News notes

Most of the reaction to our redesigned monroenews.com has been positive and I’d like to thank everyone who has given us feedback.

We’re always looking for reactions to our products to help us make changes, do better in the future, etc. This is a customer -driven world we live in and we’re focused on serving readers/uses. The more comments, the better.

A number of people at The Evening News deserve praise for the new look and functionality of the site (if you haven’t checked it out, it’s at www.monroenews.com). First among them is John Castellese, our Web programmer, who makes it all come together. Others are Rob Gorczyca, our New Media manager, and Jim Dombrowski, our Creative Services manager, both of whom helped with the design and feel of the site.

I’ve had a few e-mails and calls that weren’t positive - and there were some critical comments on MonroeTalks.com. We’re just as appreciative of those as we are of the compliments.

But most people have been impressed with how clean and easy to navigate the site is. That was our goal. We wanted to give users a quick glance at the news, and easy tools to dig deeper.

One of my favorite new functions is the constantly changing lead photograph. It gives us a chance to highlight four or five different features on the site at the same time. For example, one of them now features a multi-media show from last weekend’s ice festival. That would have been buried deep on the old site; now it can be front and center for as long as we want to include it.

And we could make last night’s high school basketball games one of the photos, without replacing the others.

Another thing I like about the new site is that we built it largely ourselves, so we know the architecture and can make changes when we want to - and when our readers suggest that we should .

So keep the suggestions coming.

My jaw dropped.

Noticeably, like when your mouth hangs open a little further than is polite.

A colleague had pointed out the four-column lead photo in the Toledo Blade this morning. There, front and center, was Blade Co-Publisher John Robinson Block, shaking hands with Barack Obama.

Obama’s photo belonged on the front page of The Blade. He spoke to an overflow crowd of 10,000 Sunday at the University of Toledo; another 5,000 were turned away. His visit was clearly the top news of the day.

But what was the newspaper publisher doing on the front page? I was shocked. As a journalist, I was embarrassed for The Blade and the editors who work there.

Journalists ought to be doing everything in their power to keep from getting entangled in the news. It’s our job to report, not to participate.

In The Blade’s defense, Mr. Obama did meet with the newspaper’s editorial board, and it’s certainly appropriate to report what he said to the newspaper’s editors. There’s nothing wrong with a photo of Mr. Obama visiting The Blade.

But which photo do you lead the front page with - Mr. Obama speaking to 10,000 people, or shaking the publisher’s hand.

There may not be another serious newspaper in the country that would have used the photo of the publisher on Page 1.

The first word that came to mind was tawdry. Next was arrogant.

Surely editors of The Blade would not have used that photograph unless they were ordered to by the publisher - the man in the picture. Does he really think that much of himself, to believe that a visiting presidential candidate shaking hands with him was the top news of the day?

What was he thinking?

One of the most interesting things we do at a newspaper every day is selecting the lead picture for Page 1. Sometimes the choice is obvious; sometimes it’s agonizing.

Photo Editor Bryan Bosch brings the choices to the Page 1 meeting, which occurs at 7 a.m. each morning, Monday through Friday; the weekend meeting is Friday afternoon.

The point of the meeting is to decide which local, state, national and international stories should be on Page 1. The decisions often are influenced by the pictures and graphics that are available.

We often ask ourselves: Which picture would our readers prefer? Which would influence people to pick up the paper at a newsstand? Which would lead to a conversation around the water cooler?

One morning this week, we had a reader at the meeting, so we could ask the question directly.

Evening News Editor Deborah Saul has created a readers advisory panel, and new members of the group are dropping by the office to get acquainted with how we operate. One of them, Don Anspaugh, attended our daily Page 1 meeting Tuesday morning.

Bryan offered three different photos of flooding along E. Front Street. After discussing the photos, Mr. Anspaugh was given the first choice. He picked the photo above - more of a closeup of the action. Bryan, whose opinion, as photo editor, carries the most weight in these discussions, agreed. So did Stacy Sominski, the presentation editor, who also is intimately involved in the decision every morning. She’s the editor who actually designs Page 1. Sometimes how the photo relates with other elements on the page influences the choice.

While the photo they selected doesn’t give as much of an overview of the scene as the top photo, it’s more dramatic. And it doesn’t have as much action as the photo at left. But you can see the grim expressions on the faces. That’s what made the difference for me. I wasn’t at the meeting, but it would have been my choice, too.

The new readers advisory panels – so many people responded that Deb decided to have two groups – will be a valuable resource for us as we make all kinds of decisions. They’ll discuss The Evening News and how we operate at their regular monthly meetings. But even their informal visits can give us useful information.

We’re acutely aware that we’ll only succeed as a business if we’re meeting our readers’ needs.

When Evening News Editor Deborah Saul made the suggestion, it was one of those “why didn’t I think of that” moments.

I was wishing I had better information on the “MonroeTalks.com” phenomenom.

When we launched MonroeTalks.com less than a year ago, our expectations were modest. We just wanted to give Monroe County residents a place to talk on-line about topics that mattered to them - any kind of topic.

We would have considerd a few hundred people getting involved in an online conversation a success.

Less than eight months later, literally thousands of area residents are talking on MonroeTalks.com, and thousands of others are listening in (okay, viewing in).

What happened? We didn’t think it was our brilliant marketing . How did so many people get connected to MonroeTalks so quickly?

“Why don’t you ask on MonroeTalks.com,” Deb suggested.

“Good idea,” was all I could say.

Usually, a simple question is all it takes to get pages of responses on MonroeTalks.com. That’s how it works. Someone starts a topic, and anyone and everyone comments.

So I asked last Friday: “How did you hear about MonroeTalks.com and what made you start using it.”

By the end of the day Sunday, there were 50 responses. Not exactly a scientific survey, but some really good feedback.

Like most forum conversations, it got off the topic, got back on, fell off, then back on.

But in the meantime, I had 33 serious responses and some good anecdotes. The largest number of people, 13, said they started using the “Eyes and Ears” forum on the old monroenews.com and just switched over when we changed to MonroeTalks.com. Most of them said they saw the Eyes and Ears forum when they went to monroenews.com.

Another large group, 9 people, said they noticed MonroeTalks.com on the monroenews.com site and got involved that way.

The rest were spread among those who read the ads in the Monroe Evening News, 5; those who heard about the site through word-of-mouth, 4; and a couple who saw our advertisements - on a bus and on a coaster in a restaurant.

The lesson:  most people found their way to MonroeTalks through our news Web site, monroenews.com, which isn’t surprising.

An amazing number of people - 80,000 unique visitors in January - spend at least some time on monroenews.com. Since there are only about 65,000 households in Monroe County, that’s pretty much covering the market.

More and more of them are heading over to MonroeTalks.com and BlogsMonroe.com.

It’s not surprising that Detroit leads the nation in foreclosures.

But it was comforting to note, when national statistics were released today, that Michigan - or even the Midwest - doesn’t have a monopoly on the problem.

California, Nevada, Florida, Arizona and other warm weather states also had cities in the list of top 20 foreclosure rates.

The combination of a lagging national economy, outrageous increases in property values and the sub-prime mortgage debacle have even fast-growing cities like Las Vegas and Fort Lauderdale suffering from high foreclosure rates.

Of course, it doesn’t make it hurt any less for our neighbors in Monroe County and Southeast Michigan who are losing their homes - knowing that families in warm places are hurting, too.

Maybe, however, there’s a practical benefit. The folks in Washington, D.C., haven’t seemed to notice the one-state recession that has afflicted Michigan. A national housing crisis is more likely to get their attention.

If they’re smart enough to admit they were wrong, the leaders of Michigan’s Democratic Party have a way out of their presidential primary mess.

The national party apparently is pressuring Michigan Democrats to hold caucuses this spring to choose new delegates to the national convention in August.

Makes sense to me.

The Jan. 15 primary was a fiasco. The results are meaningless, because only Hillary Clinton was on the ballot (among serious candidates). The national Democratic committee told Michigan’s party leaders the state would lose its delegates if the primary was moved before Feb. 5, and it pressured candidates to stay off the ballot.

Now Michigan doesn’t have a voice in the selection of a Democratic presidential candidate, and that’s just plain wrong - especially since it appears to be a historic choice (see previous blog post).

Enter the caucus idea. Why not? Compared to running a statewide election, it’s a relatively inexpensive way to select a candidate. Every Democrat in the state would have a chance to participate. Michigan would get its delegates seated at the national convention. It’s a win-win.

Hillary Clinton supporters may think they can convince the national committee to seat the Michigan delegates based on the Jan. 15 primary election. But that’s not likely, especially if the result remains in doubt.

It would simply be unfair to let Michigan’s unbalanced primary - where Barack Obama wasn’t even on the ballot - play a role in deciding the party’s candidate.

It’s not a matter of supporting Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama. It’s a matter of doing the right thing. As it stands, Michigan Democrats didn’t get a chance to choose between the first serious woman presidential candidate in history and the first serious black presidential candidate in history.

That’s just plain not right

A statewide system of caucuses would give the state’s Democrats a chance to participate in the process.

And that would be a good thing.

I’ve never liked the primary system (big surprise; how many people do).

I’ve  lived in seven states and in November will vote for a president for the 10th time. But I’ve never been in position to vote in a primary that counted for anything (At this juncture, I should mention that as a journalist, I don’t vote in primaries. I don’t want to be identified with one party or the other. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happens in the primaries).

Rarely has my vote in the general election counted, either. Usually, by the time votes from my state were counted, the winner had already been declared.

This year could have been the first primary that counted, if Michigan had not been stripped of its delegates and its role in the process.

The Republican race seems to be nearly ended, with John McCain’s lead apparently insurmountable. And Michigan Republicans at least got to vote.

But for Michigan Democrats, Super Tuesday was particularly hurtful. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ended the day in a virtual dead heat for delegates. If Michigan had stayed in the middle of the pack, our primary could have been extremely meaningful. Instead, it’s meaningless.

Voter turnout was high across the country , especially among Democrats. You have to believe one reason is that this time around each Super Tuesday vote mattered. Folks marched to the polls knowing that they were helping to select a historic candidate - either the first woman or the first black.

In Michigan, we didn’t get to share any of that historic perspective. We just got to lick our wounds and comtemplate how unfair it is that our votes don’t count.

Sure, there’s a chance the National Democratic Committee will change it’s mind and seat Michigan’s delegates. But not if there’s any chance the Michigan votes - which went to Mrs. Clinton because Mr. Obama wasn’t on the ballot - could sway the result. That would be patently unfair and not likely to happen.

The next few weeks will be a fascinating period in America politics, as the two candidates duke it out in one of the closest races of our time.

Too bad we won’t be part of it.

Despite the obvious irony of looking at recreation vehicles in early February, I caught the bug (along with lots of others) at the RV show at the fairgrounds this weekend.

I went to sit in The Evening News booth, talk to folks about newspapers and maybe get some good suggestions. I chuckled as I pulled into the parking lot and saw the rigs parked outside in the snow.

I had no intention of looking at RVs. Hadn’t crossed my mind. But, naturally, I took a spin around the new Monroe County Fairgrounds exhibit hall, just to stretch my legs.

I was hooked.

I’ve always been a camper. My family camped across the country on summer-long road trips when I was a kid (my parents were both teachers). I subjected my children to car camping, wilderness backpacking and cross-country trips in a mini-van.

But I’ve never done the RV thing. Oh, I’ve looked before. But I was always able to turn my back and proudly announce that a tent was good enough for me.

Until today. Maybe it was the snow outside. Maybe it was all those bells and whistles on modern trailers, fifth wheelers, motor homes and such. Or maybe I’m finally reaching the age where carrying my tent on my back into the wilderness doesn’t sound as appealing.

I found myself really looking at those RVs. Especially the ones with air conditioning and heated mattresses.

Luckily, my wife wasn’t with me. She’s always been more interested in luxury camping than me. She may have seen my weakness and pounced.

I was able to resist, but plenty of others took the plunge. I heard from one official that more than 20 RVs were sold at the weekend show.

Oh, well, my tent is still in good shape - years of good use left in it.