InkBlots

An attorney for Tri-Lakes Medical Center has objected to a request from The Panolian for release of a hospital audit report.

The newspaper is seeking an audit report prepared by Joseph Decosimo and Company, an accounting firm hired by Physicians and Surgeons Hospital Group, doing business as Tri-Lakes Medical Center. The audit was ordered by Judge David Houston of the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for Mississippi’s Northern District. Tri-Lakes filed for chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy on August 23, 2007.

House Bill 474, which clarifies law enforcement incident reports as open records, passed the Senate Wednesday without a dissenting vote.

Clarion-Ledger Perspective Editor Sid Salter reflects on the 1997 tobacco settlement and a joint appearance of attorney Dickie Scruggs, then-Attorney General Mike Moore and then-lobbyist Haley Barbour at Ole Miss: “(Former Gov. Kirk) Fordice died. Barbour’s now governor. Moore’s defending Scruggs’ son, Zach, on the same charges to which his father pleaded guilty - and the same questions linger today that lingered in 1997 at the Ole Miss Law School about Mississippi’s tobacco litigation…”

Gale Denley’s column from Bruce has taken the leap on to the WWW, to the satisfaction of longtime readers.

Northside Sun publisher Wyatt Emmerich ponders the nature of fate, faith and inevitability: Deep down, we know this. We fear that phone call in the middle of the night. It is one of two things: a wrong number from a drunk or tragedy. The phone rings. Our heart skips a beat. Drunk or tragedy. Which will it be?

Carver Rayburn, most recently publisher of the Clarke County Tribune in Quitman, has been named associate editor and publisher of the Neshoba Democrat…Jessica Alderman has been named advertising director of the Philadelphia weekly. She follows Annette Watkins, who is becoming marketing director for the local hospital.

TVNewser fawns over news outlets fawning over Shepard Smith during his visit this week to Oxford, and even goes back a few weeks to point out the Fox News anchor’s February visit to Ole Miss where he made special appearance at the Southeastern Journalism Conference.

Election ink on the day before the Mississippi Primaries…

• Former President Clinton campaigned here, here, here and here over the weekend on behalf of his wife, who failed to pick up the endorsement of The Clarion-Ledger Sunday.
• Sen. Barack Obama is expected to visit the campus of MUW in Columbus on Monday.
• Lloyd Gray, editor of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, handicaps the First District race to succeed Roger Wicker in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Green Bay, Wis., is some 1,100 miles from Gulfport. But that didn’t seem to matter to The Sun Herald, which gave up its entire front page to a salute of retiring Green Bay Packer Brett Favre.

David Miller, a 2005 graduate of Mississippi State, has been named sports editor of the Duncan (OK) Banner…Matt Moore, former Jackson-based reporter for the AP, has been named chief of bureau in Frankfort, Germany for the news cooperative.