Comments by kcooper
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Posted on August 28 at 10:38 a.m.
JeffNatchez:
I'm sorry you feel that we haven't covered Obama's success well enough.
Obviously, we try our best to cover local news first, then state, then national. For most state and national news we depend upon the Associated Press for most of that coverage. A community newspaper our size simply cannot afford to have enough reporters to handle all of that type of news.
I'm not familiar with The Democrat's coverage of Dr. King. I simply have never looked through the archives. Since our building burned in the late 1960s, we don't have easy access to these. My guess, however, is that since it wasn't local the newspaper probably depended on the AP for that coverage, too.
I have, however, extensively researched the Wharlest Jackson case and our coverage. I even personally wrote several stories on this in the late 1990s when the case was reopened by the Natchez police.
Your comments about our coverage of Wharlest Jackson's murder are flat wrong. The days after the murder coverage of the crime and the community's reaction to it was all over the newspaper. Further, we've rigorously reported on the work to reopen the case and find the killers since then. Unfortunately, those efforts have come up empty thus far.
Again, the main difference here is that Wharlest Jackson was local. He lived here, worked here and was killed here. King and Obama, while certainly of massive importance, are less accessible to us and thus we depend on AP coverage.
Thanks for reading and for commenting (though I wish you'd not post the same comment on multiple stories).
Kevin.
Posted on July 27 at 8:14 a.m.
Oldsaw, first the vegetation isn't browning for lack of rain. It was green before it was sprayed with a chemical. This was just one example. If you look around you'll see lots of opportunities for someone who is an expert at such things.
Second, our building plans are still under way, just delayed a bit. We were running at it very quickly a year or so ago with the belief that meeting the GO Zone deadline was critical. We have slowed up after realizing that GO Zone incentives were not terribly advantageous to us.
Posted on July 26 at 8:35 a.m.
Dangyankee: Thanks for the article about Rock Port. I suspect you're correct that the only way this kind of thing can be made to happen is by a determined president pushing hard.
Interesting comparison to Kennedy's "moon" dream. I think you're correct that what Pickens proposes is far less far-fetched than Kennedy's.
I loved the following quote in the article:
"We're farming the wind, which is something that we have up here," Crawford said. "The payback on a per-acre basis is generally quite good when compared to a lot of other crops, and it's as simple as getting a cup of coffee and watching the blades spin."
Posted on May 25 at 8:15 a.m.
oldsaw: I think the difference is that these are highways, under the responsibility of MDOT, not city streets.
Posted on May 18 at 4:33 p.m.
Folks, first, please re-read my original words and let me know where you think something I wrote was trying to poke fun or show disrespect for the employees who lost their jobs or the managers who had to terminate them. That was not my intention and I don't see that in my words. Please be specific so I can understand what you read into it.
Second, lots of people want to blame someone for "not doing their jobs" inferring that the board of trustees didn't do their jobs and thus they're to blame. Perhaps they didn't, but as I see it, the biggest thing they did wrong was allow the former management company, Quorum, to hang around too long.
If Regional is to survive, one of two things must happen:
1). The management needs to cut expenses to get them in line with revenues. This is the same as any business would do in facing a cash crunch. If our newspaper started struggling to pay its bills, it would be my job to figure out what (or who) to cut. In my mind, that's not really the hospital board's decision; it's the manager's.
2). The hospital needs to build revenue.
I think they're doing No. 1, which probably should have been done with the first hints of financial woes began years ago. Unfortunately now that the new management is "doing their job" it's got everyone freaked out. Running a business isn't always pretty or fun and I'm sure no one at the hospital wanted to have to terminate someone. That's always a last resort.
No. 2 will take more time as the community's faith in the hospital's quality (and cleanliness) will have to be rebuilt over time.
I, too, pray for the families affected and for the future of health care in our community.
Posted on May 11 at 4:45 p.m.
Nice debate, folks. Obviously, y'all know how I feel.
Marc, I greatly respect your opinion about this and am glad you shared it. I disagree, strongly, however, with your believe that the comments feature is somehow about generating money. Sure, we're a business and we need to make money so we can pay our employees (our annual payroll is well over $1 million), pay our bills and make lots of contributions to events and groups in town. But that doesn't mean that we're solely motivated by money.
The interesting thing about the comments feature is that it illustrates something that lots of people (both private citizens and public leaders) seem to miss. The comments are a bit of a mirror held up to society.
Sure, it might be a small segment and maybe even a minority of the greater populace's opinion, but it's still a segment. Letting those opinions (especially the crazy, ill-informed ones) go unanswered and uncorrected perpetuates falsehoods and conspiracy theorists.
It's much better to confront things with the truth than with denial.
I view the comments feature as a more modern day telephone system or CB radio network. It's a structure that we provide. The comments are the responsibility of the individual. Lots of good comes out of them, too. If you haven't done so, read some of the amazing memories shared on some of our obituaries, for example. The "good" of the comments has thus far far outweighed the "bad."
Thanks for reading us (and for contributing in constructive debates about our community).
Kevin
Posted on April 20 at 9:08 p.m.
Folks: I have no personal grudge with any of the candidates. I think all of them are nice guys who mean well. As the old umpire might say, I just call them like I see them.
One thing that's been a surprise thus far has been how calm and clean this race has been. Normally by now candidates would be throwing eggs at one another behind the scenes and/smearing their opponents credibility. Unless I've just not heard it, this race has been relatively clean so far. So hats off to all three (and their supporters) for not slinging mud -- at least not yet.
Thanks.
Kevin.
Posted on April 10 at 1:53 p.m.
Retired: Please re-read the original article. In it you'll noticed the time elements involved. The police have charged the young with stealing multiple four-wheelers -- some allegedly on Friday (just before the state championships which were on Saturday) and some the following day (Sunday).
Also, note, that two of the names of the accused were also listed in Tuesday's print edition listed among those who competed at the state championships. The coach confirmed to our reporter that all were members of the team.
We'd planned a feature story on the team's accomplishments for today's edition, but opted to hold it momentarily so as to avoid having the crime story and the feature story on the team appear in the same edition. Our editorial folks made that decision. I happen to agree with it.
Also, if you see something that's factually inaccurate in the story, please call me 601-445-3539 or e-mail me directly kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.
I likely will not be reading much more of these posts today as I'm not yet in a position to change my login to read "retired" ... I've got some work to do. :)
Posted on April 10 at 1:47 p.m.
Burrowes: As a former employee of ours (and I believe still a hopeful young journalist), I would hope that you can see that there is, in fact, a good reason to mention the connection between the accused and their relationship to the school team.
What we do for a living (or in the case of students, where we go to school and what we do at that school) is often how we relate to one another, especially when the person's occupation/hobby/etc. propels them into the public.
If an off-duty police officer robbed a liquor store, his/her occupation would be part of a news story about the robbery. If the accused were just a guy who worked as a bookkeeper and thus not in the public, perhaps his occupation wouldn't be as newsworthy.
I will, however, agree with you that Natchez High has some amazingly talented and gifted students.
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Posted on August 28 at 2:28 p.m.
Posted by Peace007 (anonymous) on August 28, 2008 at 11:05 a.m. http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/news/1999......
Is this your article Kevin?
Peace007: I'm not sure (too many years have gone past). During one of our two Web site migrations since the story was originally posted, we lost some of the "author" information on older stories. I believe it was my story, but several of us covered the story as it was reopened.
On Gustav prep, worries begin