InkBlots

Brian Perry writes in his column for the Madison County Journal: “My libertarian streak opposes government secrecy, but advocates personal privacy. So where do we draw the line between individual privacy (including government employees) and the public’s right to know?

“One extreme says there is no line. Government time; government computer; government e-mail means an employee paid by the taxpayers of Mississippi should expect no privacy in their e-mail or communications and all are subject to an open records request.

“Another extreme says there is a privacy wall. Government employees presume their e-mails are private communications and they should not be subject to review from their colleagues, their bosses, the press, or any other Big Brother.”

• Cyndi Pittman has returned to take the reins as publisher of the DeSoto Times Today. She succeeds Brian Bloom…
• The Calhoun County Journal has unveiled a new Website design…
• R&B superstar Usher made a “roundabout” appearance at the MPA Convention. Well…he was at the Beau Rivage at the same time. The Meridian Star has video…
• Linda Lange, a columnist for Scripps Howard News Service, thinks the Mississippi coast is a good place to play hooky…
• The Clarion-Ledger Editorial Board calls the special session a tangled mess after Gov. Haley Barbour’s appearance at the convention.

A new law requiring Mississippi law enforcement agencies to make incident reports public record was met with mixed responses Tuesday, the day it went into effect.

Law enforcement officials say they intend to comply with the law, but some say they need more time to get a system in place. Some are disputing how quickly they need to make the reports public.

Writes Chris Joyner, First Amendment bulldog for The Clarion-Ledger: “…Police reporter Kathleen Baydala told me today that the Jackson Police Department is vaguely familiar with the law, but is not prepared to implement it. Based on the [questions] she was asked about it, it sounds like it hasn’t been read yet…”

The new law and goals for the future were the topic of a panel discussion Friday during MPA’s 142nd Annual Convention in Biloxi.

Newspapers trumpet their wins during the MPA’s Better Newspaper Contest last weekend at the 142nd Annual Convention:

• The Clarion-Ledger takes GenEx, Website honors
• Natchez Democrat wins GenEx and barrel of first place awards
  
• Greenwood Commonwealth again takes GenEx
• Starkville Daily News takes home 11 trophies
• Photo of the Year among Sun Herald’s honors
• Pontotoc Progress wins Community Service Award
• Scott County Times picks up six awards
• The Daily Leader earns 14
• The Enterprise-Journal awarded eight
• The Vicksburg Post details its wins and profiles Hall of Fame inductee Edgar Crisler.

Has your newspaper published a story about its BNC Awards? Send us the link.

Members of the editorial staff of The Spectator, the campus newspaper of the Mississippi University for Women, are fighting to keep their newspaper’s print edition after MUW faculty decided to move the newspaper exclusively online.

Cutbacks instituted by the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning led each department at the university to make a 5 percent cut back in expenditures. The communications department chose to eliminate the print copy of The Spectator, moving the paper from the newsstand to the Internet.

John McCain denied a Republican colleague’s claim that he roughed up an associate of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on a diplomatic mission in 1987, saying the allegation was “simply not true.” Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., told The Sun Herald that he saw McCain, during a trip to Nicaragua led by former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., grab an Ortega associate by his shirt collar and lift him out of his chair.

Deplorable.

The Spectator, the student newspaper of the Mississippi University for Women — a paper steeped in a rich journalistic tradition, will “transition” to an online only publication this fall. So says a pablum-laced release from the University extolling the need to make its graduates more “employable.”

So they are doing what they feel is necessary after hearing from the New York Times‘ Bill Keller and PR Week. This will lead to more in-depth coverage, University officials actually said. Even though the online edition of the newspaper hasn’t been updated since May 1, not even to alert anyone of the print edition’s supposed demise.

Students may not feel the same way. At least not those who have joined a Facebook “Keep the Spectator in Print” group.

A 33-year-old MDOC inmate serving an 18-year sentence for manslaughter has been with the 2002 murder of the husband of a Kosciusko newspaper reporter and editor.

Darrell McBride, who is accused in the cold-case killing of Charles Green of Kosciusko, has been serving time for the 2003 death of a central Mississippi woman.  Green was found slain at his Attala County home in March 2002 by his wife, Nancy Green, a 55-year employee of The Star-Herald.

“This is what the family has anticipated for more than six years,” Nancy Green, who serves as The Star-Herald’s People and Events editor, said. “This is the first step leading to the process that will hopefully bring justice and a sense of completeness to a tragedy that has affected every member of our family. The pain of our loss will always be with us.”

Bill Hunsberger, the longtime and spirited former publisher of The Clarion-Ledger, was memorialized on the fourth anniversary of his death Friday when the newspaper renamed its community room in his honor.

Hunsberger was felled by a heart attack June 13, 2004. He was only 55 years old.

Lauded as a decent man who fervently loved his newspaper and the community it served, Hunsberger served two stints at the C-L, first as its circulation manager in the 1980s and later as its publisher upon his return in 1998.

Clarion-Ledger publisher Larry Whittaker posthumously awarded the Gannett Company’s Chairman’s Ring to Hunsberger by presenting it to his three daughters.

Former Mississippian Paul Bryant has been named editor of the Bastrop Daily Enterprise in Louisiana.