Home > From the Publisher's Desk
How to stop the killings
As a newspaper reporter and then an editor, I’ve written or edited my share of grisly stories. I’m not usually shocked by the depravity of mankind. Wednesday’s murder of Eve Carson, a UNC-CH senior, disturbed me, however.
When I Googled her name, there was a picture of stunningly beautiful young woman. She was the Student Body President. She was a Morehead Scholar. She was Phi Beta Kappa in political science and biology, preparing for medical school. She worked for a number of campus organizations helping people less fortunate.
That was sad enough but then my son, also a senior at Carolina, called. He knew her well enough to occasionally hang out, share a beer. She was a good person, fun, Andrew said. Eve Carson was probably a victim of random violence, that means it could have been my son dead or my daughter, a junior at Chapel Hill. That’s when it got me.
Imagine being a parent, sending your wonderful child off to a great university where he or she is brutally murdered. What kind of society are we living in? What can we do about it?
There have always been bad people out there. Now they all have guns. Not five or six-shot Saturday Night Specials but powerful, accurate 9 mm automatics that fire from a 14-shot clip. When will Congress or the General Assembly have the courage to outlaw handguns? That’s the obvious answer.
We pretend like we respect law enforcement but when they say, “Get the guns off the streets,” our elected officials say, “Oh, no. Can’t do that. It’s against the Right to Bear Arms!” The Second Amendment is the most debated amendment in the Bill of Rights because its interpretation is not clear. The federal courts can’t even decide. I say let people keep shotguns and rifles for hunting, sport or home protection. The only thing you use a 9 mm for is to kill people. Outlaw handguns. That’s the only way to eventually reduce the type of killings we have had at Virginia Tech, UNC or the streets of Rocky Mount.
Save but pay more
We as consumers are often encouraged to save money by buying a cheaper product, or save time by buying a more efficient gadget or save lives by buckling up. Save, save, save is the American refrain, and we often comply.
Last summer we were told to save in our use of water. While some of the measures were forced upon us, we generally complied and cut our water consumption. After my hedge died, I started putting a bucket in my shower to catch the cold water until it runs hot. Then I put that water on my bushes. It all helped because city water customers have saved millions of gallons through conservation.
That’s why it’s ironic that we now have to pay more for water because saving means less water is used therefore the city earns less revenue. It’s not a big increase to most people; it’s just irritating. I think the same irony occurred several years ago when the price of electricity went up. When you’ve got a monopoly, it’s easy for a utility to make up lost revenue with a price hike.
I’ll give the city some slack since it has had the expense of tying into Wilson’s water system as a safeguard against the reservoir running dry. I know in the business world when less of your product is sold, you can’t automatically make up the lost revenue by raising prices. If you do, it is at your company’s peril. Instead, the smart business person looks at developing new products or saving here and there to bring income and expense back into line. I trust the city is doing that rather than only raising prices to make up the shortfall.
Betts’ resignation hurts Nash
Tom Betts’ forced resignation from the N.C. Board of Transportation is a blow to economic development in this region and only served to highlight the hypocrisy of our political system.
Back in November, Betts sent an email to Rick Benton, the economic development official for Roanoke Rapids, asking for help in raising $20,000 for gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue. Some people enjoy playing golf; Betts enjoys raising money. He mostly does it for charitable causes but he also uses his considerable fundraising ability to support political candidates. That is not illegal.
Betts was a major fundraiser for Gov. Mike Easley’s campaign. Combining that with his economic development experience, volunteer service on multiple boards and his private business acumen, he was appointed to the Board of Transportation. That’s the way governors have done it since roads were first paved, almost.
Years ago, appointment to the board was a political payoff to the winning candidate’s cronies. Questionable highway projects were sometimes the result. A board seat is still a political reward, but there is a much brighter degree of light shining on every project than in the past and most board members are capable people who take their job seriously.
In his role as a DOT board member, Betts had a lot of power to recommend projects. He ran his six-county division like a company; he was the chairman of the board and the division engineer was the CEO. When a project was proposed, the division engineer approved it first then it was sent to Raleigh for staff review, the secretary’s approval and a final board vote. Anywhere along the line a project can be halted if it’s not deemed to be in the interest of the state or its taxpayers.
Several years ago during his board tenure, Betts helped get roads built to the shopping area around the now controversial Carolina Crossroads theatre in Roanoke Rapids. He felt it was an economic development opportunity for a poor area that had rarely received DOT funds. Last year Randy Parton’s operation of the theatre came under question and the city essentially fired him from a lucrative job running it.
State Treasurer Richard Moore helped Roanoke Rapids finance the $21 million Carolina Crossroads project with a local government commission loan. When the project ran into trouble, Lt. Gov. Perdue, Moore’s Democratic primary opponent, saw an opportunity to criticize him for not being diligent on the loan. Meanwhile, Moore had been singling out the DOT board as an example of improper partisan fundraising by state appointees. In somewhat of a response, last May the board adopted a six-page ethics policy for both board members and staff members. The policy is featured prominently on the home page of the DOT’s web site.
Then Betts came along trying to raise money for Perdue from some of the same Roanoke Rapids folks who benefited from state highway projects. People who were at a fundraising meeting with Betts before he sent the email, swear he made it clear he was acting as a private citizen and there was no connection between this request and any future DOT projects for the area.
There may have been no “quid pro quo” in Betts’ request, but just the whiff of it was enough. When the Moore campaign apparently saw the email, it was a juicy opportunity to yell “I told you so” at the DOT board while also embarrassing Perdue since one of her chief fundraisers was involved.
So Betts, as the first example of the new ethics policy, had to resign to take the pressure off both the board and Perdue. Whether this will change future appointments to the board remains to be seen. I doubt the next governor will appoint a board composed of minor campaign contributors who will work the 25-30 hours a week necessary to do a good job for a small per diem, which Betts says he never accepted.
If the legislature really wants to reform the DOT board, restrict the appointment to two years. If board members don’t perform for their districts, don’t reappoint them. In the meantime, Nash County has lost a person who had the time and interest to do the job right.
Last word on the statue
Well, the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is back on its pedestal so the park bearing his name is complete. I’m satisfied that the council made the right decision. The sculpture was bought and paid for; it certainly did no good gathering dust in a warehouse. It would have been a waste of money to replace it.
For people who don’t like the statue because they think it doesn’t look like King, get over it. I never met Dr. King so my image of him is based on the black and white film clip of his famous speech and one or two different photos in the Associated Press file that accompany stories about him. It might be correct to say that the statue doesn’t look exactly like those pictures but it’s wrong to say that it doesn’t look like the man himself.
I never met George Washington either so I don’t know that his visage on the dollar bill is exact, I just accept it. Rocky Mount should do the same with our statue of King. The artist, Erik Blome, is nationally known and has beautifully sculpted another African-American of great stature, Rosa Parks. He spends time in Ethiopia helping orphaned children. His heart is in the right place.
This problem is solved. Let’s get on to something else.
Musings after Virginia Tech
The headline “Gunman kills 32 at Va. Tech” read more like another sad entry from Iraq listing the toll of civilians slaughtered that day. But this was just a few hundred miles away in an area of southwestern Virginia where I worked 19 years ago. Mass murder there two decades ago was just as unthinkable as it was in the public schools I attended in rural Alamance County.
Most people will reflexively think school shootings started with the 1999 killings at Columbine High School in Colorado. They didn’t. Calling it “recent history”, Google lists 47 school shootings worldwide beginning February 2, 1996 when a 14-year-old boy killed two students and a teacher in his Moses Lake, WA, algebra class. Of those 47 shootings, 36 were in the United States. The next highest countries were Germany with three and Canada with two acts of violence.
What does that tell us? Obviously, there is something different in our country to spur 10 times as many shootings as in Germany. Do American students suffer more from mental disorders than foreign students? I’d bet that there are as many German, British and Swedish students with depression problems as their American counterparts.
That leaves the violent culture we live in where guns are readily accessible. In England where handguns are prohibited, there were no school shootings, according to the Infoplease Web site.
Why do we need to buy AK-47 semi-automatic rifles or Glock 9mm pistols? I’ve never seen a hunter with either weapon. Guns that can’t be used for hunting or marksmanship competition should be beyond public reach. If the gun lobby sidetracks that idea, then Congress ought to look at a federal permitting process that would at least tighten up lax state gun laws like those in Virginia that allowed the deranged Cho Seung-Hui to buy weapons without any background check or waiting period.
Strictly interpreted, the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees Americans the right to bear arms. There’s a significant difference, however, between keeping Granddaddy’s 12 gauge in the closet at home and carrying a 15-shot Glock in a bookbag.
I remember a cowboy movie I saw one Saturday afternoon as a kid. In an effort to stop all the gunfights, the sheriff of Tombstone made all the cowboys turn in their six-guns as they rode into town. If our government doesn’t take action, then the real Tombstone of 2007 will have more kids’ names carved in granite.
Education initiative will continue
The UNC-Rocky Mount proposal was like a pretty girl who got dumped at the door of the prom. Former Chancellor James Leutze’s report to UNC President Erskine Bowles totally rejected the idea of making N.C. Wesleyan College the 17th campus of the University. The alternatives that the study offered—distance learning and visiting professors—were mere platitudes.
But a pretty girl won’t be without a date for long. The group of business, education and community leaders that advocated the effort is not going to quit on its goal of bringing accessible, affordable higher education to the 11-county Gateway region of Eastern North Carolina.
Only 18 percent of high school graduates in our area earn a college degree. That hurts their career chances and our economy. Without a smart workforce, industry won’t locate here. Without new industry, there won’t be career opportunities for our young people. Education breaks the cycle of poverty.
The committee wants to develop a program that begins in middle school by identifying students with academic potential who without financial help and adult guidance would most likely never attend college. These are not the top 10 percent of any given school who come from middle class families with a history of attending college. These students will go to Carolina, State or Wilmington without our help.
We must help the students who have no hope of a better life, who would never think that higer education could be possible. We want to say to these students in the seventh or eighth grade, “Do the work we ask, stay out of trouble and we will guarantee you a seat in a college classroom.”
That’s a big promise and a big motivator. We’ll accomplish it through the cooperation of our high schools, community colleges and perhaps private institutions like Wesleyan, Barton or Chowan. A lot of work will go into making this a reality, but it must be done. The UNC-Rocky Mount report was just a bump in the road.
Wasted weblog
The Telegram’s online forum generates the second highest number of page views on our web site after local news, but the number of people actually posting on the forum is very low. That leads me to believe that readers going to the forum do so either out of car-wreck curiosity or for the entertainment provided by the dozen or so regulars who malign each other on a daily basis.
The problem is that the dialogue is really not very good entertainment. It’s a combination of trash talk and potty language found on a sixth grade playground. Here’s a fairly mild example:
“Frankly, I don’t think he…. By TweetiePie….. is capable of working. It is obvious by his posts here that 1) if he is posting now, he certainly isn’t working, 2) his posts show the lack of intelligence to have a PROFESSION, 3) his posts show lack of intelligence to have a TRADE, 4) his mouth RUNNETH OVER, and 5) he can’t be open-minded because if he were his brains would fall out, 6) hard work has a future payoff, but for him laziness pays off now. So where do I think he works……well, only one of two jobs come to mind: 1) He’s a Circus Freak or 2) he holds the Slow/Stop signs for a hwy. construction crew.”
That isn’t about any issue like falling test scores in the schools, teen pregnancy or even the insanity in Iraq. It’s speculation flavored by insults about what another person on the forum does for a living.
Perhaps a problem with the forum is that it allows people to use a screen name rather than their actual name. It’s easy to insult someone anonymously. There are a few people who use their real names but it doesn’t change their rant as shown by this post:
“Sweetiepie it is so funny how…. By C Dancy II - TPA….. u ignant Racist want to compare me to others just bcause we don’t think like u & your racist friends on this forum. Nope I am who I say I am & don’t use a code name. U see I am the man who don’t hide bhind a code name like u do sweetiepie.”
Our Speak Up column is also anonymous but we can only print about a tenth of the calls because of language or libel issues. Lately people on the forum have started questioning the morality of their enemies, which not only takes the forum to new lows but also has possible legal ramifications that I’m not interested in exploring so a bunch of brats can trade jabs.
And finally I don’t think the current forum is the type of discussion the Telegram should sponsor in the community. So until we can either police the forum or find a more appropriate venue to trade ideas, the message board is gone. You can post a comment here — where your IP address is logged and your message can be edited or deleted — or send me an email at rwoodin@coxnc.com.
And if you feel the need to waste some time, go read about Anna Nicole Smith.
UNC-R bumper stickers
Walking into the Day for Wesleyan celebration earlier this week, I saw several people holding up a blue and gold bumper sticker that read, “UNC-Rocky Mount!” Sen. A.B. Swindell had a handful in his coat pocket and was giving them away to anyone who would put them on a vehicle bumper.
The sticker, which is in Wesleyan’s colors, couldn’t have come out at a more appropriate time. President Ian Newbould had just announced that supporters of the college had donated more than $510,000 in the annual fundraising effort that lets local residents show how much the school means to the Twin Counties area. That’s a record amount.
If Wesleyan becomes the 17th campus of the University system, it will mean a lot more. Jim Dickens, whose blood runs Carolina blue, had 10,000 of the bumper stickers printed. They’ll soon be available free to anyone who wants to show support for UNC-Rocky Mount.
An ad hoc committee of local leaders wants to build support for the idea that will succeed or fail based on the outcome of a non-biased study to determine the need for another UNC campus, Dickens said. The legislature passed a bill earlier this year ordering the University system to conduct the study, which will likely be done either by a consultant or a similar group of disinterested outsiders, such as former college presidents. If the study is positive, then the decision goes to the legislature where the political deals will get interesting.
If the study finds that another campus isn’t needed, then the idea won’t have any legs and will most likely die quietly. Although there are three branches of the University within an hour or so of Rocky Mount, that is not the important issue. Rather, it is who is served by them and who would be served by a Rocky Mount campus. Wesleyan is surrounded by economically depressed counties where education could make a significant difference.
When Leo Jenkins single-handedly won a medical school for East Carolina University, his main argument was that the rural east needed more doctors. There was opposition from the areas with existing medical schools who said another school wasn’t needed. They didn’t want to take another sliced out of the appropriations pie. Today, without ECU, health care in the eastern part of the state would resemble that of a Third World country.
It takes a little vision to see the need and the solution, so pick up a bumper sticker and support UNC-Rocky Mount. We’ll have some here at the Telegram.
Permalink | |
Religion and War
I was listening to “Fresh Air” Thursday afternoon as I drove back from a meeting in Greenville when it struck me that religion is the cause of most war in the Middle East, or the world for that matter. Before my phone rings off the hook, maybe I should say the people who take religion to the extreme are the cause of most war on the globe.
I was listening to a Lebanese woman explaining how all the different factions in her country prevent the growth of a strong, democratic government that could squash Hezbollah before it could start a war with Israel. There are Christians, Islamist Shiites, secular Shiites and several other sects I can’t recall. Each runs a region of the country that encompasses villages, even cities.
Like Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah is a militia, political party and governing body that runs everything from city halls to day care centers. Hezbollah’s stated goal until 10 years ago was to create an Islamic state in Lebanon despite its history as the Riviera and financial center of the Middle East. Iran is already an Islamic state which is why it supplies Hezbollah with armaments. The wild-eyed Shiite ayatollahs in Iraq and the secular Sunnis are killing each other in Iraq over creation of an Islamic state. Then there is the Taliban in Afghanistan and the rebels in Darfur, all radical Islamists.
Bt it’s not just people with beards and turbans. Look at European history from the Middle Age on. There were the Crusades where English Christians thought they had to kill Muslims to “save” them. Then there were the Inquisitons throughout Europe where Catholics persecuted other religious groups. The Catholic/Protestant battles of the late twentieth century are still felt in Northern Ireland today even though bloodshed is rare.
What if Presbyterians fought Baptists here or Episcopalians ambushed Catholics? We had our internal war 141 years ago. Thankfully we learned from it. The founders of the country wisely adopted the motto, E pluribus unum—out of many, one. While we argue stridently, often irrationally, we don’t kill each other over our beliefs. To us religion embodies hope and comfort. I can’t understand how those feelings have been hijacked by hate and bloodlust around the world. The Middle East may have been the Cradle of Civilization but right now it looks more like its grave.
Permalink | |
Comments Posted
For readers who wrote comments on my entry about the “council’s language”, those comments have now been posted. At the end of my entry, click on “comments” to read all the responses. I apologize for the delay in getting your comments posted, but I have been out of the office for much of the past two weeks. Thanks for sharing your opinions with other rockymounttelegram.com readers.
Permalink | |
Council’s language disappoints me
The Rocky Mount City Council must enact a 2006-07 budget by June 30 and negotiations over some pet projects have hung up the council on how much of a tax increase to pass.
In Washington, pet projects have a different name, they’re called pork because congressmen get special appropriations inserted in the budget so they can “bring home the bacon” to their districts. Pork projects may or may not be worthwhile, but the real purpose of these expenditures is reelection of the congressman.
I won’t go so far as to call the council’s wish list or pet projects “pork” because some, like a study for low income housing, make good sense. I just don’t like the tone of the language in the discussion. Council members Blackwell, Bryant, Knight and Wiggins repeatedly point to the millions of dollars the city has spent in recent years on Braswell Library, the Imperial Center and the sports complex as if those projects were only for white people living in Nash County. Now it’s time, they say, to spend some money on the largely black side of the city in Edgecombe County.
I agree, but please realize those projects benefit everyone in Rocky Mount, Nash and Edgecombe Counties. And don’t forget that federal grants along with FEMA insurance money and various tax credits paid for the bulk of those projects. An attitude of “it’s time to get ours” doesn’t build unity or support for the housing and community development projects needed on the eastern side of Rocky Mount.
Just as previous councils worked on the train station, then the library and the Imperial Center, this council should identify one or two areas of significant need and devote all the city’s resources to fixing them. Get the council and the town behind a project that will make a difference in the quality of life here then turn the city’s innovative administration loose to find the money.
Just drop this “ours” and “yours” language. At best it’s unproductive; at worst it’s divisive.
Permalink | |
Tax hikes
Has the price of gas gone up recently? How about the cost of hamburger, insurance or utilities? Are they up? Most likely the answer is “yes”. Did you get a small raise this year to cover those cost of living increases?
I hope so, but the company you work for probably had to increase its prices to provide that raise so you could pay the higher prices most Americans are experiencing. Government is no different. To keep good employees who provide the good services we like, most governments give a few percentage points of a raise. They also have the same increases we have as private citizens. They don’t produce a product so the money comes from one of three places—increased revenue from growth, increased taxes or withdrawals from the “savings” account, commonly known as the fund balance.
Edgecombe raised its property tax rates 1 cent to $.94 per $100 of valuation, one of the highest rates in the east because the county has little growth to fund its budget that includes state-mandated Medicaid payments. It is pulling money from the fund balance to make up budget shortfalls.
Nash raised its tax rate 4 cents to $.70 per $100 valuation, a 6 percent increase over last year. On a house worth $150,000, the owner will pay an additional $60 per year. It’s not a huge amount, but it does get your attention. The increased revenue will supposedly fund additional education needs from the school system and community college. Money from the fund balance is also helping make up the additional spending.
The City of Rocky Mount is eyeing a budget that would boost the tax rate 4 cents and also bump sewer fees 5 percent. This means a city resident will have a double-digit property tax increase when combining both city and county increases. That definitely gets your attention.
Nashville, on the other hand, kept its tax rate the same at $.63 per $100 valuation but raised its sewer fee 5 percent, which was a pass-though of charges from Rocky Mount. Growth is helping the town pay salary increases without additional taxation.
County commissioners approved the budget with its tax hikes on a 4-3 vote. There was concern that Nash was raising its tax rate just to qualify for additional lottery funds. All counties will share in the first 65 percent of lottery revenues but any county that has a tax rate lower than the state average doesn’t get a portion of the remaining 35 percent, supposedly.
The counties would like to shed some or all of their Medicaid debt but to taxpayers it would probably be a shell game. If the state takes over those costs, the money will come from somewhere, most likely from income taxes which we all end up paying.
The bottom line, to use a financial metaphor, is there’s no easy way out unless this area can continue to attract new industry that funds growth, both in population and property tax. For that, one of the basics is an educated work force. If we’ve got to pay more in taxes, then at least our elected offcials are spending it in the right places.
What do you think?
Permalink | |
Crime Stories
There was a murder May 3 on Aqua Ct., in Rocky Mount where five young black men, mostly in their twenties, allegedly planned then shot 23-year-old Solomon Gerald Cannon after an unspecified argument. Particularly troubling was a police hypothesis that the crime was gang-related. We haven’t seen any real gang violence in Rocky Mount so the story led our news report on May 5, which means it was found under the largest headline on the front page where the most people would see it.
Since then, we’ve had five more stories about the crime, three of which were the lead, as suspects were identified and subsequently apprehended. Along with the last story on Wednesday, we had two other crime stories on the bottom half of the front page. One was about a woman arrested for animal cruelty and another told about two more suspects being caught following a robbery attempt.
This was a lot of crime stories in less than two weeks and it bothers some people who feel it portrays a negative image for Rocky Mount. Some businessmen fear that a company considering Rocky Mount for relocation might go elsewhere after reading these or similar crime stories. Here is what one person wrote in a reasoned tone.
“I realize that there are undesireable things that occur in Rocky Mount and I agree that the paper should print these stories. However, I don’t understand why they need to be front page news stories. I cannot tell you how many people I run into that complain to me about the Telegram. Always about the front page and how they feel like these negative news stories effect Rocky Mount’s image. It would appear to me that the Telegram has a stake in Rocky Mount’s future and would want to put the most positive stories in the community out front.”
This is an old conundrum for newspaper publishers without any easy answers. Because other readers may have the same thougts as my friend, let me explain how we decide to play stories. There is no “policy” because in the news business you can’t be rigid with one rule fits all stories. We as business people have to balance our desire to see Rocky Mount prosper with our duty as reporters and editors to be a credible news source. If we bury murder stories, a crime that has particularly troubling gang overtones if true, then people will not read the paper because we are managing or slanting the news. That hurts us as a provider of crucial public information as well as our advertisers who expect us to deliver an audience for their dollars.
Similarly, we should not play up or sensationalize every crime story simply because people like to read them. That’s a real temptation because crime always ranks first or second in reader interest. If the crime or the circumstances don’t merit front page coverage, we do falsely paint the city with a negative image if we play it big just to sell papers. For a long time we have been making this type of judgment and putting crime of a lesser nature on the inside, page A2.
We do accentuate the positive whenever we can. In Monday’s paper we had front page stories about a new mental health center opening, new EMS equipment being provided by a federal grant and the state employees credit union opening a larger building in Nashville. Tuesday we had the story of UNC officials visiting OIC and Thursday led with RBC adding 40 jobs while the arrest of four robbery suspects was on A2. But people will remember that a police dog caught four robbers before they’ll discuss the new mental health facility. Good is not always interesting but we still put it on the front because it’s important.
As I’ve told people many times, strong growing towns almost always have strong vigorous newspapers. There really is a correlation between the two. Local goverments have to identify issues and deal with them publicly. The newspaper is sometimes the unwelcome partner in this endeavor. There’s no town like Pleasantville where there is no crime, unemployment is non-existent and the newspaper only prints good news. I wish there was. But you can be assured that we want to show the best of Rocky Mount while providing fair, accurate and balanced reporting to our readers. I’ll be happy to read anyone’s comments.
Permalink | |
Campaign finance reform
One of the most intriguing political races in the state saw political neophyte Joe Boylan defeat N.C. House Speaker Pro Tem Richard Morgan in the Moore County Republican primary. Morgan was an eight-term incumbent viewed as a renegade Republican by the state GOP or an innovative progressive legislator to moderates of both parties. When the state House was deadlocked in 2003 at 60 Democrats and 60 Republicans, Morgan and some Republican allies sided with Democratic House Speaker Jim Black in a power-sharing agreement that led to a productive session, depending on your politics. To conservative Republicans, Morgan and his allies were traitors and targeted for defeat. That was finally accomplished this past Tuesday. Morgan, Rick Eddins of Raleigh and Stephen LaRoque of Kinston were all targeted by the state GOP and defeated by conservative Republicans. I don’t care whether a liberal or conservative, incumbent or challenger wins an election after presenting voters with a platform. What bothers me is that a state political party will spend huge amounts of money to defeat a candidate who doesn’t kowtow to the party line. Former GOP Congressman Bill Cobey told the News & Observer, Morgan’s defeat sends a message to all Republicans “that we expect them to represent Republican values when they get to Raleigh.” Salute and vote the party line is the oldest strategy since elected representatives started going to Washington and Raleigh. It’s also shortsighed and outdated in 2006. It’s like two gangs fighting to see who controls the turf in Raleigh. That doesn’t do the people of North Carolina a bit of good. The amount of outside, “soft” money spent on the campaign is another troubling aspect of the Morgan race. Thousands of dollars were spent by PACs from both sides on ugly ads and direct mail campaigns. It’s all perfectly legal but there has to be a way that public financing can work. If the Morgan race and Speaker Black’s creative use of campaign contributions don’t make a case for public financing, then we might as well give the election to the candidate with the most money and biggest attack PAC. It would save us the aggravation of nasty campaigns. Limiting campaign spending raises side issues involving free speech but there has to be a better way. The only redeeming point that came out of the race was that Boylan knocked on a lot of doors in Moore County, losing 20 pounds in the process, according to news accounts. That populist approach helped him win but I wish he’d done it without the help of PAC money from Raleigh. Would you like outside groups coming into Nash County this fall telling us to vote for either Bill Daughtridge or Carnell Taylor?
Permalink | |
Oil profits
I’m not sure, but I believe I made a “C” in Econ 10 as a freshman at Carolina. About the only thing I remember from the course is the law of supply and demand. Therefore I am not qualified to make judgments on the price of gas so I will just rant instead. After we publish our somewhat regular survey of gas prices in Rocky Mount and Tarboro, invariably a reader calls to complain about the conspiracy among the quick marts which all seem to raise their prices at the same time to the same amount. Except for that station in Tarboro. I don’t believe in that conspiracy. I believe it’s much bigger than that. The CEOs of Exxon Mobil, Shell and the rest of the Seven Sisters probably don’t get on a conference call and say, “Hey Bubba, let’s jack up prices to get another billion in profits.” But I can’t believe these record profits being posted by the oil companies are sheer coincidence. The cost of crude oil is over $70 a barrell now. So it would seem to me that the oil companies would simply pass on the increased cost of the raw material so that their profit levels would remain the same. Covering the increased cost and making a bigger profit smacks of price gouging. Exxon posted the fifth highest quarterly profit of any public company in history this week. Profits are expected to be even higher in the rest of 2006 which means higher gas prices. And what did Wall Street do but push the stock down 68 cents a share because the $8.4 billion in profit was below expectations. What is enough profit anyway? Oil company profits are already higher than the gross domestic product of most countries including the oil rich United Arab Emirates, according to the Associated Press. Exxon has so much cash it gave its former CEO a $400 million retirement package. That’s not like winning the lottery, it’s like owning the lottery. Oil company spokesmen say gas prices will come back down when supply and demand come back into balance. I’m giving the oil companies an “F” in economics.
Permalink | |
What would happen here?
What would happen in Rocky Mount if we suffered an alleged crime similar to what’s happening in Durham with the Duke lacrosse team? It’s one of the worst tragedies a city can suffer. A woman is traumatized, two young men may have squandered their lives, a respected institution is tarnished and a city can’t shake an unfair label for years to come. Suppose—and this is absolute conjecture—an N.C. Wesleyan athletic team had a year-end party and a black woman was assaulted by white players. Given our own racial makeup that’s almost the same as Durham’s, there would be huge pressure to indict someone. Then what if the district attorney was running for reelection in a contested primary. While Wesleyan has a more diverse student body than Duke, it wouldn’t matter much once the “parachute journalists” from national publications and networks landed in town. Picture dozens of TV trucks sprouting satellite dishes parked in front of the college or city hall. The school that is now blossoming in every way would suffer a severe blow to its reputation, hurting chances to raise money, attract good faculty and grow the student body. If the athletes involved were found innocent, there would be charges of a whitewash. If they were found guilty, the fairness of the trial would be questioned. There would be shrill charges of racism from whites and blacks that would turn discussion into a polarizing anger. Progress on our racial issues would be stifled for years. There’s a lesson here. Young people need to be taught responsibility not only by their coaches and teachers, but by parents. Colleges should exert more oversight over athletic programs, either through a compliance office or by putting them and their budgets under a vice-president. Most colleges allow athletic programs to operate autonomously on their own funds. As a community, we need to get on with substantive discussion about race, not just fling charges around meeting rooms. And pray this nightmare never happens here.
Permalink | |
Chamber community update
The Rocky Mount Area Chamber of Commerce had its annual “state of the community” luncheon on Tuesday that featured an interesting conversation among Tom Campbell of N.C. Spin, Tom Betts, Jeannie Bonds, Fred Turnage, Sen. Clark Jenkins and Rep. Bob Ethridge. The full story appears elsewhere on the Web site and in Wednesday’s Telegram, but the panelists and more important, the audience of several hundred, felt that Rocky Mount’s economy is on the upswing for the first time since the 1999 flood. “We could have died but instead we came together,” said Mayor Fred. “We survived the flood, the loss of our textile industry and the uncertainty of the tobacco buyout. We’ve turned the corner.” By a show of nearly unanimous hands, the audience agreed. That was the good news. Rocky Mount has not done a good job of turning the junction of two major highways into economic growth. The hands unanimously agreed. But there is a 1,000-acre industrial site nearby that would make a great location for a car factory, Jenkins said. Nor has Rocky Mount adequately developed the next generation of leaders, Fred said. “I know there are pressures on our young people with both parents working but they’re not coming forward either.” There was a little more difference concerning the quality of our schools. Several hands went up when Campbell asked if the audience thought our schools were better than others. But the majority thought they weren’t, and Campbell said all the indicators show our schools are no better but no worse than others in the state. The panel agreed that more money needs to go into the schools if we want to “give hope” to kids, particularly African-Americans, living in difficult economic conditions. “If they know there’s a job waiting then other problems will take care of themselves, ” said Tom Betts. The problem is that the county spends 25 percent of its tax revenue on Medicaid. The lottery will supposedly help with bricks and mortar but probably not operations where there are plenty of other needs. Nobody had any substantive answers, which in fairness would have been tough in the 60-minute exchange. There will be a similar panel discussion this fall on education alone, again hosted by Campbell who is good at stirring the pot with probing questions. We should plan to be there to see if there are any answers.
Permalink | |
Newspaper vs. Online
The New York Times created mild tremors in the newspaper world last week by announcing that it would no longer print daily stock tables. Instead they could be found online at the paper's web site.
"Whoa!", a lot of us gray haired publishers said in unison.
"Duh!," said Simon Dumenco, a media columnist for AdAge.com. "That should have happened years ago." His point was that some material in print, such as stock tables, are much better suited to publication electronically where they can be searched or dropped into spreadsheets.
As the cost of newsprint rises almost rivaling gas price hikes, we at the Telegram are looking at what printed material might be better suited to our Web site, such as sports box scores. Diehard fans love the "agate" as the statistics are called in our industry, and fantasy league players use it in their game. But does anyone else read that tiny type?
I wonder how readers not only use box scores but how they use the entire Web in their pursuit of information. I suspect a 25-year-old gets news in substantially different ways than someone twice that age. The one thing we have that readers can’t get anywhere else is news about Rocky Mount. The debate in the industry is whether we simply re-package our print content on to our web site or strive to be a “news mechanism” that serves readers through multiple media—print, video, and audio. Some big city newspapers are creating a 24-hour newsroom that delivers news all day long as it occurs through newspaper, web site, email, podcasts and even cell phone alerts. Once we gray hairs know how you want to get your news, then we can do a better job of keeping you informed. Just let me know.
Permalink | |
News decisions
Reader Curmilus Dancy asked how we at the Telegram make news decisions, which I presume means how do we choose stories, decide where to play them, who makes the call, etc. The answer is it depends, and that’s not a dodge. It’s just how it works because each story has a slightly different set of circumstances. The decision-making process generally begins every Tuesday at 2 p.m. with a newsroom staff meeting. Chaired by Editor Jeff Herrin, every editor, reporter and photographer is present unless they have a conflicting assignment. The meeting reviews good work, bad work and anything else on the agenda. Then the editors discuss stories coming up that week and in the near future. There is also a daily news budget meeting at 4 p.m. where Jeff and the editors discuss what will be in the next day’s paper. They decide what will be the lead stories, what photos are available and make any assignments. When judging the importance of a story, we look at how many people it affects, who is involved, whether it’s unique, likely reader interest and other questions along those lines. This is all apart from the editing process where facts are check, words or phrases are revised, and reporters may be told to call another person for additional comment to provide a balanced view. By being fair to all concerned, we give the reader a wide perspective on an issue. That’s why you often see comments in a story from several different people, particularly if it’s a controversial issue. I don’t get into the daily decision making process unless it’s a story that could have legal ramifications or cause other significant impact. Conversely, I often discuss with Jeff the direction our news coverage should take, how the Telegram should look and what our editorial position should be on issues. I meet most job applicants and approve all promotions to the managerial level. Then I step back and trust the newsroom to do its job. My background is in news (as opposed to advertising or circulation). I’ve been a reporter for a big city paper in the state, edited weeklies and even done a short stint with public television covering the General Assembly in a previous life. My office opens onto our newsroom so it’s fair to say I’m involved with our news report.
Permalink | |
What am I getting into?
I’ve written thousands of news stories, columns and editorials during my journalistic career but this is the first blog. Actually I’m not quite sure what I’m going to say. Normally I spend the better part of an afternoon writing, editing and polishing a column that will appear in the Telegram. Our web expert, herself a fugitive from the newsroom, says I should just write about anything that strikes me as interesting. Write fast, ramble, don’t edit, don’t polish just post it. I will certainly take questions from you all, the readers. I’ll be glad to explain how we make news decisions at the paper, and maybe I’ll comment on current happenings. So tell me, what’s on your mind?
Permalink | |
Latest comments
Mr Woodin,
Your comments, regarding a ban on handguns in your online blog, dated March, 6 2008, are a typical knee-jerk media response, when events like Columbine, Virginia Tech and the latest murder of UNC Student Body President Eve Carson occur.
... read the full comment by Chris Davis | Comment on How to stop the killings Read How to stop the killings
The age-old cliche “If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns” is one that I believe in. I had an interesting conversation with a state trooper yesterday concerning retention of arrested criminals. To summarize his comments; The jail house
... read the full comment by Adam Dew | Comment on How to stop the killings Read How to stop the killings
Look, as a father of two young kids myself, I can certainly understand the apprehension a parent feels about unknown, ambiguous dangers in the world that could threaten one’s children while you’re not around to protect them.
But calling
... read the full comment by Dave in Jawjuh | Comment on How to stop the killings Read How to stop the killings
Mr. Woodin- Your comments as a parent are shared by many of us. Eve Carson’s death is tragic for ALL of us - it is as horrible as anything we could imagine. Like you, this hits too close to home. Thanks for your words of wisdom.
... read the full comment by Mitzi | Comment on How to stop the killings Read How to stop the killings