InkBlots

Cops in Olive Branch are looking for a suspect who wounded two officers during a shootout that ended in the parking lot of the DeSoto County Tribune.

Longtime broadcaster, columnist, reporter and voice of the Ole Miss Rebels Stan Torgerson died Monday at 82. He was a curmudgeon, but read and respected, even, by a large fan base across the state. He’ll be laid to rest Thursday in Meridian. After retiring from broadcasting, Stan did a tour as a reporter and columnist for The Meridian Star, where we met him earlier in our career.

But The Star was dealt a double blow this week with the death of young Emily Kate Anglin, 19, an intern for the paper and stepdaughter to former publisher Paul Barrett. She was killed in a weekend traffic accident near Columbus. Funeral services were Monday in Laurel.

Hattiesburg American publisher Skippy Haik, who was earlier this year recognized as Gannett’s top newspaper exec for leading her team in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, has been similarly recognized by that city’s Rotary Club as its Citizen of the Year.

Haik also has an interesting article posted on the HA’s Website about the preponderance of tears at this year’s first post-Katrina MPA gathering on the coast: “The first lady, in the first few minutes, choked up, looked at her husband and said, ‘See, Haley, I told you.’ Apparently, she had told the governor that she might cry in her presentation.

“(Sun Herald publisher Ricky) Mathews made it through most of his speech until he spoke about his staff and the losses they suffered. Again, a moment of silence as he struggled to regain his composure.“And our own governor, espousing all the accomplishments in our state over the past year, hit a point where he was talking about all the volunteers who swarmed across our state.

“And in front of a roomful of journalists, he choked up and was unable to continue for several seconds.”

Mississippi weeklies, now deadlining after last weekend’s annual Better Newspaper Contest in Biloxi, are beginning to tell the stories of their MPA awards. Fulton’s Itawamba County Times gets the ball rolling.

The Pontotoc Progress details its trophies.

Back on the daily side, Brian Livingtston, reporter for the Laurel Leader Call, was feted for his reports while embedded in the Middle East.

We had a suspicion we didn’t run the most entertaining blog on the Web. But proof positive is that Marshall Ramsey, editorial cartoonist for The Clarion-Ledger, has started his own blog.

The Clarion-Ledger has been named to Editor and Publisher’s annual “10 That Get It Right” list. We sincerely hope there are more of us “getting it right” than wrong, but the C-L was singled out for some noteworthy coverage in the past year.

Holly Springs South Reporter editor and publisher Barry Burleson is completing his term as immediate past president of the MPA and capping a nearly decade-long run on the board of directors. Barry’s been involved with MPA for nearly twice that long, and has become a great friend to many of us along the way. He wrote about his mixed emotions as he faced the expiration of his term in his Fielder’s Choice column last week.

From Media Life Magazine: Ever since Craigslist first set about creating an upheaval in classified advertising with its free online listings, newspapers have been struggling to come up with ways to preserve their hold on a high-profit revenue source.

Just last week, The New York Times cut a deal with the New York Metro in which the free subway tabloid will carry classifieds from the Times, adding 325,000 Metro readers to its daily reach. Together the two papers reach 2.2 million weekday readers.

Meanwhile, the CBS Evening News, third-ranked in a medium that knows something about losing audience and struggling to maintain relevance, says newspaper classifieds are looking rather 20th-century. So, apparently, was Dan Rather.

This year’s convention was the first without longtime Oxford Eagle assistant publisher Dan Phillips, who died in December. His paper covers the awards it won Saturday, along with the heartfelt tributes to Dan, including touching remarks from longtime friend and Clarion-Ledger Perspective Editor Sid Salter Friday Night during the President’s Banquet and Hall of Fame program.

Governor Haley Barbour painted a portrait of improvement for the Gulf Coast region during comments Friday before a general session at the 140th annual MPA Convention. But he stressed the need for housing development in the area. Meanwhile, The Clarion-Ledger called the extension of the debris removal deadline in Hancock County a big victory for affected communities in a Saturday editorial.

And Kate Magandy of The Sun Herald reacts to the Saturday premiere of a new documentary by Dr. Ralph Braseth, director of the S. Gale Denley Student Media Center at Ole Miss, that profiled the against-all-odds story of the five coast newspapers and their Herculean efforts after Katrina.

Melissa M. Scallan details Friday remarks by First Lady Marsha Barbour who was in Hattiesburg during the landfall and on the coast a matter of hours after Katrina roared ashore.

Starkville Daily News managing editor Brian Hawkins reacts to seeing the Gulf Coast for the first time since the storm.

And The Sun-Herald offered a gracious Thursday welcome to MPA and thanked state editors and publishers for bringing the convention back the coast.