Palladium-Item Online Editor Jason Truitt has announced that as of today, the paper will be holding the comments posted in its online discussion forums to the same standard it uses for letters published in its print edition, at least when it comes to personal attacks:

"We've been having discussions at the P-I for a little while now about what changes we might want to make to the way we run these forums. We've heard the feedback from some of you as well as other people in the community about the level of conversation in the forums, and quite frankly, our own concerns have been growing...

Content for letters to the editor is held to a much higher standard in order to be published than forum posts have been. As of today, that will no longer be the case. From now on, whenever we have a question about whether a comment should be allowed to stand, the question we'll ask is, "Would we allow this to be printed in a letter to the editor?" If the answer is "no," the comment will be deleted from these forums. If the answer is "yes," the comment stays."

You can read Jason's full announcement and the discussion/reaction that follows. We interviewd Jason about this issue and others facing the paper in RNR Episode #22.

As a part of our end of year episode coming up in December, we're going to do a segment that looks back at the year's news coverage, and we need your help!

The topic is the city's Top 10 Most Under-reported or Under-covered News Stories in 2007.

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In Sunday's paper, the Palladium-Item endorsed Sally Hutton as its candidate of choice for Mayor, saying that candidate Rick Thalls had "demonstrated an insufficient grasp of the issues most germane to Richmond's future." Later that same day, Rick Thalls` campaign apparently withdrew from the blogging experiment on the paper's website (discussed in our most recent episode), removing all of his postings from the blog without any explanation. When contacted about the withdrawal, "Thalls said he moved his posts to his Web site because of the conduct of one of our forums users," according to Online editor Jason Truitt. As yet, we have not been able to confirm that the text available on the Thalls campaign website is an unaltered version of what appeared on the Pal-Item site; such verification may be difficult without an archive for comparison.

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Last week, regional NPR affiliate WMUB in Oxford, Ohio announced that the Miami University committee appointed by President David Hodge to make recommendations on WMUB's future has completed its report.  Of the four options laid out in the report, the push seems to be toward "developing the regional connections with existing noncommercial radio stations and adding significant connections with appropriate Miami University academic programs."  The subtext may be additional consolidation and merging of public radio resources in the area.

Also, Palladium-Item online editor Jason Truitt announced that several new features have been added to their online presence, allowing readers to submit stories and photos in a new way, subscribe to online news focused on a particular geographical area in town, and view state and national databases of various statistics.

Palladium-Item Viewpoints Editor Dale McConnaughay announced today that the Pal-Item is ending its "open-invitation format" for the public to attend its editorial board meetings. McConnaughay cites the difficulty in keeping the group on track within an allotted time period when the meetings have to accommodate sometimes lengthy and unplanned discussions with those who happen to attend in a given week.

As a part of the announcement, McConnaughay clarifies that anyone who wishes to attend can still contact him to schedule a visit, and the group's agenda will still be sent out in advance as it has been. The board is also expanding the number of community members on the board to eight. Read McConnaughay's full announcement.

A follow-up on a previous story covered by the RNR: in March we interviewed WCTV station director John Dalton and talked with him about the problems with the station's live broadcasts of events around town - poor quality signal and eventually no signal at all. Because WCTV depends on infrastructure managed by Insight Communications to air these live broadcasts, the station has been optimistic in working with the company to see that the issues are addressed. But in a message to WCTV viewers today, Dalton indicated that Insight has been dragging their feet in making the needed repairs, and as a result, the station won't be able to broadcast Richmond High School, Indiana University East, Earlham College and Ivy Tech graduations ceremonies.

"On March 1, we were told by Insight techs that the live system was no longer usable because of changes in Insight’s network. In layperson’s terms, the growth of Insight’s telephony service has more or less crowded out our capacity for live broadcasts...On April 16 we were able to return to live broadcasts from the City and County Buildings courtesy of a new fiber run by Insight. However, we have yet to learn from Insight their intentions for repairing the rest of the system. I was told by Insight that they would have a timeline in place for me to present at the April 2 City Council meeting, but that timeline has yet to appear...As I have no further information from Insight, I feel as if I have no choice but to announce that these live broadcasts will not go forward this year."

At a news conference today, the Economic Development Corporation of Wayne County announced its application for Richmond to be the site of one of the 2008 Presidential or Vice-Presidential Debates.

In a pre-announcement interview with the Richmond News Review, EDC President Jim Dinkle said, "we see terrific economic impact that this could have. It's a way to invigorate our young people to participate in the national political debate, and it buys exposure for Wayne County that otherwise we could never afford."

Stay tuned for the full interview with Mr. Dinkle about this announcement and his other work with the EDC, in the upcoming episode of the RNR.

Palladium-Item executive editor Mickey Johnson writes in today's edition about the paper's plans for restructuring their news delivery processes:

The P-I is breaking away from traditional methods of bringing you news. We want our newspaper, our Web site, and our specialty publications to work together to make dissemination of news as rapid and diverse as possible. We want to continue to be the only news source in the Whitewater Valley to bring you information 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Johnson goes on to detail the creation of four new "centers" in their newsroom: Local Content Center (news, sports, copy desk coordination for print edition, website and specialty publications); Community Conversation Center (forums, blogs, polls, chats, editorials, columns); Data Center (events, statistics, archival records); and Multimedia Center (video, audio and interactive content for the web).

As he notes, these changes have already been evolving over the last year or so, and are now being formalized further.

A few tidbits to note related to the Palladium-Item this morning. Earlier this week, they relaunched their updated Blogs section, which features the return of an Editor's Blog, the addition of a new "Musings of a Commoner" blog under the Pal-Item's "My PI" branding, and the relegation of longtime P-I blogger Nichole Mann to the same "external commoner" brand. Yesterday, the site's Video section appeared, which features two initial offerings related to the holiday season, and links to USA Today's more extensive offerings. Unfortunately, the initial launch does not seem to support all web browsers, including those on the Mac and Linux platforms (Update on 12/24: they now work for the Mac). And blogger Jean Harper took the time to lambaste the Pal-Item's recent reporting on IU East's financial woes, noting that we shouldn't necessarily blame the reporters since it is probably the result of a systemic problem in the way Gannett manages and supports its newsrooms.

You can post your comments on any of these features and musings below, and/or in the Palladium-Item forums.

Veteran broadcast journalist and Earlham College alum Howell Gatchell offers an instructional session on broadcast news this Thursday, October 12, 5 p.m. at WECI 91.5 FM, Richmond's Public Radio Station. The session is focused toward a broadcast journalism class but includes some nuggets of broadcast wisdom for all. For more information, call WECI at (765) 983-1246.