Monday musings

Despite a busy weekend with three papers to discuss, the comments were limited as the editorial staff apparently was in need of more caffeine on this Monday morning.

However, there was a lot of discussion at the table about the “Perks of the Work” story in Sunday’s paper about executive pay in our region. The story was done in an “alterntive” story method, featuring mostly graphic elements, and gave the lowdown on the top dawgs of industry.

Also drawing praise from that paper:

-The story about “mega” churches, including Post Falls’ Real Life also drew praise;

-An A1 story on a DEA ruse whose results were upheld by the Ninth Circuit federal court after a local district judge threw out the evidence;

-The cover package in Sports about the 25th anniversary of Class A baseball in Spokane - which featured a column by John Blanchette - was a big “hit,” but not as much as a SNAFU in Monday’s feature in which it was noted a batter hit a ball 395 YARDS (it should have been feet).

Looking back to Saturday’s paper, the desecration of a Native American burial ground and the gathering of new flocks at old Fort Sherman were noted as successes, along with sports’ full-court coverage of the new basketball coach at Eastern Washington University.

One caller told Editor Steve Smith she was disappointed our paper didn’t cover the graduation at EWU, but apparently there are simply too many commencements in the area to hit them all and they are covered for individual newsworthiness. It should be noted that a graduating EWU student was highlighted in Saturday’s paper and online. Of course, inviting Bill and Melinda Gates to speak is one sure-fire way to get your graduation covered.

In today’s paper, a story about the tourism future of the community of Odessa drew raves.

Coming up
A multi-platform (print, web, mutlimedia) story the type of technology being used by area law enforcement officers. And breaking news, of course.