We're lucky to have local TV news
Not many communities of our size have local TV news. In terms of size, I've been told KAVU-TV is the 205th out of 212 TV markets. A letter writer yesterday took a KAVU newscaster to task for a laughing fit about ...

What do the blues and Momsense have in common?
Victoria will surprise you. Just when you think there's nothing to do, one evening brings two events to town like the American Book Review series reading event and the Anita Renfroe comedy show. The evening started with Delta blues expert Thomas Williams ...

How Hollywood thinks journalists ambush subjects of stories
I thought I was going to see a romantic comedy ("27 Dresses") today, but instead Hollywood subjected me yet again to its low opinion of journalists. Perhaps I'm overreacting. Almost all of the main characters, not just the journalists, did ...

What is the right balance for local news vs. national news?
Maryann, Thanks for commenting. We hear from a variety of people commenting about wanting national news on the front page. At the same time, we hear from others who say they want more local news. It's a balancing act. One ...

If a paper (or any business) never changes, it will die
We consider change a constant state of the newspaper business in the 21st century. We have to keep looking for ways to grow readership while continuing to satisfy our longtime loyal readers. That's a challenging task, but one critical to ...

Any Aggie fans want to sell 2 tickets to the KU game?
I made the mistake of waiting too long to try to buy tickets to the KU-Texas A&M game March 8 in College Station. I'm used to watching KU play on the road at the University of Colorado, where attendance typically ...

Chewing over Girl Scout cookies and ethics
In the spirit of transparency, I share this memo sent to the newsroom staff earlier today: --------------------------------------------- Our ethics board adopted this week a new policy governing gifts and conflicts of interest. After surveying other newspapers' policies, we adapted ours ...

Why a death might not be front-page news
Some online readers questioned our decision to put the death of Dale Pigott on B1 instead of A1 Monday. Any news judgment is open to second-guessing, but we opted against front-page coverage during our daily news meeting Monday afternoon. Almost immediately, ...

Ron Paul supporter criticizes Advocate
A Ron Paul supporter criticized the Advocate's coverage in a recent e-mail to reporter Rebecca Holm. I figure others may share the concern, so I've posted the note below. My response follows. ------------------------------------------- Your closing comment was "Representative Ron Paul ...

Always keep in mind the dangers of the road
Our reporters and photographers travel a lot of miles each day, and I'm thankful each time they return safely. We cover enough crashes to know how dangerous driving can be. I laughed when I heard Ranging Reporter Sonny Long was ...

We took the unusual step of deleting quite a few comments this morning
We took the unusual step today of deleting a variety of off-topic comments from an article. Our philosophy in moderating this forum is to use a light touch and let the online community police itself. In this case, a variety ...

We can use your help covering bus crash
We have reporters and photographers at the scene of this morning's fatal bush crash and at the two local hospitals. We have others working the phone. We want to encourage anyone with information about the crash to contact us either ...