Doodling with data

For the news junkies: Former Spokesman-Review online publisher Ken Sands (hi!), now executive editor for innovation at Congressional Quarterly , wrote an interesting piece on newspaper “data delivery editors.” Read the article at Poynter Institute’s E-media Tidbits .

The piece highlights new methods of organizing data, from a database, making it more accessible to online readers by presenting it as graphs, charts, maps, tag clouds or otherwise interactive features.

Managing editor Gary Graham pointed out that if the D.D. Editor had an A-ssistant, he or she would be an…

A scarier Halloween

Television news yesterday such as on KREM did a story on avoiding certain parts of neighborhoods based on critical mass of sex offender clusters, providing a link to the Spokane County Sheriff’s office .

Al French

Editors said City Councilman Al French took a long moment last night at city council chambers to criticize the newspaper for negativity, refer to specific individual(s) at The S-R, and talk about the recent headline for which there was an entry in Accuracy Watch. The headline correction also came up in morning discussion on Oct. 25 .

Good news

The Spokesman-Review has continued posting letters to Ask The Editors, the most recent one being a Q&A about news negativity . A reader wanted to see more positive coverage about teachers, to which senior editor Carla Savalli highlighted recent positive coverage such as the outdoor fitness program at Cheney High School and the Milken educator’s award going to Rogers High School teacher Erin Jones.

“Those are frustrating questions to answer,” Savalli said at the meeting, emphasizing that news coverage cannot be all positive or all negative, but also that different readers have relatively different reactions to positive and negative news.

Speaking of which, there’s a story online involving the lost dog (now found) . Editors were thinking, half-jokingly, maybe readers are simply paying more attention to or reading more negative stories. Do readers secretly seek negative news from their newspaper, or do they only expect it? Editors were wondering whether to inject some negativity into this dog story, point out that it ate the missing Sugar Bunny rabbit, or start a BunnyWatch in which we’d be on Day #36.

Thin slices SHAZAM!

• The Tuesday features section footer advertisement really changes the layout options for the page. From the looks of it, the page can get away with less dominant art because of the ad. Not everybody noticed the Dodson’s ad either - as it was a not a flashy design.
• Sandifur, SEC settle (For more: previous coverage for Met Mortgage bankruptcy)
• MRSA report spreads panic
• Door-to-door DANGER: Trick-or-treating can be tricky for children with food allergies
• Then & Now with Doug Long