniversary of the murder was
near, then I told my mother. I told them it was way past time and that we had an important story to tell. They agreed and cooperated, though I knew it wasn't easy for them. Honestly, though, even if they hadn't agreed, I would have written the story any way.Because I think it's that important.

Q. Describe the conversation among your family about the murder and its subsequent impact
on your lives.
A. Our family is split, and the conversation got heated at times, especially because we got to vent
about the criminal acts committed by my youngest brothers. The older siblings seem more resigned
about believing what happened, while the younger ones believe he was possibly railroaded by police. My mother is having the hardest time. She wants to know how someone she gave birth to could take a life and why he pleaded guilty unexpectedly.

Q. How did you locate the Bunch family, and how did you explain the project to them?
A. I did a few Internet searches, called people I knew in Bonneau and spent hours going
through two years' worth of newspaper articles that are preserved on microfilm in the Berkeley
County library. But my best contact came after stopping in a small cafe housed in a single-wide
trailer. The owners knew about the murder and gave me the number of Mr. Bunch's best friend,
who helped me contact the family. I told them I was doing a story on the effects of crime, and that my brother killed their brother. That was hard. I didn't know if they would spit in my face. Fortunately they didn't. They graciously spoke with me a bit, but I didn't push any further. In other situations, I likely would have.

Q. Why did you decide to write it as a narrative series?
A. I thought the full story would be impossible to tell in one long piece, or if not impossible to
tell, impossible to read. Narrative gives you more space to paint a picture with specific details.

Q. How do you view the project now that it's in print? Is there anything you would change?

A. I haven't read the stories in print and probably won't for at least a few weeks. It's still a bit too
raw. But what I'm hoping the stories got across was that the tentacles of crime are long and
affect everyone - the victim's family, as well as the perpetrator's - and that we would be unwise to continue ignoring that reality.

Q. And a final question: what is the reaction from your mother?
A. I am going to see her tonight and show her the series. I'll let you know.

Guns in schools

We had a quick but lively exchange in the newsroom Wednesday afternoon over where a story about legislation regarding guns in schools should appear in the paper this morning. The story by staff writer Jonathan Tressler describes a bill introduced this week in the S.C. House that would allow people with concealed weapons permits to carry guns onto public school property.

Thousands of bills are introduced in Columbia each year that never become law. Many of them don't make it much beyond the initial filing stage and readers usually never know about them because journalists don't write about them. The guns in schools legislation, co-sponsored by Rep. Liston Barfield of Conway and Rep. Alan Clemmons of Myrtle Beach, is an exception. The recent horror on the Virginia Tech campus and the gun incidents in the past few weeks in our area public schools make this topic urgently important in our community. The story includes the point of view from Barfield and Clemmons as well as some educators who oppose the idea.

The legislation may well go nowhere or it may be assigned to a subcommittee for review and begin to work its way toward law. We published the story prominently on the Local section front because we believe it's an issue readers care about and want to participate in solving.   

Covering her beat

No issue is more important to the region right now than the current crisis affecting insurance coverage for homes, condos and commercial property. Gov. Mark Sanford and Insurance Director Scott Richardson were in Myrtle Beach Tuesday for a press conference. Real estate reporter Jenny Burns used her weekly column today to give readers the latest update on who's writing policies and where things stand. Jenny began covering this issue in depth about a year ago, long before many of our readers had ever heard the term "wind pool" or contemplated the latest hurricane risk models for our area of the coast.

A key piece of Jenny's job is to be an expert on coastal insurance and the overall insurance industry as it relates to real estate. Only then can she write about it clearly so the rest of us can understand the state of things. She also serves as an investigator who searches for trends elsewhere to determine if they might impact us here at home. She routinely goes after the latest data, changing market conditions, decisions by stakeholders or impact on regular people so that her coverage keeps us all up to date.

Thousands of us are affected by rising insurance premiums or policy cancellations in the face of the current situation, more than any other part of the Carolinas coast. As Richardson said Tuesday, the situation won't be resolved any time soon, suggesting it will take at least a year before we will know more clearly the long-term solutions. The heart of Jenny's job, and any reporter's job, is to know what questions to ask, where to turn for accurate information and to put the news in the paper and on the website. Sometimes the work prompts change. It depends on what readers do with the information.

Welcome

"Free speech is the core of the First Amendment. And the Internet represents the most participatory form of mass speech in human history." Bill Frist, U.S. Senator from Tennessee. 2006.

Today I begin what I hope will be a lively, informative and interactive exchange with you, the readers and audience of The Sun News and myrtlebeachonline.com. Occasionally over the almost eight years that I've served as editor of The Sun News, I have written columns explaining our news decisions or updating you on changes we are making to our coverage. Now I will use this blog as a more regular way to share our thinking with you.

We want our journalism to be useful, to include information from all parts of our three-county coverage area as well as our nation and world, to serve as the watchdog for our communities and to tell the stories of triumph, courage, love, grief, all the emotions that define us as neighbors, family and friends. Through it all we are seeking to be accurate, fair and contextual. We know that's what you expect and we work at it seven days a week. I plan to update the blog several times a week, and I hope you will join in the conversation. I look forward to it.