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Twenty years ago, we would have reporters in Wilmington, Morehead City and Nags Head, awaiting Hurricane Earl. It wouldn't matter that it's not expected to make landfall in North Carolina. The threat that it might was good enough. Besides, a hurricane is an exciting story to cover and every journalist wants to cover an exciting story whether it's needed or not.

Now? We're not there. Partly because the staff is smaller, but mostly because the media environment has changed, we don't see the need. At least, not now, a good day and a half before the hurricane is expected to swing past. We could post on-the-scene updates online, but the wires are keeping us well stocked. 

Local television stations have reporters at the coast now. All the networks are leading with "batten-down-the-hatches" stories. The Weather Channel has Al Roker there, for goodness sakes. Plenty of coverage is available for our readers. We don't see a compelling reason to duplicate it.

If Earl comes ashore and wreaks more havoc than it now appears it will, I'll probably regret this decision. We know that people here have favorite beaches and want to know how they fare. We'll need to scramble. I just hope Earl swings past with nothing more than the anticipated high waves and high winds.