I suppose I should be experiencing profound emotions - something deep in the pit of my stomach.

Tomorrow I’m going to rise when the alarm beeps, shower, dress, eat breakfast and head off to work - but not at a newspaper.

It’s a strange feeling, but not a bad one. Not really what I expected - if one can really expect an emotion.

With a few minor breaks in between jobs, I’ve worked for a newspaper of one sort or another since I graduated from college in 1974. That’s when I started my first full-time job as a reporter at the Statesman Journal (the photo at right was taken in about 1975, when I was covering the school board) in Salem, Ore.

During 24 years with the Gannett Co., which purchased the Statesman my second day on the job, and seven years with Thomson Newspapers, I’ve worked at 10 different newspapers in six states. I held every job from reporter to publisher, but most of the time I was an editor.

I did take one year off to get my master’s degree from Northwestern University, and two of my years with Thomson were in corporate jobs.

The Monroe Evening News, where I’ve worked as managing editor the last three years, was my 11th newspaper. Ironically, I started work on Aug. 15, 2005, and my last day was Aug. 15, 2008.

Thirty-four years as a newspaperman ended Friday.

Tomorrow I’ll cart a box full of books, files and miscellaneous stuff into my new office at Monroe County Community College. My new business card reads “Assistant Professor of Journalism and Humanities.”

I thought maybe I’d feel lost.

But the anticipation of new challenges seems to be pulling harder at my heart than that empty feeling.

And besides, I’m not really leaving newspapers behind. One of my jobs at MCCC is advising The Agora, the student newspaper.

I won’t be the editor. That job is in the capable hands of student Emily Chandonnet. But I’ll be close enough to the action to smell the ink.

And I can’t wait to get started.

It sounds so simple …

I know that’s a line from a James Taylor song, I just can’t remember which one. Help, someone?

What could be more simple than deciding the order of comments following a story on our Website.

Should reader comments start with the most recent, and go backwards, or start with the first comment, and continue chronologically?

On Monroenews.com, they start with the most recent. That way, if you’re checking back frequently, you don’t have to go hunting for the most recent comments. And if you’re coming in late and there already are many comments, it’s not that difficult to scroll to the end and read from the bottom up.

That’s the explanation I gave a recent caller who questioned why the comments are “upside down,” in his words.

And if it’s so simple, why is it just the opposite on MonroeTalks?

There, each thread starts with the original comment, and stays in chronological order. If you’re following a long thread, you can use the page links at the top of the thread to jump to the end, where the most recent comments are located.

And you can follow along even more easily by using the “Recent Posts” feature or the “Show unread posts since your last visit” feature. Both take you right to the most recent comments. If you need to catch up on what was said earlier on a thread, you can use the page links to move back and forth in the thread.

But back to the question. What do you think? Do we have it rightside up, or upside down? Should comments on stories be the same as on the forums - starting at the beginning and staying in order. Or should MonroeTalks be turned upside down, with most recent comments at the top?

It sounds so simple …

That was the headline on a column I wrote for Sunday’s Evening News.

Yes, I’m leaving The Evening News to teach full-time at Monroe County Community College.

I’m excited about the opportunity to pass on some of my experience in journalism to young (and not-so-young) students at the community college. My last day at the Evening News is Aug. 15.

But, as the headline suggests, I’m not really leaving The Evening News. I expect to maintain a close relationship with my friends and colleagues at the newspaper, working with them on a variety of projects.

And I’m keeping the News Notes blog - at least until I see how it goes.

It will be fun to comment on the media - including The Evening News - from the perspective of an outside expert (so to speak) instead of an insider.

And after a year of moderating MonroeTalks.com, I can now actually say what I want to on the talk forums, instead of carefully representing the newspaper’s position.

I’ll still be a journalist. Being impartial and looking at both sides is part of who I am after 30 years as a reporter and editor of one sort or another. But when I comment, it won’t be as an Evening News employee, but as a journalism professor - an independent viewpoint.  

 That could be a lot more fun.

This, of course, has been the $64,000 question in the newspaper industry for the past decade.

At The Evening News, we have seen huge increases in traffic to our Web sites, and a small reduction in the number of subscribers to the print edition.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that a few people are dropping readership of the newspaper because they get their local news online, but not many.

The available evidence seems to suggest, rather, that most people have developed new habits for using media of all kinds. They read the newspaper for certain kinds of information and entertainment, go to the Internet for other information and entertainment, and turn on the television or radio or any of the  many other sources for other select reasons.

A new study of Ohio readers suggests that’s exactly what’s happening.

The research, conducted by Belden Associates for the Ohio Newspaper Association, found that use of newspapers by readers remains strong, and that use of newspaper Web sites is growing. Now more than 80 percent of all people surveyed used one or the other to get their local news in the last week - far more than any other sources, such as television or radio.

Perhaps more important, more people said they were turning to both the newspaper Web site and the local newspaper than a year ago, while the majority said they were spending less time watching television, listening to the radio or reading magazines.

None of this means that newspapers are the news source of the future. That’s probably not the case.

But it suggests that for the time being people still are using both the print and on-line versions of the newspaper.

When to publish a story during an ongoing police investigation can be one of the toughest decisions facing a news operation.

Such is the case with a story in Wednesday’s Monroe Evening News and on Monroenews.com about a Monroe High School teacher who is under investigation for inappropriate behavior with a student.

The story is receiving dozens of comments from readers on Monroenews.com, some of whom are critical of The Evening News for publishing the story when the teacher has not been charged with a crime.

They correctly point out that our policy is generally to wait until charges have been filed against someone before reporting their name.

We’ve known about the investigation for months. We know about lots of police investigations that never reach the point of a story in the newspaper. If the police decide there is nothing to an accusation, there’s no reason for a story.

Even when a suspect is arrested, we generally don’t name them until they’ve been to court and been arraigned, or until a prosecutor has signed a warrant.

Two things made this case different.

One, the suspect is in a position of public trust. This isn’t a private person - it’s a teacher, someone we’ve entrusted with childrens’ lives. There is a higher public interest in the case.

And, two, the case reached a point where concrete action was taken. The school district put the teacher on paid administrative leave. She was no longer teaching her classes. The case became public, in a sense, because of the district’s action.

From a practical standpoint, that meant that rumors began to fly even faster at the high school. If the local newspaper continued to ignore it, the rumors would just get wilder and wilder.

Ray Kisonas, the reporter who wrote the story, had to sort through a variety of allegations. The phone was ringing in the newsroom as plenty of people offered their suggestions.

The story that appeared in the paper was short, straightforward, giving accurate information. The teacher wasn’t led out of the school in handcuffs by armed police officers. The allegations had nothing to do with the earlier controversy involving volleyball players.

Other commenters on Monroenews.com wondered why the volleyball controversy was brought up at all. If they weren’t connected, why mention it?

In my view, The Evening News showed considerable restraint in not publishing a story about the accusations last winter, when parents of JV players accused the head coach of abusive behavior and favoritism.  We checked with school officials, who said the complaints were typical of parents who are upset with a coach. It’s not uncommon in youth sports, so we ignored it.

Ironically, the topic was covered on MonroeTalks.com, our social networking site. That’s different. The whole point of MonroeTalks.com is to give Monroe County residents a place to bring up any issue they want to talk about, and coaching of high school sports is a likely topic for conversation.

So, because of the MonroeTalks.com discussion, as well as the high school rumor mill, most people in the high school community were aware of the volleyball controversy. One of the first rumors to get started was that there was a connection between the two situations.

If Ray had left the volleyball controversy out of this week’s story, he would have done readers a disservice. It was important to include the information that they apparently are not connected.

I agree with those “posters” on Monroenews.com that if the teacher turns out to be innocent of the accusations, the story in the paper will have unfairly tarred her reputation. I think that’s very unfortunate.

But we wouldn’t have done her a favor by hiding the facts from the public, letting the rumor mill sweep through town unabated.

When the school district decided the situation was serious enough to take the teacher out of the classroom, we had to do our job and provide as many accurate details as we could.

A thread on MonroeTalks.com is asking questions about Monroe Publishing Co.’s policies on moderating the forum.

I enter this kind of discussion with reluctance. I don’t want to stifle debate, especially on a topic so close to my heart. I’ve spent more than 30 years defending the First Amendment and believe passionately in free speech.

But some questions have been asked that deserve answers, or at least as close as I can come.

I appreciate the story on Twitter that French Fry posted. It highlighted the similar issues that all discussion forums and social networking sites deal with. How much to moderate is a challenge.

Too little and you lose your forum to people on the fringes. Mainstream folks don’t feel comfortable and leave. Too much and you lose virtually everyone, because who wants Big Brother looking over their shoulder.

We try to moderate as lightly as possible. Weeks go by without any posts being deleted or any users being admonished. I don’t keep records, but my sense is that we average about one incident a month that requires intervention. And sometimes that’s just a minor change, like removing a phone number or e-mail address from a post.

I’ve been asked to talk at national and regional conferences about how we manage MonroeTalks.com because it’s somewhat unique in the country. We’ve been able to create an online community that is more active and more responsible than most.

I really don’t know why we’ve been successful - luck is certainly one possibility. But I tell these audiences that I believe there are two reasons:

One, we moderate very lightly, and at the same time encourage folks on MonroeTalks.com to self-moderate (by that I mean both moderate your own posts before you push the button, and users correcting each other when they see inappropriate material).

And two, we benefit from the small-town atmosphere of Monroe County and the general sense of civility that comes with small town folks. In short, there are a lot of nice people in MonroeTalks and they tend to treat each other decently.

After I gave a talk in Washington, D.C. this spring, the man who moderates the Houston Chronicle’s talk forums came up to me and said, in effect, “Congratulations on MonroeTalks, but it wouldn’t work in Houston. People just aren’t that nice.”

Several people have made reference to their belief that local politicians control how we moderate MonroeTalks. They also seem to think that local politicians control how we edit the Monroe Evening News.

Mention that at City Hall, or the county courthouse, or the offices of our state legislators, and you would get some laughs. Certainly, many local movers and shakers try to influence our reporters and editors. Some call regularly with complaints or concerns. We always listen carefully and politely. Sometimes we do what they ask. But only if we think it’s the right thing to do for our readers and our community.

Actually, there is a kind of double standard when it comes to moderating MonroeTalks. That’s because, whether for better or for worse, our legal system has a double standard when it comes to libel. One set of rules apply for public officials, another for private folks. So when a topic gets critical of a public official, it’s unlikely we’ll step in. They’re fair game. But when a topic is critical of a private individual or business, we have to be careful. If someone can prove they’ve been defamed - and it’s not true - they can sue for libel.

That’s why we didn’t do anything to stop the long threads on MonroeTalks that involved back-and-forth discussion between City Council member Brian Beneteau and supporters of former Zorba’s/Jefano’s owner Jeff Fraunhauffer. Both would be considered by the courts to be public figures - Mr. Beneteau because of his election to the city council and Mr. Fraunhauffer because of his arrest and conviction.

When we delete a potentially libelous post, we’re not just protecting ourselves - we’re protecting the person who made the statement. The Internet Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress in 1996 and updated several times since, protects the provider of a discussion forum from being sued, as long as they don’t moderate too heavily. In other words, if we generally keep hands off, except when someone complains, we can’t be sued. The person who makes the statement can be, however.

That’s one of the reasons we moderate very lightly. We don’t want to “take control” of the forums. If we did, we would be liable for the content.

An average story on monroenews.com gets anywhere from 500 to 2,000 page views.

Bigger stories get 3,000 to 4,000 page views, and occasionally a story will top 5,000 page views. The entire site only gets about 40,000 page views a day, and the most we’ve ever had on a day was 55,000.

So imagine my surprise when I glanced at the Web stats yesterday and saw our traffic for the day soaring above anything I’d seen before.

At 5 p.m., the site already had  50,000 page views and was projecting to top 80,000 for the day.

“What could be causing that,” I said to myself. I didn’t know of any big stories.

So I checked the individual story stats, and there it was. The story about a truck called King Kong by its owner - a very unusual truck, to be sure - had already topped 20,000 page views and the number was growing by the minute.

By this morning, it’s over 35,000 page views - more than the entire site gets on some days. And the monroenews.com Web site topped 82,000 page views for May 6 and was headed for similar numbers today.

So, what happened? It didn’t take long for me to figure it out. It’s called Fark.com.

If you’re not familiar with it, Fark.com is a Web site devoted to unusual stories. It’s kind of an on-line version of “news of the weird.”

Someone sent the King Kong truck story to Fark.com, where it was displayed prominently among their “Not News” stories of the day. As of mid-morning today, 28,500 page views on monroenews.com were referred from Fark.com.

In addition, another 11,000 page views were created when people clicked on the photo of the truck, to see the larger version.

It’s fun to have a local story get noticed on a national Web site, even if it’s only Fark.com. But that’s generally not where our traffic comes from.

Most visitors to monroenews.com and MonroeTalks.com come from the local area. We know that from their IP providers, which our system keeps track of.

Links to national Web sites create some one-time excitement. The last time we had a story go national - before yesterday our most page views ever - was the traffic stop of three University of Michigan football players last May when drugs were found in the car. That story received 14,000 page views, most coming from national sports Web sites.

I love it when things happen organically.

Both in the garden and in the real world.

Doug Russeau is a gardener who knows a lot about organically growing things. He’s spent his life working in nursery and landscaping businesses.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that when he starting sharing his gardening advice on MonroeTalks.com, other users began to take notice.

When “The Shepherd” talked, they listened. And eventually, someone suggested that Shep ought to have his own blog. It became a draft Shep movement.

Starting this weekend, Shep has his own blog on Blogsmonroe.com. I’m sure he’ll keep talking on MonroeTalks.com, too. But his blog, The Backyard Gardener, gives him his own spot to answer questions, offer advice and chat with other gardeners.

Shep, who is Doug Rouseau in real life, hopes to use a question and answer format for much of his blog. We’re setting it up with a prominent spot for folks to ask questions - through an e-mail link to Doug.

Of course, The Backyard Gardener isn’t our first gardening blog. All Things Green, by Judy and Bob Dluzen, has been around since the early days of Blogsmonroe.com. Together, the two blogs will give local gardeners a great resource.

We’ve always wanted comments from readers on our news stories.

That’s why we encourage letters to the editor. It’s why reporters’ e-mail addresses are included on most stories. And it’s why we started MonroeTalks.com, which serves as a public discussion site.

But since we launched the modern version of www.monroenews.com two years ago, we’ve struggled with the technology that allows readers to comment at the end of news stories.

Now that feature is working.

Readers can comment at the end of any story on monroenews.com. The launched the feature a couple days ago, and readers already have found it. There are a number of comments already.

This isn’t meant to replace MonroeTalks.com as a place to comment on the news. Both locations - at the end of a story and on MonroeTalks - provide readers with a forum for airing their opinions.

I can imagine, for example, making a specific comment on a news story, then moving over to MonroeTalks.com to start a topic discussing broader issues raised by the story.

This is all part of the Web 2.0 experience sweeping the Internet. People are willing to sit back and let someone else tell them the news any more. They want to provide their own two cents. And in the give and take, a more complete picture of the news can surface - if you’re willing to sort through the chaff to find the wheat.

There are more than 2,000 registered users of MonroeTalks.com, and about 300 of them are regular talkers on the “Your Talk” forums. About 50 are very frequent talkers.

The leading poster, “cc,” is approaching 5,000 posts since the site was launched last June. (Seems like we should have a party and award a gold watch or something when the milestone is hit.) Four others have more than 4,000 posts, and six others more than 3,000.

In addition to the registered users, there are something approaching 10,000 unique visitors to the site each month. In other words, a few people post most of the content, but many people read it.

Any regular reader of the forum knows many of the regular talkers as if they’re next-door neighbors. Their character comes through in their posts, and many have very entertaining personalities.

There’s a natural curiousity about what they’re “really” like.

That’s one reason I enjoyed very much getting a chance to meet a half-dozen of them Friday morning over coffee at Cafe Classics. Another reason is that all were just as interesting in person as on-line.

In some ways, the MonroeTalks experience will never be the same - now that I know what they really look like, I’ll see a real face in my mind when I read their posts, instead of that imaginary image.

Several of the talkers who joined me for coffee Friday said the same thing. The experience changed dramatically for them when they met many of their fellow talkers at a MonroeTalks gathering.

We talked briefly at the coffee shop about why MonroeTalks.com is so successful. Someone - I don’t remember who it was - gave the most obvious answer. It’s because of the people.

Because the talkers are characters, real-life personalities with the full range of human traits, from wit and charm to anger and jealousy, the content of MonroeTalks is fascinating.

Some of it is thoughtful and articulate. Much is inane and just plain silly. But it’s all real. Except the part that is fake. And there is no way to tell the difference, just as in real life.