(Note to readers of my blog: I typically do a critique like this once a week, and do shorter versions more often than that. I thought you'd appreciate a little insight into our newsrooms./Eric)

Sunday

Very nice looking and newsy A1 of the Morning Sentinel. Getting Sharon Wood involved in our A1 designs helps a lot, and Joel Elliott's story on rafting and Betty Adams' on Kents Hill/school notification were surprising stories, well-executed.

Two things about A1 design: For Sharon to do what she's done the last several Sundays on A1, we need to get visuals and information to her early -- say, Wednesday. That requires more planning and doing reporting (and photo sometimes) in a different order from what we may have done in the past. Second, with Stephanie Law's new work hours Wednesday-Friday, we should do more charts, nuggets, locators, graphics than we ever have. Again, Stephanie needs this stuff early -- in the morning, if it's for the daily paper. And on Wednesday or Thursday for a weekend (Saturday-Monday) paper.

I felt we made a good choice putting the Sen. Snowe-in-Iraq story from Portland on A1 of both papers Sunday. Interestingly, the Telegram ran it on B1; they really hustled getting that interview.

Good, innovative, visual approach to the Life & Leisure design on "Success in School." And Craig Crosby contributed a thoughtful piece. REALLY liked the breakout box that quoted kids in their own words talking about parental help. The headline on the package was lackluster and obvious, though: "Success in School: Parents play an important role."

Headline size too small on the MDI-Waterville game, Sports cover of the Sentinel. Repeat note to copy editors in Sports and News: We don't shrink point sizes to make long words fit in single-column holes. We write a new headline if the first attempt doesn't fit.

Weak packaging on Sports front in KJ: Travis L. and wire commentary both on Patriots cheating, but placed far apart on page. For starters, I'm not sure we needed two commentary pieces on the same topic on the cover. But if we're going to do that, package them. Packaging throughout our newspapers is an area where we need to improve. Remember, like content (Patriots, whatever) should be packaged together (as in adjacent), whenever possible, which it usually is.

Very amusing B1 column by JP Devine on men's rest rooms.

I am a David Broder fan because he is not a political ideologue and his columns often reveal. His piece on our edit page today (on Sen. Lindsey Graham) was another example of both.

Some nice writing touches on our News stories Sunday:
"Green beans. Pasta. Jello. One by one, the food items left the basement of the Hallowell fire station in boxes..." -- Elizabeth Comeau. (It 's Jell-O though.)
"Outdoor guides say the Internet killed whitewater rafting in Maine. Or maybe it's the increasing length of the school year, or the allure of video games and other more sedentary pursuits." -- Joel Elliott.
"Elizabeth Pohl finds herself straddling a divide in the sometimes emotional debate over her library." -- Gary Remal.

ALL THREE of these leads are conversational, easy to read and invite you to keep going.

Monday

A too-light story mix in both newspapers was aided greatly by Scott Martin's and Travis Lazarczyk's story about how local fans were reacting to the Patriots' video-cheating issue. This was an idea from Bob Mentzinger, and I am pleased that Scott and Travis L. pulled it off on short notice.

Three comments: Scott used the "is not alone" transition to get from the top of his story to the body: "Stilphen (his lead person) is not alone in his belief that..." You'd be surprised how many newspaper stories do this. "He/she/they/it is-are not alone." It often makes top 10 lists of newspaper cliches; our well-done series on prison problems recently used it too.

Also, we should use care having a reporter (Travis L. in this case) write objectively about an issue two days after he made his take on the Patriots' fine and "scandal" quite clear in an opinion column. We are a small newspaper so at times it's unavoidable but we should think about it nonetheless.

Finally, we should save at least one local, hard-news piece for A1 Monday in both papers.

I asked the desk to consider the Winthrop armed robbery story/short for A1, so this one is kind of "on me." But, we should not use our story-promo design and fonts on robbery/breaking news briefs on A1.

Andy Molloy's A1 photo of Wayne fire official Andy Knight is an example of thinking creatively to make a mediocre photo op pretty nice: Andy M. asked them to turn out the lights at the station, put on the flashing lights and some lights in the vehicle's cab -- and it just looked neat. Nicely done. With stories, photos, headlines -- sometimes that little extra thought leads to something special.

Most importantly: We did some good work on deadline Sunday night, crossing several departments. Sandra Pooler of Sports approached me and asked what she should do for the Sentinel Monday, seeing that the Patriots had a game starting at 8:20 p.m. and the Sox started at 8:05 p.m. That was good initiative from Sandra. I consulted with Tim Crilley of Circulation and Dick Boyer of Production Sunday, and we agree to limited the Sentinel to 1 edition that night, but start 30 minutes later than normal.

Result: Both games made the Sentinel and were featured (Bruce Mastron) in the overline on A1. That's good hustle, and single-copy readers today could see at the top of A1 that we had the stories. Well done. It's great to work at a newspaper with cross-departmental cooperation like this. Production had a good run on the presses Sunday night too, keeping things on time for our readers.