The Newsroom » nothing in particular

The world’s most unlikely headline

Jeff Thomas — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:14:50 +0000

Oct. 22, 2009, page A3.

Tell us something we don’t know

Jeff Thomas — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:47:58 +0000

Bless you, Outside Magazine. Smack in the middle of the dog days, when news is as slow as Monument Creek in a drought, you throw us a story. It’s totally made-up, a piece of artifice, a figment of a magazine’s imagination, but we’ll take it. Outside has, using a measuring stick of its own invention, measured Colorado Springs and has deemed our fair city to be the No. 1 burg in the country.

This is not news. But it can be a whole lot of fun, which we plan to have all day today at gazette.com and in our pages in Thursday’s edition. I invite you to play along, and to bask in the love.

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Just for the record

Jeff Thomas — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:59:54 +0000

I’d like to say that I’ve been using the term “accountability journalism” for some time, before it got famous.

That is all.

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As predictable as the coverage of Michael Jackson

Jeff Thomas — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:25:01 +0000

Right on time, it’s the media’s self-examination about whether it has provided too much coverage of Michael Jackson.

Next: the blogs chew up and spit out the media’s self-examination, followed by mainstream media coverage of what the blogs made of the self-examination.

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Wolves

Jeff Thomas — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:02:51 +0000

Real ones. In the newsroom. Licking the editor’s face.
In this business, you just never know.

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It’s okay to be a fan

Jeff Thomas — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:15:41 +0000

I mean absolutely nothing political by this, but it was heartening to hear President Obama declare his loyalty to the Chicago White Sox during the Commander in Chief’s Inaugural Ball. During a satellite video linkup with an Illinois National Guard unit, the fan-in-chief polled the Chicago soldiers stationed in Afghanistan about their baseball allegiences: “Sox or Cubs?”

“Cubs fan, Mr. President,” came most of the replies.

“Finally!” Obama cheered when one of the troops avowed her loyalty to the Sox.

Too many politicians try to have it all ways, refusing to pick a side in intramural affairs (Governors waging crab or beef ribs on behalf of their home-state universities don’t count; that’s extramural). Real Americans stick by their teams. If my Reds ever hook up with the Sox in a series during the next four years, I won’t hold it against the prez for rooting against my team.

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No hurry

Jeff Thomas — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:47:08 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, I present your United States Government:

December 8, 2008

XXXXX XXXXXX
The Gazette
30 S. Prospect
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

RE: FOIA 06-040

Dear XXXXX XXXXXX,

This is in regard to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated October 18, 2005, for a listing of all poultry farms in Colorado. I regret to inform you that your request is still pending in this office.

I had no idea we raised so many chickens in the Centennial State. The list of farms must be growing so rapidly that it’s outdated as soon as it’s updated. [insert rolling eyes here]

The rest of the letter asks the reporter (whose name I withheld because she no longer even works here!) to essentially re-submit the request. In other words, they hadn’t even begun to work on the request.

For this helpful response, we can thank the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, office of Legislative and Public Affairs, Freedom of Information.

I can’t even remember what kind of story we would have reported with this information, but I’ve got a mind to re-submit the request — and invent a reason to do a story.

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This is me

Jeff Thomas — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:52:08 +0000

I am ashamed to say that I dread voicemail. And on those rare times I’m actually at my desk when the phone rings, the usual response I hear from the other end of the line is, “I didn’t expect to get anybody.” Seems everyone just expects to leave a message any more.

When I started at the Gazette, we didn’t have voicemail. It was the No. 1 employee request for years. Now that we have it, I prefer to get messages via email. Much faster.

via Howard Owens

UPDATE: Bad link fixed

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It just hit me

Jeff Thomas — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:03:15 +0000

I’m as old as Barack Obama — 46. He’s got me by a few months, but come next January, I may be as old as the President of the United States. That’s when you know you’re old.

Maybe for that reason alone I ought to vote McCain.

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