Last September, Dan Gillmor wrote an essay on journalism education that should be read by everyone in higher education. He included this prescription:

“Persuade the president (or chancellor, or whatever the title) and trustees of the university that every student on the campus should learn journalism principles and skills before graduating, preferably during freshman year.” (Bold is mine.)

Former UNC Chancellor James Moeser could have used such a course. What he said  to Chapel Hill Magazine suggests that he doesn’t understand what the news media do.

“I think [the media] has really put a target on the university, and they’ve treated The Carolina Way in a very cynical fashion, trashing it, really, and indicating The Carolina Way was always just a fiction, a façade we put in front of misbehavior. I really resent that. I think The Carolina Way is genuine, I think it’s real. I’m really angry about the [media]. I think they target people, and they take pleasure in bringing people down.” (Hat tip to Deadspin.)

It’s unclear what specific news organization he’s damning. (He may have been specific in his statement, but the magazine paraphrased it to the vague and nearly meaningless “media.”) . But “media” refers to everything from The New York Times to FoxNews to TMZ to blogs, and some of those likely target people and take pleasure in bringing them down.

But it’s probable that he was thinking about the News & Observer, which has been tenacious in its reporting on the scandals at the university. But it neither targets people nor takes pleasure in bringing them down. (For the record, I worked for the N&O in the 1970s and still know people there.)

What actually has happened is that the N&O discovered some rot in the internal workings at UNC in athletics and academia and, like an infection in the body, you have to keep going after it to get rid of it all. That’s what the N&O has done and is still doing. There is a perception that the stories just keep coming, like a faucet dripping throughout the night. That’s because stories don’t come out fully baked. This isn’t a television program that ends at the top of the hour with a bow on top. Instead, reporters don’t know where the story is going to lead; they ask questions and try to follow the answers to get at the truth.

Officials operate with a different M.O. In this case, I believe that they want to get to the truth, but they also want to protect the institution and, often times, themselves. They operate under a different time schedule than the news media. They conduct investigations, appoint task forces, decline to comment. As a result, reporters write what they know when they know it. Stories are almost always incomplete. One story leads to another; more questions occur; more sources come forth; more records are found. Drip, drip, drip.

Through it all, newspapers do their damnedest to follow these principles.

1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.

2. Its first loyalty is to citizens.

3. Its essence is a discipline of verification.

4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.

5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.

Best I can tell from reading the coverage for two years, that’s exactly what the News & Observer has done. I understood the media landscape well enough, too, last fall when I told my classes that then-Chancellor Holden Thorp’s tenure was about to end. That was three days before he announced his resignation. It’s the rare public official who can survive the drip-drip-drip of stories that embarrass the institution.

As an editor, I heard from people every week who were angry at something we did. Occasionally, they were right, but most of the time, their complaints demonstrated to me that there was little understanding about what journalists do and why. Consequently, they blamed the media for publicizing stories they didn’t want publicized. I understand loyalty to your institution; I’m showing it here. I also understand listening to facts…and trying to get to the bottom of problems.

Are there similar issues at other schools? Possibly. Should the news media investigate wrongdoing at them? Absolutely. But it is worth noting that the very slogan Moeser cites – “The Carolina Way –  reflects “the spirit of this University—excellence with integrity and heart.” It is a goal toward which the university always strives. And which the news media are helping achieve, whether or not the institution believes it.

Back to Gillmor’s prescription at the beginning of this post. Media literacy is a vital skill today when mass media is so omnipresent and influential. Understanding how the news media works and doesn’t work should be a core competency for everyone. Had Moeser taken my 100-level mass media class at his former institution he would have learned something.

Not a lot on the front pages of North Carolina newspapers caught my eye this morning. But some good stuff from Burlington, Asheville and the AP.

Burlington — The Alamance Sheriff’s Department is losing valuable staff because they aren’t paid enough. Sound familiar? These days, most employees would say this. In this case, it’s coming from the sheriff himself. “Johnson said a 9- to 15-percent pay increase is needed for his department to narrow the salary gap with other law enforcement agencies including the Burlington Police Department.” The Times-News explores the need and discusses the politics.

Asheville– “…coal ash, the leftover material when coal is burned to generate electricity. The black powdery substance looks like fine soil and packs down easily, making it an excellent filler. But it is dirty stuff, containing toxic metals including lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic and other materials that can cause cancer and nervous system problems in humans.” The Citizen-Times outlines the pros and cons of moving 5 billion pounds of coal ash to the Asheville airport to create flat land. You’ll be shocked to know that the city likes it and environmentalists don’t.

AP – From the lead to the end, this story about Camp Lejeune was on the front pages of Fayetteville and Wilmington. Here’s the lead: “A simple test could have alerted officials that the drinking water at Camp Lejeune was contaminated, long before authorities determined that as many as a million Marines and their families were exposed to a witch’s brew of cancer-causing chemicals.” Powerful reporting by the AP reporters.

The Lenior News-Topic has what looks like a good piece on changes at the Caldwell Memorial Hospital, but I can’t find it online. Here it is.

Post updated below

We recently moved and moved our newspaper subscription with us. A day without a newspaper is a day without sunshine, right? It came without fail for three days, but then we were missed today. I admit to being spoiled because our carrier at our old house was exceptional (and we tipped her for her great service, too).

I called to let the paper know that we had been missed and the recording reminded me that my account was being credited. I didn’t have the option of having that day’s newspaper delivered. I say I was reminded because, as editor of the newspaper at the time, I was involved in the discussion about making this change in practice.

It was two or three years ago, and the paper was cutting costs. It’s expensive to send people out to deliver missed and damaged papers. Still, I argued against it. My position was this: If a customer takes the time to call us to tell us they want the newspaper, our response should be a mix of joy and gratitude. We should hop in the car immediately and get the paper to them. Essentially, I said, the customer is telling us that he or she values the newspaper enough to want it today, but that we don’t value it, or them, enough to get it to them.

Why would a company do that?

In the end, I said, in addition to letting them know that a day without a newspaper is OK by us, we’re also training them to do without us.

So I mentioned missing the paper this morning the social networks. One respondent said, “I’d say it takes about three days to develop a new habit and not miss the old one at all.”

Another: “You’re not alone when it comes to no paper this morning. Too bad existing subscribers have to pay to access e-edition, and when you get there it’s really hard to navigate.”

Another: “We’ve signed up for Sunday delivery, and it’s been incredibly spotty. Although they occasionally make it up by giving us two, or a Tuesday edition….”

Another: “Lousy delivery has been a plague on newspapers even during the good times. In Dallas, one of the last true newspaper wars, the title went to the Dallas Morning News (and the death of the Dallas Times Herald) more by the latter’s crappy circulation department than anything else.”

I know that the News & Record isn’t alone in this practice. I understand that many other papers give people a choice of crediting their account or getting a paper “redelivered.” I didn’t press enough numbers on the phone to be put through to a real human being so perhaps I could have requested immediate delivery. But the recording didn’t give me that option.

I had always known that bad service was the primary reason that people gave when asked why they cancelled the paper. I know that as long as I was at the paper, the circulation department worked hard on customer service. There’s still some opportunity, particularly since the financial side of the business is picking up a bit.

A post script on this: After mentioning on Facebook and Twitter that I had trouble with the delivery of the paper, you know what response I got from the main office? Silence. If you believe that your success lies in going to where people are gathered — and if you’re a media organization you damn well better — there is an opportunity there.

Wednesday afternoon update: The circulation director tells me that the paper now will deliver the paper “again” in Greensboro. (The voice prompts don’t give the caller that option so it must be done when talking to a human.)

First, the News & Record created a new content management system that by most accounts was a mess when it came to commenting on stories and blog posts.

Next, Ed Cone, Greensboro’s popular metablogger called it quits, for a while at least. Among other things, it signaled the end of comment threads that went on for days with scores of comments.

Then the Rhinoceros Times announced it was in debt and quit publishing. Sort of. With it went the Sound of the Beep, its popular anonymous say-anything-you-want-about-anything column.

Today, the News & Record announced that it will use the Facebook login system for comments, meaning you must have a Facebook account so that “it enlists the world’s biggest social network in helping us keep out the nasty trolls,” according to the paper. Yep, and the paper is going to build a paywall so it likely will keep out nasty trolls anyway.

So, my first thought after all this was “where will all the angry people who love to criticize others anonymously go to bitch?” Seriously. Many of the comments on all of the above sites were silly or ignorant or abusive or juvenile or all of the above. All of their favorite places are being shut down.

I suppose some would consider that I good thing.

I think it is…because it presents an opportunity for someone — the newspaper? — to develop a different sort of online conversation that doesn’t require Facebook, which many people don’t use and don’t want to use. Some companies even block Facebook, I’m told.

What if there were a local site similar to Reddit? It curated content from the entire community — newspapers, TV, blogs, radio, Twitter, etc. — and encouraged comments. I mean, it actually built the site around comments and conversation instead of posted content. (It’s the opposite of most other news and commentary websites.) And what if the site monitored the comments so that the best ones gravitated to the top and the trolls gravitated to the bottom, rarely to be seen? And it could add a local version of Yelp while it’s at it.

My sense is that an innovative person — or company — could create a lively, engaging, passionate and interesting community. It would be different. The trolls that populated the sites I mentioned at the beginning of this post would have a place to go, but they couldn’t dominate the world. Pollyanna? Perhaps. But right now there is a void in the marketplace. And wouldn’t it be fun to try?

I’ve pretty much stayed out of the discussion of removing government public notice ads from newspapers. It’s the sort of job-killing legislation the governor and General Assembly say they oppose, but then, consistency and sanity aren’t exactly what this legislature is known for.

But I’m in favor of citizens getting information. I happen to believe that they are more likely to get it in the daily newspaper than on a government website, particularly a website that isn’t intuitive or easy to navigate. I understand the notion that cities and counties need tax relief, too, and the expenditures to advertise in the paper are eminently cutable (putting aside that, in many cases, they aren’t paid by the taxpayer at all.) But plenty of people were writing about it so I decided I didn’t need to weigh in, too.

But then I someone sent me to a blog post that mourned the death of the Rhino Times, a local alt-weekly that annually published the salaries of city, county and school system employees. They were popular sections of the paper, giving readers information about who was getting paid what. It’s public information, given that the workers are paid by taxpayers. A commenter at the blog said that he hoped someone else would publish the salary information.

That got me thinking. Because legislators, city officials and some citizens think that the public will be served just fine by publishing information about foreclosures, bankruptcies, rezonings and tax delinquents on the government websites, how about they publish the salaries on the appropriate government websites, too. They’ll be well read, right? My guess is that the salary information will drive traffic to the tax delinquencies! Granted, public employees don’t like their salaries published so that the whole world sees what they make, but so what? The public likes it, and the public is the boss, right?

But why stop there? Newspapers could play along, too.

How about newspapers only publish investigative journalism into the operations of government, ignoring the stories that politicians campaign on such as this one involving the governor’s wife and puppy mills? Or the one about letting children pray silently in schools?. Or one that makes hospital bills understandable? They could be posted on the government website so why bother wasting reporters’ time on them? (Of course, to do that, government would have to pay someone to post the stuff, but let that go for now.)

My guess is that many of the politicians would take that trade off. But the other side is that, instead, the journalists can investigate contributions to politicians and the connections with the bills being introduced. Or how the politicians are spending their travel and entertainment allowances. Or which lobbyists are wining and dining them.

Of course, this won’t happen. Newspaper reporters feel an intense obligation to serve the public. They believe it is important to report on what actions governments are taking and how those actions affect the public. The idea is that the public deserves to know about efforts to establish a state religion or double the waiting period for divorce or limit the popular early voting period.

But I’m sure they’d find out about those on a government website.

I’m all in favor of newspapers and television stations becoming a closer member of their communities, of talking with, listening to and responding to readers and viewers and citizens needs.

But I draw the line at regurgitating Facebook and Twitter comments in print and on the air. Unfortunately, more and more media outlets are doing it. They do it with big news events, with small news events and with trend stories.

It’s lame and about as useful as an appendix. They don’t reflect what people think because they aren’t representative of anything. In fact, some media organizations present a balance of comments illustrating “both” sides of an argument. I know television stations avoid taking sides so as not to lose audience, but newspapers?

One of the laziest pieces of journalism ever concocted are “Man on the street” interviews in which papers and stations walk downtown or to the mall and interview people about something. (Last semester, I told students in my news writing class that they would know that they had crossed me if I assigned them a “man on the street” story.) This practice, as Tiffany Jones told me via Twitter, is a “man on the street” story one step further. I’m all for technology that makes work easier, but not when it doesn’t make it better. Stations and papers often even use a person’s Twitter name, which may not be a real name at all. Sloppy journalism for a lazy story.

With the advent of online commenting, the “man on the street” story for newspapers and TV stations became archaic. The conversation is held online in real time, rather than later on a newscast or in the paper when, of course, people could not participate in the discussion.

So, what should the news organization do?

1. Participate online. Most news orgs have a presence on social media, broadcasting stories they have produced. Some go further, asking people about stories — often to harvest comments to air or publish. Fewer still actually respond to people. And only a handful, I’m guessing, act as if they are people, talking about the sorts of things people talk about on social networks….or within a community. You know, responding to comments and complaints. Thanking people. Don’t know how? Check with Steve Buttry. He’ll help in a few easy lessons.

2. Get your staff members to participate on social networks as themselves. Again, participate as they do in real life, with all the zest that people do in real life.

3. Talk with people as a staff. Want to get connected with the community and show that you represent their voices? Don’t do it by airing comments by random people. Do it by finding out what stories they want reported and report them. Nothing connects people with their hometown newspaper or station than covering the kinds of stories that have relevance and importance in their lives.

4. Develop a personality. People have personalities. Does your news organization? I don’t mean the warm-and-fuzzy promotional campaigns that television stations put on. I mean, true personalities. People are funny and charming. They’re tart and opinionated. If you’re boring, your social circle will be small and people won’t feel connected to you. Let your writers loose. Let them write with more attitude and authority. They know what’s going on, and usually know the story behind the story. Let them tell it. If you’re uncomfortable with shedding the view from nowhere, at least move columnists and editorials to the front page. You don’t need to be the life of the party or the smartest person in the room. But you need to be an organization that is relevant, interesting and has something to say.

5. Be where people are. You can’t be of the community if you’re not there. Develop that mobile site, because that’s where people are gathering. If yours is hard to navigate or slow to load or out of date, it’s like getting to the party after everyone has gone home.

6. Help people find what they want to know. That means aggregating and curating. Even though this idea has been around for years, news organizations are still wedded to the idea that the only reporting of value is their own. When there was little competition, that was fine. Now, though, people get their news from everywhere. If you want to be at the center of the community, you need to gather information from everywhere and distribute it everywhere.

There are others — imagine the goodwill that you’d earn if you honored life’s passages by publishing obituaries and wedding announcements for free – but let’s start with the free ones. (OK, I know that No. 5 isn’t free, but it’s a necessity, whether you like it or not.)

Other suggestions?

Good stories from the front pages of North Carolina’s newspapers.

Burlington — Most people — most, I said — know that television isn’t reality. Crimes don’t get solved in an hour-long drama. But how are they solved? The Times-News tells us the fascinating backstory of the investigation into one murder case, from the discovery of the body to the autopsy to the ID and so on. I wish more papers would do this kind of reporting.

Greensboro – Newspapers always search for unique stories about college graduations. Columnist Jeri Rowe found one in the story of Collin Smith and Ernest Greene. That’s all I’ll say; Jeri will unspool it for you. Have a tissue handy.

Raleigh– The N&O highlights a problem that should concern everyone: The thousands of mentally ill people in jail waiting to be evaluated or treated. “In North Carolina, that translates to roughly 5,500 in prison and an estimated 3,400 people languishing in jails that were built to hold those charged with crimes for only a short time, all of them with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other illnesses. To compare, the state has 850 beds in its mental hospitals.”

Wilmington– The Star-News highlights the achievement gap between white students and black students…and how it is getting worse, not better. tests, they did well. About 85 percent passed the tests. It’s no small thing, either. The disparity is 40 percentage points. Excellent reporting of a community issue.

I take note of a story in Greensboro that’s not on the front page, but I wish it were: The athletic directors of UNC and N.C. State get tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses when the school’s teams perform well. That’s on top of the hundreds of thousands of dollars they receive in salary. ($525,000 for UNC AD Bubba Cunningham.) Given that UNC system schools are chaffing at the budget cuts being demanded by state government you might think there is an opportunity here.

Every semester I show my mass comm class this video about the filter bubble. I do it for two reasons. First, I want them to understand that when they Google something, they aren’t getting a full selection of all the available choices and that they must make a greater effort to get the information they’re searching for. Second, I want them to know about how they are being tracked online. That they’re being served content — ads, news links, Netflix recommendations — based on what an algorithm interprets about them

It’s a popular video and we discuss it and ways to get out of the bubble.

Today, I got this email from one of my students, Nikki Meyer:

“So, I know class is over and all, but I was thinking back to our discussion on the filter bubble, and I just had to tell you what’s been happening to me the past few weeks. I recently got a job at a restaurant and needed to buy sturdy black shoes. For the past month, I have been Googling lots of things like ‘black server shoes’ and ‘black walking shoes’ and eventually found a pair, ordered them, got them, all good, great.

“But now every time I watch a YouTube video, the advertisement that plays in the beginning is for a company called Shoes for Crews that, as the title suggests, sells black shoes for crew workers. The first time I saw the ad, I thought, ‘Oh, how funny,’ but now it has happened so many times that it’s actually driving me crazy and I want it to stop but I don’t know how.

“It’s a perfect example of a negative side to the filter bubble — personalized advertising.”

I post it here for two reasons: I think the filter bubble is worth everyone knowing about, although not necessarily worrying about. And because people who worry about ”kids these days” are wasting their mental bandwidth. College students are smart and aware and attentive. Most of the ones I teach know more about Libya than they know about Lindsay Lohan. And, as Nikki did, they take what they learn and apply it.

(Nikki has read and approved this post. She’s an econ major, although I’ll continue to try to turn her to journalism.)

Normally, I can’t decide whether Facebook or Twitter is my favorite social network (Sorry, Pinterest.) Today, though, Twitter wins. Here’s why:

RapReviews: New Research & Development EP f/ @countbassd, @jneirojarel, @johnrobinson: New… dlvr.it/3KBwCq #hiphop #rapreviews

— RapReviews (@RapReviews) May 3, 2013

That links to a rap music review site, which gives a pretty good review to John Robinson’s latest. And it’s been retweeted. Eventually I get this:

alright @djgrazzhoppa ,you @johnrobinson killed my joint . Toooo Fucckkinn Hot!!

— Nocturnal Ron (@NocturnalRon) May 3, 2013

If only.

I don’t know what the rapper John Robinson’s Twitter handle is, but I enjoy the confusion. Gives me a different kind of street cred than I’m used to. Well, honestly, it gives me the only street cred I have.

I am also mistaken on Twitter for John Elder Robison, who is @johnrobison. He’s a respected author and speaker on autism, and, incidentally, has twice the Twitter followers I have. When I say I’m mistaken for him, it means that people follow me when it’s clear from their bios that they mean to follow him. I’ve sent them messages suggesting they may have the wrong John. I heard back from one who said, “That’s OK. I want to follow you, too!” I liked her immediately.

I was early on Twitter so I got my name. ((Except for the most unusual names, it’s too late for that on Twitter. A search of John Robinson on Twitter brings back hundreds of results.) One of the things I suggest to students is that they buy the urls that have their names and lock them down. Owning your name is important in this new age in which everyone is a brand.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be in the studio recording. I’m expanding my brand.

“Winston-Salem resident David Settle has won three times since 2010 playing a state lottery scratch-off game.” He’s won $100,000 twice and split a $3 million prize with his wife.

Amazing, huh? What are the odds?

Under legislation proposed in the state House — and not going anywhere this year, thank goodness — the public wouldn’t get to know that Settle has won three times or that anyone has won, unless the winner permits it.

This proposed change – by a Wake County Democrat – is just the latest silliness to come out of Raleigh this session. But it’s dangerous just the same. Right now, the names of lottery winners must be disclosed to the public. The thinking is that public disclosure helps ensure both honesty within the system and the credibility of the system.

The state is “giving away” millions of dollars to individuals. If the names of the recipients are kept secret, who knows what kinds of shenanigans would occur? And if you don’t think they would occur, you haven’t been following state politics for long.

Citizens ought to be skeptical whenever a legislator wants to hide the public’s business from the public.

The bill’s sponsor said he realized that lottery winners might be targets of scam artists. Well, yes. So are is everyone. In fact, some might say that the lottery itself is a bit of a scam, given your chances of winning a big jackpot are one-in-a-kazillion.