Totally Tubular

How cool is it that Nick Anderson's animated question was used for Wednesday night's presidential debates on CNN? The Post's Jose Antonio Vargas called it one of the "highlights," and a Post graphic named it the "Question of the Night." (Nick commented, "I'm not sure it was the 'question of the night' in the rest of the country, but it was in the Anderson household!")

Nick submitted three animated questions and feels that CNN chose the best one. (His opinion of the answers:"I thought [Fred Thompson] gave a thoughtful (if ponderous) response. ... I was also pleased with McCain's frank response, although I was less inclined to agree.")

Nick was a Pulitzer finalist this past year, and the fact that all the finalists submitted animated cartoons in addition to their print work proved controversial among editorial cartoonists themselves. I was recently asked by a colleague why our comic strip cartoonists don't animate their cartoons for the web. I responded that the strip process itself is a full-time job -- if we want our cartoonists to have a fulfilling personal life, we have to expect them to limit their professional ones to reasonable hours -- at least until technology catches up and allows cartoonists to create their strips and animate them at the same time.

But I do think technology is catching up. Back in October, Nick gave a talk at the 2007 Festival of Cartoon Art titled "Geek Alert: How Technology Has Changed My Job in the Last 15 Years." The theme of this year's festival was graphic storytelling, and Nick's discussion of how he has made the progression from simply animating his PRINT cartoons to really using the medium to create ANIMATED editorial cartoons was interesting.

That said, Nick has a budget that allows him to hire animation help -- something very few cartoonists have the luxury of doing. And while Nick explained that technology has "saved" him time, what I really think he meant was that technology has allowed him to do MORE with his time -- create color AND B&W cartoons, for instance, in the time it used to take him to create one B&W version.

Amy Lago is the comics editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.

Mining Minnesota

A cautionary tale comes to us from lovely Minnesota, where MinnPost.com has launched, both print and online.

Editors and publishers who cut budgets and staff to meet the challenges of today's media world might want to ponder if there is a lesson here, such as: While cutting and thus diminishing their products, are they creating a competitor?

Not that MinnPost, the brainchild of former Minneapolis Star Tribune editor Joel Kramer, is about to knock the "Strib" or the next-door St. Paul Pioneer Press off their perches as the state's dominant newspapers. MinnPost.com has been up for only a few days, too soon for anyone to offer a serious critique of its content, or even to hazard a guess at its chances of survival.

Yet the fact that it is under way is a testament to Kramer's vision and determination (seeking and receiving foundation seed money, recruiting donors, and getting 501(c)(3) status so those donations can be tax-deductible). Kramer is betting that readers aren't fooled when content begins to disappear in their local newspapers.

A couple of years ago, I doubt that anyone would have placed a serious wager on the Twin Cities ever becoming such a laboratory for journalism's future. But then the Knight Ridder chain, which owned The Pioneer Press, put itself up for sale. The buyer was the McClatchy Co. of Sacramento, which already owned The Star Tribune. And from there, as they say, things got interesting.

In order to get around antitrust issues, McClatchy put the Strib up for sale, and the PiPress went on the block as well. The result was that major media in the Twin Cities underwent a major makeover.

It seems a rule of modern-day newspaper publishing that new owners always try to secure the profit margins first, with beancounters brought in to look for ways to reduce costs, or "cut the fat." Too often, this means a shrinking news hole. And again too often, this usually means buyouts or layoffs of staff, including newsroom personnel.

Add to this the newspaper industry's nationwide general funk, with advertising revenues and circulation slipping, and you get a pretty good idea of where this is leading -- turmoilville. Journalism suffers. Reporters and editors leave their papers, taking with them years of experience and the institutional voice. Hmmm, might there be a reason why circulation is falling? Could it be the lament readers have long expressed with newspapers that don't meet their standards -- that "there's nothing to read"?

Yet even in turmoilville, there's still that adage that you can build a better mousetrap. As Kramer notes in the inaugural issue of MinnPost.com: "We believe that high-quality journalism is not just a consumer good; it's a community asset that contributes to the health of our democracy and the quality of our lives."

That may be dismissed as utopian. But in newsrooms everywhere, there have always been journalists who thought that if they could just get far enough up the organizational ladder, they could make their papers better by expanding coverage, giving their readers more interesting things to read. It happened here at The Washington Post under Ben Bradlee, and it happened at the Los Angeles Times under Bill Thomas, with the support of publishers Katharine Graham and Otis Chandler.

But those success stories were few and far between because without the blessing of a paper's owners, you didn't have many other options. The Internet, however, provides unlimited options, something I think Kramer sensed as he developed his concept and then pitched his business model. For one thing, he doesn't face the newsprint and ink overhead that metropolitan dailies must cover. And the cutbacks elsewhere in the Twin Cities have given him an opportunity. Just a look at the bylines and blog postings in his inaugural issue tells me he's already tapping into some of that institutional voice the Twin Cities' papers have lost.

That's no guarantee of success, however. Internet ventures remain an "iffy" guess, primarily when it comes to revenue. Many traditional papers already are heavily invested in an online presence, making it difficult for upstarts to get noticed. And heady enthusiasm for a new venture can wane as the heavy lifting to keep it going becomes intense.

Still, if I were an editor or publisher engaged in "cutting to the bone," dropping national and international coverage as well as popular features in favor of a highly local model that relies more on reader participation than reporting, I'd keep an eye on Kramer's venture. It could just be a wake-up call.

James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.

Signs of Our Times

A recent sales trip took me to the eastern part of North Carolina and down Highway 24 into Jacksonville, better known as the home of the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune.

Driving past the base, I noticed the chain link fence was covered in banners and signs of all shapes and sizes. All of them were variations of the same theme: "Welcome Home! We Missed You!” It seemed that there were hundreds of them lining both sides of the road. One family had even taken out a billboard with a picture of an officer on it that said, “Welcome Home Lieutenant Big Guy!”

My favorite was a simple black bed sheet with large white block letters. It read: “Welcome Home Daddy! I Can’t Wait to Meet You!”

I confess, that one got me a bit teary-eyed as it served as a very real and poignant reminder that while most of us read about what’s going in the Middle East on a daily basis, it’s the families in places such as Jacksonville who have a very real connection and vested interest in the war.

I asked Elliot Porter, editor of The Daily News in Jacksonville, about the signs. He said that the 1st Battalion had come home from Iraq the day before and the signs would be left on the fence for about a week. His paper has also created its own “Virtual Fence” on its Web site for families and friends to post well-wishes for the troops:

It struck me that this Virtual Fence is yet another example of how newspapers are able to use their Web sites as a valuable resource for their communities. And for The Daily News, this sign of the times is a great way to showcase its other signs of the times. Maybe other papers do something similar. It's a great idea for everyone.

Jennifer Ferrell is a marketing representative for The Washington Post Writers Group.

News of the World and the Backyard Fence

Word came recently that a Gannett newspaper is dropping syndicated commentary in favor of more "customer-contributed" content. It's all part of Gannett's much ballyhooed 70 percent solution -- limiting national and international material to 30 percent of the paper (actually less, because comics pages count as national).

Gannett is to be commended for experimenting and innovating, but I can't help wondering what will be lost -- in terms of readership and of the newspaper's very franchise.

George F. Will's Nov. 4 column provides groundbreaking thinking on Congress' abdication of its warmaking powers. What set him off was a proposal in the House to refuse a funding request to equip B-2s with "bunker-busting" bombs -- a strategy to prevent President Bush from attacking Iran's nuclear facilities.

My question is simple: What "customer-contributed" content can compete with this? What local writer has such knowledge of history and world affairs to trace, in 750 words, the origins of Congress' constitutional responsibilities, and relate them to today? If you think readers aren't interested in the war in Iraq, especially concerning ways to end it, you haven't talked to them lately. With all of our widely published writers, we are often grand central for e-mails about Iraq -- and now Iran.

And why, oh why, would a reader go to a newspaper for back-fence forums when those are available at sites all over the Internet, including local ones? Well, the counterargument goes, George Will's column and all these others will be all over the Web, too. Yes, but a strict Web embargo means no one will be scooped.

What distinguishes us as journalistic institutions is our ability to deliver a complete package of the latest news, most original thinking and freshest ideas -- by the best in the business. It has always been this way. The difference now is that we must deliver this package on the Web as well as in print -- and the Web, joyfully, has no space limitations.

I recall a fascinating article a few years ago -- where I can't remember; it seems to have passed from the Web -- about America's history as a nation of diarists. And thank heavens. Such wonderful documents as Madison's Federalist papers inform us on how our country was founded. The diarists were forerunners of today's bloggers, spreading news and information as far as possible. People have an innate hunger to learn what it happening in their neighborhoods, towns and their country. As transportation and communications improved, news of the nation was eagerly sought. Still is today.

As an interesting aside, one of the best arguments I've heard against continuing the Electoral College is in David O. Stewart's book, "The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution," published this year. Those few dozen delegates in Philadelphia in those steamy months -- when mail came by courier -- felt that individual voters wouldn't be well-enough informed to make decisions on electing national officers. Today that concern obviously no longer applies. People are informed about national issues -- and they care about them.

After seeing this blog item, Stewart sent me a link to a persuasive piece he wrote in May for the Los Angeles Times. It's definitely worth reading.

Does anyone think that human nature has changed? That people are no longer curious about their nation and the rest of the world? I say deprive them of this coverage and they will go elsewhere to find it. And they might not be back.

Alan Shearer is editorial director of The Washington Post Writers Group.