CT Public Editor Blog

first off, let me say that our news team did a great job last Tuesday.  They kept up with the most current news all night long and continuously updated our election blog.  Kudos.

There has been some concern about th photo we chose to run on Wednesday’s front page.  Numerous readers have submitted questions about why we did not run an Obama victory photo but chose to run Virginia Democracts instead.  The answers to this question and an explanation will run in tomorrow’s opinion section if you are interested.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions today about the front age story “all dried up.”  Let me assure you that i’m working on it and trying to resolve what exactly happened.  At this point it seems that there was a miscommunication on the part of either the section editor who had the story idea or the write to whom it was assigned.  What it looks like now is that neither knew there was a difference between Smith Mountain and Mountain Lake.

We’ll resolve the issue as best we can and as soon as possible.

Readers,

As Public Editor, it is my job to respond an cater to the public.  So I won’t lie to you, we need your help.  Or at least I think we do (the newsroom may disagree).  I hear so many complaints about what the CT chooses to cover and what it chooses (or neglects) to cover.  I’ve been asking all semester long for opinions from readers on what you are interested.

So now’s your chance.  Comment or write to me about stories you want the CT to cover, whether they be university related or pertaining to the town of Blacksburg.

My goal is to write here daily about my opinions of the day’s paper.  I hope all of you are interested enough to bookmark this page and use it as your forum to respond to the content of the paper.

Since my column last week, I have heard a lot of people talk about the opinions page.  I’ve heard that it is both too far left and too far right.  If you ask me, that means we’re doing a good job printing both sides of the spectrum.  But if you do comment on the opinions page please remember this:  it’s the opinions page.  So don’t say that the columns lacked sources or facts, because they don’t have to have those things.  The difference between a column and an article is that a column is allowed to contain editorializing, while articles are supposed to contain nothing but hard facts.

With that said, if you think our news section is editorializing too much (or at all really) don’t hesitate to let me know.  The conflict of interest database will be posted soon, and I encourage all of you to check it if  you think an article contains bias on the part of the writer.  Accusations like those are what I investigate and am hoping to prevent.

So leave me your thoughts and I’ll take them up with the boss.