The team dispatched to cover the fire at Atlas included Drew Perine, C.R. Roberts and Jeff Burlingame.

Crime and Breaking News Team Leader Randy McCarthy was at The News Tribune office when the propane tanks at Atlas Castings and Technology exploded.

Here's his account:

I was walking across the parking lot, heading into work shortly before 3
p.m., when I heard a strange sound in the distance. Nothing big but unusual.

Just then two copy editors also coming into work called to me and said a guy
at an adjacent business had just yelled to them that there had just been a
big explosion nearby.

I looked in that direction and saw a tall plume of smoke rolling into the
sky. I ran into the newsroom and saw Drew Perine,sitting as his photo
station. "A guy says there was just a explosion," I told Drew. "Would you
check that out?"

Drew took off and I went to the front of our building with Scott
Oberstaller, one of our sports staffers. He got there first and said
something I can't repeat but that made it plain there was big fire nearby.

When I saw the same thing I ran back into the newsroom to see who was
available to cover the story. Marce Edwards, the team leader handling the
night editing shift, told me that our two Saturday reporters were in the
building. I told the reporters, Bill Hutchens and C.R. Roberts, what was up
and sent them out.

Three our our copy desk staffers were monitoring the police scanners. I
asked if any of them had ever been a reporter. Jeff Burlingame said he had,
so I dispatched him, too.

As he was heading out the door we heard another explosion. This one was much
stronger and louder.

"Go! Go! Go!" I yelled as we all ran toward our cars. "Get as close as you
can but don't get hurt!"

Minutes later we had a photographer, three reporters and an editor on the
scene. In the newsroom, Marce had already posted our first news alert on the
Web site.

We’re expanding our coverage of the Tacoma Mall shooting trial to include as much additional information on the Web as possible and as quickly as we can.

Staff writer Adam Lynn is covering the trial of Dominick S. Maldonado. He’s filing full stories over the noon hour detailing testimony from the morning session.

He’s updating the Lights & Sirens blog after court recesses for the day in the late afternoon. The blog report covers the afternoon testimony and other information beyond what will be included in our print edition the next morning.

His updated story of the day will be posted on our Web site by 6:30 p.m. and published in the print edition the next day.

-Randy McCarthy, Crime Team co-leader

The News Tribune's book on construction of the new Tacoma Narrows bridge was on the presses Tuesday.

The 176-page book, "Masters of Suspension," is the work of reporter Rob Carson and photographer Dean Koepfler, who have been covering the bridge since construction began five years ago.

It looks at the technical challenges of bridge building and the people who tackled them.

We expect the book to go on sale locally in late July or early August.

A1

John Henrikson: Liked the offbeat, reader-generated centerpiece on the group taking updated photos of Tacoma.

Mark Briggs: Liked the GO billboard.

JH: Best headline in the paper was on A8 - "This story was edited right here in Tacoma!" - on story about outsourcing to India of local news coverage.

B1

Jeremy Harrison: Liked the "spit" headline on the story about the Supreme Court allowing police to use DNA from a murder suspect's saliva. "Got me into a story I might not have read."

Sports:

Several: Photo treatment on column about Joe Torre didn't work. Inserting his old baseball card in another photo was confusing. "Good elements, they just weren't put together in a way that worked."

Business

Marce Edwards: Liked the headline on the centerpiece story about airlines trying to upgrade facilities for their passengers.

SoundLife

No comments.

GO

Several: Great centerpiece idea on photos of local clubbers. "Execution was awesome." Lot of enthusiasm from the writer, photographer and others in making the idea work.

A1

Hunter George: Appreciated that staff writer Craig Hill did the story about the Scott Pierson trail. Went well with the package in Adventure.

Mark Briggs: It was a good story.

HG: Liked the Sanjaya vs. Apolo box; met our goal of having fun sometimes in the paper.

John Henrikson: Was there any opposition to having Sanjaya's visit as the centerpiece?

Matt Misterek: Good photos and big turnout settled the matter.

B1

MM: Was OK with the story about the local man being acquitted of animal cruelty charges being on page B2, where the charging story appeared.

JH: Good that we ran the story about a potential conflict of interest of a Tacoma School Board member. Gets the matter on the record.

HG: Lots of reporting went into the story. More examples of potential problem were left out for space reasons.

Sports

No comments

Business

Jeremy Harrison: Error in photo caption - identifications of two people in the photo were reversed. Correction made online with photo.

MB: Centerpiece was a different kind of business story. Funs story with colorful photo.

SoundLife

MM: Great centerpiece package.

John Henrikson: Very useful. Will it be available online for awhile?

Norma Martin: Yes.

A1

Hunter George: It was the appropriate call to switch centerpiece ideas and go with the Styker soldiers update.

David Zeeck: Liked the photo with the centerpiece - it has a you-are-there quality.

Matt Misterek: Thanks to Jonathan Nesvig, who monitors the news services, for spotting the Stryker photo. Also, thanks to staff writer Paul Sand for landing the companion story on the wounded soldier who missed the Stryker attack.

DZ: Thanks to KIRO, our television news partner, for the help in getting to the wounded soldier.

Randy McCarthy: Front page story should have alerted readers to the companion story inside.

MM: The centerpiece was a good example of how to make use of blog info. Staff writer Mike Gilbert was covering the subject online throughout the day and used his reporting in the print story.

DZ: The story on falling television viewership was fascinating.

MM: The story about the lobbying chefs was a new look at a classic Northwest issue.

B1

Marce Edwards: Liked the math story. Well written and made her appreciate that a person really does need math.

Sports

Dale Phelps: Thanks to the photo staff for juggling conflicting demands and freeing up a photographer to shoot the soccer game.

Business

MM: We've had several columnists giving their takes on Chambers Bay golf course. Is that the way to handle it?

HG: So far the stories have given addition coverage that fleshed out the beat reporter's stories.

DZ: It's OK to look at Chambers Bay from different angles but we need to keep an eye on who's doing what so we coordinate our coverage so we don't duplicate information.

SoundLife

MM: Centerpiece on making your own sodas was perfectly timed with the return of warm weather. It was a fun thing for families to do. The package contained lots of information. "It had it all."

A1

Hunter George: All the stories are local.
John Henrikson: A timestamp for when the steelhead story was sent to our Web site was sent to the layout desk but not used for some reason.
Karen Peterson to the presentation editor: Can we have too many timestamps on a page?
David Montesino: No.
KP: Good photography on the page.
JH: Who buys stolen copper?
Matt Misterek: There's a new state law covering aimed at deterring businesses from buying potentially stolen copper.
JH: We should check to see if the new law is making a difference.
Mark Briggs: Confused by the use of the word "ever" in the headline on the story about the six Stryker members deaths, saying it was the worst Styker attack ever.
HG: Was confused given that more local soldiers were killed in a chow hall bombing in 2004.
MM: The distinction is that this was the worst loss of like for a Stryker unit, not a Fort Lewis unit.
MB: I eventually figured that out but shouldn't have had to.

B1

HG: Liked the story about the racquet club.
MB: Good to read about a new business he'd never heard of.
KP: Liked he breakout box with the story.

Sports

MM: Pretty big treatment for the countdown to Barry Bonds setting the new home run record. Earlier versions of the graphic were smaller. We should be consistent.

Business:

JH: All newlyweds should read the centerpiece story.

SoundLife

HG: Was confused about the location of the companion story to the centerpiece.
KP: Wanted info on the clothing shop.

We had lots - as in lots and lots - of discussion concerning who to identify in Thursday's story about Gig Harbor High School and its surveillance cameras.

The easy part was naming the school officials. The hard part was how much to say about the two girls whose kiss was captured on tape, leading one to be moved out of the school district.

It came down to answering a series of questions. Each made sense individually, but were tricky when lined up side by side.

Here's a quick rundown on discussions that covered a lot of ground over several days:

The family of the girl who was pulled from the high school declined to talk with us and asked that she and they not be named. Nothing to decide there.

The situation concerning the other girl was more complicated. We broke it down this way:

â She agreed to be interviewed on the record and with her name appearing in the paper. In fact, she'd been quoted by name on the episode in a recent story in the Gig Harbor High School student newspaper. But she's a minor, so in those situations we pretty much let the parents make the call as to whether we use the name. In this case, they said no because they feared retaliation.

Of course, readers of the school paper would know the girl's name but most of the News Tribune's readers likely didn't see the school paper, so she remained anonymous to them.

â One of our standards is that, in general, we don't allow people to criticize others without giving their name. The girl was certainly critical in the interview of how school officials handled the matter, but we'd already decided to follow her parents' wishes and not name her.

But was that fair since the principal said the school had mishandled the matter by providing the tape to the banished girl's parents? Should the girl who was willing to on the record in commenting on the episode be forced to keep quiet because we and her parents wanted to protect her?

We decided it wasn't, and allowed her to have at least some comment on how she thought things had been handled.

â On top of all that, the girl's father is a News Tribune employee. That was neither here not there as far as the facts of the story went, but we don't want readers thinking we hide information or let our employees - or their daughter's - get to break rules like the no-name, no-criticism standard. So even though the father's job didn't matter and might even give at least a hint of the girl's identity, we opted to include the information. In these cases, we figure it's better to say more than say less.

So, in the end, nearly every sentence in the four paragraphs concerning the second girl required a decision on naming, not naming or describing. Individually, each made sense to us. Hopefully they did when taken together.

Here's what the editors had to say about today's paper.

A1

On the story about the bomb scare in Boston, one reporter thought it would have made a good A1 teaser. Karen Peterson thought the mention that the promotion also happened in Seattle was too low in the story.

Mark Briggs wondered why the ice age route is called a "trail" when it seems like it's a road. Hunter George said that was the government's designation.

Matt Misterek liked centerpiece presentation on the ice age trail but said it was hard to see the route on the map. Karen Peterson also commented on the presentation, saying it was innovative and used on the right kind of story.

One reporter said there was no news hook on the draft story and went over old arguments. Suggested that we consider a down-page teaser if we have only weak wire picks.

Business editor Marce Edwards wished we'd had more photos of the interior of the Java Jive to along with the story about it being almost ready to open after fixing some fire and building code violations. We've considered that but wasn't sure this was the time to run them given that we'll be back with more coverage when the bar truly reopens.

B1

There was discussion over the centerpiece layout. One reporter said it seemed confusing, with his eye being drawn to the photo below the story and then leaving him lost. It was something new.

In addition, the summary sentence on the memorial story contains an error. Soldier was on his third tour of duty but not on his third tour of Iraq, as stated.

There was good use of military blog to send readers to a story about two journalists being banned from covering the Stryker brigade because of previous coverage of the soldier's death.

Sports

No comments

Business

The centerpiece was a good consumer story. It was also a well designed page.

SoundLife

The centerpiece was aimed at the young but included useful information for others.

Landfill: The latest results show that groundwater around the Graham landfill is safe.

Mental health: County officials agree that they don't get enough state funding for mental health services. One county councilman says we should increase the sales tax to make up the difference. The county executive says the county should just stop funding services if the state won't do its part.

Terrain: Tomorrow's Adventure section will tell you which ski resorts have terrain parks and which local resort says it doesn't need one.