Christian Zavisca

Catching up with Notre Dame's Harrison Smith

Last week I filed a story for my former employer, the Knoxville News Sentinel, on Knoxville's Harrison Smith, a football player for the University of Notre Dame. He's a junior starting on the defensive side of the ball for the Fighting Irish.

The parallels are many. Smith, the subject of a recruiting battle between Notre Dame and the University of Tennessee, picked ND and moved three years ago to South Bend, Ind., my hometown. I lived in Knoxville for nearly five years, and in mid-September moved to Valparaiso, Ind., an hour east of South Bend. And I'm freelancing for notredame.scout.com covering football, so it was a natural to write a story for the News Sentinel on Harrison, who was a good sport.

I agree with him 100 percent on one subject.

Smith does admit that he's struggled a bit to adjust to one aspect of life in the Midwest: the much colder weather.

So in his third year in South Bend, 100-some miles east of Chicago, has he gotten used to the bone-chilling winters?

"No," he replied. "That was one thing I kind of worried about when I was getting recruited, and then I thought, 'It's not a big deal.' But actually, it's kind of worse than I thought.

"And it lasts until summer pretty much. You're in April and it's snowing."

Paying for the news — or not

Hey news consumer, can you spare a dime?

That's what newspaper editors quoted in this Editor and Publisher story are asking.

As newspapers scramble to decide how best to increase revenue online, editors are desperately trying to figure out what content to charge for, while still keeping print viable and their Web numbers up.

Most newsroom leaders who spoke with E&P said no decisions have been made but admit they welcome a paid approach to online, noting that readers seem to be willing to pay for Web content that is useful, exclusive and/or in-depth. In each region, however, the definition of marketable content varies. Some editors believe everything is chargeable. Others point at sports, or find blogs and analysis the most sellable.

It's an interesting story, and explores difficult questions.

I am, of course, without answers, but I'm watching the debate with interest.

As a career newspaperperson until very recently, I've been pondering my role as a news consumer. I was surfing the Web site of my former employer, the Knoxville News Sentinel, via my phone while having lunch at Valparaiso University's Harre Union just today.

Would I pay a small amount of money to gain access to currently free knoxnews.com content if it was entirely behind a paywall? I'm pretty sure I would, both to support the good folks at the KNS and because I'm genuinely interested in Knoxville news, though I no longer live there and don't have family or deep roots in the Southeast.

But would I pay more than a little? And how much would be the dealbreaking point? And what if the pay process was unwieldy or annoying? Would I just bail?

And there are more questions on the flip side. OK, so newspapers keep content free. How would the News Sentinel target advertising to me? Does it need to? Am I a valuable piece of the online readership puzzle in terms of my utility to advertisers?

In the Editor and Publisher story, several news execs seem to favor a tiered approach: some stuff free, more specialized or unusual or useful content behind a paywall. But where's the right balance? What should be free? And, most importantly, will consumers pay?

My News Sentinel sendoff

On my last day as a copy editor at the Knoxville News Sentinel, my fine colleagues sprung a surprise pizza-and-cake fest on me, complete with a bag of KNS swag: highlighters, notepad, water bottle. Not too shabby!

The stellar Karen Knotts baked us a cake. The squiggly mark after "good" represents an editing mark. A nice touch. Plus, my boss, the also stellar Cathy Shepherd, let me go early, which was a great help, since I had to leave the next morning.

It was a crazy couple of days. Pick up U-Haul Friday, load said truck that day, go to work Friday night, drive nine hours north on Saturday, and here we are today.

So many of my colleagues had kind words and well-wishes for me over the last few days. It's such a talented group, and a super-nice bunch as well.

And it meant a lot that my friends and colleagues cared enough to give me a nice, low-key sendoff, which fit perfectly.

Thanks, y'all.

More photos via Flickr.

University of Tennessee 63, Western Kentucky 7: Hey, I wrote that headline!

On my last Saturday at the Knoxville News Sentinel, I wrote the A1 headline that appears in today's paper.

Headline writers come in all sorts of styles. I tend to go for the straight-laced, subtle headline rather than striving for something that's overtly catchy or flowery. I thought this one was a nice, workmanlike entry. I like the subdued double-meaning (i.e., a revival in the sense that UT is back after going 5-7 last year, and a revival in a tongue-in-cheek religious meaning — Vols football is described as a sort of religion around here on occasion) and it's fun to work "Rocky Top" into a headline.

While I was at it, I took a few photos around the outside of our building.

Knoxville's Victor Ashe Park

At the News Sentinel's Fit Knoxville blog today, I write about one of my favorite places to run, Victor Ashe Park. I took a few pictures there this a.m.

With a combination of trails and paved pathways, and a connector to Northwest Middle School, a loop from one end to the other and back is about five miles. You can lengthen it quite a bit by taking detours through the surrounding neighborhoods, baseball parks, and so forth.

For the non-Knoxville folks, the park is named after this guy.

More photos on Flickr.

Leaving Knoxville, the News Sentinel, and newspapers

As many of my colleagues and friends know, I'm leaving the Knoxville News Sentinel, and daily journalism, for a position at Valparaiso University in northern Indiana. At VU, my alma mater, I'll be writing for and editing university publications as associate director of creative services.

I've been a copy editor at the News Sentinel since 2005, with previous stops (in reverse chronological order) as a reporter and editor at the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune, the North Platte (Neb.) Telegraph, the Michigan City (Ind.) News-Dispatch, and the Plymouth (Ind.) Pilot News. Whew! That's a lot of itinerant travel in almost 15 years as a newspaper guy.

I'm still going to be doing some freelance reporting work, so I'll keep my hand in the business a bit.

I'll miss all of the fine folks and friends and colleagues I've met here in Knoxville, and I'll miss the mild winters and the Smoky Mountains.

I'll be moving closer to family and longtime friends. (I grew up in South Bend, an hour east of Valparaiso; Valpo is an hour east of Chicago.) I'm excited about working in a university environment. And I am looking forward to introducing the phrase "y'all" to a bunch of unsuspecting Midwesterners.

Suttree

What am I reading? Thanks for asking. Besides the obligatory football preview magazines, I've been working on Cormac McCarthy's "Suttree."

According to Publisher's Weekly:

Set in Knoxville, Tenn., in the 1950s, this novel tells the story of a man who has repudiated his well-to-do parents, deserted his wife and is now a river fisherman who consorts with robbers, ragmen and other outcasts. McCarthy captures these people's lives and speech with a tough, lyric grace.

It's great so far, and as a Knoxville resident, it's fun to follow the lay of the land through the wanderings of the protagonist, Suttree.

A few words about a retiring colleague

Fred Powell, a fixture for decades on the copy desk of the Knoxville News Sentinel, worked his last day a couple of Fridays ago. As I and I'm sure others expected, our columnist Sam Venable summarized his career nicely.

At the appointed hour, a young, soon-to-be University of Tennessee journalism graduate reported for his job interview. "You'll have to come back," the editor's secretary told him. "Things are a little bit wild right now. The president's just been shot, and the managing editor is about to have a heart attack." Thus unfolded the events of Nov. 22, 1963, the start of Fred Powell's association with the Knoxville News Sentinel.

After hearing that story from Fred, I found it so good that I retold it plenty of times myself. It brings together staggering longevity, strange luck and one of the biggest news events of the century.

I also thanked Sam for providing insight into the life of a copy editor.

Copy editors man the trenches in this business. They catch errors, clarify syntax, correct spelling, size photos, write headlines, fit stories to allotted space, design and lay out pages. They do it unflappably, behind the scenes and ahead of publication.

We had a nice little dinner gathering to send Fred off, and he told old-time News Sentinel stories, each funnier than the last. Newsrooms were a bit more rough around the edges back in the bad old days. One story, in which one angry staff member dangled another out of a newsroom window by his feet, was deemed likely to be apocryphal.

I enjoyed talking national and international news with him, and bemoaning together the shrinking space that our paper, and of course other papers, devote to that kind of news. As our wires editor, his job was to figure out what national and world news absolutely needed to get into the paper, and then make it fit that space. Not an easy task.

We all wish him the best in his retirement.

Inspector general's report on TVA ash spill

The TVA inspector general's report released today is a damning indictment of the agency. From the Knoxville News Sentinel story:

The Tennessee Valley Authority ignored long-standing safety concerns and could have prevented the Kingston fly ash spill by addressing them, the TVA inspector general wrote in a damning report issued today.

The utility's independent watchdog found TVA management has not accepted responsibility for management decisions leading to the catastrophe. Instead, the report found, they limited the scope of an investigation into the cause of the disaster in an apparent effort to shore up its legal defense in lawsuits.

The utility's actions, the report concluded, were fueled by a culture resistant to change that looked at ash as insignificant.

And, he warned, it could happen at other power plants if TVA doesn't take action.

The News Sentinel post includes a number of useful links if you're interested in our extended coverage of the disaster. And the aftermath photo is something to behold.

Running around Knoxville

Here's a rundown of my blog posts of running and hiking around Knoxville and Knox County.

Ijams trails

Seven Islands

I.C. King Park

Cades Cove