I spent last night standing in front of a crowd of almost 600 people, all of whom were saying nice things about the newspaper and the Daily Times.
Yeah, it was a pretty rare occurrence.
When I left the office to go to the Drexelbrook in Drexel Hill for the Partners in Learning Celebration, which honors our All-Delco Hi-Q team and this years recipients of the Excellence in Teaching Awards, I had planned to talk about something that I am always dealing with.
It is this issue of good news and bad news. But Dr. Ray McFall, from the Delaware County Intermediate Unit, beat me to the punch. He talked a bit about how gratifying it was to pick up the newspaper and reading good stories about students, teachers and education.
He's right.
But the other kind of news just won't go away. Even before I was able to go into the Drexelbook, I learned that the FBI had released photos of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. One day's planning for Page 1 just went out the window.
That's the way this business goes these days. We make decisions by the minute.
I actually told those gathered last night of the page we had originally planned for last Sunday's paper to honor the All-Delco Hi-Q team. That of course changed when a massive fire erupted in Darby Borough. We still managed to give them a good display in a P. 1 skybox.
Suffice it to say that it's been a long week.
It got a bit longer this morning when I awoke to more breaking news from Boston. A shootout and manhunt meant our lead story had changed again even before we had a chance to get the print edition on the street.
I'm now updating the story on the web. Adding to all this is a possible local angle.
All those nice words from last night disappear pretty fast when it comes to news these days.
But I want everyone there to know I meant every word of it. It's extremely important not to give a skewed vision of kids, or of education. I think our coverage accompished some of that.
Now back to breaking news. It's looking like a very long day.
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