Praise for McClatchy and the Raleigh News & Observer

People who visit JinC regularly will tell you that every once in a while I’ve been a little critical of the N&O.

And that’s true. I criticized, for example, the N&O refusal to report the disclosure that Sen. Ted Kennedy was a member for almost fifty years of The Owl Club, a private, all-male, smooze and booze club open only to graduates of Harvard who could fork over big-buck initiation and annual membership fees.

The “Teddy and the Owl” disclosure came just as the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sam Alito were ending. During the hearings, the N&O repeatedly reported on Kennedy’s objection to Alito’s brief membership while a Princeton undergraduate in a student organization Kennedy felt didn’t esteem women quite as highly as he’d have liked.

I said the N&O’s silence on Kennedy’s membership in the Owl Club, from which he only resigned when his membership became public knowledge as the Alito hearings were ending, was an example of the N&O liberal/leftist bias and news suppression.

But enough of that. Today I come to praise the N&O and its owner, the McClatchy Company.

While other news organizations struggle with how to make their blogs interesting places where enough readers will go so that the news organizations can generate revenue through blog ad sales, the N&O has found the answer. Only it’s not shouting it from the rooftops.

Perhaps the N&O is quiet about its success because it doesn’t want the competition to catch on too quickly.

I can respect that and I hope you do to because I’m about to disclose the secret of McClatchy’s and the N&O’s newly found blog success.

You promise you won’t tell?

OK, then here’s the secret: Get rid of the journalists; let the readers take over.

Have you been to the Editor’s Blog since exec editor Melanie Sill quit commenting and "disappeared?"

It’s now an interesting place, free of bias and news suppression, isn’t it?

The Editor’s Blog now has solid news reporting and thoughtful commentary; the kinds of things the N&O hasn’t provided readers in over a century.

But bring in a handful of dedicated readers and - GAZING, GAZING – they start filling the threads with investigative reporting. We’re reading about “the fat, bald” cop. We’re reading excellent reporting on Judge Titus’ gag order. And a lot more.

Meanwhile, look at the kinds of things professional journalists have been offering in the N&O’s print edition.

Just this week we had a story about the Durham City Council spending $13,000 last year for meals, coffees and a few large public receptions. The reporter told us some of the money was used to buy chicken salad sandwiches. How’s that for in-depth reporting?

It seems the $13,000 expenditure was reasonable and honestly spent.

Opps! That is news in Durham. I’m being too hard on the reporter.

But I think I’m right about the N&O blog secret.

You want another example of what I mean?

Look at what’s happening at the Metro Blog now that Ruth Sheehan’s gone off, she says, on vacation.

The readers are working the blog. Their comments are thoughtful and funny.

When Sheehan’s there, you don’t get “thoughtful” nor “funny,” do you? You get attacks on college students who are doing nothing more than following the advice of their counsels and demands for the firing of their coach, a husband, father of three children and good neighbor, who has done nothing wrong and an awful lot right.

You know that. You know you know.

Wrap up: Congratulations to some great reader/reporter/commentors.

And congratulations to McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt. At the start of July, McClatchy’s stock was at 39. It closed yesterday, Aug. 4, at 43.30.

That’s more than a 10% price jump in just over a month.

ADVICE TO CEO PRUITT: Offer at least some health care coverage and a stock option plan to the “citizen journalists” working on your threads.

If you lose them, you’ll have to go back to using professional journalists.