SLED investigating Union County finances;
human resources director retires
3/19/10
Herald-Journal
By Jason Spencer
Union County's human resources director retired last week amid a State Law Enforcement Division investigation into financial irregularities in the county government.

Vicki Nash, a longtime county employee, was at first suspended pending the outcome of the SLED review, but subsequently decided to retire effective March 10. There is no indication Nash has been accused of any wrongdoing.

Her exit is the latest fallout of a public corruption investigation that led to the termination of, among others, former County Supervisor Donnie Betenbaugh.

According to court papers filed last year, Betenbaugh “fostered and encouraged a culture in which there were few concrete ethical rules governing the conduct of county employees.” In that culture, employees used county credit cards to buy personal items, and they were supposed to reimburse the government on an “honor” system.

Betenbaugh stopped the practice after learning he was being investigated by state and federal officers, his indictment states.

Gov. Mark Sanford has since appointed Tommy Sinclair to fill the remainder of Betenbaugh's term. Under Union County's form of government, the county supervisor is an elected position and the county's full-time, paid chief executive officer.

Sinclair issued two statements this week, and would comment little beyond those. He said he hoped the situation was cleared up by today.

Sinclair states he became aware of the credit card situation in late January. He states, among growing concerns, that he took over the management of most cards, and issued “strict guidelines” for use of the others — including that they couldn't be used for personal expenses. He also states he is working with the credit card company to cancel the cards, reissue some, and implement more control measures.

“I have talked with enough employees that I am persuaded and convinced that the honor system was somewhat common practice with some employees and in at least one case the spouse of an employee,” Sinclair stated. “I am told by those employees that it was verbally authorized by the previous supervisor.”

Sinclair and local law enforcement worked to verify the honor system payments, but some of the receipt books that would account for that information “could not be found and was declared lost some months ago.”

The supervisor stated he consulted with Sheriff David Taylor and Union Police Chief Sam White about how to proceed, and that it was decided to ask for a SLED review.

Sinclair originally withheld Nash's name, even though it was recently removed from the county government's Web site. Late Thursday, in a phone interview, he did confirm that she was the employee in question.

SLED spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons would not return phone calls Tuesday, but sent this statement via e-mail: “SLED is currently looking into allegations of accounting irregularities at the Union (County) Supervisor's Office. Due to the on-going investigation it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

Sinclair, in his statements, added that “I continually find accounting practices that cause me concern” — and the most recent was Sunday.

Sinclair, citing legal advice, would not release Nash's retirement letter.
S.C. Press Association attorney Jay Bender said that such letters are public record.

State of the News Media 2010
3/18/10
Project for Excellence in Journalism
What now?

Inside news companies, the most immediate concern is how much revenue lost in the recession the industry will regain as the economy improves.

Whatever the answers, the future of news ultimately rests on more long-term concerns: What are the prospects for alternative journalism organizations that are forming around the country? Will traditional media adapt and innovate amid continuing pressures to thin their ranks?

And with growing evidence that conventional advertising online will never sustain the industry, what progress is being made to find new revenue for financing the gathering and reporting of news?

The numbers for 2009 reveal just how urgent these questions are becoming.

Newspapers, including online, saw ad revenue fall 26% during the year, which brings the total loss over the last three years to 43%.

Local television ad revenue fell 22% in 2009; triple the decline the year before. Radio also was off 22%. Magazine ad revenue dropped 17%, network TV 8% (and news alone probably more). Online ad revenue overall fell about 5%, and revenue to news sites most likely also fared much worse.

Only cable news among the commercial news sectors did not suffer declining revenue last year.

The estimates for what happens after the economy rebounds vary and even then are only guesses. The market research and investment banking firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson projects that by 2013, after the economic recovery, three elements of old media -- newspapers, radio and magazines -- will take in 41% less in ad revenues than they did in 2006.

(Who owns the news media? View an interactive database of companies that own news properties in the United States at journalism.org.)

For newspapers, which still provide the largest share of reportorial journalism in the United States, the metaphor that comes to mind is sand in an hourglass. The shrinking money left in print, which still provides 90% of the industry's funds, is the amount of time left to invent new revenue models online. The industry must find a new model before that money runs out.

The losses are already enormous. To quantify the impact, with colleague Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute, we estimate that the newspaper industry has lost $1.6 billion in annual reporting and editing capacity since 2000, or roughly 30%. That leaves an estimated $4.4 billion remaining. Even if the economy improves we predict more cuts in 2010.

Network news division resources are likely down from their peak in the late 1980s by more than half -- which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars -- and new rounds of cuts came in the last 12 months. Local television is harder to gauge, but one estimate puts the losses in the last two years at over 1,600 jobs, or roughly 6%. Staffing at the news magazines Time and Newsweek since 1983 is down by 47%.

So what about the new media experiments growing around the country? There are certainly exciting things happening, from former journalists creating specialty news sites and community sites, to citizens covering neighborhoods, local blogs and social media.

In 2009, Twitter and other social media emerged as powerful tools for disseminating information and mobilizing citizens for purposes such as evading the censors in Iran and communicating from the earthquake disaster zone in Haiti. The majority of internet users (59%) now use some kind of social media, including Twitter, blogging and networking sites, according to a new PEJ/Pew Internet & American Life survey.

Citizen journalism at the local level is expanding rapidly and brimming with innovation. This year's report includes a new study of 60 of the most highly regarded sites. The prospects for assembling sufficient economies of scale, audience and authority may be most promising at specialized national and international sites -- efforts like ProPublica, Kaiser Health News and Global Post.

For all the invention and energy, however, the scale of these new efforts still amounts to a small fraction of what has been lost. While not all of the blogs and citizen efforts can be quantified, J-Lab, a project led by Jan Schaffer that studies new media, estimates that roughly $141 million of nonprofit money has flowed into new media efforts over the last four years (not including public broadcasting). That is less than one-tenth of the losses in newspaper resources alone.

Michael Schudson, the sociologist of journalism at Columbia University, sees the promise of "a better array of public informational resources emerging." This new ecosystem will include different "styles" of journalism, a mix of professional and amateur approaches and different economic models -- commercial, nonprofit, public and "university-fueled."

Clay Shirky of New York University has suggested that the loss of news people is a predictable and perhaps temporary gap in the process of creative destruction. "The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place," he has written.

There is something important in these notions. As Schudson notes, the news industry became more professional, skeptical and ethical beginning in the 1960s. Many journalists think that sense of public good has been overtaken by a focus on efficiency and profit since the 1990s. However, some of the new initiatives have re-invigorated the journalism mission of public interest and have helped to connect people within the community more.

(Explore and answer questions about media coverage in 2009 with PEJ's News Interactive at journalism.org. The data are based on more than 68,700 stories analyzed in PEJ's News Coverage Index for the year.)

Yet the energy and promise here cannot escape the question of resources. Unless some system of financing the production of content is developed, it is difficult to see how reportorial journalism will not continue to shrink, regardless of the potential tools offered by technology.

And as we enter 2010 there is little evidence that journalism online has found a sustaining revenue model. A new survey on online economics, released in this report for the first time, finds that 79% of online news consumers say they rarely if ever have clicked on an online ad.

There was certainly more talk of alternative approaches to advertising in the last year.

Entrepreneur Steve Brill and others launched JournalismOnline.com, which offers news sites a mechanism for charging, but at this point it is more a possibility than a business reality. Rupert Murdoch announced discussions with Microsoft about higher payments for searching his content and insisted that everything his company produces would go behind pay walls. Columbia University produced a report that explored nonprofit and public funding sourcing and assessed the state of start up new media.

The New York Times announced it was giving itself a year to figure out a way to charge for content to "get it really really right." And more new media startups were planned, a growing sign that as old media continues to shrink, the ecosystem is changing and some things are growing.

But if a new model is to be found it is hardly clear what it will be. Our survey, produced with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, finds that only about a third of Americans (35%) have a news destination online they would call a "favorite," and even among these users only 19% said they would continue to visit if that site put up a pay-wall.

In the meantime, perhaps one concept identifies most clearly what is going on in journalism: Most news organizations -- new or old -- are becoming niche operations, more specific in focus, brand and appeal and narrower, necessarily, in ambition.
Old media are trying to imagine the new smaller newsroom of the future in the relic of their old ones. New media are imagining the new newsroom from a blank slate and news ecosystem.

Among the critical questions all this will pose: Is there some collaborative model that would allow citizens and journalists to have the best of both worlds and add more capacity here? What ethical values about news will settle in at these sites? Will legacy and new media continue to cooperate more, sharing stories and pooling resources, and if they do, how can one operation vouch for the fairness and accuracy of something they did not produce?

The year ahead will not settle any of these. But the urgency of these questions will become more pronounced. And ultimately the players may be quite different.

"I think the answer may come from places staffed by young people who understand the new technology and its potential and who have a passion for journalism," said Larry Jinks, the highly regarded former editor and publisher who transformed the San Jose Mercury News a generation ago and who still sits on the board of the McClatchy Company.

Major Trends

In past years we have tried to identify major trends emerging in the coming year, and many of those still apply now. For 2010, we want to emphasize six points.

As we learn more about both Web economics and consumer behavior, the unbundling of news seems increasingly central to journalism's future. The old model of journalism involved news organizations taking revenue from one social transaction -- the selling of real estate, cars and groceries or job hunting, for example -- and using it to monitor civic life -- covering city councils and zoning commissions and conducting watchdog investigations. Editors assembled a wide range of news, but the popularity of each story was subordinate to the value, and the aggregate audience, of the whole. And the value of the story might be found in its consequence rather than its popularity. That model is breaking down. Online, it is becoming increasingly clear, consumers are not seeking out news organizations for their full news agenda. They are hunting the news by topic and by event and grazing across multiple outlets. This is changing both the finances and the culture of newsrooms. When revenue is more closely tied to each story, what is the rationale for covering civic news that is consequential but has only limited interest? The data also are beginning to show a shift away from interest in local news toward more national and international topics as people have more access to such information, which may have other effects on local dynamics.

The future of new and old media are more tied together than some may think. A new multi-university study released in this report finds that even the best new-media sites in the country still have limited ability to produce content. No doubt they will evolve. Yet their reportorial capacity ultimately will still depend on finding a revenue model far larger than what exists today or is projected to come from conventional online advertising. While there are some competing values and different reportorial cultures, in the end new and old media face the same dilemma and may be much more aligned in their search for revenue than many have thought. In some cases, there will be formal alliances or networks of new and old media. One concept that will get more attention is collaborations of old media and citizens in what some call a "pro-am" (professional and amateur) model for news. Yet how traditional news organizations cope with such partnerships, the rules for what is acceptable and what is not, remain largely uncharted.

The notion that the news media are shrinking is mistaken. Reportorial journalism is getting smaller, but the commentary and discussion aspect of media, which adds analysis, passion and agenda shaping, is growing -- in cable, radio, social media, blogs and elsewhere. For all the robust activity there, however, the numbers still suggest that these new media are largely filled with debate dependent on the shrinking base of reporting that began in the old media. Our ongoing analysis of more than a million blogs and social media sites, for instance, finds that 80% of the links are to U.S. legacy media. The only old media sector with growing audience numbers is cable, a place where the lion's share of resources are spent on opinionated hosts. One result may be the rising numbers in polling data that show 71% of Americans now feel most news sources are biased in their coverage and 70% feel overwhelmed rather than informed by the amount of news and information they see. Quantitatively, argument rather than expanding information makes up the growing share of media people are exposed to today.

Technology is further shifting power to newsmakers, and the newest way is through their ability to control the initial account of events. For now at least, digital technology is shifting more emphasis and resources toward breaking news. Shrinking newsrooms are asking their remaining ranks to produce first accounts more quickly and feed multiple platforms. This is focusing more time on disseminating information and somewhat less on gathering it, making news people more reactive and less pro-active. It is also leading to a phenomenon in which the first accounts from newsmakers -- their press conferences and press releases -- make their way to the public often in a less vetted form, sometimes close to verbatim. Those first accounts, sculpted by official sources, then can spread more rapidly and widely now through the power of the Web to disseminate, gaining a velocity they once lacked. That is followed quickly by commentary. What is squeezed is the supplemental reporting that would unearth more facts and context about events. We saw this clearly in our study of news in Baltimore, but it is reinforced in discussions with news people. While technology makes it easier for citizens to participate, it is also making giving newsmakers more influence over the first impression the public receives.

The ranks of self-interested information providers are now growing rapidly and news organizations must define their relationship to them. As newsrooms get smaller, the range of non-journalistic players entering the information and news field is growing rapidly. The ranks include companies, think tanks, activists, government and partisan activists. Some are institutions frustrated by the shrinking space in conventional media and the absence of knowledgeable specialists to cover their subjects. Others are partisans and political interests trying to exploit a perceived opportunity in journalism's contraction. There are varying degrees of transparency about the financing and intentions of these efforts. Some are quite clear. Others present themselves as purely journalistic and independent when in fact they are funded by political activists, yet only by digging and cross-referencing websites can the agenda and financing be divined. In an age where linking and aggregation are part of journalism, news organizations must decide how they want to interact with this growing cohort of self-interested information players. Will they pick up this material and disseminate it? Can they possibly police it? Can they afford to ignore it? The only certainty is that these new players are increasingly vying for the public's and the media's attention, and their resources, in contrast to that of traditional independent journalism, are growing.

When it comes to audience numbers online, traditional media content still prevails, which means the cutbacks in old media heavily impact what the public is learning through the new. An analysis in this year's report of online audience behavior, extrapolated from Nielsen Net Ratings data, finds that 80% of the traffic to news and information sites is concentrated at the top 7% of sites. The vast majority of the top news sites (67%), moreover, are still tied to legacy media financed largely by their shrinking end of the business.3 New media are growing, but their ranks among the most trafficked sites are still small. Another 13% of these news sites are aggregators, whose content is derived from legacy media. Only 14% of these sites are online-only operations that produce mostly original reportorial content rather than commentary. In short, the cutbacks in old media are not only drastically affecting traditional media but significantly impact online content as well.

SECTOR HIGHLIGHTS

NEWSPAPERS
Newspapers are not disappearing in droves. Only half a dozen of any size went out of business or cut back print publication last year and most of those were second papers in their market. But newspapers have seen ad revenues fall by nearly half in three years, staff cutbacks are dramatic, if not quite as large, and a coming issue now is that papers are at risk of becoming insubstantial, lacking the heft to be tossed up on the front porch or to satisfy those readers still willing to pay for a good print newspaper.

ONLINE
The state of online news heading into 2010 may best be described as a moving target. Digital delivery is now well established as a part of most Americans' daily news consumption. Six-in-ten Americans get some news online in a typical day -- and most of these also get news from other media platforms as well.

NETWORK TV
As 2009 began, viewership of the evening newscasts actually rose for three months straight, but more declines quickly followed. What is occurring in network evening news is erosion, not a collapse. And there are new worries about the networks' morning news programs. For years after evening numbers began to fall, morning shows were a bright spot. That is now changed. In 2009 morning news audiences fell for the fifth straight year. We estimate that network news staffs had already been cut by roughly half from their peak in the 1980s.

CABLE TV
Cable news in 2009, in nearly every indicator, was more robust than the previous year. Much of this growth was on the back of Fox News Channel, which offset some struggles at CNN and MSNBC. Ideology and opinion, now a centerpiece of the medium, was a key factor in that growth equation.

LOCAL TV
Almost all the indicators for local TV are pointing down. Audiences continue to fall for newscasts across all timeslots. Revenue, too, was in a free fall. Looking ahead, most market analysts project revenues to grow only slightly, but that is hardly taken as good news given that it is a year that includes both the midterm elections and winter Olympic Games. Stations may be nearing a point where they can no longer add new newscasts or new revenue opportunities, such as sponsored segments, to their old ones.

MAGAZINES
In a tough year for magazines, news magazines were especially hard hit despite efforts by some to re-invent themselves. Newsweek announced it would focus on analysis, rather than news, and U.S. News & World Report converted to a subject-specific monthly. Both lost readers in droves. The biggest winners were British: The Economist gained circulation, again, and The Week gained in ad pages.

AUDIO
The dynamics impacting audio's future are clearer with each year. Most people still listen to news, talk and music for at least a little while every week, and they do most of this listening through traditional broadcast, or "terrestrial" radio. This is where the audience is largest. Yet this is where the profit and revenue are under the most pressure. Many stations have left the air and some owners of multiple stations have entered bankruptcy.

ETHNIC
In a year that saw the inauguration of the country's first black president and the arrival on the Supreme Court of the first Hispanic justice, the ethnic news media managed to stay in relatively good health, despite the worst recession since the Great Depression. Some segments fared noticeably better than their mainstream counterparts, but there were areas of trouble. Perhaps more than anything else, 2009 spoke to both the unique appeal and particular fragility of media outlets that appeal to specific ethnic groups.

Find detailed analysis of audience trends, economics and news investment for each sector by reading the full report at journalism.org.

1. Cable figures are based on estimated combined ad revenues for CNN/HLN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC for 2008 and 2009, provided by SNL Kagan, a division of SNL Financial LLC. Online figures are total online display ad revenues, from January to September 2009, compared with the same period in 2008, provided by eMarketer. Network figures are based on revenue estimates for network television ads from January to September 2009, compared with the same period in 2008, provided by the Television Bureau of Advertising. Radio figures are based on AM/FM advertising revenues from January 2009 to January 2010, compared with the same period in 2008-2009, provided by the Radio Advertising Bureau. Magazine figures are based on ad pages sold – not revenue – provided by the Publishers Information Bureau for six news magazines: Time, Newsweek, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Week, and The New Yorker. Newspaper estimates are derived by Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute based on data provided by the National Newspaper Association. Local TV figures are based on revenue estimates for local and national spot advertising on local TV from January to September 2009, compared with the same period in 2008, provided by the Television Bureau of Advertising.

2. These figures, derived from analysis of staff boxes, show staffing at the two magazines of 710 in 1983 down to 373 in 2009.

3. The top news sites among Nielsen’s list of 4,600 are those sites with 500,000 unique visitors monthly, or the top 199 sites after government, consulting and database sites that do not produce news are culled from the list. The first reference includes all 4,600 sites on Nielsen’s list, which includes some government, consulting and databases that are not news.

Williams named AP bureau chief for South Atlantic
3/16/10
The Associated Press
ATLANTA -- Michelle Williams, chief of bureau for The Associated Press in Arizona and New Mexico, has been named chief of bureau for the South Atlantic region.

The appointment was announced Monday by Kate Lee Butler, vice president for U.S. Newspaper Markets. Williams succeeds former bureau chief Gary Clark, who retired last year.

"Michelle brought an innovative approach to the job of chief of bureau in Arizona-New Mexico. As the Associated Press and its members navigate the rapidly changing news media landscape, she brings an excellent mix of skills in membership, business development and news to the role of Atlanta chief of bureau," Butler said.

Williams will oversee AP's news and business operations for Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. She will be based in Atlanta.

Williams, 43, began her AP career in 1989 as an editorial assistant in Nashville, Tenn. She later became a reporter in Milwaukee, where she covered serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

She later served as correspondent in Chattanooga, Tenn.; supervisory correspondent in San Diego; Tennessee news editor; and news editor and assistant bureau chief for Texas before becoming bureau chief for Arizona and New Mexico in 2007.

Before joining the AP, Williams, who grew up in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., worked as a reporter at The Lebanon (Tenn.) Democrat and The Tennessean in Nashville.

Williams is a graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, where she serves on the New Century Journalism Advisory Board. She's also part of the mentoring program at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism.

Round-up on Sunshine Week editorials
3/16/10
Many S.C. newspapers are running editorials, columns and news stories about the importance of open government this week as we celebrate Sunshine Week.

Click here to see current articles on Sunshine Week from the week of March 14-20. Articles will be updated daily. If we are missing an article, please let us know and we'll post it.

Also posted is an Op-Ed by SCPA Attorney Jay Bender and an editorial cartoon by Mike Beckom.

ABC approves overhaul of Publisher's Statement
3/16/10
Editor & Publisher
By Jennifer Saba
NEW YORK An Audit Bureau of Circulations newspaper task force has approved an overhaul of the Publisher's Statement that will incorporate more audience information, emphasizing other channels and distribution methods beginning October 1, 2010.

The new reports will allow publishers to include e-reader distribution averages, mobile app purchases, total paid and verified circulation from multiple products, a new "publishing plan" noting frequency, delivery platforms and distribution methods and Audience-Fax information with Web site data from comScore, Nielsen Online, Omniture and other sources.

The reports will also include the previously announced modifications to paid and verified circulation.

"A newspaper today is much more than a traditional print product," Merle Davidson, director of media services at J.C. Penney Co. and chairman of the ABC board, said in a statement. "We now have a road map in place to present myriad existing and emerging channels to media buyers in a consistent fashion."

The task force was formed in March 2009 and is a joint effort between ABC board members and the Newspaper Association of America.

During the ABC board meeting in Washington, D.C., last week, the organization decided to ask members to vote next month on whether ABC should eliminate or lower the requirement that a newspaper's total distribution must have at least 70% paid circulation in order to qualify as a member of the bureau.

Additionally, Dow Jones & Co. President Todd Larsen has been appointed to the ABC board.

Agencies lag in following Obama's openness order
3/16/10
By Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is having difficulty getting all federal agencies to follow his order to deliver "a new era of open government," according to a study of how they administer the Freedom of Information Act.

The National Security Archive, a private group that publishes declassified government information and uses the act and lawsuits to pry out official records, found a decidedly mixed record in an audit of how 90 agencies responded to Obama directives to open more records, and the guidelines and training sessions that followed from the Justice Department.

Rescinding a Bush policy of defending any legal reason to withhold information, Obama ordered agencies to release any information whose disclosure wasn't prohibited by law or wouldn't cause foreseeable harm.

The audit was released Sunday, the first day of Sunshine Week, an annual observance by journalism organizations to promote open government and freedom of information.
The Obama administration "has clearly stated a new policy direction for open government but has not conquered the challenge of communicating and enforcing that message throughout the executive branch," the report concluded.

Among the findings the archive found most troubling were:

-Ancient requests still linger, and 33 of the 90 agencies now have an older unfulfilled request than they did on Sept. 30, 2008.

-Five agencies reported releasing less and withholding more information during the 2009 budget year, which includes the first nine months of the Obama administration, than they did the previous year.

-35 of the 90 agencies told the auditors they had no records of putting in place the new Obama FOIA policies.

Norm Eisen, White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, responded that the Obama administration had spent the year building "the infrastructure to create a lasting change." He said government data to be released this week would show positive trends, including "that there were more full and partial FOIA releases, although we agree it's too soon for a final judgment."

The oldest pending request the auditors found is approaching 18 years old. It was submitted Sept. 21, 1992, by the National Security Archive itself to the National Archives and Records Administration for files on nuclear arms control and test information from 1959 to 1961. The audit said the request is probably languishing at the Energy Department and the Air Force because the National Archives must refer requests to the agencies where the information originated.

On a positive note, the audit found that 20 or the 90 agencies had improved the date of their oldest open request from 2008 by more than one month, and the CIA improved its oldest request by nearly a year and a half.

The auditors also found that four agencies - the departments of Justice and Agriculture, the Office of Management and Budget and the Small Business Administration - had both increased the number of requests that got all or part of the documents sought and decreased the number that were completely denied, compared with 2008.

But the departments of State, Transportation and the Treasury, along with NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office granted full or partial releases to fewer requests and completely denied more requests than the year before.

The auditors found 13 of the 90 agencies could document concrete changes to their FOIA practices as a result of Obama's policy and another 14 had enhanced their training about Obama's presumption of disclosure.

Incident reports should be open to public
3/10/10
The Times and Democrat
By Gene Zaleski

A few new details emerged Tuesday about a shooting incident that left a deputy injured and another man dead, but officials would not release an incident report about the event.

The Times and Democrat requested an incident report, which should be available under the S.C. Carolina Freedom of Information Act, from the Orangeburg County’s Sheriff’s Office.

Sheriff Larry Williams initially said he would release the report but, after consulting the State Law Enforcement Division, noted the agency is conducting the investigation.

“I have no problem giving it to you,” he said. “I don’t hide reports from The T&D and from the press, period.”

Williams said he expects the investigation to be over within a week’s time and promised a “wide-open” and “complete and thorough” report upon the investigation’s completion.

The incident which left 35-year-old Johnathan Myron Stokes dead happened around 2 a.m. Monday. Williams has said officers responded to a disturbance at an Edisto Drive pool room and liquor store where they were confronted with a large gathering of individuals in the parking lot engaged in a physical altercation.

Investigators believe Deputy Kevin Smith was assaulted by Stokes, who obtained control over Smith’s flashlight and used it to repeatedly strike the officer, Williams has said. He said Smith allegedly pulled his service weapon and fired on his attacker.

Smith suffered from upper head injuries and injuries to the neck and throat. He was treated at the Regional Medical Center and released on Monday.

Williams said the officer will be on paid administrative leave until SLED’s investigation is complete.

Allegations have arisen that there may have been other individuals involved in the altercation, Williams said.

Also, rumors circulated that Smith did not have any backup. Those rumors were denied by Williams.

Williams says when more deputies responded to the call, protocol for an officer-involved shooting was initiated “to safeguard the integrity of investigation.”

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Williams said he would contact The T&D later in the day with more information about his ability to release a report detailing the incident. Later that evening, spokesperson Keisa Peterson said the incident report would be available Wednesday morning.

Peterson said the Sheriff’s Office interprets the FOIA as giving it 15 days to respond to a request.

In response to a request for an incident report from SLED, spokesperson Jennifer Timmons said via e-mail, “You will need to send your FOIA to the OCSO.”

After a Freedom of Information Act request was submitted to Timmons, she said she would forward it to SLED’s FOIA department. She declined further comment.

“We are in the beginning stages of this investigation, therefore it would be too premature for us to comment specifically,” she said.

The S.C. Freedom of Information Act requires law enforcement agencies to make crime reports readily available to the public for 14 days.

S.C. Press Association Executive Director Bill Rogers said while some information may be held while an investigation is ongoing, the “incident report should be open regardless of further investigations.”

“The incident report is open in the law without a written request,” Rogers said. “Anytime SLED is investigating it does not mean the incident report is secret.

“The incident report should be open immediately.”

Mayor says names of emergency responders should be made public
3/15/10
The Island Packet
By Renee Dudley
Hilton Head Island officials said a bill before the state Legislature to allow public access to some EMS records "does not go far enough to provide for local scrutiny of emergency services," according to a March 10 letter signed by Mayor Tom Peeples.

Peeples' letter - addressed to S.C. Rep. Leon Howard, chairman of the House Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee - outlines the town's stance on the bill that would repeal a 2004 law restricting public access to almost all EMS data.

The bill, which would open access to incident reports and other operational EMS data, passed in the Senate last month with an amendment that keeps confidential the names of emergency responders.

Peeples said in his letter that responders' names should be made public.

"All emergency responders, whether they are firefighters, EMTs, law enforcement officers or lifeguards, should be held to the highest of public standards and subject to local public scrutiny," Peeples wrote. "There is no legitimate reason to fear the release of EMTs' names."

Officials from the S.C. EMS Association lobbied the Senate last month to keep responders' names secret, arguing EMTs are health care workers, like nurses and doctors, who must be protected from unfair scrutiny.

Peeples rejected that claim in his letter, saying nurses and doctors, unlike EMTs, typically work for private facilities - not local governments.

"If a patient did not like a particular medical facility, he/she could choose another facility for treatment," Peeples wrote. "Citizens in need of EMS do not have such an option.

EMTs working for a local EMS response agency, even when employed by a private EMS agency, are specifically working for and (are) financially supported by the local taxpayers."

Peeples, who wrote the letter after consulting with Town Council members and Hilton Head Fire & Rescue Chief Lavarn Lucas, also asks the House committee to consider strengthening the role of local agencies in disciplining emergency responders.

The bill "forbids the local government from being up front with its citizens," according to Peeples' letter. "A well-managed EMS system does not need state (the Department of Health and Environmental Control) Division of EMS to investigate its employees. ... The local EMS system has the responsibility, can conduct the investigation in a much timelier manner than the state and will most likely hold the EMT to a much higher standard," Peeples wrote.

Under the provisions of the bill, even if a local agency conducts its own investigation of EMT misconduct, "the findings of the local investigation must be restricted from the public for possibly months until state DHEC completes its own investigation," Peeples wrote. "The result of this restrictive language will allow for public scrutiny of local government services to be held hostage by the state."

The bill is now before the House for consideration. A hearing in the House Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee has not been scheduled, a committee spokeswoman said Thursday.

The bill was filed by Sen. Harvey Peeler, R-Cherokee.

Rules laid out for Atlantic Beach public records
3/12/10
The Sun News
By Janelle Frost
An Atlantic Beach resident has reached an agreement with town officials on how the town will make public records available.

The agreement came after Atlantic Beach resident Paul Curry filed a lawsuit years ago against the town claiming that the town violated the Freedom Of Information Act by not making requested public records available to him.

An order from a local master-in-equity judge shows the town must make public records available to the public to inspect and copy with a minimum delay, and to prepare a justification for any money the town charges for Freedom Of Information Act requests after a resident filed a lawsuit against the town stating that it did not provide him with minutes, agendas and other public records he requested.


Judge Cynthia Graham-Howe rendered her decision earlier this year after Curry filed the lawsuit in 2005.

Curry, who has also filed two other lawsuits against the town since then, said Thursday that he also wants to see charges filed against the then-town manager who refused to give him the records. He said he has sent a copy of a letter with that request to 15th Circuit Solicitor Greg Hembree.

Deputy Solicitor Jimmy Richardson couldn't say Thursday whether the solicitor's office has received the letter. But he said if the solicitor's office received such a letter, they would look into it; however, he thinks it is a civil matter, he said.

State law states that anyone who willfully violates the state Freedom of Information Act can be found guilty of a misdemeanor.

Town Attorney John Zilinsky said the agreement "helps encourage the town in the future not to be lax about it."

Howe's order included that the town must post a copy of the state FOIA and a copy of the Public Officials' Guide to Compliance with South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act in Town Hall for town officials and staffers. Those who prepare, own, use, possess or retain public records must read the guide and sign a statement stating they did. The town must put in writing each time the Town Council goes into executive session that it was for the specific purposes stated. The town also must not require personal information such as name, address, and telephone number from anyone requesting public records.

The town also must pay $5,000 in Curry's legal fees.

Curry ran for Town Council in 2009.

In 2008, he filed a lawsuit against the town claiming that the town was not following its ordinance regarding noise, golf carts, and alcohol during its annual Memorial Day Bikefest. That suit is scheduled to go to trial March 31, town officials have said.

Town Council members recently gave an initial approval to make changes in the town's ordinance regarding vendors, alcoholic beverages, traffic plans and the use of golf carts during this year's Memorial Day Bikefest.

Curry's other lawsuit is also regarding the FOIA after Town Council in 2008 discussed a matter regarding a festival in executive session which should have been discussed in public.

Curry said Thursday that that suit is still pending.

Several SCPA members chosen as
EPSCoR/IDeA Science Journalism Fellows
3/10/10
SC EPSCoR/IDeA (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research and Institutional Development Awards) has selected ten science journalism fellows -- mostly from S.C. newspapers -- to help educate the public and fellow journalists about stem cell research and other important science issues affecting the Palmetto State.

A committee of scholars and practitioners chose Jen Barclay, S.C. Press Association; James Denton, The Herald Independent; Michael Harrison, Fort Mill Times; Diane Knich, The Post and Courier; Bradrick McClam, Lake City News and Post; Lisa Chalian-Rock, The Messenger; Douglas Rogers, Holly Hill Observer; and Bill West, The Lexington County Chronicle and The Dispatch News, to be a part of the 2010 EPSCor Science Journalism Fellowship class. Broadcasters Debi Chard, WCSC TV; and Landon Sears, WBTW TV; were also selected.

“We are pleased that the fellows are from media outlets from across South Carolina who are working in various facets including print, television, on-line and new media.  This is a real opportunity to help educate the public about stem cell research,” said Dr. Sohya Duhé, Director of the workshop.

The Science Journalism Fellows Program is part of a $20 million National Science Foundation award to South Carolina’s institutions of higher education.  The South Carolina Project for Organ Biofabrication was funded to establish a statewide alliance in the field of tissue biofabrication, which could lead to the production of human organs.  Dr. Scott Little, Director of the SC EPSCoR/IDeA State Office says, “This educational component of the award is truly innovative and expected to enhance science literacy statewide.”  “We are excited about the opportunity to train journalists to become even better science reporters,” says Little.  “We hope, in turn, this will help educate the public.”

Fellows will receive a $1,000 stipend and attend a two-day workshop in Columbia, S.C. with scientists, scholars, and science journalists. The topic for this year’s workshop is “Stem Cell Research.”  Fellows will also learn about the ethical challenges surrounding stem cell research and get hands-on experience on reporting science.

The National Science Foundation, SC EPSCoR/IDeA, the S.C. Press Association, the S.C. Broadcasters Association, the University of South Carolina Media Services, and Loyola University, New Orleans School of Mass Communication are sponsoring the workshop. 

For more information on the program, contact Dr. Sonya Duhé at (504) 284-8031 or
Dr. Scott Little at (803) 733-9060.

Next week, SCPA member newspapers will also have free access to Jen Barclay's stories, photos, multimedia, resources and other important information on South Carolina's ground-breaking EPSCoR projects (did you know S.C. is leading the country in bioprinting?). All content will be available for SCPA members on our news content sharing site, www.SCNewsExchange.com. Jen will also be sharing her notes and tips/resources on covering the science beat. She'd be happy to discuss and share what she learned at the training session. E-mail jbarclay@scpress.org if you are interested.

FOI request shows N. Myrtle Beach paying to forward calls to suspended worker's private phone
3/8/10
The Sun News
By David Wren
NORTH MYRTLE BEACH -- This city continues to pay for a cell phone that automatically transfers calls to William Bailey's private telephone number, even though he has been suspended for more than two months.

Telephone records obtained by The Sun News show Bailey has received nearly 200 telephone calls on his official city phone since he was suspended on Dec. 30 for lying about a crime.

Those telephone conversations have lasted nearly 23 hours, the records show. It is impossible to tell who is calling Bailey or why, however, because Bailey last year programmed his city-issued cell phone to transfer all calls to a private number.

The monthly invoice the city receives does not show incoming phone numbers. It only shows that calls to the city number are being transferred to Bailey's private phone and the duration of those calls.

"The records I sent you for [Bailey's city phone] are the only records for that number," city spokeswoman Nicole Aiello told The Sun News last week.

Bailey purchased the private cell phone last year after The Sun News obtained his city cell phone records under terms of the S.C. Freedom of Information Act.

The phone records at that time showed, among other things, that Bailey misled the public about the sequence of events that occurred on the day a wildfire swept through Barefoot Resort and destroyed 75 homes.

"It's clear he is transferring calls to a private number to avoid any public scrutiny," said Jay Bender, a Columbia lawyer and expert of the state's Freedom of Information Act.

Bender said the government's business should be conducted openly, but transferring calls from a city cell phone to a private number defeats that purpose.

Bailey did not return a telephone call seeking comment.

Bender questioned why Bailey would be receiving business-related telephone calls while he is on suspension.

"If he's not performing any duties, why is the city paying his phone bill?" Bender asked. "And if these are personal calls, he should be paying for them."

City Manager John Smithson did not respond to questions asking whether Bailey continues to conduct city business while on leave and how the city would know one way or the other since there is no record of who is calling Bailey's city-issued cell phone.

The city pays between $46 and $49 per month - or more than $550 per year - for the city phone that Bailey uses to transfer calls.

"Although Mr. Bailey did buy and is using his own cell phone, the city thought it was important to maintain that number for the time being because so many people were accustomed to contacting him on that number," Aiello said.

Ron Busick, president of the North Myrtle Beach Citizens' Association, said Smithson should rethink the decision to let Bailey transfer what should be city-related calls to his personal phone while he is on suspension.

"I can understand them wanting to keep that phone number, but Bailey shouldn't have usage of it if he is on leave," Busick said.

Aiello said the city does not know when Bailey started transferring calls from his city-issued cell phone to his private number. Telephone records obtained by The Sun News show 185 phone calls were transferred from Bailey's city-issued phone to his private number between Dec. 31 and Feb. 18.

The duration of each call ranges from one minute to 122 minutes.

The city does not have a policy on whether its employees must use city-issued cell phones, Aiello said.

"As long as the city has knowledge of the staff member's phone number and as long as the staff member can be reached, it does not matter whether the cell phone is city-issued or personal," she said.

Aiello said the city is not attempting to circumvent the state's Freedom of Information Act by allowing Bailey to transfer calls from a city-issued cell phone to a private number.

"The city does not require an explanation for any city staff members who wish to use their personal phone, so we do not know their reasoning for switching to personal cell phones," she said.

The city initially refused The Sun News' request for the records of Bailey's city-issued cell phone.

Aiello said on Feb. 16 that the city does not maintain such records. The city later agreed to provide the information after The Sun News pointed out that such detailed records had been provided in the past.

"While the city does not maintain detailed phone call records because of the amount of paper this takes, the city can obtain those records from our phone provider," Aiello said.

Bailey was suspended with pay after reporting the theft of a department-issued gun from the glove box of his truck.

He at first told investigators the glove box was locked, but an investigation by The Sun News showed his truck model does not have a locking glove box.

Since Bailey's suspension, at least three police officers have been fired or forced to resign in the wake of a scandal within the public safety department. That scandal was sparked by a series of secretly recorded conversations that describe Bailey and others making police decisions based on political alliances, officers afraid to report misconduct for fear of reprisal, and officers making vulgar sexual comments about female co-workers and crime victims.

In addition to Bailey's suspension, the former public safety director has been demoted to lieutenant and his pay has been cut from $97,330 per year to $58,000 per year.

"Transparency is the key to honesty," said Mike Ragusa, a Barefoot Resort resident who has been critical of the city's response to the April wildfire. "Why would public officials ever go from city phones to personal phones?"

The citizens' association has scheduled a public forum for 7:30 p.m. on March 18 so residents can discuss problems within the public safety department and other city-related issues. The forum will be held at the J. Bryan Floyd Community Center at 1030 Possum Trot Road.

Bailey will remain on leave until the State Law Enforcement Division decides whether it will investigate allegations that he covered up a criminal domestic violence case involving the daughter of one of Mayor Marilyn Hatley's top political supporters.

The city asked SLED to investigate the allegations on Jan. 14.

Smithson told The Sun News in February that SLED had visited city hall and obtained some documents, but the state agency still is reviewing whether a formal investigation will take place.

Bailey will mark his 20th anniversary with the city on April 30.

The city continues to pay 100 percent of the health insurance premiums for employees who retire with at least 20 years of service. Those premiums are paid until the retired employee qualifies for Medicare.

The conversations that sparked the scandal within the public safety department were secretly recorded over a two-year period by former police Lt. Randy Fisher.

It is legal in South Carolina to record conversations as long as at least one party knows the recording is taking place.

Fisher was forced to resign in November after city officials accused him of giving confidential information about an April wildfire to Ragusa. Fisher has said he did not give the resident confidential information. Fisher said he was fired because he complained about unethical behavior by Bailey and others.

Big changes underway at The Herald
3/8/10
By Larry Timbs
Special to SCPA
Despite an announcement in late January that the McClatchy Co.-owned Herald in Rock Hill was cutting seven positions and outsourcing some newsroom and business operations with its nearby sister McClatchy Co. daily paper, The Charlotte Observer, Herald news decisions and Herald news reporting will still occur in Rock Hill.

That’s according to Herald editor Paul Osmundson, who emphasized McClatchy’s strong commitment to local news.

“A lot of decisions made by McClatchy (in an era of soft ad revenues for newspapers) are designed to protect as much as possible local news,” said Osmundson, editor of The Herald for the past three years.

Osmundson is not happy with reductions in The Herald’s newsroom staff, but he is confident that the latest changes will allow the 34,000-daily circulation daily to operate more efficiently, while still offering the public an outstanding news product—in print and online. Although declining to disclose a dollar amount in savings, Osmundson said the changes will make enough of a difference to be worthwhile. “…We wouldn’t have done it (made the changes), if it would not have been enough to make a difference, ” Osmundson wrote in an email message.

He emphasized that though some copyediting and design positions at The Herald were being outsourced to Charlotte (about 25 miles north of Rock Hill) the paper’s news agenda and reporting would be determined in Rock Hill.

“The product of the paper (The Herald) is physically going to be done in Charlotte,” Osmundson said, “but the decisions about the stories that we are going to pursue and how we’re going to pursue them will be made here in Rock Hill—ultimately by me. We’re going to decide what stories will go not only on the front page, but on A2 or A3, and on all the pages (of The Herald).”

Osmundson noted that because The Herald and the Charlotte Observer share the same computer technology or software, it will be easy to see—from Rock Hill-- Herald pages as they are being designed in Charlotte. Page design and copyediting decisions that had been made in Rock Hill will now be done in close consultation, by phone or by computer, with newsroom staffers at The Charlotte Observer.

“I think the paper (The Herald) itself will see no changes in content or direction or anything like that,” Osmundson said. “We’ll still be making the decisions on news here (in Rock Hill). . . The number one priority that you have in these decisions is how you can best protect the gathering of local news for the paper and online.”

Osmundson’s boss, Herald publisher Debbie Abels, said recently in an interview that the newsroom changes at The Herald were necessary to save money in an era when newspapers are coping with the effects of a lingering recession. She noted that even though some page design and copy editing positions for The Herald’s news, sports and features sections are being moved to Charlotte, Herald readers will get continued journalistic excellence from their hometown newspaper in Rock Hill.

“When readers pick up a Herald in the morning, it shouldn’t feel different to them,” Abels said in that interview (which occurred in a Herald story about the newsroom changes a few weeks ago.)

Changes at The Herald in recent months have included employees absorbing pay cuts of from 2.5 percent to 10 percent and the newspaper itself being no longer printed in Rock Hill on The Herald’s aging presses. Printing operations for The Herald moved to Charlotte in 2009, with Herald pressroom employees offered severance packages, retirement or opportunities in Charlotte.

The Charlotte Observer, too, hasn’t been spared pain. In late January, for example, the 250,000-circulation daily announced the latest in a series of money-saving changes; 25 full-time Observer employees, among them 11 newsroom staffers, lost their jobs.

Old Man Wayne Patrick: Rolling Over In His Grave?

Wayne Patrick, past president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, was for many years the owner and publisher of The Herald, known until 1986 as the Evening Herald.

In 1985, the News & Observer Co. of Raleigh, N.C., bought the paper from the Patrick family; in 1990, the McClatchy Co., now the country’s third largest newspaper company, bought The Herald and three of its sister community papers—The Yorkville Enquirer, The Clover Herald and the Lake Wylie Magazine.

Patrick, known for his lifelong commitment to journalism and for his community philanthropy, prided himself on producing one of the best daily newspapers in South Carolina.

Patrick’s Herald fought tooth and nail against the Charlotte Observer for the then highly lucrative newspaper advertising and circulation market in Rock Hill and York County, S.C. In the mid-1980s, for example, York County, S.C., was home to the fiercest newspaper competition (between The Herald and the Charlotte Observer) in South Carolina—and maybe even in the southeastern United States.

Patrick, publisher of The Herald from 1970-1993, died at age 66 in 2001. He didn’t live to see the now close collaboration between his Herald and its one-time arch enemy competitor, The Charlotte Observer.

Is he rolling over in his grave?

That’s not a legitimate question, according to retired Herald editor Terry Plumb, who headed The Herald’s newsroom for more than two decades, including at one juncture when it had 45 employees. (The size of that newsroom staff was probably bigger than most newspapers of the Herald’s size, because of the competitive situation in York County, Plumb noted.)

Plumb scoffed at the “rolling over in his grave” question:

“Whatever was said or done at the time then, the circumstances now are dramatically different,” said Plumb, who retired from The Herald three and one-half years ago and now works in PR for the U.S. Census in Charlotte. “Wayne loved the paper and he did a lot for the paper, but the time came when he sold the paper.”

Plumb, who worked 40 years professionally in journalism, said newspapers are doing just about anything they can do to survive in highly challenging economic times, and The Herald is no exception.

“It’s obviously a difficult time,” he said. “No one wants to see anyone lose their job in this business. . . There are newspapers that are having their pages laid out in foreign countries, and that’s hard to accept, but it’s not unlike what is happening in a lot of other fields as well. . .

“I hate to see it (the reductions in newsroom staff at The Herald), but hopefully this will allow them to keep operating for a long time.”

Herald Newsroom Changes Result In Departure Of Award-winning Sports Editor

Much of the talk in Rock Hill about the employee cutbacks at the town’s community newspaper has focused on Herald sports editor Gary McCann.

McCann, 61, is one of only about 50 people in the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame (voted to that honor last year by his peers.)

He is the winner of numerous awards for his writing over a 40-year career in journalism, covered 17 Final Fours in basketball and won the respect of prickly, legendary Indiana University basketball head coach Bobby Knight.

But given the choice by McClatchy recently of whether he wanted to work second shift as an assistant sports editor at the Charlotte Observer or retire, with a severance package, McCann opted for the latter.

How do you replace a Gary McCann at The Herald?

You don’t, according to Osmundson and many others in Rock Hill, who credit McCann with helping put the Winthrop University men’s basketball team on the national radar scope.

“It’s hard to replace a hall of famer,” Herald editor Osmundson said. “You’re losing a hall of fame sports writer who has the respect of Bobby Knight. Gary is great. He knows the game and can report the game. . . Talk about hard work. We’re losing that knowledge and insight. We’ll certainly miss that at The Herald.”

McCann came to The Herald in 1998, after pulling stints in sports journalism at newspapers in Burlington, N.C., Greensboro, N.C., and Bloomington, Ind.

In Rock Hill, he became a brand for his sparkling coverage of the Winthrop University men’s basketball team, which won its first game in the Big Dance (the NCAA Tournament) a few years ago against Notre Dame. McCann was at that game to write about it, as well as at other “away” Winthrop men’s basketball games that year. He had convinced his superiors at The Herald that the Winthrop’s men’s team, then coached by Gregg Marshall (now the head coach at Wichita State University) would be very good and that it needed to be covered—at home and away.

“I went to my bosses the year Winthrop played Tennessee (in the NCAA tournament) and said this is going to be a really good basketball team. The Herald had never covered a Winthrop basketball team home and away. We did it, and that year, they beat Notre Dame…

“I wanted to cover the team because it’s college basketball, and it’s a sport I always loved,” said McCann, responding to the idea that many think he’s responsible for Winthrop getting nationally known. “If I made Winthrop basketball by what I thought was a good business decision, then so be it. I loved covering college basketball. I was fortunate that when Winthrop was the best it’s ever been (in 2007), I was there to cover it.”

McCann stressed that he was not forced to retire. He chose retirement instead of working in the Charlotte newsroom, he said, because he had worked second shift before (what he was offered to do in Charlotte) and he wasn’t going back to that; plus, his 17-year-old son, a senior at Rock Hill High School is on the baseball team, and second-shift work would cause him to miss most of his son’s games.

McCann, whose wife works at a sports marketing firm in Charlotte, says he’s comfortable with his decision to retire: “I don’t want anyone to think that the people who run The Herald said ‘You have to take this option or you’re gone.’ It’s kind of a byproduct of what the entire (newspaper) business is going through right now—trying to cut costs and keep the operation alive. I’m fortunate it happened when it did. . . My target age (for retiring) has always been 62. But I feel bad for the younger folks. . . and I hate it I’m not going to finish the season with the (Winthrop) basketball team.”

McCann’s leaving The Herald leaves a void at the newspaper, in the community and in Winthrop University basketball.

“It’s sad,” retired Herald editor Plumb said about McCann’s exit from the paper. “If I were the people at Winthrop, I’d be holding a funeral because Gary McCann has done so much to tell the story of the Winthrop basketball team.”

Likewise, Herald columnist and feature writer Andrew Dys wrote in a Jan. 24 Herald article that McCann leaves huge shoes to fill.

“Nobody in the country wrote about basketball better than McCann,” Dys opined. “He wrote about Earl “The Pearl” Monroe at Winston Salem State University in North Carolina in the 60s; about David Thompson in the 70s; Jim Valvano in the 80s; Christian Laettner in the 90s.

“…He came to The Herald and changed what Winthrop basketball meant to the city. It was no longer a niche sport in a small conference. Winthrop blossomed, and the fans went, in part, because McCann was the one who was doing much of the writing. He painted pictures of the games with words.”

Opinion: Secret meeting trampled law
3/5/10
The State
LEXINGTON TOWN Council members' disregard for the state's open meetings law is deplorable, and their cavalier attitude about the breech is even more offensive.

Council members trampled the law Monday when they met to discuss police plans to monitor the biker group Hell's Angels despite being warned that they were required to give the public a day's notice before holding a council meeting.

Council members' justification for the slight ring hollow: Mayor Randy Halfacre said he arranged the briefing "to give us an update" as council members gathered for a meal prior to their public meeting.

He said he doesn't see a violation because the meeting was informal.

And he doesn't remember being told it was improper.

Councilman Todd Shevchik also characterized the session as more of a briefing than a meeting and added that he doesn't know all the rules.

Ignorance is no excuse.

As elected officials chosen by voters to oversee the public's business, Mr. Shevchik and his fellow council members are obligated to find out what the law is and obey it.

And the fact that town attorney Brad Cunningham and administrator Jim Duckett say they told the council its actions were improper belies claims of ignorance.

Unlike the council members who broke the law, they have no reason to lie.

Mr. Duckett said he "told them they shouldn't, they couldn't do it" without abridging the state's open meetings law.

The fact that Messrs. Cunningham and Duckett would criticize the council speaks volumes about the egregious nature of the violation, and we commend them for being forthcoming.

All too often, staff remain silent or try to find a way to justify their councils' poor decisions.

This isn't about the subject of the meeting; it's about preserving the fundamental principle of open government.

If the council gets away with closing the public out even once, it's that much easier the next time. And the next. No public body has a right to assemble with a quorum present and even discuss public business - be it a briefing or a regular meeting - without notifying citizens of the time, date and place.

State law requires 24 hours notice of "any called, special or rescheduled meetings."

Lexington Town Council's wanton action further erodes the already-fragile trust the public has in government. The council not only owes its citizens an apology, but it should learn the law and obey it.

No excuses.

Newspapers will survive, says former Cox president
3/5/10
Anderson Independent-Mail
By Vince Jackson
CLEMSON — The former president of Atlanta-based Cox Newspapers says that after 40 years in the business he is convinced that print newspapers will survive and continue to be important.

Jay Smith talked about problems with newspaper publication Thursday as part of the Calhoun Lecture Series at Clemson University. About 200 students and community members listened to Smith.

The advent of around-the-clock news has dealt a blow to newspapers, Smith said.
“Many traditional print media may now be relegated to the Internet, but newspapers have been too quick to trumpet their own deaths in many cases,” he said.

Smith said newspapers have lost the ear of the American center, too often engaging in “uncivil discourse” about business and politics.

“Newspapers should be dealers in truth,” Smith said. “The majority of people in this country are centrists. Truth was once the domain of newspapers, but that required having the time to do the necessary research for a news story. That brand of journalism is rare today, but it can survive.”

Research conducted by The Pew Research Center for People and the Press in 2009 indicated that 83 percent of all news reports come from local reporters.

“When the economy went into decline, and newspapers begin to suffer, the first thing many publishers did was cut the budget in the newsroom,” Smith said.

Cutting the news-gathering ability of newspapers is a fatal mistake, he said. It is like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

“The newsroom is the key to print journalism’s recovery,” Smtih said. “Print newspapers still serve the needs of older, traditional readers. Those readers can help bridge the gap until the next wave of technology determines where newspapers are going in the future.”

Smith said he believes the following things are true about newspapers:

• Ad revenues will continue to suffer, especially classified ads.
• Newspapers must give readers what they want to read.
• News that cannot be found anywhere else is valuable. Local coverage is the salvation of small-town newspapers.
  
• News reporters are needed now more than ever. They will not become obsolete.
• News combines will become more popular, especially sports news. An example would be coverage of ACC schools at the local level, then combining that news with local stories from other conference schools to boost readership.
• Newspaper business models must change. Profit margins will be smaller. Internet services like Twitter and Google should be used to lead readers to in-depth stories only newspapers can provide.

Simply too important to fail
3/5/10
By Gene A. Budig
NNA
The newspaper has been a consistent ally of democracy in the United States for generations, often battling oppression.

It has made a documented difference by exposing wrongs in and threats to local, state and federal government, by serving as a courageous watchdog over growing crime and corruption in the country, and by being alert to the sometimes precarious international front.

On the editorial page, the newspaper has questioned the need for wars and the resulting loss of life, and it has been attentive to the readers’ need to know more, much more, about the daily news, business, entertainment and sports and how they impact them and their families.

It was an early champion of Civil Rights. It has devoted countless pages to the issues of health care, an emotionally charged matter that requires substantive understanding and constructive change.

As we know, America is in love with sports and the newspaper devotes a considerable amount of its space to the field of action, giving focus to and insight on the good and bad aspects of the games and the people associated with them.

The newspaper, with the support of the Associated Press, the world’s largest newsgathering organization, gives effective voice and information to the citizenry; it has immediate access to newsmakers around the globe.

The list could go on and on.

Still the daily newspaper and national news magazines face a stiff challenge if they are to continue to inform the nation adequately and to serve as the bastion of the written word.

The written word matters, especially in a large and complex world such as ours.

Knowledge matters.

In virtually every town and city, the newspaper has struck upon hard times and is in financial trouble, brought on by a seriously depressed economy and subsequent unemployment and new and aggressive competition from other forms of news and entertainment like the Internet and round the clock cable television.

Despite the doom and gloom, roughly the same number of people read newspapers today as before, but an alarming number of young people are bypassing newspapers for a quick fix on the news, however superficial.

They often seek out news summaries on the Internet or cable news or talk radio.

At times, their superficiality runs deep. Many do not see the need for thoughtful journalism and for detailed insight, the staples of a keen mind and a key to the continuance of democracy. They seem preoccupied with other things and display a short attention span.

Newspapers must reach out to the younger generation, finding creative ways to illustrate the importance of being an informed citizen; the younger generation needs to understand that with the benefits of a democracy come inescapable obligations.

One must remember that in every community the newspaper is the largest news gathering organization, and it is central to community life.

Unfortunately, some of America’s largest newspapers have been forced to shut down, papers like the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, while others are producing single-digit profits or none at all.

Fewer and fewer newspapers each year are producing profits that compare favorably with a variety of high profile businesses.

Too many people believe the problems with newspapers came with the advent of the Internet.

No so.

They started with unprecedented success. In the 1960s and 1970s when many afternoon newspapers in large cities went out of business, the surviving newspaper became a monopoly and a big money maker.

Most large newspapers created chains or joined them and expanded in many directions, clearly too many and too fast. The rapid change and subsequent profitability caught the eye of Wall Street and eager investors. Then came an era of cheap credit when major papers began to make multiple billion-dollar transactions.

Bigger is better, newspaper executives thought, and reasoned that synergies would drive down costs and drive up revenue. The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, McClatchy and Lee Enterprises were among those who got caught up in the madness.

All the while, newspapers dropped in classified advertising, especially in key areas like real estate, automotive and help wanted ads. Ad revenue fell 23 percent in 2008 alone. Newspapers lost advertisers and readers to an aggressive Internet.

Newspapers cannot give away the news they gather when advertising revenues are dangerously low. Someone has to shoulder the costs by finding news ways to monetize the content newspapers gather.

Too many good journalists have been sacrificed to balance the books, and it will take years for some newspapers to rebuild and again offer the quality that was once apparent. Even the New York Times Company has bonds that are rated as ”junk.”

The newspaper, a timeless guardian of the written word, is simply too important to fail, but it must move with dispatch to protect its aging reader base, bring back those who dropped subscriptions, and recruit the young in significant numbers.

Educators agree there is no substitute for the ability to read and write well among our young, and a great many of the teachers see the newspaper as an essential in the learning process.

Gene A. Budig is chairman of the News-Gazette Board of Directors in Champaign, IL, and a member of the National Commission on Writing. He was a former president/chancellor at three major state universities and now serves as a distinguished professor at the College Board in New York.

Post and Courier launches new magazine, Web site
3/5/10
CHARLESTON, SC – The Post and Courier may be the South’s oldest daily newspaper, but on March 11, it’s launching a new, hip weekly magazine and website that will cover all that makes Charleston one of the top destinations in the United States.

Charleston Scene will feature stories on the city’s thriving hub of creative artists and its one-of-a-kind culinary scene, along with music, local businesses, theater, movies and other entertainment. Charleston Scene replaces and expands on Preview, the newspaper’s weekly entertainment section that printed every Thursday.

The new product will be full-color, twice the size and have a host of innovative features. New to Charleston Scene will be party photos, reader write-ins, new columnists and more.

“Charleston Scene is geared toward a hip, new crowd that is making things happen in our city. It’s a very active community, and will be reflected in the magazine,” according to Marcus Amaker, Charleston Scene editor.

With the launch of Charleston Scene also comes a new web site – CharlestonScene.com – that will have a strong video component, as well as social media and streaming music. Charleston Scene will print every Thursday in The Post and Courier.

The magazine will also be distributed free in the community, to restaurants, bars and other venues. Connect with Charleston Scene online by becoming a fan on Facebook. Also follow Charleston Scene’s twitter feed at twitter.com/chasscene.

For more information visit www.charlestonscene.com, call 843-937-5706 or e-mail charlestonscene@gmail.com.

One third lack high speed internet
3/5/10
The Federal Communications Commission released its National Broadband Plan Consumer Survey, Broadband Adoption and Use in America, which found that affordability and lack of digital skills are the main reasons why 93 million Americans -- one-third of the country -- are not connected to high-speed Internet at home.

"We need to tackle the challenge of connecting 93 million Americans to our broadband future," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "In the 21st century, a digital divide is an opportunity divide. To bolster American competitiveness abroad and create the jobs of the future here at home, we need to make sure that all Americans have the skills and means to fully participate in the digital economy."

On March 17, 2010, the Federal Communications Commission will deliver a National Broadband Plan to Congress that details a strategy for connecting the country to affordable broadband.

The FCC says the plan will be a strategy for U.S. global leadership in high-speed Internet to create jobs and spur economic growth; to unleash new waves of innovation and investment; and to improve education, health care, energy efficiency, and public safety.

As part of the plan, the FCC conducted a national random digit-dial survey of adults in October and November 2009 to assess America's attitudes toward broadband.

The Consumer Survey found that 35 percent of adult Americans do not have high-speed Internet connections at home -- or approximately 80 million adults and 13 million children over the age of five. The survey identifies three main barriers to adoption:

* Affordability: 36 percent of non-adopters (28 million adults) said they do not have home broadband because the monthly fee is too expensive (15 percent), they cannot afford a computer, the installation fee is too high (10 percent), or they do not want to enter into a long-term service contract (9 percent). According to survey respondents, their average monthly broadband bill is $41.

* Digital Literacy: 22 percent of non-adopters (17 million adults) indicated that they do not have home broadband because they lack the digital skills (12 percent) or they are concerned about potential hazards of online life, such as exposure to inappropriate content or security of personal information (10 percent).

* Relevance: 19 percent of non-adopters (15 million adults) said they do not have broadband because they say that the Internet is a waste of time, there is no online content of interest to them or, for dial-up users, they are content with their current service.

The survey also found that non-adopters usually have more than one barrier that keeps them from having broadband service at home. Over half of non-adopters, when selecting from a menu of possible barriers to adoption, chose three or more. For example, more than half of non-adopters who cited cost also listed reasons relating to digital literacy or relevance.

"The gap in broadband adoption is a problem with many different dimensions that will require many different solutions," said John Horrigan, Director of Consumer Research for the Omnibus Broadband Initiative. "Lowering costs of service or hardware, helping people develop online skills, and informing them about applications relevant to their lives are all key to sustainable adoption."

The interaction of attitudes and use of communications goods and services creates four categories of non-adopters:

* Near Converts, who make up 30 percent of non-adopters, have the strongest tendencies toward getting broadband. They have high rates of computer ownership, positive attitudes about the Internet. Many are dial-up or "not-at-home" users, and affordability is the leading reason for non-adoption among this group. They are relatively youthful compared with other non-adopters, with a median age of 45.

* Digital Hopefuls, who make up 22 percent of non-adopters, like the idea of being online but lack the resources for access. Few have a computer and, among those who use one, few feel comfortable with the technology. Some 44 percent cite affordability as a barrier to adoption and they are also more likely than average to say digital literacy are a barrier. This group is heavily Hispanic and has a high share of African-Americans.

* Digitally Uncomfortable, who make up 20 percent of non-adopters, are the mirror image of the Digital Hopefuls; they have the resources for access but not a bright outlook on what it means to be online. Nearly all of the Digitally Uncomfortable have computers, but they lack the skills to use them and have tepid attitudes toward the Internet. This group reports all three barriers: affordability, digital literacy, and relevance.

* Digitally Distant, who make up 28 percent of non-adopters, do not see the point of being online. Few in this group see the Internet as a tool for learning and most see it as a dangerous place for children. This is an older group (the median age is 63), nearly half are retired and half say that either relevance or digital literacy are barriers to adoption.

The Consumer Survey interviewed 5,005 adult Americans between Oct. 19 and Nov. 23, 2009. The margin of error based on results based on the entire sample is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points. The survey included an over-sample of non-adopters, resulting in interviews of 2,334 adults who are not broadband users at home. The margin of error for results based on non-adopters is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. Interviewers conducting the survey provide a Spanish-language option for respondents wishing to take the survey in Spanish.

Read the Broadband Adoption and Use in America online.

Lexington held secret meeting on biker party
3/3/10
The State
By Tim Flach
Lexington Town Council proceeded with a session Monday on police plans to watch a biker group gathering after a warning from the town's top aide that it violated open meeting requirements.

Town attorney Brad Cunningham agreed the unannounced discussion didn't comply with state standards for a day's notice of topics to be discussed or acted upon.

"Once warned, I don't know what you can do," he said of the seven council members' decision to hold the meeting anyway.

Town administrator Jim Duckett confirmed warning council members the session was improper after he and Cunningham reviewed what is permissible under the "Sunshine Law."

"I told them they shouldn't, they couldn't do it," he said. "It was not announced in advance to the public and didn't meet the requirements allowing it to be done that way."

Police Chief Terrence Greene said during the meeting he outlined plans on how officers will handle a fundraiser for Hells Angels at a local bar Saturday.

Mayor Randy Halfacre said he arranged the briefing "to give us an update" as council members gathered for a meal prior to their public meeting.

Since it was informational, "I don't see that as a violation" of open-meeting requirements, Halfacre said.

Halfacre didn't remember being told the session was improper.

Some council members said any violation was inadvertent.

"I wouldn't call it a meeting; it was more of a briefing," Councilman Todd Shevchik said.

"I don't know what all the guidelines are," said Shevchik, a magazine publisher. "There was some mumbling and discussion as to whether it was appropriate."

Newspaper Web sites continue to be the most valued local news and information sites online
3/2/10
By Jeff Sigmund Direct
Newspaper Association of America
Arlington, Va. – Newspaper Web sites continue to be the most used and valued sites for consumers seeking credible and trustworthy local content and advertising online, according to a new survey conducted by comScore for the Newspaper Association of America. Approximately 57 percent of the 3,050 respondents identified local newspaper Web sites as the top online source for local information -- ahead of the totals for all other media. That percentage grows for upper income households (63 percent) and for the college educated (60 percent).

The strength of local newspaper Web sites was made clear when respondents to the survey, entitled Site Matters: The Value of Local Newspaper Web Sites, were asked to identify sites they used most often for specific types of local content. Newspaper sites ranked first as a source for local information (29 percent), local sports (27 percent), local entertainment (26 percent) and local classifieds (39 percent), ahead of both local television Web sites and online portals.

“This important research provides further evidence of newspapers’ successful multiplatform transition, with the medium serving as a continuous local resource for consumers,” said NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm. “While newspaper Web sites often face dozens of competitors touting their own local offerings in any given market, they have been able to thrive by leveraging trusted brands and strong local content to appeal to consumers and advertisers alike.”

Local newspaper Web sites ranked first among all sources for trustworthiness, credibility and being the most informative place to find local content of all types – including news, information, entertainment, sports and classified advertising. When respondents were asked what sources were most trustworthy or reliable, local newspaper Web sites bested local television sites by twelve percentage points for local information (34 percent vs. 22 percent), by six points for local sports (30 percent vs. 24 percent), by 10 points for local entertainment (30 percent vs. 20 percent) and by 29 points for local classifieds (42 percent vs. 13 percent).

Most Trusted Source for Advertising.

The survey also found that consumers consider local newspaper Web sites to be the most trusted source of online advertising, with ads that are perceived to be more current, credible and relevant to them.

Four-in-ten adults (40 percent) agreed that their opinion of online advertising is influenced by the type of Web site on which the ad appears. Of those, local newspaper sites ranked first in trustworthiness of advertising. More than one-third (36 percent) selected local newspaper Web sites for trustworthy advertising compared to less than one-fourth (23 percent) for local television Web sites and less than one-in-eight (12 percent) for online portals. And local newspaper sites were the clear winner across all demographic categories – even among the younger 18 – 34 age group, leading the second-ranked television Web sites by 13 percentage points (35 percent vs. 22 percent), and online portals by 24 percentage points (35 percent vs. 11 percent).

“This survey reinforces the notion that consumers value and trust the premium-quality content found at newspaper Web sites as well as the advertising on those sites,” said Randy Bennett, NAA’s senior vice president of Business Development. “It also provides further evidence that newspapers, which attracted a record 75 million visitors in January, offer advertisers a high-value audience that no other medium can match.”

More information on the study, including a sales presentation for advertising executives, is available at www.newspapermedia.com.

Other data from the comScore survey include:

Local Newspaper Web Sites are Most Informative: Newspaper Web sites ranked first in all five content types, edging out local television websites for local news (34 percent vs. 32 percent), with wider margins for local information (32 percent vs. 23 percent), local sports (30 percent vs. 24 percent) local entertainment (29 percent vs. 18 percent) and local classifieds (43 percent vs. 12 percent).

Local Newspaper Web Sites are Most Credible: Newspaper Web sites ranked first for being the most credible source, beating second-ranked local television Web sites for all content types, from local news (35 percent vs. 32 percent), local information (34 percent vs. 23 percent), local sports (30 percent vs.24 percent), local entertainment (30 percent vs. 19 percent) and local classifieds (43 percent vs. 13 percent).

Advertising on Local Newspaper Web Sites More Trustworthy: Nearly eight-in-ten respondents (78 percent) across all demographic groups rated “more likely to be current” as the top reason advertising on local newspaper Websites are most trustworthy. Credibility and local relevance were also important factors with close to 50 percent of respondents citing these attributes for reasons behind local newspapers advertising trustworthiness.

The comScore survey results follow initial data from “Consumer Insights,” a new study conducted by MORI Research, that indicates newspaper advertising remains the leading advertising medium cited by consumers in planning, shopping and making purchasing decisions. The survey of more than 3,000 adults found that 82 percent of adults said they “took action” as a result of newspaper advertising – from clipping a coupon or making a purchase to visiting a Web site. More information on this study is available here.

This comScore survey, fielded in November 2009, measured consumer attitudes and behaviors regarding local newspaper websites and content compared with other online sources of local news and information. The survey is based on a nationally representative sample of adults who use websites within the comScore panel. Participants received an e-mail invitation to take the online survey, which took approximately 10 minutes to complete. There were 3,055 completed interviews. Data were weighted on age, gender, income, and region to match national online targets prior to analysis.

NAA is a nonprofit organization representing nearly 2,000 newspapers and their multiplatform businesses in the U.S. and Canada. NAA members include daily newspapers, as well as non-dailies, other print publications and online products. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the Association focuses on the major issues that affect today's newspaper industry: public policy/legal matters, advertising revenue growth and audience development across the medium's broad portfolio of products and digital platforms.

Information about NAA and the industry also may be found at www.naa.org.

Former USC J-School dean passes away
3/1/10
Retired journalism school dean Joe Shoquist died Feb. 27 at Still Hopes Retirement Community in Columbia. He was 84.

Shoquist became the dean of the University of South Carolina’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications in 1986 and continued as dean of the journalism program until his retirement in 1991.

After education in local public schools, Shoquist attended the University of Iowa, interrupting his education to serve in the Army during 1946 and 1947. He received a B.A. in journalism in 1948 and an M.A. in 1951.

According to information gathered by Amy Rabideau Silvers of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Shoquist began his professional career as a sports writer, working briefly with the Boise Statesman in 1948 before moving to the Idaho Falls Post Register. During the 1951-1952 school year, Shoquist was an instructor at the Journalism School of the University of Montana. From 1952 to 1954 he was general assignment reporter for the Great Falls Tribune.

In 1954, Shoquist relocated to Milwaukee to take a position as copy editor for the Milwaukee Sentinel. The following year he became a copy editor with the Milwaukee Journal. During the following years, he advanced to become telegraph editor in 1959, assistant news editor and then news editor in 1964, and assistant managing editor in 1966. In 1967, he was appointed managing editor.

Throughout his career Shoquist was active in various professional organizations including the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Wisconsin Associated Press Association and the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. He served as president of the APME in 1979 and president of ACEJ in 1983. Shoquist had a strong interest in issues concerning First Amendment rights and professional ethics. As head of the APME's Professional Standards Committee, he wrote the organization's widely used code of ethics. He was one of the founders of the First Amendment Congress in 1980.

Shoquist also served as a Pulitzer juror in 1978 and 1979. He was one of the co-founders of the First Amendment Congress’ board of trustees.

As a journalist, Shoquist traveled to India, Burma (now Myanmar), Thailand, Taiwan and Japan. He also covered President Richard Nixon’s trip to the Soviet Union in 1972 and visited Iran and Poland during the 1972 trip. Later, as managing of The Milwaukee Journal, Shoquist was a questioner at Nixon’s news conference in November 1973 where the President made the famous comment: “I am not a crook.”

While dean of College of Journalism and Mass Communications, Shoquist was successful in gaining much needed new resources for the college, changing the profile of the faculty and making great strides toward diversity. He pushed hard for and gained approval for a doctoral program for the college.

When he retired as dean in 1991, Shoquist was quoted in “Intercom,” the college’s publication, as saying he would like to be remembered as a champion of ethics. He added, “I’d also like to be remembered as an editor who ran a successful newspaper, a newspaper with fierce independence. We simply weren’t obligated to anybody. We were a scrappy newspaper. I think the worst thing a newspaper can do is to toady to special interests.”
 
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 6, at 2 pm in Rutledge Chapel on the University of South Carolina's historic Horseshoe.
 
The College of Journalism has a memorial page on for Dean Shoquist:
http://jour.sc.edu/news/newsann/10Spring/shoquist_joe.html

Editorial: House should adopt new EMS rules
3/1/10
The Greenville News
The South Carolina Senate has brought some needed sunlight to what should have always been the public records of publicly funded emergency medical services. The Senate last week quickly passed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Harvey Peeler, a Gaffney Republican, which would take the veil of secrecy off EMS records.

The bill that came out of the Senate wasn’t perfect, but it goes a long way toward addressing the unintended consequences of a 2004 law that incidentally was sponsored by Peeler. The Senate Medical Affairs Committee that Peeler chairs gave 8-3 approval on Feb. 18 to the bill that would open the records of EMS agencies.

A majority of senators on that committee agreed to an amendment that would keep secret the names of EMS responders. That’s an unnecessary protection, and one that is not extended to police officers and firefighters. Those two groups of public servants also are involved in life-and-death situations, and they sometimes are criticized unfairly for their work.

More often than not, police officers and firefighters are proven correct in their split-second decisions, and the same surely would hold true for EMTs, too. And quite often, those hard-working public servants are held up for praise, not criticism.

Still, the amended bill is far better than what was in place. The amendment even allows the patient, immediate family member or legal representative to obtain the EMT’s name, and that affected party is not bound to secrecy.

The 2004 law sponsored by Peeler was at the request of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control. The intention was to make the state comply with laws designed to protect patient privacy. In fact, nothing in the debate this month was about exposing the names of patients. Peeler’s new bill was aimed at correcting the 2004 law that slammed the door on EMS records and response times.

Twice now, in Beaufort and Richland counties, the public was denied information that should not be hidden. In Beaufort, county officials won’t release information about emergency response times or about an incident in which county EMS workers were criticized for not taking a man with head injuries to a better-equipped hospital, The State newspaper reported. In Columbia, the public cannot get a 911 recording and incident report about events surrounding the death of a 3-year-old boy who was not rushed immediately to the hospital, according to the newspaper.

The public has a right to know how its money is being spent and how publicly funded agencies are being run. Such information is vital to creating the level of accountability that citizens deserve and should be able to expect.

Peeler is to be commended for working so hard to strip away the secrecy that surrounds EMS records. The South Carolina Press Association, which represents newspapers throughout the state, also has worked diligently to ensure those records are available to the public. The bill now goes to the House of Representatives.

It should receive quick approval there, too.

Morris Publishing's restructuring plan confirmed
3/1/10
The bankruptcy court overseeing Morris Publishing Group's reorganization plan has confirmed the plan and approved the adequacy of its Disclosure Statement, clearing the way for the company to emerge from bankruptcy as soon as March 1.

Once it emerges from bankruptcy, Morris Publishing and its 13 daily newspapers will operate from a stronger financial position, having reduced its overall principal amount of indebtedness from approximately $418 million to approximately $107 million.

"We are delighted with the court's decision," said William S. Morris III, chairman of Morris Publishing. "This restructuring process has been lengthy and difficult, especially for our dedicated and loyal employees. I want to personally thank them, along with our advertisers, suppliers and readers, for their valued support during this period.

"Our commitment is to remain an agile and innovative market-driven newspaper company whose core mission is to gather and distribute news, support our advertisers and publish great newspapers and Web sites."

Morris filed its Pre-Packaged Plan of Reorganization in January with the overwhelming support of its bondholders as well as its senior secured creditors. Upon emergence, the company will exchange $100 million of new second lien secured notes due in 2014 for the cancellation of approximately $278.5 million of principal amount of outstanding senior subordinated unsecured notes due 2013 plus accrued and unpaid interest.

Concurrent with the exchange of bondholder debt, affiliated entities owned and controlled by the Morris family will make a capital contribution of approximately $85 million and a repayment of intercompany indebtedness of approximately $25 million, resulting in the cancellation of approximately $110 million of Morris Publishing's senior secured debt.

For more information about the company's restructuring, visit Morris Publishing's Web site, www.morrisrestructures.com.

Avoid 78% piece price increase for 'flimsy' newspapers
3/1/10
The National Newspaper Association received news this week that its campaign to help community newspapers avoid a postage up-charge intended for lightweight publications was successful and a 78% in-county piece rate increase that would have taken effect in June has been averted. The Postal Service announced that it would not assess a charge on carrier-routed newspapers entered at delivery offices. The charge may still apply to outside-county carrier-routed newspapers that fail a “droop” test.

The test applies to flat mail that droops more than 4 inches when extended 5 inches off a flat surface.

NNA President Cheryl Kaechele, publisher of the Allegan County (MI) News) said the charge was proposed last fall, and that NNA’s Postal Committee Chairman Max Heath had immediately swung into action to prevent it. The “droop” test is imposed to charge flats that are too lightweight to be handled by automated sorting machinery, but in the latest iteration, USPS had said it thought that even publications not sorted by machine should be assessed the charge.

“We were greatly concerned,” Kaechele said, “The Postal Service had announced that there would be no postage increases during this very challenging economy. Then to suddenly find this daunting charge looming because of a mere rules change was very bad news indeed. We congratulate the Postal Committee and Max Heath for effective advocacy to turn back this threat to our industry.”

Heath said: “NNA won a decisive victory in its effort to ensure that so-called ‘flimsy flats’ entered at DDU post offices retain the Basic carrier-route price for 6-124 Periodical pieces or 10-124 Standard Mail Enhanced Carrier route pieces on a route if they fail a so-called ‘deflection’ test.

“NNA was the only association publicly cited during a presentation on the final rule at the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee in Washington February 17 for the reasonableness and quality of arguments to a Federal Register filing. NNA, several members, and some state associations filed comments showing that newspapers would be discriminated against with a 78% increase to 5-digit Periodical rates should a newspaper fail a new, more restrictive ‘droop test.’” This revised test applies to “flat mail” that droops more than 4 vertical inches when extended 5 inches off a flat surface.

The final rule, effective June 7, indicates that the test will be applied to periodicals, such as magazines, that don't enter at Destination Delivery Units.

Heath said, “I encourage publishers to maximize their DDU drops if at all possible to avoid this nasty penalty if they have a concern that their newspaper could fail the droop test.”

"This decision once again shows the value of mailers dropping their own subscriber copies via Exceptional Dispatch to DDU post offices, both in-county and across county lines, anywhere substantial carrier-route mail exists," Heath said. “Likewise, those with Standard Mail shoppers get the same price discount on Basic price carrier route sorted mail entered at the DDU. High-density and Saturation mail is already exempt from this penalty in both classes.”

Each NNA member newspaper without high page counts will enjoy a savings of 4.6 cents per piece when sorted to the Basic carrier-route price In-county (line A13 of Form 3541), and 12.3 cents on every Basic carrier-route price piece Outside County (line C25 of 3541). DDU-entered shopper copies would have a savings of 11.4 cents per piece from Basic-price pieces staying on line I12 rather than going to line E9 for 5-digit rates on a 3602-R.

Members can annualize their savings by multiplying $0.046 times in-county Basic carrier route copies times the number of issues in a year, then $0.123 times outside-county Basic carrier route copies times annual issues. For newspapers with shoppers, or free Standard Mail newspapers, paying Basic carrier-route rate, multiply $0.114 times line I12 copies times the number of issues in a year. That should more than pay for annual dues for any member and multiple years membership for some.

Details of the deflection test, which is still being argued by major mailers, will appear in Max Heath's Pub Aux Postal Tips column prior to implementation.

SCPA attorney says Anderson School District 5 budget workshop should be open to public
2/26/10
Anderson Independent-Mail
By Liz Carey
Anderson School District 5 will need to trim more than $10 million from its budget, according to its superintendent, for fiscal year 2010-11.

At a meeting Friday in Nevitt Forest Community School of Innovation in Anderson, Superintendent Betty Bagley laid out to teachers what administrators and the District 5 school board will need to deal with in the coming months.

Bagley said she has visited many of the district schools already to speak about the issue and would go to the other ones that invite her.

Since August 2008, the district has lost $8 million, Bagley said.

For the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, cuts in education funding at the state level and increases in health-insurance costs mean the district must find ways to cut $10.3 million from an already lean budget.

“We're doing everything possible to not reach into the classroom,” Bagley said. “We really don't want our kids to know we're in a financial crisis.”

The district already has eliminated more than 80 positions, cut back on travel and supplies, instituted furlough days and a hiring freeze as well as taken $1.6 million from the district fund balance.

The South Carolina House of Representatives voted Thursday to reduce the base student cost to $1,630, a funding level not seen since 1995, Bagley said. Last year's funding level, with stimulus money, was $2,324 per student. Bagley said the district would lose more than $7.5 million of state money for fiscal year 2010-11 as a result of the reduction.

Increased costs for health insurance and teacher salaries as well as loss of grants are among the factors that push the district to need to cut $10.3 million.

District 5 trustees are scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. on March 15 for a budget workshop. According to a release from the district, the workshop will happen in closed session.

Jay Bender, attorney with the South Carolina Press Association, said budget workshops should be open to the public.

“A school district budget may not be discussed in executive session,” Bender said. “A public body may hold a meeting closed to the public to discuss the employment or compensation of 'a person,' but not to discuss a budget. I would argue that even if the budget contemplates the elimination of positions, it does not authorize an executive session discussion because the funding of a position is independent of the identity of any person who might hold the position at any one time. For example, a discussion of eliminating one first-grade teaching position does not identify any particular teacher.”

Bill passes out of Senate committee opening most EMS records to public
2/18/10
The Senate Medical Affairs committee has approved a bill that opens almost all information in EMS records to public inspection.

"This is a really important step and we applaude Sen. Peeler and the committee for taking this step in removing a blanket of secrecy over EMS data, including response times," said Bill Rogers, SCPA Executive Director. "The public has the right to know how EMS respondents perform their tax-payer supported activities."

The bill was amended Thursday morning to keep the names of EMS responders secret, but it specifies that victims and family member would be assured access to the names of EMTs and that they can release this information to the media.  

Rogers testified that he thought EMTs should be treated like policemen and firemen and their names should be released. He said after the vote that he was very pleased that most EMS record data would be open if the bill passes.

Rogers said they had to make a very basic policy decision:  were EMTs more like nurses and doctors, or more like policemen and firemen, who also respond to 911 calls and are paid for by public funds.

The vote was 8-3 for the amended version keeping the names secret, with Peeler, and Sens. Hutto and Hayes, voting against it.

Rogers thanked all the newspaper executives who made calls in support of the bill, and those who ran editorials and op-ed pieces in support of open government involving EMS records.

"Your efforts made a difference," he said.

A similar bill is pending in a House committee.

Bill would reduce voter notices in local papers
2/18/10
A bill that would allow the S.C. Election Commission and local governments to save money by publishing fewer, shorter voter notices in local newspapers, has passed the House Election Laws subcommittee.

The bill states that most of the information in legal advertisements would be shifted from newspapers to the Election Commission's Web site. Smaller ads in newspapers would direct readers to the site.

The House Elections Laws subcommittee today rejected an amendment presented by Rep. Wendy Nanney that would have given election officials the option of either placing election notices in newspapers or on the State Elections Commission Web site.  If passed, the  original bill and the amendment would have ended publication of election notices in local newspapers. 

A compromise amendment presented by Rep. Bakari Sellers was unanimously approved.  Rep. Sellers’ amendment requires that shortened newspaper notices still have to be run giving the date, time, type of election and deadline for registering to vote. These  legal ads would be run in papers once, rather than twice. 

The adopted version also would require notice on the State Election Commission Web site not later than 45 days before the election, rather than the 60 days now in the law.

The future of this bill in the Senate is doubtful.   

SCPA member Lee Harter, editor of The Times and Democrat, testified that placing the notice in newspapers is important because Web-only notices disenfranchise voters who lack Internet access.