Big-time props to Regina Brett for her past two columns. Today's was incredibly courageous in my opinion because she dared to illustrate in rather graphic detail the difference between one girl's emotional and yet loving decision to give up a child and another's horrific response to motherhood.
So often stories of such a profound human nature receive little context. It's so easy for viewers or readers to sit in judgment when they know only a smidgen of facts and have not one iota of context in which to understand a person's decision. Local television news should be wearing the bag of shame for its obscene coverage of the young woman who gave her child to Wooster Community Hospital.
After reading Wednesday's column about what readers want, the first question in my mind was what discussions were taking place in the newsroom that prompted this column? Regina? I think it's telling that a woman has bothered to ask this question and not the many middle-age white men running the paper.
And finally, Bob Dolgan's farewell in today's sports section will be the first of many as some of the PD's marquee reporters take advantage of a generous buyout. I found his thoughts particularly moving and I suppose it harkens back to my days as a young reporter. I got tiny glimpses into the world of sports reporting from my computer mate and I heard many colorful war stories, often involving the legendary Dennis Lustig, a little person with a zest for life and for the drink. Dolgan's column reaffirms that sports reporters are colorful lot. What touched me most was this line: "Today I am a much better reporter. But I was a better writer then."
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