From the just-doesn't-get-it file, this from the AP today:

Gregoire won't release 'Sunshine Committee' documents

By CURT WOODWARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Gov. Chris Gregoire has refused to reveal the identities of some people who weren't picked for seats on the state's new "Sunshine Committee."

Gregoire, responding to an Associated Press public records request, has kept secret several resumes, letters and e-mail exchanges from unsuccessful applicants to the committee.

In her reply, the Democratic governor cited an exemption to public records law that says applications for public employment can be kept secret.

Open government experts scoffed at that reasoning, pointing out that compensation for Sunshine Committee service is limited to travel reimbursements that several members don't actually qualify for.

"That doesn't make them employees of the state," said Toby Nixon, acting president of the Washington Coalition for Open Government and a former state legislator.

"I don't think what the governor is doing in terms of withholding these documents, claiming they are applications for employment, is right at all," Nixon said. "And I think that the word ironic is a very good word."

But Melynda Campbell, a legal assistant in Gregoire's legal office, said the administration considers every person appointed to a board or commission by the governor to be a public employee under the Public Records Act exemption.

Under that reasoning, Campbell said, people who ask that they be appointed to a panel such as the Sunshine Committee must have their identities kept secret.

"I could be out applying for jobs all over the place and not want my boss to know about it," Campbell said. "You just have to consider their privacy."

Potential appointees recommended by a third party, however, don't have that same protection, Campbell said.

Gregoire spokeswoman Holly Armstrong, who said she wasn't familiar with the legal reasoning behind the records denial, said such disagreements point to the reason for the Sunshine Committee itself.

"This is, in effect, why we have a Sunshine Committee, to go back and see what this law means, and see why we need to revise or clean up this law," Armstrong said.

Gregoire appointed six of the panel's 13 members, and also chose the group's chairman.

The committee also includes four state lawmakers, two people appointed by Attorney General Rob McKenna, and one person selected by state Auditor Brian Sonntag.

The AP had requested all communications received by the governor's office regarding appointments to the committee.

In response, Gregoire provided the AP with several letters and e-mails that dealt with potential appointees, and at least two resumes.

But the governor withheld 10 documents, including letters, resumes and e-mails about the appointment process.

The state law keeping "applications for public employment" from public view was cited in each of those 10 cases, and the administration said all materials that weren't released dealt with people who had not won seats on the committee.

Assistant Attorney General Tim Ford, who is a member of the committee, was compiling McKenna's response to a similar AP records request on Thursday.

Ford said he had no intention of withholding any such records. "And even if somebody told me, 'Well, there might be this exemption here,' I would waive it," Ford said.

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Soldiers attend a memorial service at Fort Lewis in Washington for four Stryker soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, who were killed while in serving in Iraq. Alison Yin/The News Tribune

Time Magazine is displaying one of our photos (above) on their site this week. Our summer photo intern Alison Yin took the photo during a soldier memorial at Ft. Lewis earlier this month. It was her first time covering a memorial service of any kind.

Time got the photo through McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (or MCT), a news service that is part of the parent company of The News Tribune, The McClatchy Company.

We always share our memorial photos with MCT because so many of these soldiers are from other parts of the country and we want these photos available to McClatchy papers across the U.S. We also have other local papers, such as The Olympian, which are part of the McClatchy family.

Today is a big production day for the newsroom. We'll get WASL scores for about 200 schools in our coverage area at 10 a.m. this morning.

After posting a quick statewide story on the web site, three of our reporters will set out analyzing the scores in each district and talking to educators to get their take.

We've also reassigned Dave Wickert, our county government reporter, to help us manage the massive about of data we're about to receive. Dave is our expert at downloading and cleaning up databases, and making them presentable for publication.

In addition to three or four WASL stories, we're planning to run five open pages of test scores in our A Section tomorrow. That's a lot of newsprint, but we know our readers expect to find their schools' scores in the paper and be able to compare them to other schools.

This is a process we've perfected over the years, but today our education team is especially pressed to handle all this, plus a local district (Bethel) out on strike.

After a fair amount of reporter shuffling this morning, it looks like we've got everything covered. Now it's time to roll up our sleeves.

From Howard Weaver, McClatchy's vice president for news:

Forgive me if it sounds like bragging, but may I say that this is a damned fine time to be a McClatchy journalist?

I wrote earlier this morning about how proud we all are of the fine way our colleagues in Idaho have covered the Sen. Larry Craig story. Operating under great pressure and later facing direct accusations, they've showed the professionalism and poise we'd all hope for in such situations.

Earlier in the week the nation's biggest story was the resignation of Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales, an event related in no small part to the work of reporters in the McClatchy Washington Bureau. Marisa Taylor, Margaret Talev, Greg Gordon and others have been out front on reporting about firings of U.S. Attorneys and politicization of the Justice Department for months.

And far to the south in Mississippi, our colleagues at the Sun Herald have won an important victory for the public interest after months of fighting to make video of a deadly jailhouse beating made public. As the paper reported today:

"The release of the video for public view marks the conclusion of months of legal action by the Sun Herald in efforts to restore public records to the people of Harrison County and shed light on what has been taking place behind the bars of the county jail.

"The Sun Herald began filing public-records requests in search of answers within days of Williams' death. In October 2006 the FBI seized thousands of pages of records from the jail without making copies. That December the Sun Herald filed public-records requests that led to a lawsuit in Chancery Court."

Like everybody else in our business, we're struggling with changing economics and audiences these days. Unlike some, we have a fixed star to guide us: the McClatchy mission.

We're a public service journalism company. It's what we do and why we exist. Yes, it's tougher than ever these days, but as our colleagues have demonstrated so well this week, we're making a difference for our communities and our country.

Thanks to all of them for the affirmation – and to all of you for being the foundation of this worthy enterprise.

Howard maintains a blog for McClatchy editors, called Etaoin Shrdlu. Click the link and you can see more.

Did you catch the change on the front page this morning?

It's right there, under the teasers, which run directly below the name of our paper and the picture of the mountain.

"thenewstribune.com" appears in bigger, bolder type than it used to, and we've moved it to its own line.

It's part of our grander plan to remind newspaper readers that there's more news and fresher news online. And we do the same thing on our web homepage, telling readers what's coming soon to them in the newspaper.

We'll keep playing around with the type on the URL over the next several days.

Love it? Hate it? Don't care? Let us know.

With the exception of the work of some columnists, we seldom ask reporters to write about themselves. We prefer to write stories about what folks outside our building are doing.

This piece in today's paper by sports writer Don Ruiz is an exception to what we normally do. Don, who covers University of Washington sports for us, is a native of New Orleans. His family was among the thousand affected two years ago when Hurricane Katrina moved through the Gulf Coast region. At the time, Don wrote a story about his family and the devastation of the hurricane brought to New Orleans. Don has since visited the region a few times. Today's story is update on what he has seen and what the future holds for his hometown.

Here's what's coming in PARADE magazine for Sunday, September 2:

You Get Back More Than You Give
By David Oliver Relin
Members of the armed forces have found a new way to serve—38 have volunteered to spend a week caring for campers at a special camp for children. Learn how you can help too and don’t miss the 42nd annual Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon.

It’s Better to Be Lucky Than Good
By Steve Kettmann
Andre Agassi, bad-boy tennis champ turned family man, talks about how tennis taught him to always look forward and how he turned a loss at the U.S. Open into one of the most memorable farewells in sports history.

The Right Food For Your Pet
By Karen Halligan
Cats and dogs don’t always use good judgment about their diets, so we need to learn what’s best for them. Here are some ways to ensure that your pets eat a nutritionally sound and safe diet.

In Step With: Michelle Ryan
By James Brady
NBC will introduce Michelle Ryan, a British soap-opera star, as The Bionic Woman.
This new bionic babe talks about the new version of the show and reveals what her favorite gadget is.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

The front page: While the Seattle papers had President Bush's visit as their centerpiece, we went with the Mariners and their fans. We thought David Wickert wrote a nice story about the fans at the game and their excitement about the Mariners' season. Great language in his story and Drew Perine's photo was fun too. If you haven't seen the gallery, click here.

South Sound: We thought the story about the Asarco park was interesting, but we left out a definition for 'slag', which would have been helpful. For those of you who don't know, slag is a waste product of the process of smelting.

Sports page: Have you been reading stories about the Sonics? New beat writer Eric D. Williams is doing a nice job of staying on top of Sonics news. Thanks, Eric.

Business:Read the latest local business news here.

Soundlife: Junie B.: Trash or treasure. What do you think? Do your children read these books?

We're going way out on a limb today and deciding that maybe the Mariners really have a chance to make it into the playoffs.

In addition to our regular sports coverage of tonight's game against the Angels, we're sending a news-side reporter to sit with fans for the first game of this important series.

At this point in the day, we're planning to run that story and picture on tomorrow's front page. We'll likely hear from readers who'll tell us sports stories should run only in the sports section.

The way we see it, the Mariners have become a story lots of people are talking about, which makes it a perfect candidate for front-page coverage.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Front page: We weren't sure if we were going to run the toll story in Friday's paper or save it for Saturday, but based on the web traffic the story got, we were right to use it today. We also heard it on the radio stations and TV. The real-live examples and people in the story really helped validate the facts and moved the story along.

The Art Jarvis profile had a lot of news in it, but also had a feature touch that made it readable and interesting to get to know more about the man. The details and answers to many post-Milligan questions made it.

South Sound: Group loved Drew Perine's feature photo. It made us all want to be kids again on summer break. In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have run the Butch van Breda Kolff obituary. He wasn't a local sports personality though he lived his last year and passed away in Spokane. We could have used the space for more local news.

Sports: We really don't need to make more fun of Michael Vick's problems as we did with the photo of the dog with a Vick trading card in its mouth, but report on the news as it comes.

Soundlife: How about that colossal remote? We don't do enough local TV stories and this was a good one for consumers.

Go: Check out the First Bite by restaurant critic Ed Murrieta. His writing is so nice, even in short stories.

"The restaurant wears one flip-flop and one second-hand Manolo Blahnik."

A gem.

Puyallup annex: We detail one businessman's quibble with plans for annexing an area north of Puyallup of the city.

Tacoma death: The third suspect in an East Side shooting last weekend will be extradited to Tacoma.

Mariners: The team is only one game behind the Angels after last night's win. They play the Rangers again at 5:35 p.m. today.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

A1: Great work all around on the centerpiece about the woman mauled. It was the story of the day. Rainier story was good reporting. Interesting for our readers.

B1: Was making the ferry story the centerpiece too much? We really don't report on Vashon Island much. Glad Peter Callaghan keeps an eye on the State Gambling Commission. Solid B1 design-nice elements with the vertical floorboard.

Sports: 30-3. Really? We have the score four times before the story starts. Did the photo of the scoreboard work? Some say yes, some say no.

Biz: Nice to see an east Pierce County biz story about the coffee roaster.

Soundlife: We wanted more fish on the cover. Go here to see 'em. Glad we had the lunar eclipse story. Something anyone could do, maybe more than fishing for pink salmon.

Elections: We'll have live results tonight in the primary election. Local races include Tacoma school board and city council, and annexation proposals in South King County.

Bridge noises: What are neighbors of the new Tacoma Narrows bridge complaining about now? The expansion joints at either end of the bridge make an annoying sound every time a car drives over them.

North Tacoma: Builders who want to redevelop a North Tacoma golf course are suing the city for stopping them.

People were buzzing today about the fun, dog-reading-a-book photo on the Tuesday cover of the Soundlife section. I asked staff photographer Drew Photographer to share how he made the picture.

Everything about this photo was real except for one key element: the whites of the Chihuahua's eyes were achieved digitally through cloning white color from the dog's fur to create a realistic-looking expression. My attempts to get Bella the Chihuahua to simulate reading authentically simply didn't work. She didn't want to read nor did she want to sit in the appropriately tiny, canine-sized chair the Humane Society loaned me.

We're allowed to distort elements for photo illustrations because the situations are not real. I wanted her expression to be cartoony but close enough to reality that you aren't quite sure.

Behind the scenes of the photo was two pairs of hands -- the owner's and her daughter's -- who held the book up and kept returning Bella to her chair. All of the props in the photo are real, including Bella's pearl collar, a key element of her fashion wardrobe.

That's my favorite aspect of the photo, having a fashionable dog reading a classic adventure story. Nuances like can make a story or photo sing.

Traffic? We'll be watching by car, train and ferry to see if today's any worse than yesterday.

Tacoma schools: We take a look at the open race for Tacoma school board and the effect of the recent superintendent problems on it.

Park: Metro Parks is in negotiations with the developer of the former Asarco site in Ruston to develop a waterfront park.

VA: So are the local veterans hospitals closer to getting their accreditation back or not? Sen. Patty Murray said she'll have her staff look into it today.

Mall shooting: The trial of the defendent in the 2005 shooting at the Tacoma Mall begins today with jury selection.

Roadwork: It's the traffic jam that wasn't this morning on northbound I-5. We'll give you advice for Traffic Jam Day 2.

Fir elect: We preview the city council race in Fircrest.

Zoo critter: Find out what Point Defiance named its baby anoa - a creature similar to a water buffalo.

At our daily news meeting, where we discuss what we liked and didn't like from the day's print edition, a couple of editors expressed dismay over the amount of Sports coverage devoted to local golfer Ryan Moore who is competing at the PGA Championship this week.

Their case is that a golfer - even a local one - who shoots 9-over-par doesn't merit a huge photo and headline on the Sports cover. They suggested the Mariners deserved the top half of the Sports page.

Sports Editor Dale Phelps countered that there are only a few major golf championships each year (four) compared to Mariners games, so we prefer to mix it up and give golf its day once in a while.

What do you think?

Our favorite thing on the home page today is a link to a 360 degree view from a hiking trail near Mount Rainier.

Check it out here.

That was a question a reader asked.

The answer is: they aren't salaried, but they are compensated for their expenses/time through a per diem payment.

Here's how Debby Abe, one of our education reporters, phrased it.

Board members don’t get a salary but they do get $50 per event per day, if they request it. If you went to 3 schools in one day, you could only get $50 for that day. The annual maximum a board member can collect is $4,800.