Editors’ picks, and a couple of thin slices

• Spokane schools challenged over girls’ police interrogation should bring lots of letters to the editor, and talk on the blogs.
• Ethics board drops Ahern complaint : Teen’s father called legislator verbally abusive (this story has a few related documents), and some more stories by the same staff writer Richard Roesler:
• Officials, business leaders urge hospital buyout
• Alaska governor Palin due in May . For a long time, nobody could tell she’s pregnant.
• And a familiar name, Julianne Crane, back as a correspondent here at this story, for one: La Liberte back to volunteering .

The Doug is up, up, and away

Maybe there should have been an Istanbul dateline on Doug Clark’s column today , editors said.

But senior editor Carla Savalli brought up another innovation: “Do we really believe he’s there? Have we seen photographic evidence?” Clark has called the newsroom, and word is his voice comes through very clear, as if he were not overseas at all.

Clark brought a global phone with him to Turkey, where newsroom folks can call him using a local number.

Multimedia update

New video player has been launched (Find an example here: ” Dressing Up The Old Lady ” is a video look at a historic building now used for a court reporting business)

It looks like the top image, with buttons for PLAY, LARGER (full-screen), and MENU. The menu button takes you to a slide that displays the eight most recent Spokesman-Review videos in the system.

Ideas on the someday/development list: Functions that would allow a viewer to email a video to a friend or embed a video into his or her blog.

Coming up

According to a news trip from the hot dog vendor by Bank of America, they will have a bit of a remodel. No word yet on where, if applicable, the hot dog guy will be moving.

Also on the agenda is an interesting twist in the Helm case, an update on the YMCA/YWCA construction, and one top secret story that promises to be very good.