The editor's blog

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.