Monday, February 28, 2005

"John Robinson is an unlikely revolutionary." Editor and Publisher has an article on the News & Record public square project. It's out in print, and posted behind the paywall...and available online to us plebes later this week. Until then, here's the teaser from the E&P website: John Robinson is an unlikely revolutionary. He's the establishment, really. For the last six years he's been editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., where he's worked for two decades. And he certainly doesn't like the implication he's some kind of radical. "It's kind of embarrassing," he says, "as I sit here in a suit and tie and short hair." But to those who spend time thinking about how, even if, newspapers will survive in a super-connected, empowered, non-intermediated, and -- here's the word -- blogified world, John Robinson is on the barricades. Can't wait to see the whole thing. 6:07:22 PM    comment []

Patrick Eakes says yesterday's N&R front-pager on character education in Guilford County schools "has important factual errors about the early history of local character education programs and the programs' coordinator, Charlie Abourjilie." Patrick knows the subject and did some reporting of his own. Contrary to both the article and the party line from school superintendent Terry Grier, he says, "Grier torpedoed the existing local character education coordinator position and all meaningful support of the program." Interesting to see what the N&R does with this post. 3:32:15 PM    comment []

"Lebanon's Syrian-backed government collapsed Monday," reports Reuters. Assad on relations with the US: "If, however, you ask me if I'm expecting an armed attack, well I've seen it coming since the end of the war in Iraq." 2:39:08 PM    comment []

Thad Williamson has a nice write-up of yesterday's Carolina-Maryland game. He's right about, well, everything, so just go read it. What a fun season this has been to be a Tar Heel fan. 2:23:40 PM    comment []

Slate's Bryan Curtis on NYPD Blue, which ends its long run this week: "Its nudity will linger long after its gumshoeing fades." I thought Sipowicz was a great character for a while. Lisa and I watched NYPDB for a couple of years, then switched our loyalty to Homicide. And that was the last one-hour network TV drama we watched. It's a habit I can't imagine restarting. We watched The Sopranos and Larry David on DVD. I watch Survivor with the kids, The Simpsons and Simpsons reruns, and of course college basketball. And I take football naps in front of the NFL sometimes, too. I probably watch one-quarter of the TV I watched ten years ago, maybe one-fifth as much. Much of that mindshare and time has gone to the web. 2:21:36 PM    comment []

N&O series on downtown redevelopment in Charlotte, Norfolk, and other cities. At the rate we're going, Greensboro is going to deserve a feature of its own. (via Sam Hieb) 2:09:22 PM    comment []

Blogger News Network. (via Ben) Related, MyDD on political blogs: "As a whole, these blogs receive more traffic than the websites of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News combined. By the 2008 election, blogs might become the number one online source of news for Americans." Dave's bet is looking good...even if the Times wasn't punting its stuff behind the paywall. 9:00:12 AM    comment []

Jeff Jarvis on Craig's List and the big changes facing the news business. 8:48:24 AM    comment []

Ann Coulter calls Helen Thomas an "old Arab." Funny gal, that Ann Coulter. 8:27:11 AM    comment []

The SouthNow blog is picking up steam, updating more frequently and touching on some hot topics. But I don't buy the notion that progressivism and "Southern faith values" are at odds, at least as framed thusly - the first mistake is to cede the concept of faith values to a particular ideology. There is not a simple equivalence between faith and conservative evanglical faith. I'll take the progressive faith values of Guilford County's Quakers and Martin Luther King Jr. and many, many other truly Southern and truly faithful and truly progressive folks any day. But I did like the line from the Alabama preacher who said progressives “found religion last fall...like a crash test dummy finds a windshield." 8:07:27 AM    comment []