Monthly Archives: August 2007

Driving distractions are nothing new

6:42 p.m.

Sherry’s post about driving distractions brought to mind a bit of family history for me, too. Legend has it that some 40 years ago or so, on a family road trip from the Pacific Northwest to a reunion in Iowa in the heat of summer, my Great-Aunt Laura was feeling a might hot and clammy as she drove down the highway. (Remember what a luxury car air-conditioning was in those days?) She had four kids bouncing around in the back seat (ah, those seatbelt-free days!) and my Aunt Barbara riding shotgun, but the safety of her passengers didn’t seem to be on her mind as Aunt Laura proceeded to pull off her pantyhose, at full speed, while she was driving. Aunt Barbara shudders to this day when she tells that story.

Theresa

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments Off

A little dog talk

4:28 p.m.

Blog reader Linda dropped me a note about the dog daycare reference in my post below. Linda, my reply email to you bounced back so I’ll respond here.

I use Andover Boarding Kennel on Central in Andover. Manager Karrie Jackson is awesome, and the staff members there are clearly animal lovers. I don’t take my dog every day — usually two or three days (or half days) a week for some playtime and socializing.

WichiTalk editor Lori Buselt uses Doggy Day Care on North Mathewson. And Kevin McGrath, our night city editor, takes his dog to Animal Play Works on South Pattie. They both love their doggy daycare providers. I also have a neighbor who enthusiastically endorses Kutter on Central in Andover. And a professional acquaintance loves Chisholm Creek Kennels. I’m sure there are other good ones around, but those are the ones I’ve heard about from dog parents I know.

Sorry, I can’t tell you my dog’s name or breed, but thanks for asking. Lori has a pre-Woofstock contest coming up, and revealing that info would spoil a little of the contest. Keep an eye out in the paper for details in September.

– Sherry

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Reader issues | Comments Off

Some thoughts on the roadways

3:24 p.m.

I had a fun, wandering conversation last week with an older Eagle reader. The topic turned to driving skills. He’s convinced driving skills are far worse than they were a decade or more ago. I’m still trying to decide whether I agree.

I thought about his conversation while driving to work the past few days. I don’t know whether I just noticed more than usual, or whether I just came across an unusually high number of bad drivers. I watched a couple of times as cars flew through 35 mph zones and tailgated people who were already speeding. I saw six cars fly through school zones that had yellow lights clearly flashing. I saw at least 5 drivers cut off cars so badly that the other drivers had to hit the brakes.

That’s just a sampling of the transgressions.

This morning I drove 10 miles total to drop my dog off at daycare then drive to work. I saw 11 teenagers talking on cell phones while they drove. I saw no teenagers driving who weren’t talking on cell phones. One teen hit the curb driving out of her subdivision. Another hit her brakes in the middle of traffic and turned from the left-hand lane, even though there was a center turn lane, and turned right in front of another car.

Of course it’s not only teenagers who drive and talk on cell phones. The guy who swerved into my lane this morning was on his phone, and was at least in his 40s. But the rate of younger people practicing bad driving habits didn’t make me hopeful that future generations will improve our collective driving habits.

I’m still not sure, though, whether our driving skills and attitudes are getting worse. My mother told me a story about my grandmother once chastising my grandfather for not using his turn signal. He replied, "It’s nobody’s #$&* business where I’m going." And I was complaining to my grandmother once about people speeding up when you try to pass them so you can’t get around them. It was quiet for a minute, then she said, "Ohhhh, you know, I think I do that."

This was all 20 or more years back. Are we more thoughtless/selfish drivers? Are our driving habits any more dangerous? We’ve tried to report this story several ways in the past. Drop me a note if you think there are angles we ought to try again to look at.

–Sherry

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Reader issues | Comments (2)

A can of worms best left with lid on

Yesterday11:58 a.m.

Someone asked me yesterday what I thought about the idea of Sedgwick County joining a few other communities to ban saggy britches. I’d summarize my thoughts with this: (visualize eye roll). Mortic01_3

The question surfaced in that hotbed of civic advancement ideas, Opinion Line. My reaction falls in line with some WE Blog thoughts by Rhonda Holman. And if the county DID decide to pursue the issue, I’d have a few more fashion felonies (well, probably more like misdemeanors) to throw on the list, and I’m sure Bonnie Bing would, too. Two birds, one stone and all that.

Is the saggy pants look inexplicable? Of course. Going back many decades to my youth, we would have never considered a fashion look that made it appear we’d had a biological mishap in our britches. Of course, we had tiny basketball shorts and a thousand other clothing atrocities.

I’m somewhat fascinated by the logistics of baggy pants, though. This morning, I watched a young man try to hurry across 2nd Street while traffic waited on him. He was able to take roughly 4-inch strides because of the pants around his calves. Morticia Addams would’ve been proud.

– Sherry

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Reader issues | Comments (5)

Check in at K-Stated

Tuesday10:46 a.m.

Kansas State sports fans are about to get a daily dose of Jeffrey Martin. We’ll let them decide if that’s a good thing.

Jeffrey, who’s entering his third year as our K-State beat writer, today begins a new Wildcat blog called "K-Stated." It’s his thoughts on K-State sports, including quick hits on news of the day and his take on all things purple.

We know how rabid K-State fans are about their Cats, and we think Jeffrey will be able to provide a needed fix. His work on the beat has already been honored twice by the Associated Press Sports Editors, and we think he’s the source for all things Cats.

We welcome your thoughts on the blog.

– Kirk Seminoff

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (3)

Return to sender

Monday11:31 a.m.

One of the things I do each morning is gather the mail and distribute it to members of our business staff. I sometimes get story ideas sorting through the mail, and I figure if I have a really bad day and don’t get much done, at least I did one productive thing.

In my 27 years here at The Eagle, we’ve had about 10 or so business editors. And we still get mail for all of them, including one who is no longer living. I’m always amazed that companies who spend so much time — and money — working to get their message out are sending it to folks who no longer work here. Makes you wonder if they are as sharp as they think they are.

Our business staff directory is online at Kansas.com, as is the directory for the newsroom and key executives in other departments at The Eagle. So double-check those mailing lists and drop us a line.

Tom Shine

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Why do we say pleaded, not pled?

Saturday12:40 a.m.

A reader sent an e-mail to the Editor’s Desk wondering why we say someone pleaded guilty/not guilty instead of saying they pled guilty/not guilty.

Short answer: In its plead, pleaded, pleading entry, the Associated Press stylebook says “Do not use the colloquial past tense form, pled.”

Aha! you say. AP says it’s colloquial and you try to be conversational in your writing, so why don’t you use it? Darn good question you’re asking. Or I’m imagining you could be asking. Or something like that. So let’s get a usage expert’s opinion.

Bryan Garner, editor of Black’s Law Dictionary and author of Modern American Usage, says “traditionally speaking, pleaded is the best past-tense and past-participial form. Commentators on usage have long said so, pouring drops of vitriol onto has pled and has plead.” He does later say that it has “gained some standing” in American English. So he agrees, mostly.

OK then, let’s look at it another way. While a few words naturally lend themselves to an abbreviated form in the past tense (led instead of leaded) many do not (kneaded, not kned, and beaded, not bed).

Yours in meandering explanations,
Michael

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (7)

Is customer service dead?

Aug. 24, 200711:01 a.m.

A reader, Philip, dropped me a note yesterday to let me know he was irritated by a pop-up ad on Kansas.com. I dropped him a short email back acknowledging that I often find pop-ups irritating (one of my favorite sites, weather.com, is a frequent offender that seems to get around my pop-up blocker often).

But our discussion of Web ads isn’t what interested me most about our exchange. He wrote back saying he understood that ad revenue helps us offer news for free. Then he wrote, "I very much appreciate your taking time to reply. Such does not seem to be
the norm these days."

I know he’s right. But he shouldn’t be. I notice that more often than not, companies or individuals don’t take the 2 minutes to respond to a voice mail or email. It drives me crazy. I’ve repeatedly told the newsroom staff that I expect us to respond to messages. Period. Yet I know it doesn’t always happen.

I don’t get it. It’s not rocket science. I have so little patience for unresponsiveness that I’ve had to talk myself out of firing someone for not returning a phone call. I’ve been amazed that even in our building, there are people who don’t respond to my phone calls or emails. If we don’t respond to co-workers, what makes me think we’re responding to customers?

I understand that in the age of spam filters, emails don’t always get through. But I also know that when I’ve followed up with people, they generally acknowledge having seen an email or gotten a voice mail. Unresponsiveness sends an unacceptable signal that we aren’t approachable, we aren’t listening. But our success depends on being approachable and listening.

I suspect most readers work in a place of business that likely can’t afford to be disconnected from customers. Yet it happens. I wish I could say I understand why, but I don’t.

– Sherry

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Reader issues | Comments (2)

A winning page

Aug. 21, 20076:50 p.m.

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What makes for a dynamic front page?

One thing is having a lot of visual energy (many things to attract your eye). This page by designer and front-page art director Coryanne Graham won our most recent in-house design contest largely for that reason.

In the top half of the page — what we call "above the fold" — you can spot six or more visual elements, not counting headlines, to grab your interest. Your first glance at this page gets a big reward.

But a successful front page also tells a story quickly. If you’re in a hurry, you can read all you need to know in a few seconds.

This page does that, too. In particular, the foster care package gives you two photos, a comprehensive chart and a big, bold headline that encapsulate this important story.

Here’s what Coryanne had to say about her award-winning page:

"As we begin to plan the front page, we consider which photos and headlines we most want to get above the fold. For this Sunday, we knew that we wanted to lead the paper with a foster-care package linking a new law to a drastic jump in the number of children put in foster care.

"It can be difficult to illlustrate news stories that involve innocent victims like children caught in the foster-care system. In this case we had spoken to one foster parent about her experiences and were given the opportunity to photograph her with a teen that she had taken in.

"Though we had beautiful photos, their smiling faces didn’t tell the story of the growing number of kids taken from their homes. In this case the numbers told the story, so I paired the main headline with a chart showing the jump in numbers and two photos that not only put a face on the story but showed the sadness of the situation."

Emotion. Visual impact. Quick story-telling.

This front page has it all. It caught the eye of the voters in our newsroom.

We hope it caught yours as well.

Arlice

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Did we withhold track connections?

Aug. 20, 20074:25 p.m.

An anonymous reader dropped me a note asking why The Eagle didn’t disclose Randy Brown’s financial connections to Wichita Greyhound Park. Randy was quoted in Mark McCormick’s column in Local & State, and also wrote on our Opinion pages in favor of a yes vote for a casino and for slots at the greyhound track.

The writer believed Randy’s wife, Linda Parks, does legal work for the track. "Mr. Brown may not be being paid directly, but he sure is profiting, even if he is just helping his wife retain a lucrative client," the reader wrote. He or she wanted to know why we didn’t tell readers about this connection.

We would have. If it were true. Linda Parks (a partner at Hite Fanning Honeyman) was one of the attorneys for the track until Phil Ruffin purchased it in 1997. She retains an unpaid position on the board of the park’s charitable organization.

– Sherry

By Sherry Chisenhall | Filed under Newspaper ethics | Comments Off