On Deadline

2008-12-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

Charlie Albright, the Centralia piano prodigy now studying at Harvard University, accompanied famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma Monday during an honorary degree ceremony for Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Enjoy the music, courtesy of NECN.com.

A few other news items:

* Harvard Crimson article

* Harvard Gazette news item

* Inside Higher Ed article

Weekly column: Outsource This

2008-06-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

My weekly column:

Outsource This: Bombay Is No Boistfort

June 26, 11:06 am

News item -- Several large metro newspapers in California and Florida are outsourcing their copy editing and page design work to India in a bid to save money. New Delhi-based Mindworks Global Media says it provides “high-quality editorial and design services to global media firms ... using top-end journalistic and design talent in India.” The Orange County Register says its local editors would still oversee the process.

What is a Chronicle assistant editor to make of such a story when both the publisher and a reporter mention it on the same day? I know my response: a clear, concise and relevant list of the top 10 reasons why my job should not be outsourced to India. (Publisher Dennis R. Waller, are you reading this?)

10. I know how to spell Newaukum, Olequa and Pe Ell without even THINKING about the need to look them up.

9. I’ve yet to mix up Toledo and Tenino in news copy.

8. I can easily explain to a concerned reader whether Mary McCrank’s or Mary’s Corner is the better option, depending on whether that person is hungry for a home-style meal or just wants to get from Matilda Jackson State Park to the beautiful community of Ethel by the fastest route.

7. Although I’ve never been through a tropical monsoon, I’ll never be able to forget the floods of 1990, 1996, 2006 and 2007.

6. In addition to my skills as a journalist, I can also buck hay. Stack it, too.

5. I don’t discriminate based on color. The Black River and the Clear Fork of the Cowlitz are all just water under the bridge to me.

4. I’ve met all three candidates for Lewis County Commissioner -- Bill Schulte, John Penberth and Lyle Hojem -- and I can assure you that what they lack in youth, they all make up for in experience.

3. In a few weeks, if the deer will just stay away from them for more than a few days in a row, I’ll be able to supply a pint of fresh raspberries to anyone in The Chronicle’s executive offices who needs bribing.

2. I may not know any Hindi, but I can speak a few words of Chinook Jargon. (Skookumchuck means “a rapid” or “strong water,” by the way. As someone who has capsized in a kayak on a Skookumchuck River rapid, I have no official comment.)

And the number one reason my job shouldn’t be sent overseas is ...

1. The travel costs would be outrageous for the publisher to check on whether my replacement had fallen asleep with his head on the keyboard.

...

All joking aside, The Chronicle won’t be outsourcing anything (as far as I know.) Still, these are hard times in the industry. In my last column I asked any and all readers to circle the actual words they read in a week’s worth of Chronicles and drop them by the front office. The exercise will help as we look at ways of telling the stories and presenting the important information of our community in ways that are easily accessible and relevant.

So far the first person to respond to my offer is Ira Graham of Randle, who sent me an A section with plenty of circles and even some commentary. Thanks Mr. Graham. I’m still awaiting papers from the rest of you.

...

Parade season has begun in earnest. Last week the Vikings took Rochester by storm, and this weekend marks Egg Days in Winlock. At 11 a.m. Saturday the annual Egg Day Parade will march past the proud chicken statues and the famous egg in Vern Zander Park.

We can expect plenty of people to throw candy from floats. Considering the theme, does anyone throw hard-boiled eggs?

...

For those who like their poultry in a more competitive form, this Sunday is the annual chicken race in Independence, the valley community south of Rochester. The race is open to hens only, although organizers of the race didn’t say why. One can only presume that roosters would be just a bit too competitive and combative, although it’s possible that the hens, after generations of being chased around the barnyard by the aforementioned roosters, are just plain faster.

...

Brian Mittge, assistant editor of The Chronicle, welcomes comments and news tips via bmittge@chronline.com or 360-807-8234.

Hot Enough to Fry an Egg?

2008-06-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

I'm awaiting a fax from a member of the Egg Day organizing committee with a list of events for this weekend's big festivities in Winlock. We'll be running a calendar of events for all our big summer festivals this year -- expect to see them in Thursday's A&E section in most cases, although some, such as Egg Days, will run along with a special feature about the town or its festival.

The weather should be good for the 11 a.m. Saturday parade this year, perhaps with temperatures approaching the 90s, so keep your little hatchlings away from hot sidewalks.

News Tribune Editor Promises "Reset" in Wake of Cuts

2008-06-23T06:38:00.001-07:00

David Zeeck, the widely respected executive editor of The News Tribune in Tacoma, posted an editorial Sunday discussing how the newsroom has reacted to last week's news of 8 percent cuts. It's a good read about how a strong newsroom is dealing with the shock of losing longtime colleagues due to changing market conditions.

As the week wore on, you could hear conversations begin about how the work will be different – how each of us who remains will have to shoulder a slightly bigger load to fill in the gaps left by the departures.
We’ve already done some of that work. Beginning in January we started a process we call “reset” (as in pushing the reset button on your computer) to rethink how we cover the news as the Web grows ever more important (it now accounts for more than 10 percent of our revenues with more than 857,000 unique visitors to our site in May) and as the staff shrinks slightly.

He compares the dismay to radioactive half-life — each day the pain was only half as strong, but likely to never be the same.

Zeeck ends with a quote from Mark Twain (a former newsman) about the ongoing need for journalism, no matter how bad the economy might get:

“I figure even the people in the north of hell will be curious about what the people in South Hell have been up to.”

Touring the World's Front Pages

2008-06-19T03:57:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite sites on the Wide World of the Web is the collection of the day's front pages at Newseum (note that some international papers print pinup-type photos you might not want your kids to see; viewer discretion is advised.) It's fascinating to see how papers around the USA and the planet play the same news events. Most exercise similar news judgement (although some, like The Chronicle, usually go all local on the front page).

Some papers are trying to shake up the moribund newspaper industry by trying out wild new front page designs. Check out a few:

That list comes courtesy of legendary newspaper designer Tim Harrower, who spoke at a small journalism convention in Seattle this week. Chronicle Executive Editor Michael Wagar and I attended. Read more about what we learned in my column today.

Longtime Chronicle Columnist Jim Shouse Passes

2008-05-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Shouse and his wife, Naomi, at their elegant Chehalis home. The idea was that I would put together a story about how Jim was facing his final days, after learning that he had an incurable combination of lung and heart problems.

Unfortunately, daily duties as editor intervened and I wasn't able to finish my reporting and write the story. I learned a few hours ago that Jim's condition had rapidly worsened over the weekend. He died Monday morning.

Jim, who started at The Chronicle two years after I was born, left his mark on the newspaper and the community. He was known as a cordial southern gentleman, and even when I tangled with him as his editor over the past nine months, he was unfailingly friendly the next time I called him.

Shouse was perhaps best known in the community for his weekly column, Sidebars, which was known for its conversational style. He enjoyed mentioning by name the people he met during the week, and he liked to end with a joke he called his "column closer."

With that in mind, I can't forget the last thing he said to me after he walked me to the door following my interview with him. He had asked if anyone had missed his column since his illness forced him to stop writing a few months ago. I told him I had gotten a few calls.

This longtime newsman, who was facing a certain death sentence, flashed me a big smile and said in his gentle southern drawl, "They'll have to continue missing it."

The Royal Candidates Keep Coming

2008-04-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

One day after I wrote my weekly column about a charming raffle ticket saleswoman at Fuller’s, I’ve just met my second royal contender of the week.

This is a rare Friday when I’m home with my family (it’s a sick day). As my kids were taking a nap a few minutes ago, my wife and I heard a sharp knock at the door of our rural Napavine home. I opened it to see a smiling teenaged girl offering raffle tickets in her attempt to be named Princess Napawinah.

“Did you drive yourself?” I ask, and peer down the porch. Well, she came under her own power, at least -- via mountain bike.

We dug out a dollar and purchased a button from young Miss Courtney Lawler. She climbed back on her bike and pedaled down the road to sell more tickets.

I’m impressed with the kind of industriousness I see in these queen and princess candidates. My congratulations to the parents of these fine young women, and my best wishes to the girls themselves. I hope they can achieve their royal hopes. Even if they fall short in the button sales, I know that people who are willing to work hard enough to pursue this kind of dream will find success in the years to come in whatever endeavors they pursue.

And for me, I already know my next endeavor: finding a place on my lapel for all the buttons I’ll be buying over the next few weeks as our summer lineup of festivals comes closer.

Coming Soon to Your Chronicle ... Mark Twain!

2008-03-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

Today I had the pleasure of visiting the Edison District home of a true Lewis County original -- Bill Moeller, who will make his debut on The Chronicle's editorial page Wednesday as our new columnist. Moeller's resume is as unexpectedly diverse as it is impressive.

The 79-year-old is a youngster of the Depression era. He was a paratrooper during the Korean War era, a radio station owner in Wenatchee, a Curtis Hill farm owner outside Adna, a Mark Twain impersonator, a longtime Twin Cities radio newsman, a Centralia mayor and city councilman, a bookstore owner, a pilot and boatbuilder, and now a newspaper columnist.

Moeller has bright eyes and a deep affection for our local community. He's a writer, actor, director, book lover (his e-mail moniker is "bookmaven"), wedding officiant and musician. Today, at my request, he performed "Ain't She Sweet" for me on his ukulele and "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" on his chromatic harmonica.

In short, Moeller has a lot to say after a full life that has included some of Centralia and Lewis County's more memorable moments. He's excited to begin his time as a columnist, but not nearly as excited as we are to have him. After all, what newspaper editor wouldn't want Mark Twain writing for him?

Got thoughts on columnist Bill Moeller? Drop me an e-mail at bmittge@chronline.com.

Hit Piece Reflects Back Poorly on State Dems

2008-03-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

Journalists love to report the news, but as a nearly universal rule, hate to be part of it. We depend on our credibility and independence, which is more difficult to maintain when we are, for whatever reason, part of the news story. Sometimes such involvement is impossible to avoid, as when The Chronicle wrote a story about our new book on the Flood of 2007. I made sure, however, that the story and photo package was no bigger (in fact, it ran smaller) than a story last year about the new local history book, “The Land Called Lewis.”

So, with as hard as we try to be fair when our own newspaper is involved, imagine our surprise and dismay to see that the state Democratic party used material from The Chronicle and chronline.com in a hit piece against gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. The ad, posted to YouTube Thursday afternoon, is in many ways a typical political smear ad, with the spooky music and the gritty black-and-white photos of the candidate being attacked.

We were unhappy that our video was used without our permission for a political hit piece and dismayed that the quotes were taken out of context. I personally was even more angry that the Democrats fabricated a Chronicle front page from whole cloth, taking the front page from Feb 23, erasing the real top story (about a conviction in a gruesome murder case) and creating a fake headline based on Rossi’s Jan. 31 editorial, which ran on page 6.

I mean, that’s the kind of slipshod behavior that got Michael Moore in such trouble with his film Fahrenheit 9-11, when he created a composite front page to drum up outrage over the Bush-Gore election fiasco.

We pulled together a real front-page story today disclosing that the Democrats had created the ad without our cooperation or permission, and quoting the Democratic press agent and a representative of Dino Rossi’s campaign. The Democratic party claims fair use of our copyrighted video; they didn’t have much to say on the record about faking our front page. I’ll go on the record saying it’s not a great way to establish credibility as you try to denigrate a political foe.

For the record, I would say the same thing if it were Republicans using our material to pull a hatchet job on Gregoire or any other Democrat. Taking quotes out of context by stealing video from a news source without permission, then creating a "front page" from whole cloth is not something a newspaper can abide, no matter who is doing the snatching and who is the intended victim.

I suppose I’m flattered the Democrats (who on a local level keep a suspicious eye on the paper and its editorial board with their “Chronicle Watch”) found enough credibility in our newspaper to try to hijack our good name. It's not surprising that political parties can't be trusted to tell the truth about their opponents. It's just disappointing when the journalistic endeavor of trying to tell the truth as fairly as possible through news stories and video is appropriated by political hacks hoping to score a few points.

Calling All Candidates

2008-02-07T03:59:00.000-08:00

The addled knight Don Quixote got his kicks by tilting at windmills. I'm engaged in a similar pursuit -- beckoning presidential candidates to Lewis County.

I don't expect to have much success, but I've issued personal requests to all six prominent candidates in both parties (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Ron Paul) to come say hi to the voters in Southwest Washington. I'll admit to using a bit of a blanket approach, sending each candidate a similar stock e-mail. Hillary's was a bit personalized, since she has been to Centralia before. Here's the e-mail I sent to her campaign the day after "Super Tuesday."

From: bmittge@chronline.com

Subject: Candidate visit to Lewis County, Washington?

Date: February 6, 2008 10:46:51 AM PST

To: press@hillaryclinton.com

Does Hillary plan to visit Lewis County, Washington before our Saturday caucus or Feb. 19 primary? She has already visited Centralia, Washington once before, on a stop in 1996 with the president, vice president and Tipper Gore. Our city is about to install a monument to that visit -- wouldn't it be great if Hillary came to help prepare the monument?

I don't expect a reply. In fact, I haven't received a reply from any of the candidates, even those, like Ron Paul and John McCain, who would only take media requests via an obnoxious form. I don't expect my e-mail was read by more than a single low-level staffer, if even that, but you would expect that any decent campaign operation would immediately send automated replies to potential supporters -- or anyone who expressed interest, for that matter.

Well, at this point both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have announced visits to Seattle. Hillary is talking about a swing down to Tacoma. Maybe the lure of a monument to her past prominence will help bring her a bit farther south. If so, I'm taking a bit of the credit -- and the blame.

A Flood of Words, and a Few Tears

2008-01-30T04:50:00.000-08:00

It's 4:51 a.m., and I've finally finished editing the 2,053 inches of copy for the book our newsroom is putting together about the December floods. Now I'll pass on those stories -- slightly revised versions of the best of our coverage from Dec. 3 to Dec. 24, 2007 -- to Copy Desk Chief Sheyna Watkins, who has already begun putting together the 160-page, full-color book. We send it off the printers on Feb. 13, and it should be back and ready for buyers to pick up by early March.

Rereading these stories has been like a return to that crazy month for me. My family did not suffer any damage from the flood, except the loss of my presence for the better part of December. In fact, I'm still largely absent, with all the time this project has taken.

The final story in the book ran with the headline, "Christmas, Not Forgotten," from Dec. 24. Reporter Eric Schwartz and Photo Editor Mike Salsbury created a package that clearly displayed the enormous task facing the Boistfort Valley in general and the Dykstra family in particular. What shone through in the story is the resiliency and optimism, tempered with experience and pragmatism, that the Dykstras and their neighbors are bringing to this overwhelming recovery effort.

The family lost their entire herd, including cows with a bloodline dating back to Pete Dykstra's grandfather. Here's a bit of Schwartz's story:

Life will go on for the Dykstras, but first they will have to pick up the pieces of a dairy farm operation that has been all but destroyed. Cindy Dykstra said that aside from the obvious pains brought on by the loss of the herd, they will also have to repair and replace the barn where the cows were held and the milking stalls.

However, like many other Boistfort Valley residents, the Dykstras will likely receive a lot of help. Already, Pete Dykstra said, church groups and complete strangers have stopped at his farm to offer a helping hand. They, in addition to the more than 35 friends and family members who have frequented the property in recent weeks, have helped accelerate the rebuilding process.

...

But it will be at least six months before Pete Dykstra will be able to resume his milking operation. Still, help is coming in that regard as well. The International Dairy Federation, of which he is a member, has already sprung into action with offers of free cows pouring in from California to Canada and throughout Montana.

Sandy Tibeau graduated with Pete Dykstra from Auburn High School in 1961. She is one of about a half-dozen members of that graduating class to travel to the Dykstra farm to assist with rebuilding.

Tibeau explained that the loss of the cows was probably the hardest thing for Pete Dykstra to face.

“For him, those cows were a life’s work,” she said. “He bred the same bloodline as the cows his father and grandfather bred before him.”

In a serendipitous twist, Pete Dykstra said he will still have two of the cows from the same lineage of his family’s herd. That’s because in the late 1970s, a fellow member of the IDF lost his entire herd in a flood. In the spirit of helping a fellow farmer, Pete Dykstra sent over some of his own herd to help out.

Now, with the Dykstras falling on hard times, that farmer is sending back two of the cows that descended from his father’s herd.

“I lost bloodlines that go back to original herds,” he said. “It’s nice to think a couple of them are coming back.”

Combine that with the tale of how the family took the time to set up their annual Christmas creche on the porch of the flood-ravaged home, and it was just a little too much for this grizzled young editor. It might sound corny, but I was actually wiping away tears as I finished editing that story. It's a testament to the good heart of people like the Dykstras, and the fine journalism of people like Eric and Mike, that ink on a page (or in this case, pixels on a screen) can take me straight into the mud and grime of the Boistfort Valley.

Our book will be a tribute to the flood survivors. It will present in a new way The Chronicle's deadline reporting, which I believe captured much of the gritty reality of life during and just after the floods. The intensity of that effort has faded, leaving behind a still overwhelming task of cleanup and rebuilding. Our book will capture a moment in time, but our newsroom is still engaged with all the stories to be told about this flood, its survivors, and what we in the Chehalis Basin will do now.

There is still much to do, and much for our newsroom to explore and detail. Rest assured that our journalists will continue to cover this event as our community moves forward through this battlefield of rebuilding and toward a time, years from now, when we can take the flood book off the shelf and realize that the deluge of 2007 is just a part of our common history as citizens of Lewis County and no longer a daily grind.

E-mail Down, Dander Up

2008-01-18T12:10:00.000-08:00

Essential tools of the trade these days for journalist include:

* Little notepad and a pen that works

* Computer for lap or desk

* E-mail

* Phones, wired or otherwise

Since around 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon, The Chronicle newsroom has been limping along on three legs. Our e-mail has been down after our service provider, Rainier Connect, made changes to their server. We were told that e-mail would be down for an hour and a half -- and that was 21 hours ago.

I'm frustrated and disgusted, but there's not much our techies can do until the Internet service provider makes the changes on its end.

For now, I think that means all e-mails sent to us are bouncing back as undeliverable. If you want to send information to the newsroom, and it's not going through, please keep trying. Eventually our e-mail will return, and we'll get your information out to the community.

And if you're connected with Rainier Connect and you're reading this, please get things going here. I'll send you an e-mail of thanks, once I can.

Digging Down Into Army Corps of Engineers Flood Plan

2008-01-17T10:58:00.000-08:00

As I report in my column today, reporter Dan Schreiber and I spent much of Wednesday at the Army Corps of Engineers office in South Seattle digging into the details of the 2003 and 2004 Centralia Flood Damage Reduction Project. That plan, created based on the 1996 flood, is being resurrected now that the December 2007 flood has brought the issue back to center stage in the halls of Olympia and even Washington, D.C.

The plan itself is contained in three large three-ring binders. The supporting documents wouldn’t fit in my car if we tried to haul them home, the Corps project manager said with a laugh.

If you want to learn more about the project, the Corps has some information on its Web site.

The Chronicle will continue to aggressively follow this plan as it is debated locally, in Olympia and in Congress. I’d love to hear your thoughts — click on the “comments” link below to start a discussion here about flood damage reduction.

Coverage of Flood Hearing in Olympia

2008-01-10T21:34:00.001-08:00

Our politics reporter, Dan Schreiber, spent much of the day in Olympia, covering a Senate Natural Resources, Ocean and Recreation Committee hearing about the causes of the Dec. 3 flooding of West Lewis County. He'll have a full report in Friday's newspaper and online.

The hearing is described as: Public comment on the relationship between forest practices, flood events, and climate change.

Here's a link to the TVW coverage of the hearing, which begins with Lewis County Commissioner Ron Averill showing what he said were 130 photographs of flooding and damage, and includes testimony by other citizens and official types.

Flooding and lawmakers, in their own words

2008-01-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

My column today looks into the different perspectives offered by lawmakers and citizens about the causes of the Dec. 3 flood. My notepad didn't serve me adequately as I tried to convey the quotes from lawmakers in Tuesday's Associated Press legislative preview, so I spent some time perusing the TVW video of the event.

If you want to see the lawmakers answer my questions to them about flooding, you can watch the videos yourself. You'll need to jump forward to the middle of the tape, unless you find an hour of legislative discussion interesting (I do, but I'm willing to concede that I'm not really typical of most citizens.)

First, the leaders of the two caucuses in the House and Senate (with a Republican standing in the for the Senate minority leader) chat about flooding here. My question and their response come at 43 minutes, 30 seconds.

The Senate Transportation Committee, including our own Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, discusses Interstate 5 and flooding here. The discussion on statewide transportation issues was a little more than an hour long; you can move forward to 1 hour, 2 minutes to see my question and the detailed responses from Swecker and his Democratic colleague, Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen.

Eye on the Legislature

2008-01-09T15:11:00.002-08:00

As Chronicle politics reporter Dan Schreiber reported today, our local legislators hope to hit the flooding issue hard during the 2008 Legislative session, which starts Monday.

Dan and I attended the annual Associated Press Legislative Preview in the Cherberg Office building Tuesday, directly across the parking lot from the marble dome of the capitol building.

Lewis and South Thurston counties were well represented in the eight legislators who spoke Tuesday morning. Rep. Richard DeBolt, a Chehalis Republican, is House Minority Leader and spoke in a panel discussion with the heads of the Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate, and a stand-in for the Senate (minority) Republican leader.

Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, is the ranking (minority) Republican on the Senate Transportation Committee, and spoke with his majority and minority counterparts in both houses.

I’ll write more about the day in my weekly column in tomorrow’s Chronicle, but I have to share one photograph by the Associated Press that proves I was in attendance. The photo, by AP photographer Ted Warren, shows the crowd of editors and reporters listening, recording and photographing Gregoire. Waaaaaay in the back, taking notes, stands the assistant editor of The Chronicle.

My dad says 90 percent of success in life is just showing up. Well, the AP can document that level of success for me for on one day this week, at least.

Entry to the blogosphere

2008-01-08T20:45:00.001-08:00

And so it begins: The Chronicle's assistant editor inaugurates a blog. I see this online conversation as a way to explain decisions we make in the newsroom and help readers understand what goes into the print and online Chronicle.

I invite your participation and look forward to what this "On Deadline" blog becomes.

See you in the (online) funny papers.