TNT photographer Dean Koepfler posted a gallery of photos from Gov. Chris Gregoire's campaign appearance in Tacoma yesterday. The governor spent a couple of hours job-shadowing an in-home health care worker.

Since the photos are elsewhere on our Web site, here's a link to Dean's photos.

As a side note, we got this query today from a Republican activist in Pierce County: "In order to offer balance in your news reporting do you plan to give Dino Rossi the same coverage you gave Governor Gregoire in the article by Niki Sullivan?"

Was Rossi in T-town yesterday cleaning out a bed pan? No? Then I'm not sure how we're supposed to "balance" the story. Our core mission is to cover news in the South Sound (mainly, south King to north Thurston counties). Gregoire came to Tacoma and did something a bit unusual for a governor. That's a news story. Not a big one, but it's a story, which is why we put it on the front of our local section. If Rossi wants to do a job shadow in Pierce County, or do something else that's newsworthy (Tall Ships volunteer?), we'd make an effort to cover it.

Our goal is to cover either of the candidates when they make appearances in Pierce County (we'll also try to have a little coverage of the other eight candidates for governor). In today's media-and-politics climate, I expect we'll get more queries and criticism during the next few months. but keep this in mind: Pierce County is likely to be a battleground in the governor's race. In their 2004 contest, Rossi won it by 4 percentage points. I assume that means we'll have many more stories about Gregoire and Rossi visits to the South Sound between now and Nov. 4.

A final thought (because I can't resist): Darcy Burner's house burned down today. Since Dave Reichert's house is still standing, as far as I know, I don't anticipate "equal coverage" for him today.

Following are notes taken this morning as editors critiqued today's paper:

A1
Tall ships coverage is fun and comprehensive, but we keep learning every day. Tense shifting in Kathleen's blog posts today is a little awkward; starting with the oldest post first not ideal. Could we have just dropped the first post, which seemed dated by this morning? Some transmission problems, too, from the Coast Guard ship. But we love that Kits and Janet are doing this and expect better luck (and more frequent posting) today as they get closer to civilization.

New law roundup worked well as an alternative story form. (That's when we bold-face the first phrase of a paragraph to make the story easier to scan.) The story was tops on the Web this a.m.

Names of swimmers too small in teasers at the top of the page?

Wanted a pix of a lynx, even though a pix of this lynx was not available. (We're talking about the NW Trek animal, not the tall ship of the same name.)

B1
We were generally OK with where Gregoire "bring your governor to work" package landed today. But let's keep asking ourselves about proper play of these campaign stories.

SPORTS
Appreciate playing up the local swimmers at the Olympic trials.

BIZ
Bus driver help-wanted story was appropriate in these troubled economic times. And Russ Carmack only had to walk, like, 500 yards across the street to get the photo.

SL
Pirates were a rip-roaring fun story, with engaging in-your-face photos that are family friendly and appeal to a child's curiosity. (How did "Big Bones" black out his teeth? We use a crumbled Oreo/Super Glue mix in our household.) Some question as to why we didn't make this an A1 teaser.

-- compiled by Matt Misterek, Suburban team leader