I heard a speaker on the radio this morning talking about how, thousands of years ago when mankind lived in small clans, each person knew (and was probably related to) every person they ran across each day.

As a result, greetings were friendly, conversations were civil and constructive. You knew you would have to deal with that person again the next day.

In large part, according to the speaker, that tendency learned thousands of years ago has carried through to the present. We’re still socialized to be pleasant when we greet people and polite and friendly in our conversations.

Somehow, too much of that has been lost in the emerging culture of the internet. From the beginning of internet discussion groups, message boards, chat rooms, forums, blogs, etc., the culture has encouraged anonymity. While hiding behind pseudo names, people seem to think that rude and obnoxious behavior is okay.

One of our bloggers, the LunaPierCook, noted in a post yesterday that well-known blogger and technology expert Kathy Sierra has halted her blog because of death threats and other nasty attacks targeted at her.

You can follow the links from the LunaPierCook’s post to get the details. But be prepared for some disgusting stuff. Lack of civility is one thing; threats to do harm, especially when mixed with sexual undertones, are quite another.

The discussion on our own forums at monroenews.com also get personal at times, and we often discuss whether we should step in and either monitor the forums more closely or ban people when they get nasty.

We don’t want to do that; as soon as we start deleting posts we’ll be accused of censorship, and we genuinely want an open discussion, free to anyone.

I just wish people could behave as if they were members of a small clan - albeit an online clan - and treat people with a little more civility.

Disagreement is great - that’s what opinion forums are for. But getting personal - attacking the speaker instead of responding to the opinion - shouldn’t ever be necessary.

And real threats like the kind experienced by Kathy Sierra have no place in our society, whether online or not.

Occasionally someone posting on our forums will wonder why folks at The Evening News don’t participate in the forums more often.

For example, when Evening News stories are criticized in a forum, they’re curious why we don’t defend the stories, or offer insight into why certain information was included or not included.

There was a good example on our forums last week. The thread was about a man who had rolled over on his baby while he slept. The baby died, and after investigating, police ruled it an accident. We had a short story. We didn’t include many details because it wasn’t considered to be a crime.

In the course of the thread, one person or another accused The Evening News of hiding the truth to protect the family, working with the prosecutor to determine guilt or innocense, doing whatever the judges tell us to do, leaving the names of our friends out of the court records, and attacking the people we don’t like, etc.

It was fun to see another forum user come to our defense:

“I doubt that they (the M.E.N. reporters) take these accusations seriously. I know I don’t. They sound more like the conspiracy theorists. ‘The reporters are just out to get me, everyone is so unfair to me, etc.’ I think it’s a ridiculous claim and those who are reporting the news are probably too busy with real journalism work to defend themselves against these hollow accusations (especially since there are no actual FACTS tied to the accusations that can be cross referenced or verified.”

Actually, we do read the forums and we do occasionally respond, offering additional information or clarification, etc., when it seems like it will add to the conversation.

In general, people who think members of the news media are all slimebags who are in bed with the courts, or city hall, or criminals, or the military, or the highest bidder, aren’t going to be convinced by anything I say.

I know that most people in the news media, including all 30 or so of the journalists on The Evening News staff, are in the business because they want to find the truth and report it, because they care about their community and want to help make it a better place.

We’re not perfect. We make mistakes, and we do our best to correct them. We miss stories, and sometimes we miss the best angle in a story. But it’s not for lack of trying. 

That’s one of the reasons I love working for a newspaper. I’m surrounded every day by cool people who love what they’re doing.

I suspect the folks in law enforcment in Monroe County get quite a laugh when they read that people think we’re in bed with them.

While we have a relatively good working relationship with the police and sheriff’s departments, the prosecutor and the judges, it’s an arms-length, wary relationship. They’re often unhappy with what we write, and we’re often unhappy with the information they give us.

We print every name in our court records that is available to us. If a name isn’t printed, it’s not because we leave it out. And I doubt that anyone at the courthouse is pulling names from the files before we get to them; they know we would be on their case if we found out.

That’s not to say that names don’t get left out occasionally, either for legitimate reasons, or simply human error. For example, some cases go through a diversion program before they reach the point where the charges are filed. Other cases take a long time to go through the system, so it can be months before they reach the paper. In the meantime, we’re accused of hiding them.

In general, I appreciate when the discussion in the forums turns to The Evening News. We’re part of this community, and that makes us fair game for criticism, praise and constructive suggestions.

Like everything else in an open forum discussion, it also means we’ll sometimes be the subject of criticism that isn’t constructive. But I think people who read the forums are pretty smart about sorting out the difference.

It takes courage to be a school board member these days.

At the moment, it’s the Monroe Public Schools board that is facing tough decisions about how to cut $5 million to balance the budget.

But most area school boards are facing similar financial issues, and others will almost surely be looking at school closures, too.

Last night, Monroe’s board decided to close Cantrick Middle School, moving all the sixth graders back into elementary schools and the 7th and 8th graders to Monroe Middle School, starting next week.

It’s a decision that makes sense. With empty classrooms in most of the elementary buildings and in Monroe Middle School, something needed to be done. Now those classrooms will be filled and the school district will be using tax money more efficiently.

It also kept all of the neighborhood elementary schools open, which is good for the city in general. Monroe is working hard to maintain the viability of its neighborhoods; this will help. 

The school board stopped short of adopting all of “Proposal 5,” which also called for using Cantrick to house pre-school programs. They also didn’t address the issue of whether to sell the administration building and move administrators to another building.

That also makes sense. They need more information. They still need to cut another $2.7 million from the budget. As they figure out how to do that, the future of the Cantrick and administration buildings can be considered.

Monroe school district residents, who were relieved by the decision Tuesday night, still have some nervous moments ahead as the school board decides where else to make cuts.

By the way, the story about the school board decision was posted on monroenews.com at about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday night. By early Wednesday morning, more than 800 people had read the story.

Is anyone else amazed at the number of state championships that Monroe County high schools win?

St. Mary Catholic Central’s state championship in volleyball this weekend, Dundee’s wrestling championship two weeks ago and Erie Mason’s cross country championship last fall - it’s amazing. Three in one year from one county.

In Sunday’s Evening News, we printed a list of state champions from our region. It’s also hard to believe - 71 state championhips have been won since the first, a Monroe High School gymnastics title in 1926.

Of course, that list is highlighted by Bedford’s dominance in wrestling, with 11 titles in the last 30 years. Other big contributors are Dundee wrestling, Milan swimming, and Monroe gymnastics, track and tennis in the 1920s and 1930s.

There have been other big years, too. In 1998, Dundee won the wrestling championship, Bedford took volleyball, and Flat Rock won the cheerleading title. In 2001, Bedford won in volleyball and wrestling, and Dundee took the wrestling title. And in 1984, Bedford won in wrestling, Milan in swimming and Whiteford and Summerfield in softball.

Of course, Monroe region schools may not stop with three titles this year. There’s always the spring sports

The “Growing Smart Workshop” being held today in Monroe was billed by county board Chairman Bill Sisk as the first step - sort of a jump start - toward improving joint planning among the various government entities in the county.

The goal was to raise our level of consciousness about the benefits of smart growth instead of the kind of urban sprawl we’ve been seeing for the past 15 years.  

The hope was that many township, village and city officials - supervisors, board members, planning commission members - from throughout the county would attend, as well as developers and interested citizens.

Some were there this morning. Unfortunately, many were not. It’s not too late to attend tonight’s session, though. It’s free and open to the public from 6 to 9 p.m. in the IMH Motherhouse.

The Motherhouse isn’t hard to find - just turn into the main IMH entrance off Elm Street, park where it says visitor parking, and come in the front door. Signs will direct you to the meeting.

The five speakers each covered important areas of smart growth. Much of the talk was about water - the need to take care of one of our most precious resources, and how smart growth policies will help.

Larry Rutledge, the LaSalle Township supervisor and president of the Michigan Township Association, gave a short talk, then introduced the main speaker, Paul Goldsmith, an architect who is a leading proponent of “green” building.

As he neared the end of his talk, Goldsmith turned to Rutledge and said:

“The next time a subdivision goes in, you should be ready to say to the developer, we want it to be green,” referring to following smart growth policies that encourage things like energy conservation, a healthy inside environment and little or no water runoff.

Goldsmith added:

“The relationship between cities, townships and developers is going to have to make a paradigm shift.”

That’s what the smart growth workshop was all about - getting city, village and township officials and developers together to begin the conversation about how to make Monroe County a better place to live - for many years into the future.

If we don’t, the Monroe County we’ve come to love won’t be around for our children.

Rob Peven, a county planner, noted during his presentation that 17,000 acres of farmland were lost in Monroe County between 1990 and 2000, while 10,000 acres of subdivisions were added. During that time the population increased by 10,000.

That’s an acre of land lost for every person added. Not a very good ratio.

“This is not a sustainable land-use practice,” Mr. Peven noted. “We’re going to run out of land very quickily if we keep this up.”

The future of newspapers is getting a lot of ink and air time these days.

PBS recently produced a four-part series on Frontline called “NewsWar.” The Washington Post published an article yesterday on the future of newspapers.

And a voluminous report, “The State of the News Media 2007″ was released recently by the “The Project for Excellence in Journalism.” The report paints a scary picture about the decline of newspapers and the failure of online news media to provide a replacement that can sustain itself.

Simply put, the problem is that the business model that has sustained newspapers for decades - a mix of advertising and circulation revenue supporting a successful business - is slowly falling apart. Readers are moving to the Internet and advertisers are following.

And while most newspapers - like The Evening News - have created Web sites to also provide the news as well as other features, they bring in only a small fraction of the same revenue - not enough to sustain a news gathering staff.

So what will happen if newspapers wither away and the online versions don’t produce enough revenue to pay for the news staff? Goodbye news coverage. And what does that mean for society? For democracy?

Of course, many people argue that “something” will fill the gap. It may be citizen bloggers, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Anyone with a computer can report the news - as they see it. It may be that newspapers’ online revenue will catch up in time to sustain their news staffs. It may be that technology we haven’t created yet will intervene, changing the dynamic in ways we can’t imagine.

I’m in the group that sees this as an exciting time to be a journalist. The face of media is changing in front of our eyes, and we get to be part of it. The Monroe Evening News remains a viable business, with a quality community newspaper, a variety of niche products and a growing Web site.

We’re employee owned, so every one of us has a stake in the future. We’re small and flexible enough to adapt to whatever direction the future takes us.

And perhaps most important, we know that we need to listen to our readers. Let us know what you like or don’t like, what information you’re missing or what connections you’d like to make. We’re listening.

Several times in the last few months The Evening News has covered news stories that first were reported by citizens on the forums at monroenews.com

I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg.

In newspaper circles, much has been written in recent years about “citizen journalism.” The internet empowers folks of all sorts to report on the news. You don’t have to wait for the local newspaper - if you see something you think others would be interested in, you can post it on our forums.

Perhaps the best examples have come from London Township, where Areta Schils, Gary Taepke and others have been using the forums to keep their neighbors informed of goings-on at township hall - including the township secretary and treasurer losing their official positions because the board failed to swear them in.  We’ve written a couple stories, including one in today’s paper, on the issues raised on the forums.

Of course, we realize, and most readers also understand, that they may not be getting the entire story on a forum. There are two or more sides to everything, and the other sides may not be represented on a forum. It’s a reader-beware environment. But as long as readers recognize that, it’s also a powerful tool for keeping informed.

Many forum topics, of course, don’t break fresh news but do include thoughtful comment on the news. They help inform the citizenry, exploring the nuances and helping folks shape their opinions.

At The Evening News and monroenews.com, we welcome all the help we can get. We encourage folks to call us with story ideas, and we’re delighted when news breaks on our forums.

That’s why, when we created the forums, we named one of them, “Eyes and Ears.” The intention was that readers would use it to inform their neighbors of breaking news like traffic jams, storm warnings or just tips on things to do.

In one of those interesting twists in life, Eyes and Ears became the place where everyone went on our forums. Readers ignored the categories set up for news, sports and opinion, and just posted on Eyes and Ears.

We’re planning a re-engineering of our forums this spring, and we’ll probably start all over with some new categories. Traffic has become so heavy - typically 25-50 posts a day and 800 to 1,000 visitors a day - that we need to make it easier for folks to find things.

Of course, many forum topics have nothing to do with news - but that’s okay, too. Whatever people want to talk about…

At about the same time we quit moderating the forums, we also added community blogs. There are now 28 individual blogs - something like on-line journals where readers can interact with the blogger - on monroenews.com. You can get to them from our home page or go directly to blogsmonroe.com.

They provide another opportunity for citizen journalism. We’ve loosely organized them into topics, ranging from food to NASCAR, although individual bloggers can address any issue they choose. Traffic to the blogs has grown remarkably, with even more visitors now than the forums.

I expect that our bloggers will break news stories at times, too. That’s part of their role. On the narrow topics they address, they’ll often provide information that’s big news to the people who follow their blog - whether it’s on gardening or fishing - but may never find it’s way into the daily newspaper, which is targeted at a general audience.

It doesn’t matter to us whether people get their news from our daily newspaper, any of our various niche products, online at monroenews.com or from our forums or blogs. We just want to be your source for news and information about our communities.

We’ve already written nearly a dozen stories about plans by Monroe Public Schools to close some buildings, and more stories are planned for the next few days.

To make it easier for folks to find them - from the first story to the last, as well as all of the letters to the editor on the subject - we’ve created a separate page on monronews.com. You can find it here, or through a link from the home page, just below the local stories.

The page also will include links to forums and blogs that discuss the issue, giving readers all the facts as well as plenty of opinions on the topic.

All future stories, editorials, letters to the editor, forum and blog posts will be added to the page.

This is one of the most important issues Monroe residents have faced in recent years. The school board has an awesome responsibility to get it right - even though “right” depends on your perspective.

With enrollent shrinking, it makes sense that some schools need to close. But closing neighborhood schools can have a significant impact on the neighborhoods.

Our editorial board met with school officials Thursday, so we could ask our questions and probe for answers.

Assistant Superintendent Chris Butler did a nice job outlining the many factors the board will be considering - age of the buildings, handicapped accessibility, how many students would be displaced, number of classrooms in the building, etc. It’s clearly a complicated dynamic.

I asked if the board would consider another factor - impact of the closure on the neighborhood. June Knabusch Taylor, president of the school board, said that would be consdidered, too. But, she noted, it’s not easy to assess.

The public gets another chance Monday night to influence the board’s decision. Then the school board plans a workshop to talk it over Tuesday night, with a decision planned either March 20 or March 27.

It sounded likely, from our editorial bord meeeting, that some school buildings are going to be closed. With a $5 million budget deficit to cover, school officials don’t see an alternative.

In some ways, the school closing decision, while the most difficult, may not be the most painful. It will only save $1.2 million, at the most. The other $3-$4 million most likely will include cutting popular programs at all of the schools. 

These are difficult times to be a school board member. 

Friday was one of those days when it’s tough to be a community newspaper journalist.

It had been a challenging week already, with the emotional funeral for Toledo Detective Keith Dressell on Monday and the highly charged public hearing on closing Monroe schools on Tuesday.

Then early Friday morning, reports came in that a car had driven off a bridge into a creek near Milan. The driver, a 39-year-old woman, didn’t survive.

At about the same time, we learned that a bus carrying Blufton University baseball players, including two Ida High School graduates, had crashed off an interstate overpass in Atlanta, killing six. One of the Ida students was badly hurt.

We already had planned a story for Page 1 on the devastating tornadoes that had killed at least 20 people in Georgia and Alabama. That made three tragic, deadly stories on Page 1 of Friday’s newspaper.  

Ironically, the other two stories on the page were upbeat - a feature on a nurse who was given an award for saving a man’s life, and a fun story about what people would do with the money if they won the $267 million jackpot.

Still, it was a depressing morning at The Evening News, and Friday’s paper was probably depressing for many readers. That’s part of being a newspaper, but it’s not a role we enjoy.

Thankfully, this weekend there’s some good news to report. Dundee High School won the state wrestling championship, and Bedford High School made it to the semifinals.

Congratulations to the Vikings and Mules.