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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.

A student who wants to run track at A&T dies during a tryout. The university forms a private committee to review the information. Yesterday the committee released its "findings," presented in full at the end of this post.

It says that the student, Jospin Milandu, was participating in "an unscheduled track try-out." (It doesn't explain what that is.) As a result, "a number of university policies were violated." It doesn't say what policies.

It says one NCAA policy was violated. It doesn't say what policy.

It says the policy violations "are primarily limited to the track program." Primarily?

It doesn't address questions that have lingered since Milandu died — whether he had signed a waiver, whether he had had the required physical and whether a medical personnel were nearby.

As Gerald Witt's story in the e-edition today says, A&T officials aren't answering questions or saying anything else, they aren't releasing emails or other requested information, and they aren't available for comment.

Apparently, they aren't explaining anything to Milandu's father, either.

This shouldn't satisfy students, alumni or taxpayers, either. (And as the comments in this story suggest, it doesn't.)

This isn't Aggie Pride. A&T is a public institution, just as UNC-Chapel Hill is. Perhaps there are valid reasons for keeping the information private. A&T officials ought to come out and explain them.

This is the complete news release, which came from Nicole Pride, associate vice chancellor for university relations:

"On August 16, 2010, the North Carolina A&T State University family suffered the tragic loss of one of its students, Jospin “Andre” Milandu. Jospin was a 20-year-old sophomore from Knightdale, North Carolina. Jospin collapsed during a supervised, voluntary track team open try-out on our campus. Immediately following this unfortunate incident, our chancellor, Dr. Harold L. Martin Sr., assembled a committee to gather the facts surrounding this unfortunate tragedy. This committee was comprised of three senior university administrators — the Vice Chancellor for University Advancement, Special Assistant to the Chancellor, and the Athletics Director — with the guidance of the university’s legal staff.

"The university’s findings revealed that at the time of this incident, Jospin Milandu was participating in an unscheduled track try-out. Because this activity did not appear on the university’s schedule of athletic events, a number of university policies were violated. Additionally, one NCAA policy was also violated resulting in what has been determined to be a “secondary violation.” This violation has been self-reported to the NCAA. As a result of these policy violations, the university’s ability to respond effectively was limited.

"The university is committed to the safety of its student athletes and to being in full compliance with all of its own policies and those of the NCAA. The findings revealed that the policy violations surrounding this incident are primarily limited to the track program. The university is unconditionally committed to effective oversight of the university’s athletic programs. Chancellor Martin has instructed the university’s athletics director to assume direct responsibility for all compliance matters related to the university’s track program until further notice.

"We continue to grieve the loss of Andre, and extend our heartfelt sympathy to his family and friends. Since this matter may involve personnel issues, the university is unable to provide further details."

I prefer openness and transparency from public employees under the belief that they should give a truthful picture of what is going on to the people they work for — you and me. It doesn't seem a particularly high standard, although I'm often disappointed.

Some people — mainly politicians and public employees themselves — think that's unwise so I wasn't surprised to read a blog post that criticized UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp, Athletic Director Dick Baddour and football coach Butch Davis for holding a news conference last week to announce an investigation into academic infractions in the football program. The author of the post, Leroy Towns, suggested that the news conference was bungled, the message was wrong and that there was no "real news." He essentially argues that the officials should have kept quiet if they couldn't have spun the message better.

A basic rule of media management and public relations holds that you should call a news conference only if you have real news and information to deliver. If you do call a press conference, make sure the message you want delivered is reinforced by the visuals. UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp and university athletic officials violated both of those rules Thursday with an odd news conference called to discuss academic misconduct in the football program.

Oh, there was clearly real news there, an evaluation made by all of the state's major newspaper editors who published the story at the top of their front pages. Possible academic infractions is a tough one to spin in your favor.

I didn't think much of it until I read that Towns is a faculty member of the journalism school. What a conflict — a journalism professor giving political advice that doesn't enhance the efforts of journalism.

When a program is immersed in controversy and under investigation by a regulatory body, its credibility is being threatened. People who care about that institution have questions that deserve to be addressed. Until last week, neither Baddour nor Davis were doing much to address them. At least Thorp sent a message of responsibility.

Granted, Towns teaches political communication. I think a more powerful message of would have been to push for more openness, transparency and accountability rather than less. As a boss, I want to make sure that the people working for me are dealing with me honestly, that they're on top of the situation and are giving me timely reports. I don't want a news release or the chancellor of the institution hiding behind others.

Update: For an example of what happens when you try to manage the news by press release, go to this story.  By coincidence, A&T released a short statement about its investigation into the death of one of its students. Lots of questions unanswered.

Last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, we published a brief notice in the paper soliciting legal questions for our new Ask a Lawyer column.

We've gotten 21 questions, not counting the half dozen we've gotten from people in jail looking for help with their cases. They're good ones, too, all about Social Security, homeowners' rights, unemployment claims, child custody and even whether it's legal to drive wheelchairs on city streets. My favorite so far involves inheritance issues surrounding Carolina Panthers seats.

The quick response makes me wonder if the schools should offer a course on basic law in high school. In any case, I'd say we have a winner and the first column hasn't even been published yet. (Next Sunday.)

Glenn Beck is holding a "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow. It's not going to be political, he says, "because I haven't found a lot of honor when it's followed by an 'R' or a 'D'."

It will get a good deal of television coverage, I suspect, because these kinds of things do. This story says that the National Park Service expects about 100,000 people to attend. I've seen another estimate to be 300,000, but I can't find the link now.

This Washington Post story quotes Guilford County's own Marcus Kindley: "There's a buildup of energy out here of people frustrated because they don't think Washington's listening. At 9/12, it was a wonderful coming together of people who felt like their voices weren't being heard. And I think the reason so many more are coming this year is because our voices still aren't being heard."

But is this a front page story for us on Sunday? That's a hard one to call early, but I know that if we do not put it on the front page, we will get calls and letters saying that we "buried" the biggest event of the year (because of our liberal bias) and that we're out of touch with people's political sensibilities. (This has happened before.)

We consider ourselves a local paper first, and while there will be a national story on the front page Sunday, it may not be about a non-political rally in Washington. Or, depending on what else is happening, it may be.

So, play the editor: Should we put the rally story on the front page?

Saturday update: Pretty much nothing unexpected happened. For awhile this afternoon, Google News had the Paris Hilton arrest as its lead story of the day. (FoxNews, Beck's network, has a story about Harry Reid's campaign as its top story.)

Jospin Milandu collapsed during tryouts for the A&T track team last Thursday. He was taken to Moses Cone Hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was a good man and well-liked by those who knew him.

That’s about all we know, but not what we should know.

Had Milandu had a physical before trying out for the track team and was it on file? Had he signed a waiver and was that on file? No trainer was on the site, but university practice is that a doctor should be available. Was there any medical treatment nearby? While we're at it, what is the university's policies for walk-on student-athletes?

These questions came up last Friday. They aren’t hard, and it shouldn’t take long to determine the answers, yet a week later, the answers haven’t been made public. Instead, A&T’s position is that all information will be released at once, after an unidentified group of A&T officials, including attorneys, have reviewed the circumstances of the death.

When will that occur? The school won't say. For the sake of the university's credibility and the health of other student athletes, I hope it's sooner than later.

Meanwhile, Milandu's funeral is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday in Raleigh.

I know Tom Ross, the new president of the UNC system, and he's a big man so this wouldn't faze him. However, is it possible that the UNC athletics department could have scheduled its embarrassing announcement that it is being investigated for possible academic misconduct involving football players at a worse time?

I don't know about other newspapers, but the NCAA story is going to be stripped across the front page tomorrow morning above the Ross story. Granted, we had the Ross story on the front page today, but he should have been able to ride it the celebration another day.

Nope.

I sent this email today to our Reader Panel. I hope you'll join. Your voice has more power than perhaps you know.

Thank you for participating in our Reader Panel.

Your responses help us improve, probably more than you realize. Editors and reporters read every response, and we make adjustments in our coverage. I will cite a couple of examples:

• You told us that you wanted our Sunday front page to reflect more of what is going on in the nation so we have added stories to address that.

• You told us you want a mix of “feel good” stories alongside hard news stories, and we have tried to make that balance.

• You told us that you often followed notices in the paper about content online so we added more.

In a more general sense, you have given us great suggestions on political, consumer, school and sports stories you would like us to cover. We have published some and others are in the works. We have taken to heart your ideas about improving our book page, our Thursday photo page and Go Triad. And you’ve helped us to NOT do some things. For instance, we were discussing expanding our daily weather package, and you told us not to bother, that what we had was sufficient for your needs.

We asked you whether we should add travel pages or science and technology pages. You said travel and we’re adding those pages at the end of the month. (The response for science and technology was strong enough that we’re going to add some stories on those topics, too.)

Your feedback is one of the best ways we have to find out whether what we’re doing is helpful. Thank you for helping us serve you better.

The message on the signs on the outside of the courtrooms at the Guilford County Courthouse are clear: By order of the judge, turn off your cellphone. Makes sense, too. No one wants a phone to start ringing in the middle of a trial. (Given some of the ringtones I've heard, I can just imagine spectators being tossed into jail for contempt of court.)

But given what smart phones can do these days, is the judge's order too restrictive? I think so.

Today, Grayson Dawson was sentenced after pleading guilty to felony hit and run. It was a high profile case, and a lot of people were paying attention. People want to know what's happening, and news organizations want to get the news out as quickly as possible.

The judge allowed video and still cameras in the courtroom. Professional journalists were there, taking notes with pencil and paper.

One person — not with the News & Record — tweeted updates throughout the three-hour sentencing hearing. I asked the person about that and was told that the cellphone was on silent. Still, I think it's fortunate the bailiff didn't notice the phone was on and in use.

But it raises the question of whether the courts need to catch up with technology. Again. A reporter — or anyone — tweeting about a case on a silent cellphone is not less disruptive than someone taking notes on a pad. Anyone interested in a case, but not able to be there, could keep up by reading Twitter posts, Facebook posts or web posts done by someone in the courtroom with a quiet smart phone. In the Dawson case, the person tweeting did a good job; the tweets were descriptive and, all told, provided a decent narrative of the hearing.

I wouldn't be surprised if others in the courtroom today were stealth texting on their phones.My observation is that prohibiting people from using technology to communicate doesn't work. The courts might as well address it head on.

We are starting a new column called Ask a Lawyer. If you have a question about the law and your rights, this is the place to come -- well, unless you want to spend your money for a personal consultation with a lawyer. Ours is free.

Don't worry -- even though I spent the night in a Holiday Inn last night, I'm not going to answer the questions. Members of the Greensboro Bar Association will.

We published our first announcement of the new column this morning, and by 9 a.m. I had the first inquiry ... involving credit card rates. Sweet.

If you have a question, send it here. Please include your name and phone number. We won't publish the phone number, but need it for follow up questions.