Print has a role in national championship

Who says print new can't keep up? I was astounded this morning to pick up the Raleigh News & Observer and find the front page dominated by the results of the NCAA men's basketball championship game and the Sports section wrapped in an eight-page tribute to Duke's championship. I knew the game ended long after my bedtime, around 11:30 or so, and well past the deadline for the N&O edition that is trucked 50 miles to Wilson to be tossed in my driveway. But there it was, the big news of the day for many sports fans, delivered to doorsteps despite what must have seemed like impossibly tight deadlines.

Few people who have not worked for a newspaper can appreciate the amount of work and anxiety that goes into getting a paper out. When events are transpiring right on deadline, or right after deadline, editors and publishers have to make some tough decisions: Do we hold for the news, pushing back deadlines and forcing press crews and delivery personnel to work later with more rushing and tension, or do we stick with the proven and familiar deadlines and hope to report the news a day late in the next edition? It's always a tough call that happens more often than most readers imagine.

When I was editing The Wilson Daily Times, we decided to postpone our deadline until President George H.W. Bush was sworn in at noon — an hour past our final deadline. We waited for the photo of the swearing in until well past noon, and the circulation department fumed. In retrospect, it was an unwise decision. About a year later, we begged Atlantic Christian College to release its new name to the newspaper just a few minutes before the official declaration at 11:30 (or thereabouts). We promised to keep the name secret until after the announcement, and we could not get the name into print (because pages aren't built and presses aren't run instantaneously) until after the announcement, anyway. College officials refused to help us out, and we decided not to hold up the paper for their announcement. We reported the celebration of the name "Barton" a day later.

So the N&O's decision to hold a couple of hours for the championship last night was not an easy one. Some overtime, jangled nerves and unkind words were probably involved. It was a tough decision but a smart one, a decision that affirms the role of print journalism in an age of instantaneous communication. Although die-hard basketball fans stayed up late to watch the nail-biter on TV, they still hungered for the fine details that only the newspaper could provide. I was reminded of the late Vermont Royster's comments about his worries that upstart television might make newspapers obsolete. It was the late 1940s, and Princess Elizabeth of Britain was marrying Philip Mountbatten. Royster's two daughters watched the filmed ceremony on the new-fangled video box, and their father worried about what their fascination would mean for his print journalism career. Then he saw his daughters' excitement again as they fought over the morning newspaper with its detailed descriptions of the fuzzy, black-and-white images they had just seen. Print would survive after all, he surmised.

Even in a video world, print has a solid place. The N&O decision-makers and sports fans know it. Now someone just has to convince advertisers, who have been abandoning print for "new media."

Health care reform: a personal need

News and Observer political reporter Rob Christensen wrote about health care reform in Sunday's column in an unusual way — he provided first-person testimony about why reform of the health insurance system is needed. I recommend the column to everyone involved in the health care reform debate, including those who have carried signs proclaiming "Hands Off My Health Care."

Christensen's point is that even those of us who have good health insurance and are satisfied with our coverage are only one pink slip, one uncovered procedure or one pre-existing condition away from financial disaster. Because health insurance is tied to employment for most Americans, losing a job (and there are millions of us in that position now) can mean loss of health insurance as well as loss of income, and that situation can easily turn a middle-class lifestyle into bankruptcy. Our system of having employers pay health-insurance premiums came about by accident. When wages were frozen, unions discovered they could bargain for health-care benefits even if they couldn't bargain for raises. The unions' triumph turned into a nearly universal expectation that employers would provide health insurance. It's an illogical and inefficient system. After all, employers don't pay your homeowner's or car insurance premiums. Tying health insurance to jobs discourages job changes, and people without jobs find it hard to get competitively priced coverage.

The health care shouting match, which is substituting for civilized debate, raging across this country often overlooks the simple situations Christensen describes. Advocates for health care legislation often cite the 47 million uninsured in this country, and opponents tout their fear of changing a system they find satisfactory. But the greatest danger in the current system lies in the disaster awaiting anyone of modest or comfortable means who loses his job or whose employer drops or limits health insurance coverage.

Pubic protest goes public

You can't read it from this strategically cropped photo from the News & Observer, but the top line of the sign that the young woman in the little black dress is holding reads "No Pubic Option." (There's no "L" in that middle word.) You don't have to take my word for it; you can see the entire sign in the N&O's photo gallery (it's picture No. 2), and that version of the picture is the one that ran on the N&O's front page Friday.

The photo accompanied a story about protests outside Sen. Kay Hagan's Raleigh office by people opposed to health care reform proposals before Congress, especially, it seems, anything that involved a "pubic option." Other people at the protest held signs that say "If you didn't read it, don't sign it" (sounds like good advice) and "Where's the birth certificate?" (maybe she ended up at the wrong protest). But the woman with the "No Pubic Option; No Single Payer; No Socialism" sign is the one who intrigued me. Eschewing the usual jeans-and-T-shirt dress code of street protesters, she was there in her little black sleeveless dress with a deep-V neckline (sunglasses dangling from the lowest part of the V) and an American flag in her off hand. She doesn't look like the type who'd want to take away your pubic option, but sometimes looks can be deceiving.

If elected officials like Mark Sanford and Eliot Spitzer and David Vitter can exercise their pubic option, then, by golly, average Americans should have the same option! And I'm just as curious as the woman in the picture about where Kay Hagan stands on the pubic option.

Newspaper has the goods on governor's travels

On Saturday and today, the News & Observer raised serious questions about former Gov. Mike Easley's governance, ethics and compliance with campaign reporting law. Part of the dark shadows had been illuminated already in earlier N&O reports about Easley's free use of vehicles from dealerships, his and his wife's taxpayer-paid excursions to Europe and his wife's exceptional hiring and promotion at N.C. State University.

Saturday's story revolves around Easley's use of aircraft owned by political supporters in apparent violation of campaign reporting laws and of common ethics. Interestingly, N&O reporters had pursued this story earlier, when Easley was in office, but they were stymied by his administration's ruling that release of travel logs would jeopardize the governor's security, even long after the trips were completed. Gov. Bev Perdue, to her credit, found no justification for withholding the information and released Easley's travel records.

It's hard not to think Easley had plenty to hide. The N&O uncovered a history of special treatment for the governor from owners of private and corporate aircraft. It also exposes the long-rumored accusation that Easley spent most weekends in Southport, where he owns a home. A sidebar story revealed that the state spent $72,000 on rent for a house in Southport for Easley's security detail. He was there so often, the house had to be rented full-time, and troopers racked up additional costs as a result. Check this story for one of the more revealing quotes, from Easley. Reporters at an April 10, 2008, press conference asked the governor if it were true that he was spending every weekend at Southport. "I don't get to Southport nearly as much as you made it appear that I do," Easley said. "I do try to go down at least every other weekend, at least for Friday and Saturday night. ... I just want to disabuse you of the notion that I go to Southport every weekend." But the N&O now has records showing he was at Southport for six consecutive weekends prior to his making those comments.

Today's story is about the special relationship between the Easley family and McQueen Campbell, who was appointed by Easley to the N.C. State Board of Trustees. The article implies that Campbell might have had some influence over the decision to hire Mary Easley for a plum job at State, but there is no smoking gun.

The interesting element in all of these stories is how many of the principals decline to speak to the N&O.

As you read these stories and remember the sordid history of former Speaker of the House Jim Black, former U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance and former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps, try to remember that North Carolina once had a reputation for clean politics. It really did.

Mike Easley's latest explanation still smells

Looks like former Gov. Mike Easley is now saying, "No, no, what I meant to say was ... ." The News & Observer this morning has the goods on Easley's borrowing/lease/belated purchase/friendly arrangement of a personal/family/campaign vehicle. The N&O had previously reported a strange deal in which Easley's son and his wife were driving vehicles owned by auto dealerships, not by the well-paid former first family. When initially contacted by the N&O about the car deal, Easley claimed the car was a lease and that he had purchased the SUV, which his son had been driving, when the lease expired. Now, Easley has filed amended campaign reports indicating the vehicle was a political campaign vehicle since 2002 that subsequently became a family vehicle. You'll not be surprised to discover that a federal grand jury apparently is now looking into the cozy relationship between the Easleys and the car dealer.

Hasn't somebody told him: Mike, this just isn't worth it. You and the missus are raking in well over $200,000 a year. You can afford to buy a couple of cars! You don't need to risk prison to save a few hundred bucks a month! 

Easley, an amiable, likable, funny guy, can do dead-on impersonations of people, including former Gov. Jim Hunt. Now you have to wonder if he will be impersonating former Speaker of the House Jim Black, who went to prison over political corruption.

The car deal is not the only issue the former governor is facing. It was reported last week that a grand jury is looking into a land deal on the coast, which had been revealed by investigative newspaper reporters before Easley left office. Easley appears to have paid a below-market price for a valuable waterfront lot in a deal accommodated by some political supporters.

These questionable deals come atop published reports of Mary Easley's expensive tour of European museums at state expense, the Easleys' Italian vacation at state expense and Mary Easley's sweetheart deal of a non-competitive $180,000 job at N.C. State University. Despite all this, Easley remained popular to the end of his second term, and North Carolina voters gave his Democratic Party major victories up and down the ballot in November.

If Easley is indicted for either the land deal or the car deal, North Carolina will find itself on the level of Louisiana and Illinois, where imprisoned former governors are just part of the political facts of life. And the imprisoned governors' political party never seems to suffer.

Still a soft spot in my heart for newspapers

Back home after four days away, I spent a good couple of hours reading the newspapers that I had missed and that had been dutifully stacked on the kitchen table by our faithful dog sitter. Regardless of what you may have read about the demise of printed newspapers, there's nothing that can beat a quality newspaper with your morning coffee — or a stack of newspapers waiting for your return. Although I had "kept up" with what was going on around the world, in the state and in Wilson while I was gone, it still took me a couple of hours to pore over the accumulated papers, scanning them more than reading them but still slowing down to catch the details in the stories I had not seen elsewhere.

Among the news was the fact that J. Peder Zane, the News & Observer's culture columnist and former book editor, had become one of my peers — a laid-off journalist. Zane wrote a final, farewell column for his N&O readers, which I found painfully honest and observant. I had considered writing a final column after being laid off and went so far as to ask if it might be published, but, in the end, decided to keep my "final column" thoughts to myself.

I was not entirely surprised to see Zane let go, given the pressures on the N&O to cut costs in order to feed McClatchy's debt payments. After his role was redefined from book editor to culture columnist (whatever that is) a couple of years ago, I thought the powers that be were just lining him up to shove him out the door. Unfortunately for readers, the N&O's book pages, once some of the best of any newspaper in the country, went sharply downhill. The focus changed from Zane's erudite literary analyses to whimsical shallowness. We went from Great Books to comics. Too bad for anyone who cares about literature and language.

As it adjusts to reduced advertising revenues, the newspaper industry is making the mistake of laying off solid old hands like Zane, who speak the language of readers, while retaining the video- and trend-obsessed cliche-repeaters in hopes of attracting the lowest common denominator of readers. It won't work. Dedicated readers who love the printed word will always be the heart off newspapers' circulation; other types can't be lured away from TV and video games.

I will continue to read what's left of newspapers, but the thrill of reading prose that soars to greatness or explanations that make me a wiser and better person is getting less and less frequent.

More bad news about newspapers

The expected nature of yesterday's news out of McClatchy Newspapers made it no less morbid. Struggling to maintain debt payments in a plummeting economy, McClatchy had announced it would cut more jobs from its newspapers and make other cuts to keep the Sacramento-based company in the good graces of its lenders.

Around here, that means more cutbacks at the Raleigh News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer. The N&O became a McClatchy property several years ago when the Daniels family, which had owned the paper since the 19th century, sold out to the California chain, which had a positive reputation in the industry. But when McClatchy bought the much larger Knight-Ridder chain, which had been seeking a buyer for some time, it saddled itself with $4 billion in debt. Some of the largest papers in the Knight-Ridder purchase were in cities such as Miami, Philadelphia and Akron where falling home prices and other economic ills preceded and exceeded the global recession. The papers in the Carolinas — Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia, Myrtle Beach — were relatively secure. But McClatchy's debt load has forced cost cutting at all of its papers, and the cuts have been deep enough for readers to notice.

Having spent 33 years in the newspaper business, I know some of the journalists whose jobs are in jeopardy in this latest round (no names have been released yet). I'm concerned about all of them. They will lose their jobs through no fault of their own but as a result of changing habits among news consumers and some bad decisions by management. The N&O's downturn in ad revenue could probably be absorbed relatively painlessly if it were not having to contribute to paying off McClatchy's ill-conceived debt.

I'm also concerned on a personal basis for a couple of reasons: (1) Laying off dozens more journalists will make the competition for the few jobs hiring writers/editors that much tougher. Six months of job hunting has gotten me nowhere, and now there's even more competition. (2) I can't imagine my morning without the newspaper I've been reading every morning for 29 years, but cutbacks could easily extend to circulation areas. One of a newspaper's biggest costs is distribution. Metro papers have been shrinking their home delivery areas for many years, and it's conceivable that the N&O number crunchers will decide home delivery in Wilson is not profitable. Yes, I know I can get most of the news on my computer, but it isn't the same and never will be the same.

What's happening to American newspapers is a tragedy for an honorable profession. Newspapers, which used to be watchdogs, arbiters and sounding boards for local communities, have become commodities to be traded on stock exchanges, subject to the whims and predictions of the people who gave us mortgage derivatives.

My wife and I were wondering whether the N&O would be in the trouble it's in now if the Daniels family had not sold it. Our guess is not. Newspapers lose when their owners are ensconced in a corporate office hundreds or thousands of miles away, when their editors are merely pausing here on their way up the corporate ladder, when reporters are corporate pawns to be shifted here and there among the corporate properties. When I was hiring reporters, I gave preference to local applicants. They knew the city, they knew the culture, they had contacts, they understood the history, and they were less likely to move on elsewhere, reducing turnover. In newspapers' heyday, there was less mobility among journalists and greater connection with readers. Newspapers' critics frequently complain that reporters and editors are "out of touch" with the community. When each community is merely a rung on the corporate ladder, that's not surprising.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism also released its State of the Media report Monday. It's a sobering report that harbors little optimism for the print media and for the essential service that news organizations provide. A free and active press is essential to the working of democracy. Although critics of the "mainstream media" claim citizen journalists, bloggers and the wonders of the Internet will replace the "MSM," I see no one who will be able to do the hard, time-consuming work of professional reporters — attending long and boring meetings, questioning public officials, spending hours searching through public records (not all of which are on the Internet), checking on arrest warrants, court filings or grand jury indictments, and doing all the other time-consuming tasks that only paid journalists have the time and dedication to do. Unless a way is found to save newspaper journalism, unless Americans wake up to what they are about to lose, we will have a less-informed populace less capable of making wise voting decisions, especially on the local level. 

Only one governor at a time, please

The  News & Observer is reporting this morning that former gubernatorial candidate and state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr is challenging actions taken by former Gov. Mike Easley after Jan. 1. Orr, who heads the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, is a constitutional specialist and one of the brightest guys to ever seek the governor's office (OK, so brilliance was not what the voters wanted). He says the governor's term ends on Dec. 31 following a gubernatorial election. Although Gov. Bev Perdue was not inaugurated until Jan. 10, she was, in fact, the governor as of Jan. 1, 2009.

If Orr is right, the actions Easley took between Jan. 1 and Jan. 9 are invalid. During that time, he appointed a couple of Superior Court judges, voted with the Council of State to sell bonds and finally came to his senses on state e-mails, reversing policy and ordering state employees to retain copies of e-mails. Perdue is already reviewing the e-mail policy, but the big issues might be the judicial appointments, one of which went to a close political ally.

It will be interesting to see how Orr's lawsuit progresses. Thus far, Orr has not had a good track record in persuading the state Supreme Court, on which he served with distinction, that his verbatim, clear-intent interpretation of the Constitution on such matters as business incentives and the lottery is correct.

Even if Easley was the legitimate governor until the inauguration, it's clear that his successor is off to a good start in her term. Perdue has taken quick action to open up state records and processes and to tackle the state's looming fiscal crisis. She will still face a test when her open government efforts clash with legislative leaders of her own party, which is probably inevitable. However, give her credit for a good first week. I have been skeptical about Perdue's ability to bring about change in Raleigh, but she's started off on the right track, and that's encouraging.

Mikey thinks newspaper is picking on him

Gov. Mike Easley thinks the News & Observer has been picking on him. But unlike the scrawny kid on the school playground, little Mikey can't go running to the teacher to whine. He's the guy who's in charge. So what does he do? He complains to another newspaper.

Easley complained in an interview with the Greensboro News & Record that the N&O reporters  weren't being fair. They had uncovered millions of dollars in waste in the state's mental health reforms. Easley said he was against the reforms in the first place, although there was no evidence in the record to support that contention. Then he fired the public information officer who had provided public records to the N&O. The N&O uncovered corruption in the Department of Transportation. Governor Mike ignored the controversy. The N&O reported on his wife's two trips to Europe at taxpayer expense and her appointment to a six-figure job at N.C. State University. He said the trips to Europe were all business, and she was the best-qualified person for the State job. Furthermore, the criticism of his wife was just sexual discrimination. Yeah, sure. The N&O documented dozens of murders by suspects out on probation and the inability of the state to find thousands of probationers. Easley said the N&O was picking on his Correction secretary just months before his retirement, and, furthermore, there were more probationer murders under the Hunt administration. Well that certainly makes it OK.

Seeing Easley's petulance and absentee management over the past couple of years, it's a wonder that he ever made it to the top in state politics. He parlayed a successful career as a district attorney to a couple of terms as state attorney general, then he handily won the governorship. Since then, he's made little secret of the fact that he's put state government on autopilot while he built furniture in the basement, participated in publicity events and made frequent trips to Southport.

I did an extensive interview with Easley when he was attorney general and found him amiable, funny and knowledgeable, and I've talked to him a couple of times since then. He comes across as a nice guy — friendly, affable and genuinely witty. He does dead-on impersonations. But his style is far removed from the focused, persistent determination of his predecessor, Jim Hunt. Hunt was renown throughout his four gubernatorial terms (and afterward) as a hands-on manager who regularly made late-night and early-morning phone calls to lobby for a particular issue or light a fire under a slow-moving legislator. Easley gives the impression that he not only wouldn't do that but couldn't be bothered to worry about it.

Easley's recent complaints about media coverage go beyond his laid-back, hands-off style. Now he's making excuses, and not very good ones at that. Easley's old enough to know that blaming the messenger is not an effective strategy, and his petulant whining just makes him look worse.

Easley has only a few days left in his term. Unfortunately, his elected successor, Bev Perdue, has shown a tendency to make excuses and ignore facts, just like Easley. Perdue appears ready to rely on her sweet charm the way Easley relied on his affable wit to disarm critics. Being personable is always helpful to a politician, but it's not a long-term strategy.

Citizens pay for incompetence in probation

The News & Observer has been running a series on the sorry and dangerous state of the state's probation and parole system. The series is an indictment of an essential state department that is obviously inefficient, ill-managed and downright incompetent. As a result, the N&O series contends, hundreds of North Carolinians have been murdered or assaulted by criminals lost in the entrails of the probation system.

The series spotlights a department that has simply rolled along beneath the radar of public scrutiny, managed by political appointees who offer nothing but ignorance and excuses for the crimes committed as a direct result of the department's incompetence. What sets this department apart from other state departments is that incompetence and political appointments in this department result in tragedies. In other departments, the same levels of politics, deal-making and incompetence only result in wasted taxpayer dollars. I'm still waiting for a governor to blow the lid off the Department of Transportation and stop wasting billions in taxpayer money while the state's roads deteriorate. I'm not expecting it to happen under Gov.-elect Bev Perdue's watch.

For all the damning details in the N&O series, I found it bloated, repetitive and over-written. In at least a thousand fewer words, I suspect the N&O could have laid out its indictment against Probation and Parole with a point-by-point recitation of all the abuses and incompetence its reporters had uncovered and all the tragedies that had resulted. If this were a summation by a prosecutor, I'm afraid a few jury members might have fallen asleep.

And that's a shame. It's a critical issue for the state, and a good piece of reporting by one of the few remaining papers doing serious investigative work. But tighter writing and stronger editing could have given the series even greater impact.