Hold news in your hand

News streams out of every room in my house — on TV, radio or computer. When my Dad visits from out of state for Thanksgiving, I tell him he can read almost any newspaper in the country from my laptop on the kitchen countertop, with its wireless Internet connection.

But he insists on walking the half-mile down our dirt road every morning at 7 to get the rolled-up Tracy Press in the newspaper tube. He’s used to a morning paper he can hold with his coffee.

Call it habit, he says.

With all the news about the demise of newspapers — declining circulation, competition for advertising and rising costs — it’s good to see newspapers consumed as well as they are. I often hear from people who tell me they read every word of the Tracy Press, and if the paper doesn’t get delivered on time, they call to complain — bitterly.

While I hate it when our delivery fails, I love to hear how much people care.

We’ve recently started a new weekly newspaper that serves Manteca and Lathrop. With newspapers across the country laying off some 2,000 workers this year, we keep hiring. Call us optimistic or call us crazy. We’re betting the farm that we’ll be around, in some form, for another 107 years.

Meanwhile, I get feedback from a lot of readers in response to this blog.

One former Tracy resident described how his mother sent him two weeks’ worth of the hometown paper when he left home, and he’d sit down for an hour or more and read everything from club notes to classifieds, describing it as his voyeuristic peek into the lives of the people he once knew and loved.

“Don’t forget the comfort factor,” he commented. “I read two or three papers on the Web each day, but the Web will never replace the comfort of a turned newsprint page.”

That made me wonder why other people read the newspaper when they could just fire up a computer to get some news. I googled “reasons to read newspapers” and found this list of 10, written by newsman Tom Rouillard and posted on Tim Porter's excellent media blog. Take a look, and maybe you have some of your own to add):

• The newspaper has never burned my lap (Macs run hot).

• The flight attendant has never told me to put my newspaper away.

• I can read my newspaper while standing, while eating, while riding a bus.

• I can give my newspaper to someone else when I am done.

• I can read the A section while my wife reads the metro section.

• My newspaper’s battery never dies.

• If my newspaper gets wet, I can buy another for about a buck.

• I can recycle my newspaper at the curb.

• If I drop my newspaper, it doesn’t break.

• I can read my newspaper during a lightning storm.

I’ll add this one, from the lyrics of Mick Jagger:
• Old habits die hard.

I learned that from my Dad.

Governor sued over records

Last November, California voters approved Proposition 59, which strengthened public access to government records.

Now the California First Amendment Coalition and two newspapers have filed suit against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to force disclosure of records of meetings between his top aides and people outside the governor's office, including lobbyists, campaign contributors and representatives of special interests.

"The public interest in seeing who attends meetings with the governor's top aides is even greater than seeing who the governor is meeting with," said Peter Scheer, executive director of CFAC.

The newspapers that have joined the lawsuit are the San Diego Daily Transcript and San Jose Mercury News.

A reporter's web of deceit

"Before she was fired Oct. 17 for plagiarism and fabrication, former Bakersfield Californian reporter Nada Behziz signed her name to 96 stories. A Californian investigation shows more than a third contain a variety of serious problems including plagiarized material, misattributed quotes and information, factual errors or people whose existence could not be verified — including seven physicians and a UCLA professor."

That's the lead of a Nov. 16 story by Gretchen Wenner, Bakersfield Californian staff writer.

When it came out, newsrooms were buzzing across the state. The first e-mail comment I saw said only, "whoa." Then there was this: "Oh my God."

Tonya Luiz, our managing editor, followed with this e-mail, "I don't get it. I don't understand what would prompt a reporter to fabricate such a web of lies in these post-Jayson Blair times. But to be so sloppy about it is even more curious."

And so it goes.

Someone asked me, "Has the Tracy Press ever had a problem with plagiarism?"

Yes, we have. We had a columnist years ago who was fired when a copy editor "googled" some of his sentences and found them word-for-word on a Web site, written by someone else.

Other than that, no. We've had our suspicions at times, but nothing positive.

Our policy is that every reporter does original reporting. Any material published elsewhere must be attributed. Sources are never to be fabricated.

I'm lucky in Tracy to have readers I can rely on to tell me if they think a story is "off" somehow. I get calls when people think they weren't quoted exactly or when we get something wrong. I've asked to see reporters' notes on several occasions. Most of the time, I've found reporters to be honest and careful with their work.

One thing I learned from the Californian's experience is that every reporter should undergo a thorough background check before being hired. It would have been easy to find the lies in Nada Behziz's resume with just a few calls. She said she had a degree from San Francisco State, but she didn't graduate. And her work experience didn't add up, either.

The editors in Bakersfield found out too late that she had a history of lying. What a nightmare.

In newspapers we trust

friend recently e-mailed me the comments of her journalism professor in response to questions about the future of newspapers, especially with the news of Knight Ridder being for sale.
Is the end of newspapers near?

The professor said she thinks the future of newspapers may lie in the smaller community newspapers, which provide news that folks can't get anywhere else — and news they can trust.

My friend, who is also a newspaper reporter, said this, "I'd never thought of it in terms of trust, but that's really what it is. That, and accessibility (i.e. being able to get in touch with the local paper to pitch a story and then see it in print the next day), the interplay and the fact that the community knows who's behind the scenes. That it's not some Wizard of Oz type of thing where they don't know who's behind the curtain."

I like that, of course. What do you think?

Dictates from the journalist's bible

I just heard from the Associated Press that the preferred term for newspapers to use when referring to people with significantly subaverage intellectual functioning is "mentally retarded."

The Associated Press Stylebook occasionally sends out new entries, for words like U.S. (now acceptable to abbreviate as a noun) and fundraiser (all one word, rather than hyphenated).

This time, I was curious and e-mailed AP Stylebook Editor Norm Goldstein in New York about it. In our efforts to be polite and politically correct, we've danced around the term "retarded" for many years. Why the change, I asked him?

Here's his response:

Thanks for your interest in AP style.

The question had come up in the past, mostly from editors who faced the same editorial problem you cite. After some research and numerous discussions, we agreed that “mentally retarded” seemed to be the most useful description in most cases – as long as it is used accurately and is clearly pertinent to the story.

We based the definition on that of the American Association of Mental Retardation, which defines mental retardation, in part, as “significantly subaverage intellectual functioning.”

AP also uses similar terms, such as “developmentally disabled,” but we don’t consider this as clear a description.

We avoid the derogatory “retard” in all cases.

(As for a “previously preferred term,” we had no “official” guideline, which prompted this new Stylebook entry.)

Norm Goldstein/AP Stylebook editor

Media relations and the schools

The Manteca Unified School District has proposed a new media relations policy that would require the news media to register at school offices immediately upon entering school property when school is in session.

At first glance, that may sound reasonable. In fact, most of the time, reporters and photographers already politely check in at the office when they visit schools.

But a closer look at state law shows that this proposed policy is in violation of the California Penal Code. Members of the news media are among those who are specifically exempt from the requirements to register at the school before entering.

Why is this important? The public has a First Amendment right to know what's happening at public schools, and when the media's access is restricted, the news is restricted.

I just attended a meeting with the Manteca school superintendent, two board members and six other representatives from the Sun Post, Stockton Record and Modesto Bee. We media folks argued our case for access, but the school representatives defended their proposed policy.

The school board will vote on the matter later this month.