Monthly Archive for October, 2007

More information on cattle, crops, petroleum, metals

Published
by
Peter Baniak
on October 31, 2007
in Staff
. 0 Comments

In response to readers’ requests, we have added tables for cash petroleum and metals in the Herald-Leader, and have picked up pricing from the Chicago Board of Trade for cattle, feeder cattle, corn and soybeans. You’ll find the tables in the middle of the next page, just above the stocks and mutual funds listings.

We are also continuing to add individual stocks and mutual funds, as space permits.

If you want us to add a stock or fund, please phone business editor Jim Niemi at (859) 231-3216 or e-mail jniemi@herald-leader.com.

Jim Niemi

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Dawn’s story exemplifies heartbreaking reality of drug abuse

Published
by
Peter Baniak
on October 21, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 4 Comments

Mary Meehan and David Stephenson were aware of many things that were going on in Dawn Nicole Smith’s life as they followed her through Drug Court. But not everything.

Not the incest. Not the continuing drug use.

There were long periods of time when Dawn was unavailable to them. She never told them she was still using drugs and getting around the drug tests. Nor did they know that her stepfather was paying her – sometimes with money, sometimes with drugs – for sex. Not until she reported it to police.

Drug court case workers didn’t know either.

If anything, Dawn’s story shows how even someone who is given every opportunity and who says she wants to get off drugs may still fail.

If someone were to sail through drug court, fulfilling all the requirements without complications, they could be out within 18 months. David and Mary were looking in on Dawn’s life for more than 3 1/2 years – through the birth of two children, allegations of abuse, and incest.

It was not easy for them to watch her self-destruct. They worried about her. They worried about her children. But their job was simply to tell her story.

Dawn never asked for anything from them.

Now, Dawn has lost her children, her home, virtually everything that has meaning in her life. Her story shows the absolutely unyielding nature of the drug problem our society faces. This story may make you feel that you want to turn away — or throw up your hands at the seeming hopelessness of ever making headway on the problem.

As you read it, Dawn’s story may seem extraordinary in its heartbreaking reality.

Sadly, it is not.

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What’s new on our comics pages?

Published
by
Peter Baniak
on October 18, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

If you turn to today’s comics pages, you’ll notice some changes.

Some comics are missing. Some new ones are there instead. And all the comics on the page are bigger!

It’s our new comics lineup, the result of the first complete reassessment and revamping of the comics in nearly a decade.

We have dropped 10 comics, including one, The Quigmans, that was only in Friday’s paper.

The rest that are gone are:

Apartment 3-G
Cathy
Dennis the Menace
Marmaduke
Mary Worth
Pardon My Planet
Sally Forth
Slylock Fox
Ziggy

With reader input, we have added nine comics:

Baby Blues
Between Friends
Cul de Sac
F Minus
Mother Goose & Grimm
Mutts
Non Sequitur
Red and Rover
Speed Bump

Last spring, a few comics lovers in the newsroom told Editor Linda Austin that the comics pages had become stagnant. She agreed, and she told them to form a committee and do something about it.

The committee was just getting started when both Johnny Hart and Brant Parker died within days of each other in April. The committee decided that that was an appropriate time to discontinue B.C. and Wizard of Id. Hart created B.C., and he was the writer and Parker was the illustrator of Wizard of Id.

So before the complete comics survey, the committee ran a reader mini-survey to choose successors to those two strips. Get Fuzzy was the clear winner, but there was no clear second-place strip, so we decided to leave that space open to audition new strips as part of our larger survey.

The committee created a ballot so readers could vote online or by mail. Voters were asked to list as many as five comics they loved and five that they loathed, and to pick no more than two potential replacement strips from the 24 we auditioned over the summer.

About 4,000 readers responded.

The survey was unscientific, and we knew that many people would vote only once, while others would vote multiple times. Still, the survey gave us a pretty good idea which comics were the most popular.

Most voters simply voted, but others included heartfelt letters or copies of their own favorite comics, or they wrote short notes on the ballot itself. We read them all. And thank you for sending samples of other comics to consider.

The most common theme of those letters and notes was that the comics were too small. Over the years, as the pages of the Herald-Leader and other newspapers have gotten smaller, so have the comics.

Well, the committee decided to change that. The strips are roughly 10 percent larger than they were last week. We think you’ll notice the difference.

As for the survey itself, it probably will surprise no one that the most popular comic was For Better or for Worse. Nearly 56 percent of voters listed it among the comics they loved. In our last full comics survey, in 1998, 65 percent of voters listed For Better or For Worse among their favorites.

This time, Zits was second, with 52 percent, followed by Pickles, Blondie and Dilbert. The other top vote-getters were Beetle Bailey, Doonesbury, Family Circus and Garfield.

Here are some answers to other questions you might have about the comics changes:

Question: What have you done to my comics?

Answer: The Herald-Leader has assessed and revamped the comics pages for the first time in nearly a decade.

We asked readers to list the comics they loved most and hated most, and we used the responses as a starting point.

We decided to drop some of the comics that were the least popular, some that received relatively few votes in either the “love” or the “hate” category, and a couple that we decided were no longer carrying their weight.

We also redesigned the comics pages, and we were able to make all the strips — and the crossword puzzle — roughly 10 percent bigger.

Q: Why are you dumping my favorite comic?

A: The first eternal truth of the comics page is that any change in the lineup is going to anger readers, and the number of angry readers is proportional to the number of comics changes. Yet, our comics committee felt strongly that our lineup needed freshening.

Q: How did you choose the new comics?

A: Our committee sorted through samples of dozens of comics, including some that have been around for a decade or more and a few that are brand-new. We narrowed the list to 24, and we began auditions during the summer, running each one for at least two weeks at a time on the comics pages.
Samples also were available online.

Once the poll was completed, we used the results as a guide to help us choose new comics — a total of nine.

The second eternal truth of the comics page is the rule of familiarity: In a comics poll, the leading vote-getters will be the well-established comics — partly because they’re consistently good, partly because they’re familiar to most readers. In our poll, Non Sequitur and Mother Goose & Grimm received by far the most votes in the audition. Both of them have run for years in our Sunday comics.

So we added those two strips daily and three other leading vote-getters — Baby Blues, Between Friends, Mutts — but we also took note of some newer strips that polled well considering that most people had never seen them. They are Red and Rover, Cul de Sac, F Minus and Speed Bump.

Q: How many people voted?

A: We received 4,289 ballots. Given that some people voted more than once, we estimate that 4,000 people voted.

Q: Will the Sunday comics change?

A: Yes. Starting Sunday, the comics will largely reflect the new daily comics. Fox Trot, which became a Sunday-only comic in January, has been dropped. Opus, another Sunday-only strip, will remain.

Q: Why won’t you bring back B.C. and/or The Wizard of Id?

A: Our comics ballot included write-in space for readers to vote for a favored comic that wasn’t on our list of 24 candidates. The committee planned to consider any write-in comic that had a groundswell of support.

That groundswell never happened. The leading write-in candidates, B.C. and Peanuts, received barely more than 100 votes, and The Wizard of Id didn’t even receive that many.

Q: How long will this new comics lineup last?

A: We don’t know. If an originating cartoonist dies or retires, we are likely to discontinue that comic. Also, we will pay attention to reader feedback and our instincts in any decision to drop or add a comic strip.

Q: Where can I find the comics you dropped?

A: You can find most of the dropped comics on www.kentucky.com/comics for at least the next month.

Q: Whom can I talk to about the changes?

A: You can Angela Allen at (859) 231-3214, or leave a message at (859) 231-1368 or e-mail comics@herald-leader.com.

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How the drug court story was reported

Published
by
Peter Baniak
on October 14, 2007
in News
. 6 Comments

Starting today, we are bringing you a story so disturbing that it sometimes will be hard to read. It was even harder to report.

For "A New Dawn? A Kentucky mother’s struggle through drug court," two Herald-Leader journalists spent 3½ years following Dawn Nicole Smith, whose addiction to prescription painkillers landed her in Fayette County Drug Court.

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Sobriety requires an individual to act. While getting to the point of change isn’t pretty, the most shocking parts of Dawn’s life are routinely echoed in Kentucky’s drug courts, jails and prisons - and, briefly, in the Herald-Leader and other news media. Most often, they are reported in the sterile context of a few paragraphs about an arrest or, sometimes, a death. That language dulls the true horror of an addict’s life and the effect addiction has on family members. This series goes much deeper, chronicling the despair of a struggling soul.

So how did we get here?

In January 2003, photographer David Stephenson took pictures at one of Fayette County Drug Court’s regular graduation ceremonies. At the ceremony, pictures of participants were flashed on a large screen. The "before" pictures were poorly lit, police mug shots, most of dead-eyed people with despair on their faces. The "after" photos were, mostly, a collection of smiling faces so changed it was sometimes hard to recognize them. Intrigued by the transformations, Stephenson wanted to show you how someone gets from one place in life to the other.

In fall 2003, he and reporter Mary Meehan began talking with Fayette County Drug Court officials and Judge Mary Noble, its founder, explaining their goal and providing samples of their work. After about six months, the Administrative Office of the Courts, which oversees Kentucky’s drug courts, gave its approval for a reporting project. Meehan and Stephenson were to be given unlimited access to one willing drug court participant, including his or her court appearances and records, which usually are closed to the public. No other drug court participants could be photographed or identified without their permission. (Most declined.)

As caseworkers interviewed potential participants for drug court, they also asked whether they would like to be the focus of the Herald-Leader story. Several agreed. Dawn Nicole Smith, 21, was ultimately chosen because she had three children, which the journalists hoped might encourage her to work toward recovery.

The reporter and photographer made it clear to Dawn and the court that they were not there to enforce drug court rules, but just to observe her life. No agreements were made to keep anything off limits, or "off the record."  The paper did agree not to publish anything until Dawn completed drug court. As it turns out, Dawn had a near record-setting tenure in the program, which usually takes about a year and a half.

The journalists spent hundreds of hours with Dawn - both in and out of court. Meehan reviewed hundreds of court documents, interviewed dozens of people and researched dozens of reports on drug court, addiction and substance abuse. Stephenson shot 8,093 photos and recorded more than 10 hours of audio.

In the newspaper, the six-day series - "A New Dawn? A Kentucky mother’s struggle through drug court" — requires 18 inside pages. Online, the six multimedia presentations total 15 minutes and include 130 photos, plus audio from Dawn and original music by a local hip-hop group, the CunninLynguists.

Dawn told the journalists from the beginning that she wanted to share her story if it might help others. Her life has been open to the reporter and photographer since March 2004. All of the highs and lows would eventually be exposed.  Even when some members of her family pressured Dawn to withdraw from the story, she stuck with it. In the beginning, the journalists had no idea of the family dynamics that would complicate Dawn’s journey.

And while many sad and disturbing things ultimately took place, the two never saw Dawn break the law - except for not restraining her children in car seats. Dawn’s extended family was under review by drug court staff, including home visits, most of the time. State social workers were called to investigate the family several times independently but found no reason to take action. Meehan and Stephenson had frequent discussions between themselves and with editors about what to do if they witnessed something that needed to be reported to authorities. If Dawn’s children had appeared to be at risk, they would have been bound, like all citizens, to report it to the state. And they wouldn’t have hesitated to do so.

Casual readers might dismiss Dawn as being apart from the mainstream. But she is somebody’s daughter. Somebody’s mother. Somebody’s wife. And, in a state with educational challenges and a high incidence of substance abuse, she’s closer to mainstream than some readers might like to admit.

That fact was reinforced over the years as the journalists told others what they were working on. Many had loved ones who had been taken by drugs down a dark road much like Dawn’s. Some never came back.

Sharon Walsh
Enterprise Editor

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Coming next Sunday: A Kentucky mother’s struggle through drug court

Published
by
Peter Baniak
on October 7, 2007
in News
. 4 Comments

Coming Sunday, Oct. 14, the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com will bring you a special report: "A New Dawn? A Kentucky mother’s struggle through drug court." Four years in the making, it was a tough story to report, and it will be a disturbing story to read and view.

At 21, Dawn Nicole Smith has three kids she adores, a husband who’s leaving her and a gut-wrenching addiction to painkillers. In March 2004, she was sentenced to treatment - not time - for forging prescriptions and ordered to Fayette County Drug Court. Since then, with her and the court’s permission, Herald-Leader reporter Mary Meehan and photographer David Stephenson have followed her struggle to stay clean.

So, why are we telling you about Dawn?

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Newspapers frequently write about addiction. It is evident in every crime log, every brief about a DUI and nearly every family story with a tragic ending. But rarely do they reveal such an intimate portrait.
Almost everyone knows someone touched by substance abuse. As the stories report, in Kentucky alone, 375,000 need treatment. Because of stagnant funding, only 1 in 12 will get help.

The stories also point out that substance abuse is a leading cause of death. It is a factor in at least half of the domestic violence, child abuse and property crimes committed. Research has found that the most promising - if imperfect - counter to these crime statistics is drug court. Kentucky has invested $56 million in drug courts, which will serve every Kentucky county by year-end.

The journalists spent hundreds of hours with Dawn - both in and out of court. Meehan reviewed hundreds of court documents, interviewed dozens of people and researched dozens of reports on drug court, addiction and substance abuse. Stephenson shot 8,093 photos and recorded more than 10 hours of audio.

The two became so familiar to Dawn and her family that even some of Dawn’s most intimate family moments were witnessed and recorded. Dawn, despite pressure from her family, insisted she wanted her story told if it might help someone else.

The result is an unvarnished look at just how intractable a problem addiction is. In Fayette County, only two out of five addicts sentenced to drug court manage to stay clean. It illustrates the special challenges faced by mothers who are addicts and the effect their addiction has on families.

In the newspaper, the six-part series requires 18 inside pages. Online, the six multimedia presentations total 15 minutes and include 130 photos, plus audio from Dawn and original music by a local hip-hop group, the CunninLynguists.

I invite you to check out the series in the paper Oct. 14-15, 17, 19-21 and online at Kentucky.com. If you want to do something to help those in Kentucky imprisoned by the demons of addiction, I urge you to stay tuned until the last chapter in the series, on Oct. 21. We will have a list of ways that you, your church or community group can get involved.

We hope that while it’s hard to look at Dawn’s story, it will also be hard to look away.

Linda Austin
Editor

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