Ditch Dear Abby?

A caller who didn¹t leave her name on my voice mail asked why we keep moving Dear Abby around in the paper, making the column hard to find. One day it¹s in the local section, she said, and the next day it might be in the sports section.

Why don't you just kill it, she suggested.

Dear Abby remains where she has for years: on the TV page. Our Page One index will always tell you where to find the TV page.

Still, the caller has a point. On one day a week, the TV page moves to a different section. Here's why:

The TV page appears in the Life & Style section Monday through Thursday and Saturday. On Friday, we publish the Out & About entertainment tab instead of a Life & Style section, so the TV page most often had appeared near the back of the Local & State section.

That¹s not always the case these days. The TV page sometimes ends up in the sports/business section.

The reason? In our effort to manage news print, we are less likely now than a year ago to increase the number of pages in the paper.

Stick with me.

Once upon a time, if the Local& State section filled up -- say, we sold more ads than normal, or more obits, leaving insufficient space for local and state news -- we¹d simply add two pages to the section. Because of how our presses run, if you add two pages to Local & State, you have to add two pages to another section. It doesn¹t matter whether you only need one page, you¹d be required to add four.

Today, we are much more likely to move content around to avoid adding pages. That means that on Fridays, we sometimes need to move the TV page -¬ with Abby -¬ to the sports section. Not ideal, but that¹s the way it works.

Again, the best way to find Abby is to look for the TV page listing in the Page One index.

Do newspapers care about old people?

I hoped the headline would catch your attention.


I spent part of last week in Warner Robins interviewing candidates for city council. When asked about their concerns, many of the candidates mentioned quality-of-life issues that affect senior citizens. Lack of transportation was the common theme, but I sensed a larger concern about how seniors fare in our youth-obsessed society. Ok, maybe having just marked another birthday made be particularly sensitive to the comments. The candidate interviews also took place just as I returned from “vacation,” much of it spent trying to figure out how to get good care for an elderly mom who wants to remain in her home, but whose modest income is increasingly used to pay for expensive prescription drugs.

I know I’m walking the path many, many others walk every day, but trying to navigate the maze of Medicare rules, requirements and restrictions has just about gotten the best of me.

Newspapers – and now Web sites - spend a lot of time courting young readers, but many of us do poor job writing about the lives of seniors or the issues that affect them and their caregivers. This is not sexy stuff, but it sure can hit home.

Health care is hardly the only topic pertinent to seniors and their families. What about transportation? How big a problem is it? An assortment of specialized senior housing has cropped up, but how many seniors can afford it? What about other aging issues? What is an 80-year-old’s social life like when her siblings and close friends have all died?

What stories are we not covering that would be of particular interest to older people, their families, friends and service providers?

Business coverage drought?

To “Anonymous,” who asked about the newspaper’s business coverage: The Telegraph has a business reporter in the Macon office, and it has a reporter in the Houston office who covers business and other topics. I wish we had third business reporter, but we work with what we have.

Reporter Linda Morris knows her way around the business community in Macon, but she has to prioritize her time. In Houston County, Wayne Crenshaw writes about growth and other business-related issues, but he also covers government meetings on occasion. Overall, we aim for daily business stories while trying to find time for longer enterprise and trend pieces. Linda is working on such a story now, but she has to work on that story even as she handles daily assignments.

We sometimes pull in other reporters to cover business. For instance, Heather Duncan, who writes about the environment as well as special projects, wrote a package of stories last year about the financial challenges facing the Medical Center of Central Georgia.

If you have a specific story you’d like to see us report, send it my way.



My Apologies

I was on vacation last week. I was out of the office much of this week with the editorial board interviewing political candidates. I should have posted a note that I would be on vacation. I had hoped to blog at least a few times while I was gone. No such luck.

That was last week. I’m back and waiting to hear from you.

Are TV books worth the paper they're printed on?

Increasingly, TV viewers here and elsewhere tell me they don’t use the TV guide provided in their newspaper, mostly because so much information is now accessible from their cable and satellite TV providers. Want to know what’s on at 7? Hit a button on your remote and there you have it on your TV screen.

Newspaper TV guides consume a ton of newsprint. Many newspapers, including The Telegraph, have trimmed back the guides over the years. When we’ve done so, most of us have heard howls of protest. Once upon a time, newspapers had the luxury of providing such guides whether readers used them or not. We are, after all, a mass medium. That luxury no longer exists.

Some folks might argue that if audience interest alone dictates what you put in newspapers, editors might have to eliminate a lot of content. A reasonable argument, but TV listings, like some other types of information – stocks come to mind – are not the kind of content that readers can get only in their local newspaper. A person interested in stock listings, for instance, can have the latest info about the companies he or she tracks delivered via email each day.

What complicates this issue for many editors is that some readers – many of them our older and most loyal customers - are not plugged into the internet. They have no interest in looking to the Web for their information, they’ve told me. They prefer the convenience of sitting with a TV book at their sides as they plan their viewing.

In an ideal world, we’d figure out how to deliver a really good TV book to the folks who want it, and stop delivering it to those who have no interest. The complexities of The Telegraph’s market – the sheer size of our delivery territory – makes that impractical right now, but other papers are trying this, along with other things, such as changing the publication day from Sunday to a day with less circulation, such as Friday.

The Telegraph’s latest change, made a few weeks ago with the introduction of our Leisure section, combines the TV listings with features content, but in such a way that the listings can be pulled out and kept all week long. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the most efficient way we could find for now.

What's with these comments?

The Telegraph allows comments on stories because we believe there are readers who have something to say that others might find enlightening or interesting. We expected some misuse of the comment feature, because editors at other newspapers that allow comments told us as much. The comment function at newspapers has prompted hateful, profane, racist, illogical and off-point posts. People write things to which they won't dare sign their names.

With comments, a newspaper is bound to get the good with the bad. The hope, of course, is that the good will outweigh the bad.

Still I have been disappointed, even discouraged, at the level of discourse in some cases.

A “report a violation” link in the comments section allows readers to alert us to offensive material. But because we don't have the staff to moderate the discussions, we're expecting soon to require registration for those who want to comment. It won't stop all the violations - anonymous commentators can be crafty -- but it should help.

Anonymity has its place. There are many wrongs that wouldn't have come to light without an anonymous tip or unsigned letter. But folks who make personal and often vicious attacks behind the shield of anonymity may need to find another medium through which to express themselves.
Of course, controversial comments will always be allowed. Our goal is not to stop the expression of unpopular views. Some comments will sting, or anger, but they may also prompt positive action or a solution.

The comment function on macon.com is really about creating a space that allows readers to have a conversation, or even a debate, about the people, events and issues we write about, and it’s about providing a forum in which readers can question how we report the news.

Those of you who are offering thoughtful, helpful, and interesting comments, as well as story ideas and even criticism, we hope you will not let your voices be silenced by those seeking to cause a distraction. That would be a sad commentary indeed.