DISQUS

The article was written by Ann McFeatters, whose column ordinarily appears on the Monday Opinion page. Unfortunately, the wrong name and photo was attached to the story during the production process. A correction is planned for Tuesday's paper.

Nick Pappas
Editorial Page Editor

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who took the time to share their thoughts about publishing a sampling of online comments in the Saturday paper. As you may have noticed, we gave it a name last week ("You Said It") and plan to run it on a weekly basis in that slot, at least for the near future. So thanks again for all your comments -- even if you didn't agree with the concept.

Nick Pappas
Editorial Page Editor

Bob:

You are quite correct. I was working off one of my old election assignment sheets, which included just a few of our local communities. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. I inserted the full list a few minutes ago.

Nick Pappas
Editorial Page Editor

Just for the record, in addition to mentioning the hearing in the Monday meeting list (Page 16) as noted by justtalk below, City Hall reporter Patrick Meighan wrote an advance story on the hearing that appeared as the lead story in the Nashua & Region section of The Sunday Telegraph (Page B-1).

Nick Pappas
Editorial Page Editor

Hi, Sally:

There really is no confirmation form that I can send you. As I tried to indicate in my phone message to you, the only way to join is by going to the ran.nashuatelegraph.com site and filling out the form again. My apologies for the inconvenience of having to do it a second time. I'll keep an eye out for it on my end. Good luck and thank you for your interest in joining our group.

Good morning, Bart:

There may have been a temporary glitch along the way, but it appears you should be all set. According to our Web stats, only two messages have gone out to you since you signed up. And thank you for responding to last night's RAN query.

As for the headline, you are quite correct. We fixed it online at about 6 a.m. and will publish a correction in tomorrow's paper.

southnh:

The partial quote "has some ground to make up" came from the front-page story we published Tuesday (Feb. 12) under the headline "Administrators explain request for new jobs." Here is the full paragraph that appeared in Tuesday's paper:

This year's budget was only a 2.3 percent increase over the previous year. But when making his presentation to school board members last week, Hottel said the district "has some ground to make up."

Nick Pappas
Editorial Page Editor

Georgi:

Telly Savalas or Michael Chiklis? I'd settle for being confused with George Stephanopoulos. (No offense, George.) At least we're around the same height ... :)

Paul:

Thanks for the reminder about Sam Huff, who I seem to remember critics referring to as the most overrated linebacker in football at that time. (A New York media creation, if I remember correctly.) I also received a telephone message earlier today from a gentleman who said he enjoyed the column and wanted to know if I remembered Allie Sherman being serenaded to "Goodbye Allie ..." before the Giants finally cut him loose. Of course, I do.

matt
Thank you for pointing out what should have been an obvious error. It is in the process of being corrected online, and a correction will appear in tomorrow's paper.

Nick Pappas
Editorial Page Editor

Please check out Sunday's op-ed page to find out where Gary Vincent, our independent reader advocate, comes down on this particular issue -- as well as several others raised by our readers. In the meantime, thanks to all of you for taking the time to respond to my query.

Michael:

My use of the restaurant/car analogy was limited only to this discussion about the selection of a comic strip.

Hi, Michael:

First things first: Let me set the record straight on the 2005 reader comics poll you referred to as it relates to Doonesbury based on the June 5 column by Sunday/Features Editor Marty Karlon.

-- Doonesbury finished No. 28 of the 33 comics in the poll.

-- The only comics that finished lower were "Tank McNamara," "Boondocks," Six Chix," "Marmaduke" and "Cathy."

-- The reason "Doonesbury" was kept was NOT because we're a bunch of "liberal weenies," but rather because of the strong "love/hate" relationship readers have with this comic.

As Marty said in the column:

"The answer to the second question isn't that we're a bunch of liberal weenies. Really. The actual reason is that 'Doonesbury' is one of our few 'love-hate' comics. Unlike most of the comics in the poll, which display a steady progression between 'always read' and 'never read,' 'Doonesbury' had a high number of 'always read' votes – 110 – as well as a lot of 'never read' votes – 149. ('Six Chix,' for example, had only 67 always and 134 nevers."

Now, that said, you make a reasonable point. Ultimately, the editor is always responsble for what runs and what doesn't run in the newspaper on any given day.

But that doesn't mean we have to make decisions in a total vacuum. Besides, we're talking about comic strips here, and I can assure you there is nothing I have learned in this business in the past three decades that makes me any more qualified to pick a funny strip than you.

(Remember: I'm the genius who thought nobody read Dr. Gott.)

So while I appreciate your sentiments -- and the restaurant analogy -- I don't see anything wrong with asking our readers to state their preferences on the addition of a new strip.

As for me, not only am I not going to pick the restaurant, I'm not even going to drive the car.

Nick

Thank you for your kind words, Noah. It's nice to know our efforts aren't only recognized by newspaper award judges, but by people in the communities we serve.

You're absolutely right, Bob. The Internet has made it so much easier for our former subscribers to keep up with what's happening in their community after they've moved away. I remember when I first started working here at the Telegraph 17 years ago talking to former residents about how the mailed newspapers would show up down in Florida, for example: none one day, two the next, none for a few more days, then a couple more ... Thanks for using our Web site to keep in touch.

John:

My apologies if the instructions weren't as clear as I intended. If you follow the "here" link in the last sentence of the blog, it will bring you to the "Issue Positions" page of Project Vote Smart with links to "Congress," "Governor" and "State Offices" in New Hampshire. For example, if you follow the link to "Governor" and then click on "John Lynch," it will bring you to his actual responses to each question. Again, sorry if that wasn't clear.

Patriotboy:

I'm not sure whether this will answer your question, but here is a link to the editorial we ran Monday on the U.S. House of Representatives' handling of the whole affair:

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/...30148/-1/opinion

Kirby:

You've drawn up an interesting hypothetical that lays out the inherent conflict between publisher and editor -- whether here at The Telegraph or at any other newspaper in the country. Still, having worked with Terry for nearly 25 years -- first at The Sun of Lowell, Mass., and then here -- I can assure you that's not something that keeps me awake nights. Terry started his career as a reporter, and his route to the publisher's office went directly through the newsroom. As such, he has a first-hand understanding of the invisible barrier that separates the publisher's office from the newsroom. In other words, based on our history together, the next time Terry exerts influence to spike a news story will be the first time. Hope this helps to put your mind at ease.

Kirby:

Two interesting points.

1. I'm reluctant to quibble too much with your reasoning on the TV poll, given that there seems to be a backhanded compliment in there for us somewhere. Maybe it is somewhat of a "high-tech Internet facile novelty," but it does seem to be pretty harmless, given the small amount of space dedicated to it and where it was played in the paper.

Had it been played prominently on Page 1 under a big headline, I would tend to agree with you. Some items in a newspaper are "newsworthy" and some are merely "noteworthy." I'd place this one in the latter category, figuring there may have been some readers upset/intrigued/amused that a Tulsa TV station was conducting such a survey in the first place.

2. The purpose of the guest editorial is twofold: to indeed give our readers a look at what other papers are saying and to give Claudette Durocher, our editorial page editor and primary editorial writer, a chance to recharge her batteries. In a typical week, five editorials will be written by Claudette, one will be written by another member of the editorial board (four of us contribute on a rotating basis), and we run the guest editorial on the seventh day, usually Saturday. I'm not aware of how many other papers publish guest editorials. A quick Google search found that The Naples Daily News of Naples, Fla., does, so at the very least we aren't the only paper to do so. I'd be interested to hear how other readers feel about the guest editorial.

Judy:

I fear that would be a pretty costly proposition for us, given the price of newsprint these days, but I would agree that there would be some interest in a print version of this list, at least in Nashua. Please give me a chance to research what would be involved in publishing such a list.

Barry:

I'm really sorry to hear we weren't able to live up to your expectations today. As you know, newspaper Web sites across the country have wrestled with the registration issue for some time and will continue to do so into the future. In the meantime, however, given our extremely strong Web traffic today and the fact that more than five times as many people registered than on a typical day, I'm encouraged by the response to our breaking news coverage today. The fact that you weren't one of them is disappointing, but I respect your decision.

Thank you, BAK, for your warm welcome. I'm not nearly ready to concede that we're in a "death spin" here, but certainly the challenges have never been greater for us and the newspaper industry in general. Reminds me of one of my all-time favorite lines in "Apollo 13" when Mission Control Director Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) responds to a suggestion that this could be NASA's worst disaster: "With all due respect, sir, I believe this will be our finest hour." I'm with him.

Thank you, George. Here's hoping you're not disappointed.

Nick

Kirby:

Thank you for your kind words as they relate to the use of Google alerts to break the Julia Earl story.

As you can imagine, Google is seen as both a blessing and a curse to the newspaper industry: on the one hand directing people to our Web sites, while on the other competing for the valuable time of our all-important readers.

Still, Google and other search engines can be valuable tools in keeping us informed about people, institutions or topics of interest in the news.

In this case, though, it sounds like I'm preaching to the choir.

Thanks again,

Nick