The Weekend Wrap; or We’re all Plucked together
May 17th, 2008, 8:17 pm · Post a Comment · posted by madisontaylor
I got this note by e-mail on Thursday night It was under the heading, “Times-Schnooz Blogs.” Here it goes:
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“Tolerate broad thinking, but take action against obscene or hateful material. Make it a credible and safe place worth preserving and sharing.”
Quite frankly, Scarlett, I really don’t know where the f— to begin with that.
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That was pretty much one of the hot-off-the-presses (to use what’s becoming an antiquated term) responses to the launch earlier Thursday of our new online community on TheTimesNews.com called Community Voice — brought to our Web site by a third party provider known as Pluck. As regular readers remember I posted about its arrival a couple of weeks back. This writer, who did not give a name, references a quote from an alleged note attributed to the editor that accompanies each story as a guide or warning for those who care to post comments. I say alleged because I neither approved nor saw this note in advance. Then again, I’m not the editor for our online materials — only one of many referees. We are not issued whistles.
I’m just guessing but I assume this writer is troubled by the sickening political correctness of this “safe place … preserving and sharing” part of the note, which I’m told came from an outside source. It has a very “let’s hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’” quality to it, I must admit.
I hope to track down the scurvy dogs who authored this and hopefully alter the wording to make it sound a little less like a den of hash-smoking hippies conjured it up at 3 a.m. after listening to a Joan Baez album. That said, I would like for comments via our online forum to be more civil and less potentially libelous than the ones that often came with our previous host. Either way, please wish me luck. I’ll likely need it.
So far so good …
Otherwise, the launch of Pluck’s Community Voice is going far better than expected and I’d like to thank all of our online users for making this happen. At other launch points in our company many of the frequent posters declined to do so after they learned registering was part of the program. Many people don’t wish to sign in before speaking out. They prefer to not only remain anonymous — but not easily found. But here the climate has been much more receptive. Several have already developed their own blogs, commented on stories and posted video. Some are opening forums for running commentary and others are diving in. More than a handful have already selected iconic photos to accompany their online alter egos.
Please keep doing so. This is what the site is for.
And even I have site here. This is the image I selected. Know who it is?
Goings and goings
All of our news wasn’t online this week. The Times-News said goodbye on Friday to Isaac Groves, a longtime reporter who is leaving the newspaper business to join his father in running their own floor refinishing company. It was hard to blame him. Isaac and wife Joy recently had their second child — so every penny counts. And there ain’t many pennies to spare in newspapers these days.
Isaac covered the cities of Mebane and Graham and did so pretty well. He also dabbled in business from time to time. But Isaac’s true genius was in making our newsroom a great place to come every day. Isaac’s tremendous sense of humor and truly sharp observational skills made him an asset for each and every reporter on staff.
We’ll miss him.
And a couple of weeks back we also lost a key member of our team when Emily White left our copydesk to go to nursing school at UNC-Chapel Hill. This is the greatest possible news for Emily, a Burlington native, who had worked toward this for the past few years.
Emily is an excellent page designer who has a good eye for mistakes in copy. She brought a lot of creativity to her job, something that’s always valuable in this line of work. And on a personal note, I really enjoyed working with her.
The newspaper’s loss is medicine’s gain. I know Emily will do well.
Online forms coming?
Got this last week from our features editor Charity Apple about a constant complaint from readers that needs to be addressed. She sent to me and our interactive director Roger Creasy.
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Hey guys!
I’m not sure who should get this so I’m sending it to you all. I constantly (at least once a week) hear the complaint how “ridiculous” it is that brides can’t place their announcements online. The way it works now is we have the form online for them to print out. This morning, a bride went as far as to say “Statesville does it, why can’t y’all?” I offered to connect her to Roger so she could talk to him but she refused. I know that we’ve tried to put this in place (at least I think Jay or Josh looked into it - years ago) but it wasn’t possible. Is there a possibility this may happen in the future? It seems to work out fine (on our end) - the way it works now.
Charity
My response was sure, why not. Let’s go for it.Roger had a little more inside knowledge of what’s required. He wrote this.
— Charity: We tried to do an interactive form a while back, but I was met with resistance. I agree with your caller completely. It is ridiculous for us to not have the form in an interactive format.If you need to change the form’s content, please print a copy and mark it up. If we are committed to the graphics now on the form, I need those electronically in .jpg RGB format. If we can completely redesign, can Linda find/create artwork? I also need to know to whom completed forms should be e-mailed. There should be several people on this list, to cover when folks are out.Let me know how you want to proceed. It may take a few weeks. I could do it tomorrow, but I have to go through corp now…. I see no reason not to move on this project.Stay tuned.
