The text of her remarks is interesting reading, tracking the role and investment of traditional media in driving openness from government, courts and other institutions.

Hat tip to Romenesko for the link.

Eighty. Thousand. Words.

Eighty thousand words about your city, nation and world in addition to sports, business, entertainment and commentary. All of it brought to you by people who live down your block, go to your church and shop at your stores.

On top of that, there are photos by prize-winning photographers, Parade magazine, comics and circulars that tell you what’s hot and, more importantly for many, what’s on sale.

Looking for a job or want to buy a car or a boat? Found a dog, lost a dog or want to adopt a dog? Going house hunting or mapping out your garage-sale route? There are hundreds of classified ads you can dig through.

Oh yeah, there’s also $318 worth of coupons.**

So . . . every Sunday you can read “The Old Man and the Sea” three times in a row and not save any money, or you can increase your knowledge, be entertained and potentially save hundreds of dollars.

All for only $2 — less if you have The Eagle delivered to your home.

Who says there aren’t bargains in the world?

* I chose May 3 because that’s when I started this project. It’s been six weeks, but man, that was a lot of counting. Also, numbers were counted as words. e.g. “The koala’s rampage sent 73 people to the hospital on April 14” would count as 12 words.

** This amount varies each week. But you’re smart, you knew that already.

On most crime stories, the answer is the police scanner, or a police report.

We learned through unusual means last Sunday that George Tiller had been shot, and I think it’s right to disclose to our readers how that happened.

For more than 10 years, Assistant Metro Editor Marcia Werts and her family have attended Reformation Lutheran Church. She was arriving at church Sunday shortly after the shooting occurred, and her husband and daughter were inside the church. She phoned Deputy Editor Tom Shine to alert him to the developing story. Marcia was understandably shaken by what happened at the church that day, and we did not ask her to take part in news coverage, though she did stay in touch with other Eagle editors through the day. Other media organizations also were arriving at the church about the time Marcia arrived, presumably after hearing of a shooting on the police scanner.

It’s rare that one of our staff members is so closely connected to a developing news story. Many people have asked how The Eagle confirmed the news of George Tiller’s death so quickly that morning, and I want to be open with our readers on the circumstances of how this happened.

My reaction: Good for FHC. Doesn’t matter who you are or why you want public records. They’re public. Period. That’s why agencies aren’t legally allowed to ask who you are or why you want records (though state law doesn’t stop some from asking anyway). Public records belong to the people, regardless of the purpose for which they’re sought.

One of the most common — and ill-informed — arguments made for denying disclosure of records to a media organization is that “you don’t represent the public, you just represent yourself.” Most individuals don’t know where to go to obtain information, how to ask for it, how to argue for it when it’s denied, or what the law requires of public agencies. If records are illegally withheld, few people have the resources to legally compel an agency to comply with the law.

If individual citizens, bloggers, other media outlets or non-profit organizations such as the Flint Hills Center are willing to invest the time and resources to support open government in Kansas, I support their efforts.

Through May 8, the commission, in partnership with PBS, is seeking public comment on the draft report and taking questions for the commission’s co-chair.

The most common question I get these days is about what the future holds for all news media, including print newspapers. The commission’s report builds from a broad definition of “news” and should be an interesting read both for those who greatly fear the death of traditional news outlets and those who are eagerly anticipating such a moment.

So far, I’ve dealt with this by just deleting them. I’ve known of some family members or friends who have written back to spammers and (not always politely) told them to quit spamming. I find the sociology of political spam kind of fascinating – sending sometimes extreme views via email to friends or family whose views you are not familiar with. Do spammers wonder if they’re offending the recipient? Do they care? Or do they hope the email changes the recipient’s view?

I’ve never been able to figure out the purpose of political spam. Or any spam, for that matter. I rarely, if ever, forward any of the thousands of emails – jokes, photos, scams, urban legends, news-that’s-not-really-true, cartoons, etc. – that clog the world’s servers. I never feel the urge to “send it on” to 20 friends or relatives. It seems like a better idea, if you’re going to take the time to attach so many names to an email, to just send a note instead and ask, “How are you?” To opt instead for some substantive social interaction.

I’ve always believed political views are very personal, and I can’t imagine sending email like buckshot to dozens of friends or family members whose beliefs I don’t know. Judging by the inbox, though, not everyone shares that feeling. Do most of you mind getting those emails? If it bothers you, how do you handle it?

One place we hope you stay in tune with is our election news page on Kansas.com. I’ll ask Jean Hays, deputy editor/news, to talk to you in this blog about plans for coverage through November. And if you have ideas for articles or features you want, let Jean know (jhays@wichitaeagle.com) or our assistant metro editor who is handling state and local election news, Marcia Werts (mwerts@wichitaeagle.com). We’ll do our best to find the information you want.

It’s also the season for a daily stream of emails I get accusing the newspaper of bias for or against the writer’s favored candidate. Many are emotional and accusatory, built on the absolute certain knowledge that the news staff is laboring to execute an intricate conspiracy.

I take each one seriously. Sometimes, I quickly see how a writer came to his or her conclusion. A word we used may be a little loaded in meaning, or we left out a pertinent fact. Most of the time, these are errors of oversight or failure to anticipate how an article or headline would be perceived by readers. Sometimes, the writer or editor truly has bought too hard into one candidate’s argument, and we have to talk about how to provide better balance. And sometimes, the plain fact is that with so many offices up for election, some races are in danger of slipping through the cracks and not getting enough coverage unless we’re vigilant.

The hardest complaints to resolve, though, are the ones that are based on an unspecific perception the reader has about the intent of the writer. One article last week drew seething responses – and threats to cancel the paper – from two readers. One believed the article was grossly biased toward a liberal viewpoint. The other was equally passionate that The Eagle is “a conservative rage” and this story was another example of our right-wing bias.

The concept of bias is complex – both in its reality (no one can truly have zero beliefs and biases) and in the reader’s passionate perception that bias exists. Often, we see what we want to see or expect to see. It can be hard, when we’re pushed for specifics, to put our finger on the source of the slant we think we see.

One of my naive hopes each election season is for civility in our debate. I love debating ideas and viewpoints with friends and listening to them explain their beliefs. And I continue to be saddened and frustrated by the growing refusal of so many people to debate ideas without attacking people. I’ve had very enlightening discussions with people I respect greatly – I sometimes disagree completely with their view on a subject, but I don’t feel a compulsion to attack them personally, nor do I lose respect because our ideas might conflict.

We have a complicated assignment until November. We have to take seriously our responsibility for squelching biases, or the perception of them. At the same time, many readers today have a hair-trigger for proclaiming bias, and we’re not helped when whole political organizations establish a strategy of urging people to claim bias as a way to get letters to the editor published. (The MoveOn organization sent an email blast linking to instructions on how to do this for an orchestrated attack on Sarah Palin. A reader sent me the email, complete with a Web form for sending letters to the editor and a suggestion that the best way to get letters published is to pick an article and allege your viewpoint was excluded.)

For good and for bad, happy election season to all.

Many readers wondered why we ran the list on Kansas.com and not in the paper.

Simple answer: We should have; we messed up.

It’s easy to fall back on the Web as the place to expand on ideas and offer more information. In this case, however, there was room to run the list in the print edition and we should have.

If it’s of any help, here’s the list of drugs. (Yes, I know this blog is on the Web, too, but we sometimes run posts in the print edition as well.)

Arginine Hydrochloride Injection (R-Gene 10)
Desflurane (Suprane)
Duloxetine (Cymbalta)
Etravirine (Intelence)
Fluorouracil Cream (Carac) and Ketoconazole Cream (Kuric)
Heparin
Icodextrin (Extraneal)
Insulin U-500 (Humulin R)
Ivermectin (Stromectol) and Warfarin
Lapatinib (Tykerb)
Lenalidomide (Revlimid)
Natalizumab (Tysabri)
Nitroglycerin (Nitrostat)
Octreotide Acetate Depot (Sandostatin LAR)
Oxycodone Hydrochloride Controlled-Release (Oxycontin)
Perflutren Lipid Microsphere (Definity)
Phenytoin Injection (Dilantin)
Quetiapine (Seroquel)
Telbivudine (Tyzeka)
Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) Blockers

Production manager Cindy Trenary tells me that the pressroom held the press as late as possible waiting for the updated pages, then decided they should start up the press without the stories or they would risk causing late deliveries for readers.

The press ran for only 5 minutes before the new pages arrived with news of Joe Biden’s selection as Barack Obama’s VP candidate. Our total Friday night press run is about 95,000 papers, and about 3,500 were printed in that 5-minute timefram.

The press prints about 1,000 copies a minute running at regular speed, but runs slower at initial startup and also during slowdown before stopping.

So we didn’t make every copy of the Saturday paper with the news, but we came pretty darn close.