Cougs, Peeps, poles, and what’s coming up

Some angry people contacted editor Steve Smith over the weekend because they didn’t like seeing sports stories on page A1, that such exposure for sports stories takes up space that can otherwise be used for non-sports news.

“College ball is the closest we get to having a team in the Super Bowl,” said assistant city editor Dave Wasson who said it’s perfectly reasonable to have the recent WSU coverage appear on the front page. For more Cougs stories and multimedia, see SportsLink .

The last of the pole-dancing

Smith briefly revisited the pole dancing cover debate

“Gary [Graham, managing editor] and I didn’t get a chance to weigh in” until the last minute, Smith said. He also notes that there are new comments about this debate at News is a Conversation . For future use, Smith asked the production managers about the possibility of publishing two different Spokane7 covers when a similar situation arises - so that there can be one cover for the insert in the Friday newspaper, and “something edgier for the street” free-access 7 racks.

What happens in Idaho…

As interesting a backstory as it is, the Claude Dallas prison break story is “still a lot of fretting about something that doesn’t matter,” Graham said. Also the actual new information in the story didn’t appear in the story until the fourth and fifth paragraphs:

¶ But the legend of his escape – three years into a 22-year prison stay – may be a myth. ¶ Law enforcement investigators now say the official account is probably false.

Jeepers creepers

In other news, “USA Today had a lovely column about Peeps,” said Smith, who also said he’s received a lot of email attachments of marshmallow Peeps pole-dancing. We also discover that photo director Larry Reisnouer’s never really tried Peeps; others added that he isn’t missing much.