Tag: Newspapers

Local news is all about community involvement

Read at Daily Herald website The quote that is probably best known when referring to the Daily Herald’s mission is Hosea Paddock’s objective to “Fear God, tell the truth and make money” that tops our Opinion Page. But his son Stuart R. Paddock Sr. offered an addendum that may strike even more at the soul Read More …

Making sure news rhetoric is not ‘out of whack’

Read at Daily Herald website I was casting about vainly for a powerful and appropriate lead to a column about perspective and police-community relations, when what should fall out of cyberspace but, from rock-and-roll reactionary Ted Nugent, the perfect object lesson. Interviewed by a rival publication, Nugent was asked his opinion about the subject, and Read More …

Designing a news front-page as events unfold

When editors were mapping out last Friday’s print editions in our Thursday afternoon news meeting, we faced an option regarding the issue of police shootings. Wire news budgets included a selection of second-day follows about the circumstances and victim in the case involving Philando Castile in suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, plus a more analytical look Read More …

Information is power; newspapers must use it responsibly

Read at Daily Herald website Following the terrorist attacks on the Brussels airport in March, news organizations, including the Daily Herald, faced an achingly familiar quandary. What pictures should we publish that vividly depict the horror of the crime without offending readers’ sensitivities or sensationalizing the act? The dilemma had an added dimension in the Read More …

Old mantra still valid for New Media

(Read in the Daily Herald) Useful. Different. Relevant. Time was, those were the three most important words in the Daily Herald newsroom, as close to a collective mantra as a body of committed skeptics is likely to embrace. Our success depended on our ability to provide information and entertainment that aspired to those three standards. Read More …

From Brussels terrorism, the too-frequent deliberations on an iconic image of tragedy

(My most-recent Daily Herald column.) Nearly every afternoon’s meeting of news editors concludes with a review of options for the next-day print edition’s most prominent Page 1 picture. On Tuesday, March 22, the day of the terrorist bombing in Brussels, the selection was especially difficult. Editors sifted through a variety of dramatic images, all showing Read More …