Report to Readers by Susan LoTempio

Sabres behavior

Have you noticed all the hairy faces around town of late?

Features reporter Barbara Sullivan writes about the - shall we say strange - habit of growing play-off beards that has taken hold thanks to the Sabres. Don't miss her piece in Saturday Life.

But we find it hard to believe that hair-stubbled chins are the only supersitition that crops up during the playoffs. Yes, we've heard about socks that don't get changed for weeks on end, and even worse, playoff underwear. But those habits seem tame compared to other creative practices we just know are being used during this playoff round.

If you dare, share your playoff behavior in this blog's comments section. Don't be shy, your ritual is bound to be the lucky charm that will get us all the way to the Stanley Cup.

Count the stars

  The new movie "The Condemned," reviewed in Thursday's Life & Arts section, received a rating of only 1 and a half stars (out of four).

For many movies, that would mean death at the box office. But I suspect it won't stop one person in the target audience for this WWE-produced flick from seeing it.

On the other hand, even if it was a four-star movie, there's no way I would buy a ticket. Sit through a movie about condemned killers fighting to the death on a desolate island? You've got to be kidding.

Welcome to the complex and often annoying world of star ratings.

The News uses a four-star rating system for movie and theater reviews as well as CD and restaurant reviews. We don't use them for concert (pop or classical), book or art show reviews.

There are many people who would like to see the star system disappear forever. They worry that too many readers don't bother to read the review and judge the quality of a movie or production strictly by the number of stars the critic assigns.

Others see a disconnect between what's written in the review and the number of stars its given. Around the newsroom we call that "star inflation," which means the review can be brutal, but the star rating is  generous.

There are those who would like us to go to a five-star system. And there are others who wonder what the heck a half-star is supposed to indicate.

Informed readers take the time to consider all the pieces - the number of stars, the complete review (was the acting great but the plot weak?), even the tone of the headline - then make a judgment on their own.

Unfortunately, some readers base their judgment on whose byline is on the review:

    If so-and-so critic likes something, then I won't like it one bit.

   Or, if so-and-so critic reviews this, I know he/she is going to like it because he/she LIKES EVERYTHING.

Let me tell you, readers can get really angry about star ratings.

But, really, reviews and stars are just meant to be a guide. They are one person's opinion of a piece of music, a film, or a new place to eat.

They should be read with that in mind - and then we should trust our own judgment.

Kids Day

  Close to 4,000 people got up really early this morning to sell the special Kids Day edition of The News. They do it year after year in rain, sunshine or snow, because they believe in helping the kids with special needs cared for at Women's and Children's Hospital and other local agencies.

For commuters and volunteers, Kids Day is a one-day (actually, one-morning) event. For The News, it's a labor of love that's worked on - literally - for months.

If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a whole newspaper company (along with the Variety Club) to help thousands of kids. All departments - from editorial, which produces the Kids Day section, to promotions and marketing, circulation, advertising and production are involved in Kids Day.

In January, two employees take a "leave" from their usual jobs at the paper and concentrate full time on making Kids Day run smoothly. On Kids Day itself, many News staffers volunteer to drive the trucks, work in the zone offices and the mailroom, and sell some of the 150,000 special editions that come off our presses in the early morning hours.

This year we're celebrating the 25th anniversary of The News' involvement in Kids Day, an event we took on after the Courier-Express closed its doors.

Cindy Sterner, our promotions and public affairs manager who oversees Kids Day, worked until 8 Monday night, then came back at midnight to oversee the operation. She was particularly happy with the good weather that greeted volunteers, which will help us meet the $135,000 goal. (For those who didn't pick up the special edition today, Cindy said there will be a special donation mailer in Thursday's paper. Online readers will also be given a way to donate.)

It seems that each year, Kids Day generates goodwill around the community. This morning, for instance, those who bought the Kids Day edition near Salvatore's Italian Garden also received  cannolis from the restaurant. Buyers along Abbott Road were greeted by clowns.

It's amazing how kids can bring out the best in all of us.

Biggest story in town

   I've worked in other sports-obsessed towns - San Francisco and Oakland, just to name two.

  But never have I lived in a place that lives, breathes and dies by its pro teams like Buffalo. Which, as a journalist, makes me see sports as a whole other category of news.

Traditionally, sports news lands in the (wait for it ...) ... Sports section. That is unless something HUGE happens like an earthquake shaking up a ballpark (it happened in San Francisco) or a team gets sold and moves in or out of town (too many cities to list, but hopefully not ours).

In Buffalo, sports is News (with a capital N) and often lands on the prime real estate known as Page 1. Especially when a team, like the Sabres, are the hottest news of the day (and week and month, and probably, year).

What we've realized around the newsroom is that the craving for stories about the Sabres is insatiable. And our efforts to feed the hunger has ratcheted up significantly. Yes, there are the  medallions and posters, but also reported, staff-written stories that provide information important to fans - such as how not to get ripped off getting a playoff ticket. Or even if it's humanly possible to still get one.

Is this great investigative reporting? Uh, no. Does it reflect  what's important to this community? Without a doubt. And that's what drives our coverage.

The best news is local news, and the Sabres in the play-offs is not only big news to sports fans, but it also has a direct impact on City Hall, local businesses and schools as well as every media outlet in town.

For those who say we use up too much space covering the Sabres, I say this: We are happy for the chance to finally report some good news. And here's a link to today's front-page story.

The same can't be said about the Bills, but who knows what the next football season will bring.

Picture - Day 2

   What have I learned over the past two days? That the massacre at Virginia Tech is hitting people in Western New York very, very hard. And, they are expressing it with strong emotion, the most obvious of which is anger.

Much of the anger is targeted at us for using the photo of the murderer on the front page of Thursday's paper. That photo ratcheted up the emotions because many people saw it as the personification of evil. They also feel that the murderer got just what he had intended - attention from the mass media.

This country has suffered an overabundance of violence and tragedy in a short period of time - the Oklahoma City bombing, the attack on the Twin Towers, the Columbine shootings, the Amish school killings, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other acts of violence too numerous to name.

But I never saw an outpouring of anger over images of Timothy McVeigh, Saddam Hussein, or the men who flew the planes into the towers like I've seen this week.

The question is, why?

One thoughtful reader e-mailed me this morning, "For me, it was the pose with the guns. His school picture didn't have the same effect."

Many others told us that the use of the photo on Page 1 was "offensive and insensitive." They felt it  "glamorized" the murderer and it will suggest to other evildoers "a way to get notoriety."

Parents and those who work with children, pointed out that there is a great deal of fear among young people over the killings in Virginia, and the picture served to exacerbate those fears.

Looking back, I see now that the Thursday photo was more than a powerful image with news value. It became a symbol of violence and the object of fear.

Those who work in the newsroom have learned much in the past few days. And to our readers, I'd like to say: We hear you.

Picture of a killer

  Angry readers are e-mailing and calling today about the photo of the Virginia Tech shooter on the front page of today's paper.

"The image of the sick individual holding guns out on the front page of The News is just so disturbing to me on so many levels.  Not only do small children see this image at the store (papers are most often placed at eye level for children), but people of all ages continue to receive violent images.  I know it is your job to report the news, but ask yourself when you go too far to get higher ratings or more papers purchased," Colleen Fisher e-mailed me this morning.

Yes, the image is disturbing, but isn't that the point? The deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history is an incredibly disturbing story, and one that cannot be underplayed.

Video clips of the shooter were shown all over the Internet and television Wednesday night. Channel surfing through the cable news stations, I saw photo after photo after disturbing photo of the murderer pointing guns at a camera.

Newspapers also tell stories through images as well as words. And while the photos of Cho Seung-Hui on our front page were taken from a video clip broadcast by NBC News, they were not used to sensationalize the story or somehow "glorify" his actions. We made that clear with the headline, "Through mail, a killer's tirade."

Other newspapers across the country played the picture and the story in similar ways. Click here to see them. Some papers, such as the Chicago Sun-Times, had even more dramatic presentations.

What the photo did was allow readers to look into this man's face and see the eyes of a cold-blooded killer. What was disturbing to me, though, is how much he looked like a character from a violent movie or video game.

Seeing the way he presumably modeled himself after a killer in a movie or game, you have to wonder how much the violence so pervasive in our entertainment culture plays into the despicable acts that murdered 32 people in Virginia.

That front-page photo, while disturbing to many, ought to remind us that violence - fictional and otherwise - begets more violence. And there's no hiding from that.

When national news becomes local

  The Virginia Tech massacre was like a punch in the gut for any parent who has a child on a college campus. If it can happen there, can it, will it happen at my child's university?

Visceral reactions like that make news personal - not just something that's happened somewhere else to somebody else's child.

But is that news story local? It is to parents with children attending classes on local campuses and who worry about security measures that are - or aren't - in place on those campuses.

It's personal to anyone who lives in our community but who knows someone that works or goes to school at Virginia Tech. It's personal for graduates of the school who now live all over the world. And for high school seniors who have been accepted to fall semester at the college in Blacksburg, Va.

Reporter Maki Becker has found students and others from WNY who were on the Virginia campus yesterday, and  who survived the deadliest shooting rampage in our nation's history.

Their stories will be in Wednesday's Buffalo News. And, as the mother of a college senior, I'll read every single word while trying to control the fear that has settled on every parent I know.
   

Enough is enough

  Just about every part of the Don Imus story troubles me. But I have to wonder if media haven't become complicit in spreading the hateful stereotypes that Imus uttered so publicly.

For days on end, his racist language about the Rutgers women's basketball team have been quoted over and over in wire service stories as well as radio and television reports.

It's not as if the repetition takes the sting out of them; in fact, just the opposite is true: the racial rant just gets ground deeper into our consciousness.

In the piece by Maki Becker and Emma Sapong in today's News, the quote had a place. How else would readers know what the African-American women they interviewed were responding to?

But in most other cases all this long week, the constant use of the Imus quote just got to be ridiculous.

Today finally, cooler heads prevailed in some newsrooms. In an Associated Press story, this wording was used: "Imus was fired from his CBS radio program Thursday amid furor about racially charged  (my emphasis) comments." Similar wording was used in National Public Radio reports Friday.

What took so long? Could it be reporters and editors couldn't resist the shock value of Imus' words? Could it be no one took the time to think about the effect those words might have on young readers, women, African-Americans?

I thought the media learned something from that other highly publicized racial rant - the Michael Richards debacle. Apparently not. Hopefully, we did this time.

So much news ... so little time

  The newsroom is all abuzz this week, not just because the Sabres are in the playoffs, but because there has been so much breaking news.

That's pretty unusual around any holiday - religious or otherwise - because everyone seems to go on vacation, even the newsmakers.

Not this Easter.
   
News stories have been breaking out all over the place the week before and after Easter. Locally, there's been the saga of Mayor Brown's vehicle; the release from prison of Anthony Capozzi; the state budget; Gov. Spitzer's first 100 days in office; the State Supreme Court justice involved in a crash; the Bass Pro deal; the suicide at the Seneca Niagara Casino and John Justice. On the lighter side, we've also been covering our lousy spring weather and the blooming Dyngus Day celebrations.

Nationally, there's that growing Don Imus story, the Duke lacrosse players, the presidential election, the war in Iraq, the student loan scandal, the strange weather all over the nation, and let's not forget the latest installment in the Anna Nicole saga.

Still, all those pale in comparison to the most important story in town right now: the Sabres.

Are we complaining about the excess of news? Not one bit. Bring it on!

Where to play Duke

From Managing Editor Jerry Goldberg,  more on why a story is considered for Page One.

    The announcement that all charges have been dropped against three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexually assaulting a stripper at a party is part of a running story that illustrates the nature of journalism. That is, the news process is an evolving one, and you can always be sure that more information will be coming out as a story develops. It also speaks to how decisions are made about where to play stories.

     When a North Carolina prosecutor last April charged members of the team with raping a stripper  during a party, The News put it on Page One. It had the potent elements of a compelling story -- race, class and sex.  The white players were from one of America's best known universities while their accuser, an African-American woman, attended a smaller nearby college comprised of students less affluent than their Duke counterparts. Moreover, there was no indication of just how weak the case against the players really was.

    Another  story a day later also went on Page One. That piece dealt with defense lawyers attacking the prosecutor and detailing why their clients were innocent. A third Page One story about a month later dealt with a third member of the team being indicted. That player was the first to speak out about the woman's charges being "fantastic lies."

 

    As the prosecutor's  case began to unravel, we ran further articles, although not on Page One. The ebb and flow of a legal case is seldom played out entirely on Page One. That's true because we know that more information is bound to come out.

 

   While announcing that the charges had been dropped, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who took over the case from Durham County District Mike Nifong, said his investigation cast doubt on whether an attack took place at all.

 

   It's a dramatic development, and that's why this story again will be given strong consideration for tomorrow's Page One.

 

 

 

"For Better or For Worse"

   That comic strip has consistently been voted the top favorite of newspaper readers here and all over the country.

To say that Lynn Johnston, the author of the strip, has a loyal following is an understatement. Her fans are passionate about her long-running story of the Patterson family.

Here's the bad news: Johnston informed her syndicate that she planned to retire in September of this year. In other words, she would stop producing the strip.

The 59-year-old has told the media that she is tired of the personal drain of creating a seven-day comic strip and is dealing with a painful neurological condition called dystonia.

Here's the good news: Rather than killing "For Better of For Worse," Johnston and her syndicate have decided to continue it in 'hybrid" form.  What this means, her editor explained to me, is that there will be a mix of old and new strips.

Johnston will retell storylines (old drawings) through the eyes of younger members of the Patterson family, such as son Michael (new drawings).

She plans to freshen the drawings of the older strips as she integrates the old and new storylines.

Sounds like an interesting experiment, and for fans of the strip it's very good news. Otherwise, "For Better or For Worse" would go away completely, or live on in reruns. And if you ask me, there are too many reruns on newspaper comics pages now (take that, Snoopy!). Personally, I'd like to see some fresh, new talent.

Haven for harried parents

  If there's one thing that time-compressed, over-stressed, modern-day parents need, it's a chance to communicate with each other. To share the joy. To share the pain. To share the secrets of successful parenting (oh, and of course the mistakes).

Obviously, though, that time-compressed thing gets in their way.

We hope to make communication easier by offering a new blog, Parent Company. It's written by husband/wife team Greg and Allison Connors, who will open the front door of their home ever so slightly to give us a glimpse of their parenting dilemmas and successes. That includes, of course, not just the behavior issues and attitude problems of their kids, but also the complicated culture they're bringing their kids up in.

We're hoping to get their blog online today, but we're having some technical difficulties that may delay it a bit.

This blog shouldn't be a one-way dialogue. It can be a helpful, fun and easy way for parents to talk to each other. Just click on the comment section to talk to Greg and Allison and the many other stressed-out parents who partake in the blogosphere.

It's said that there's strength in numbers, and these days parents need all the strength they can get. Perhaps now they can find some on a blog.

Where are the reviews?

  We occasionally get calls from readers - especially those who live in Niagara County - wondering why a review from a concert the night before isn't in their edition of the paper.

The reason most often has to do with press deadlines, especially on weekends when the deadlines are earlier.

The business of reviewing a nighttime show or concert can be tricky. We want our reviewers to stay until the very last minute, but then they need to get to a computer, write the review and file it.

That's just the first step in the process of getting a review published.

Once it's filed, several editors will read it, fix typos, write a headline and lay it out on the page. That page is then sent to the pressroom, which has been chomping at the bit to get the presses running.

Sometimes, then, when printing the Saturday and Sunday paper especially, the first papers off the press won't include the review, but the later ones will. And when we have the space,  we run the review the next day in the editions we missed.

Happily for readers who don't have the review in their paper, they can find it online and read it with their  morning coffee. 

One more question on local reviews: If reviews appear in either Gusto or the Life & Arts section Monday through Saturday, why on Sunday are they tucked into the City & Region section?
Good question!
Our Sunday entertainment section - Spotlight - is printed on Fridays, and therefore can't accommodate reviews from Saturday night. To make sure readers don't have to wait until Monday, they are included in Sunday's local news report.

Talented teens

   Ever hear that old chestnut that goes something like this: The only time you read about teens in the newspaper is when they get into trouble.

Au contraire.

The News' Wednesday NeXt section - written for and by local teens and edited by staffer Jean Westmoore - highlights the incredible talents of the teenagers in our community.

Today's cover story in a good case in point. It focuses on the local high school photographers whose prize-winning photos are part of this spring's Kenan Center's Storrs All High Photo Show.

The print edition of NeXt displays some of the remarkable photos and our Web site offers even more pictures for you to see. They are true works of art.

Local teens display their talents every week in NeXt with their writing, reviewing, photos and drawings.  All their work for NeXt is done separately from their schools, although they often write about other students and school events.

Many of the teen correspondents who have worked for NeXt over the years have gone to college and majored in journalism or other areas of the media.

And while NeXt is supposed to be for teen readers, it's a good place for adults to go if they want to stay in tune with what the next generation is thinking and doing.

New Web features

There are two new features on Buffalonews.com today that you should check out.

First is the local photo gallery that can be found by clicking on City & Region from our home page.

The photo gallery will include local pictures that have been printed in the paper along with others that will be fresh on the Web site. Some photos will be connected to stories we've written, while others will be independent shots.

I've been at The News for 20-plus years now, and the photographers we have on staff now are the most talented I've ever worked with at any newspaper. That means you'll be seeing some very powerful photography in our galleries.

Also debuting is a new blog - Poetry Beat - written by R.D. Pohl.

Bob Pohl, as he's known around here, has for many years selected the poetry published on the monthly Poetry Page in the Sunday Spotlight section. He is a published poet who also writes short fiction and criticism.

Buffalo is a town that appreciates and encourages poetry (we have Pulitzer Prize winning poet Carl Dennis in our midst, after all), and we hope this blog strengthens that art form even more.

Catch-as-catch-can

  Try as we might, we can't catch every mistake that pops up on Buffalonews.com.

Which is why we're grateful to the reader who told us that the online story in the Niagara County section of the Web site ended rather abruptly.

  Thanks to that tip, the rest of the story about the closing plan for Catholic churches has been restored.

Another alert blog reader alerted us to an over-the-top profanity contained in a comment, which somehow got past our blocking program. We took care of that, too.

  We appreciate any reader who flags us about a mistake as they explore Buffalonews.com. If you see something that needs fixing, let us know by using the comment area of this blog.

Also take note: You may have noticed that the Matters of Opinion blog hasn't been updated for awhile. Its author, Dawn Bracely, is on vacation until April 9.

Anne Neville is also off on vacation, but her Idol Watch blog will remain active with guest authors.

First Sunday magazine

When former News staff reporter Anthony Violanti wrote the story "The Rainbow Journey of Harold Arlen," about the life of the Buffalo native who composed "Over the Rainbow," little did he know it would become a family affair.

Shortly after the article appeared in the February 2005 issue of The News' First Sunday magazine, Randall Kramer, executive director of Musicalfare Theatre, contacted Violanti and told him he wanted to commission a musical based on the magazine piece.

But when Violanti, now a reporter at the Star-Banner newspaper in Ocala, Fla., struggled writing a script, he suggested Kramer approach his daughter, Heather Violanti, a master's graduate of the Yale School of Drama who had written several plays, including one produced at Buffalo's Alleyway Theater.

The dream of bringing the Arlen story to the stage becomes reality on April 18 when Musicalfare presents "A Rainbow Journey: The Harold Arlen Story." Heather Violanti's script used her father's magazine story as a "launching point," she said. It begins April 23, 1986, the day Arlen died, and takes the audience back through key moments in the composer's life, including his early days on Buffalo's East Side.

You can read Violanti's original story on Buffalonews.com. Here's the link.

First Sunday's cover story this month is our annual look at new spring fashions, and while the print edition has plenty of fashion photos, we're planning to put more online that were taken during our daylong shoot at a home in Clarence.