ByWillAtkinson.com

Gregg Marshall is gone at Winthrop.

I received the following e-mail from DHEC this morning:

MEDIA DAYBOOK ADVISORY June 13, 2006

A community meeting will be held at 12 noon today for residents of Great Falls who remain evacuated from their homes due to the mill fire.

The fire at the mill has been declared out and cleanup operations are underway.

The meeting will be held in the auditorium at Great Falls High School located on Sunset Avenue. This is the same location as the Red Cross assistance and shelter location.

There will be no separate media briefing this morning.

An otherwise well-written New York Times story on the NBA Finals is hindered by a grammatically cumbersome lead.

“The Miami Heat was badly outplayed Sunday night, seeming to be out of answers and at times looking as if they were outnumbered.”

should be…

“The Miami Heat were badly outplayed Sunday night, seeming to be out of answers and at times looking as if they were outnumbered.”

The AP rule for this is under “collective nouns” of the sports section:
“Teams names such as the Jazz, Magic, the Avalanche, take plural verbs.”

I spent the day at the disaster area in Great Falls Saturday on assignment for the Herald. Half the town has been evacuated after an acidic fire broke out at a mill in the town. Smoke from the fire contains hydrochloric acid and can cause environmental and health problems. Fire fighters have been battling the blaze since Tuesday.

The temperature reached a sweltering 100 degrees during the afternoon. I was told the firemen were “sucking back” Gatorade and water.

Here’s the link to the Great Falls story published in the Herald today:
Officials hope end in sight for blaze

I also had three stories on the Manchester Meadows soccer complex published today in a special pullout section.

The following are photos I snapped on Saturday:

UH-60 chopper water bombing the fire. The sack contains 750 gallons of water and flame-sealing foam.

U.S. Rep. Spratt, D-S.C., gave a press conference.

Residents voiced their concerns at a town meeting.

The heat and general agitation led some people to get into a confrontation with the Chester County sheriff.

Most residents were just frustrated.

This picture was published with the print story.

This resident was accompanied by the National Guard back to her house to get clothes, medicine and her dog.

Exclusive aerial photo of the Great Falls mill fire:

The blog .:c-lo.net:. is running an interesting story on why journalism is broken.

The story makes three main claims:
1) Objectivity is a load of bull. Transparency and honesty are not.
2) Don’t act like opinions don’t exist. People need opinions.
3) Redefine the concept of authority.

I take issue with one of his claims:
“Here’s where blogs, the Internet and user-created content scare the journalism world: people can access authoritative content without them.”

Fact: important people don’t want to waste their time talking to bloggers and hacks who write when the mood hits them. Public figures want their thoughts in the public. Important people want their thoughts to percolate rapidly through society. They’re not going to waste their time giving indepth interviews to blogs that get less than 1,000 daily readers.

His basic premise is by “sticking to the facts,” journalists bore audiences. I’m not sure what the converse of this would be. He talks about the need for “context” and “what it means.” That’s what good writers should be doing now.

The piece was written in reference to a Mark Cuban post.