Good work, times 3

I wanted to call attention to some fine work in our paper recently -- stories that emphasize tone, readable writing and narrative writing as well.

Nickie wrote about a city school proposal to have 'paper-free' meetings -- by spending a bunch of money on a computerized system that wouldn't begin to pay for itself in terms of paper savings. I thought the tone of this story, particularly the opening several grafs, was just right -- not too straight, not too snarky.

Several reporters -- Teresa Boeckel, Michele Canty, Ted Czech, Mike Hoover and Rick Lee -- combined to report a story in the Oct. 22 paper about Officer Tome's death (note -- the online version is topped w/autopsy news; the stuff I'm referring to here starts in the 3rd graf), leading with an interview with city officer Kyle Hower. I'm not sure who wrote this (can someone comment and help me out?) but again, the tone struck me as just right -- not maudlin, not stiff. We feel the brotherhood of cops coming through. The story moves on from that, to cover the crash and the investigation itself, and the tone remains appropriately, not overly, somber while delivering straight news.

And again, several reporters -- Canty, Hoover, Czech, Jeff Frantz, Mike Argento, Nicki Dobo, Angie Mason and Boeckel -- combined on the robbery/chase story in today's paper. This piece delivers the hard news in the first five paragraphs, and does so in a smooth, readable way; and then, with the words, "Early Friday afternoon ..." it becomes the story of what happened Friday. That story unfolds logically and clearly. Well-done.