On Tuesday afternoon, the News & Observer blogs will be moving to a new system and a new server. This change will make getting to our blogs quicker and easier. Most of the blogs will change their appearance, while blogs like Taking Stock and Under the Dome will remain the same.

This change requires nothing from the reader. There will be a link to the older posts, and you won't need to change your bookmarks. If you have trouble finding your favorite blog or you have a comment, please email feedback@newsobserver.com.

— Rachel Carter

On Tuesday afternoon, the News & Observer blogs will be moving to a new system and a new server. This change will making getting to our blogs quicker and easier. Most of the blogs will change their appearance, while blogs like Taking Stock and Under the Dome will remain the same.

This change requires nothing from the reader. There will be a link to the older posts, and you won't need to change your bookmarks. If you have trouble finding your favorite blog or you have a comment, please email feedback@newsobserver.com.

— Rachel Carter

Following is the Public Editor column from Sunday, June 15, 2008:

Why does The News & Observer need to see Eve Carson's autopsy report? That was the question from several readers last week after they read stories about the paper's lawsuit to obtain the official autopsy report on the slain UNC student body president. Two Durham men have been charged in the killing.

The N&O asked a judge to order release of the report, which had been sealed at the request of the Orange/Chatham district attorney. On Wednesday, D.A. Jim Woodall said he would release the report June 30, by which time police are expected to have completed interrogations. The N&O withdrew the suit, conditional on that resolution.

Which still leaves unanswered the question: Why does the paper -- and the public -- need to know details of a gruesome killing?

=> Read more!

So, is The N&O trying to protect Mike Easley in its opinion pages?

At least one reader thinks so, after the op-ed page ran a column Thursday by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd that omitted a negative reference to our governor.

In the version on the NYT website, Dowd refers to Easley's now-famous fist-bump with Barack Obama this way: "playful fist bump that now has older white guys, like North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, awkwardly trying to do it with Obama." See the full column here.

But that line did not appear in the version of the column that ran in The N&O on Thursday, nor for that matter in the edition of the News York Times distributed in North Carolina.

The N&O did refer to it in today's Under the Dome column.

Allen Torrey, N&O op-ed editor, says the New York Times syndicate did not include the gubernatorial-slamming language in the version sent out to newspapers. Ryan Teague Beckwith, author of the Dome item, says he picked it up from The Times' online edition.

I'm sure Easley was happy not to see it in the reprinted Dowd column. But he has never accused The N&O of going easy on him.

Some readers are questioning why The N&O has been so aggressive in seeking release of the autopsy report in the Eve Carson murder case.

The N&O went to court asking a judge to require the prosecutor to release the report. After previously resisting, Orange/Chatham DA Jim Woodall said today he would release the report at the end of June. (See story here.)

"The N&O has no business suing and trying to get the autopsy report until the investigation is complete," one reader said in a comment posted on the N&O Website. "Why risk letting these guys get away with murder just because the N&O wants to know how many times she was shot and by what? I think its because they think they can sell more newspapers!!!"

N&O editors say there are two reasons for such disclosure: One is that crucial information about a crime be made public; the other that autopsy reports are public records, and exceptions shouldn't be made for high-profile cases.

Senior Editor Linda Williams said autopsy reports are routinely released to confirm publicly the cause of death in a crime. She knew of only one other case in her career where a report had been withheld (and it was ultimately made public). In the Carson case, she said, there has been a lot of speculation about why the crime was committed and how she died.

"We don't know what happened," Williams said. "That's why we're asking for the report. Presumably, it would provide answers to just that sort of gross speculation."

She noted that The N&O usually leaves out graphic details of autopsy reports. And the paper has never published photos from an autopsy report. "I can't conceive of any circumstance where we would."

Finally, she said, "As a matter of principle, we don't want to see any kind of chipping away at the public records law."

An ad in the sports section did what it was supposed to do - it caught a reader's attention - but not perhaps in the way preferred by the advertiser.

The ad, for The Men's Club of Raleigh, depicts a revealing clad "Miss Erotica 2008."

"I should not have to check the paper before my grandkids come to see me," writes Bruce Powers of Fuquay-Varina. "I assume this is a picture that shows what a customer might expect to see at the business. Would children be allowed in such a place? I doubt it. Will they see this picture in the N&O? Yes."

The N&O does accept ads for "adult entertainment" facilities such as the Men's Club, on the reasoning that the paper is not in the business of censoring communication. But it also exercises the prerogative to keep it tasteful.

Jim McClure, VP for display advertising (appropriate title), says "I would say that the illustration in this ad is at the limit of what we would accept."

Following is the Public Editor column for Sunday, June 8, 2008:

It's budget season for local governments around the Triangle, and that's a challenge for any newspaper.

In my old newsrooms, we used to refer to budget stories as "DBIs" -- dull but important. They give readers the most elemental news they need to know about government: how much their taxes will be and how their tax dollars will be spent. But pie graphs and spending charts do not a sexy story make.

This year the budget stories are especially important. In a year of stagnant personal income, falling home prices and rising fuel and food costs, all but one of 11 county and municipal governments in the Triangle region are proposing tax increases (Johnston County would hold flat.) Proposed increases range from 1.9 percent in Cary to 15 percent in Raleigh.

=> Read more!

Some readers were stopped by a phrase the other day in the front-page story about Ted Kennedy's brain surgery at Duke Hospital.

The lead paragraph read: "Dr. Allan Friedman, the neurosurgeon who spent three-and-a-half hours on Monday extracting a fast-growing tumor from the brain of Sen. Edward Kennedy, has a reputation among his peers as being high-strung inside the operating room."

"I can tell you he is not high-strung in the operating room," Senthil Radhakrishnan, Friedman's physician assistant, wrote in a letter to the editor today. "On the contrary, Friedman is always calm, collected and even-keeled." See the letter here.

Another reader noted that the "high-strung" assessment wasn't backed up elsewhere in the story.

Anne Blythe, the reporter, said "the description came from several doctors I talked with. They followed
it with how humble and low-key he is when you meet him in everyday life, which is in the second graph of the lede."

I agree that the description was so curious, and arguably negative, that it merited explanation further into the story. But I did learn a lot about Friedman from the story and an accompanying sidebar.

I'd be interested in seeing a follow-up medical story on the fascinating procedure that involves keeping patients like Kennedy awake during surgery so they can guide the surgeon away from important cognitive parts of the brain.

Several readers took umbrage at the Life Etc. article today on $8,000 handbags.

The fashion feature was an interview with author Michael Tonello, who wrote a book about how to score the Hermes Birkin, "the world's most coveted handbag."

"I can't believe in these times of people struggling to pay for gas to keep their jobs, buying food at higher prices and increased prices for medical, utilities etc. you present to us an article such as the above. It is an outrage to my sensibilities. One purse... could feed a family of four for a half a year," wrote Verna McClure of Holly Springs.

Connie Fortmeyer of Garner noted that she had tried unsuccessfully to get the paper to write about why hearing aids are so expensive: "Today, however, it was very educational to read why Birkins cost so much. Thanks for printing this very important information."

The N&O's fashion staff say it's important for the page to reflect the interests of the readers, and high fashion is one interest. (The section also writes about more downscale trends.) Here's a column I wrote about the topic recently.

Following is the Public Editor column from Sunday, June 1, 2008:

The ongoing soap opera that is the Lynn Paddock trial illustrates a divergence in the standards of journalism as practiced in print and online.

Sensational enough are the newspaper versions of the stories about the trial of the Johnston County woman charged in the murder of her adoptive son, 4-year-old Sean Paddock. In the Smithfield trial, Paddock's other adoptive children last week accused her of torture, mental intimidation and such extreme humiliation as forcing them to eat their own feces and vomit.

The N&O updates the stories each day on its Web site, www.newsobserver.com, so people can keep up with breaking developments. It also has run video from the trial and created forums for readers to comment on the case.

Some of the online content, especially the children's compelling, graphic testimony on videotape, adds a dimension to the coverage that print could not achieve. The forums allow readers to participate directly in the story. But much of the comment is less than elevating. One forum asks readers, "What should happen in the Lynn Paddock case?" Some responses (verbatim):

* "Fry the crazy bitch."

=> Read more!

Following is the Public Editor column for Sunday, May 25, 2008:

A signal moment in The News & Observer's history passed quietly this month. Jerry Allegood, Eastern North Carolina correspondent for the last 35 years, took retirement. With Allegood's departure, the Greenville bureau was closed, leaving the paper without a correspondent based "Down East."

Those events follow other recent changes in the Eastern North Carolina coverage. The paper no longer has a state reporter assigned to cover news outside the Triangle, and an editing position assigned to state news is unfilled.

While The N&O still has substantial circulation in Eastern North Carolina, the larger significance of the changes is that The N&O is no longer the state newspaper that it once was.

=> Read more!

Reader Rex Wheatley was disturbed by the photo on the front of today's Life Etc., showing actor George Jack seated atop a burial vault at Oakwood Cemetery. Jack will be performing in a show at the cemetery soon.

Wheatley says he was taught by his mother that it's disrespectful to sit or stand on a grave memorial. "I think it sends a message to people that it’s OK for someone to sit on a tombstone," he said of the photo. "You don’t walk on someone's grave site, you don’t mess with someone's tombstone. I'd hate to think that I'm buried on that site and someone is using my tomb to sit on."

Sends chills up your spine.

A state employee raises a good question: Why does The N&O publish on its website the name, salary and other information about every state employee?

The N&O publishes under its Factfinder databases a salary report drawn from the State Personnel Office. Here's the link.

"I know that news agencies have an obligation to report what they deem newsworthy," said the employee, who asked to be anonymous. "I also know that information concerning the State of North Carolina is public information. I agree that the public should have the right to certain information. But just because the news agency and the public have the right to obtain the information, it doesn’t mean that it has to arbitrarily display it without consideration for those who may be hurt or violated for no fault of their own."

He reported that the daughter of a fellow employee had checked the site and asked her Dad why he made less money than other people in his office.

Here is the response that I e-mailed to him:

"Thanks for your comment. It is stated very thoughtfully. The one point you don't address is that state employees are paid with taxpayer dollars. They are employees of the taxpayers. That's the key difference between publishing public sector salaries and private sector salaries.

"Should the public be entitled to know how much the governor makes? How about the DOT secretary? How about your division head? And I don't know your job, but are you paid too much -- or too little -- for the service we get from you? Those are the rough brushstrokes of why public employees' salaries are considered to be of interest to the public, as opposed to private sector salaries.

"I know it doesn't seem fair to the line-level state employee, but I guess I'd say it's what you sign on for when you take a public sector job. Any citizen is entitled to know your salary, and The N&O is just making it easier for them to know by providing the database on its website."

What do you think?