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How important is the President's speech to Congress on health care tonight?

Judging by the attention he's giving it, by the letters to the editor, by the town halls and by the need for health care improvement, I'd say that it's an 8 or 9 on the importance scale.

The local Fox affiliate is not airing the speech, instead showing "So You Think You Can Dance." The speech will be streamed on the Web site. (The CBS affiliate, WFMY, is broadcasting the speech.)

In one way, the Fox decision makes sense -- it is not as if anyone with a television won't be able to find Obama on another station. I understand that. At the newspaper, we have purposely emphasized local news over national news to distinguish ourselves from content available everywhere.

I presume the station knows its audience and its expectations. I wouldn't be surprised if WGHP wins the ratings battle, too. Still, if you want to say you own local news, the decision not to broadcast the speech seems to hurt the brand of being the "News Leader," particularly when you're replacing it with regular entertainment programming.

OK, that was too snarky. The issue is a serious one. It interests me because I'm interested in how news judgment is changing and how the public makes choices. We're grappling with it here, and I know local television is, too.

Update: Fox8 anchor Neill McNeill promises a blog post on the topic. He says he didn't make the programming decision. Will link to it when it comes.

I am now up to 25 e-mails and phone calls thanking me for not publishing the neo-Nazi information.

NOT publishing. I can't remember such a response FOR publishing something.

It got me thinking about all the things that people think would be better if we didn't publish. One commenter suggested that we omit addresses of people arrested. Another wrote me: Now if you would only not disclose Charles Davenport, I'd be happier as I am an adult. He is merely a rabble-rouser and lives to incite. Another suggested eliminating Leonard Pitts.

But it isn't just the desire not to read political views that differ from yours. I routinely hear from people who don't want us to publish "bad news." Or more specifically, news that reflects poorly on Greensboro. Or High Point. Or Eden. Or Asheboro. Some don't want us to publish news about the latest celebrity inanity. Others wish we wouldn't publish news about two-bit crimes. Some support the idea that we shouldn't publish information about companies considering locating here, even if they are asking for taxpayer incentives.

They almost all cite the overall public good for keeping the information out of the newspaper, but the reasoning is dubious, in my opinion.

As a reader, I think in terms of getting all the information I can. It always amazes me when people say they don't want to know things. I know this will confuse some people, given that part of my job is to decide what is not published. I'm not trying to justify that or criticize those who want to read only what they want to read.

With so much information available -- what we publish in the paper every day is just a fraction -- it just interests me that so many people want even less.

Twelve people have e-mailed me since my column yesterday and all agreed with the decision not to publish. More evidence that the newspaper reading commenters are different from the blog commenters.

That's the good news. On the other hand, a handful of people — well, three — have written to complain about the small story about the resignation of Van Jones. Here's a sample:

Just this morning in the 'wire reports' section on A11 concerning the Van Jones resignation: 'Responding to a firestorm that raged almost entirely on conservative talk shows and Web sites, ... This is disturbing proof that the 'mainstream media' has not done the job of informing the public on what is going on in this administration, but rather providing cover for it.

This is inexcusable for the news industry to completely ignore a story that would lead to a resignation of an advisor to the president, especially one that is a self-described communist.

It's true we haven't done much with the resignation of the mid-level Obama administration official. The controversy reads to me like an inside the Beltway political skirmish. With our emphasis of local over national, stories like these don't shoot too high up the news thermometer.

If you're counting, here's how a fair and balanced Fox blog tracked it all.

Happy Labor Day.

My newspaper column

Last Saturday night, our editor on duty, Eddie Wooten, called me at home.

The Greensboro Police Department, he said, had asked that we not publish the name of the motel where a neo-Nazi group was staying.

The National Socialist Movement held a planning meeting at a Greensboro motel during the day, and presumably, many of the 50 to 70 attendees were staying overnight there.

The meeting was closed to the public — the public was distinctly not invited — and neither the group nor the police had announced where the meeting was.

But we knew where they were — at La Quinta — and had a reporter and photographer there.

Possibly because the location was kept under wraps, the meeting itself had gone on peacefully. But across the city, about 200 people attended an anti-racism rally downtown Saturday afternoon.

It was peaceful, too, with the exception of one incident: Two men dressed like Nazis had exchanged words with the anti-racism protesters. The men drove off with protesters chasing them on foot.

The police feared that if the name of the motel were mentioned in Sunday morning’s paper, something unfortunate might happen before the neo-Nazis checked out.

It’s fair to say that 1979 wasn’t far from anyone’s mind. That’s when members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party exchanged gunfire with members of the Communist Workers Party in a “Death to the Klan” rally here. Five marchers died.

The police request was a tough one for us. After all, the presumption in newsrooms here and across the country is that you publish what you know about the news of the day. The neo-Nazi meeting was certainly a news story. Their activities, that they decided to meet here of all places and that their visit caused protests made everything about them interesting.

For better or worse, as journalists we bristle when a government agency asks us to do something. We prefer to hold government accountable rather than join with it to keep information away from the public.

Still, the possibility of violence at La Quinta was real. (Sunday's newspaper story here.)

Two things tipped the balance in our decision: First, a guiding journalistic principle is to minimize harm to innocent people. Although you might not consider neo-Nazis innocent, the other people staying at the motel certainly were.

Second, I couldn’t explain to myself what public service we would be performing if we published the location of the neo-Nazis. What good would come from telling readers where they were? And did withholding the name of the motel harm the news story? Not that I could tell.

As a result, we didn’t identify the motel until Monday.

I knew the decision would be controversial, and judging from comments on my blog last week, it wasn’t the most popular decision I’ve made. Some called the omission censorship. Others said it indicated we are in the pocket of the police. (I suspect police officers reading that right now are chuckling.)

We know that we can publish just about anything. The question that hovers over this was whether we should.

I am interested to know what you think.

Man, have I gotten things wrong.

Reading this list of Stolley's Laws for what sells on magazine covers is an eye-opener. I can't believe I haven't discovered it before.

I seem to routinely violate these laws. We publish lots of stories about poor people and politics on the front page. Conversely, we don't publish many stories about movies or television there. The final two rules:

7. Anything is better than politics.

8. Northing is better than the celebrity dead.

Of course, I violated No. 8 most famously last week.

Well, that's got to change. So, young, pretty and rich it is! That, and dead celebrities.

I've said this before but it apparently bears repeating. I don't pay close attention to all the blogs around town. I read some every day, but most of them I get to less often. I also rarely read the comments on other people's blogs. Most of the time, they add  little to my understanding of an issue. I know I'm lax, but don't take it personally. I try to spend my time wisely but most of the time the to-do list outruns the want-to-do list.

If you want to make sure that I have seen or heard a comment you've made -- and you haven't made it here -- please send me a message or leave a comment on one of my posts. I do read those comments religiously. I will respond.

I want to hear from you about something we've done or should do. It is just hard to respond to a request or question when I haven't even heard it.

We had the privilege of printing the Times-News of Burlington this morning. Press problems, their editor, Madison Taylor, explains.

We are happy to help out other newspapers. Competition is less important than helping them get the news out to their subscribers. They would do the same for us.

It took less than an hour to get the papers in and out of here. (We printed about 6,000.)

Special thanks on our side goes to Dennis Creamer, Nelson Sherman, Rex Riley, Jay Toler, Johnny McNeill, John McAlexander, Zear Russell, John Barnes, Danita Sellers, Faye Bernard, May Caldwell, Tyrone Alston and Horace Williams for coming in to help.

A double dose of despair for Burlington: Its owner, Freedom, is expected to declare bankruptcy this week.

We knew the location where the Neo-Nazis met, but we didn't publish it.

As I watched television cover the anti-racism protest downtown, they noted that they didn't know where the Nazi group was meeting. Actually, the location wasn't difficult to pinpoint. Our folks figured it out by listening to police scanner traffic. Reporter Taft Wireback went to the motel, found the group and interviewed the organizer.

When police discovered that we knew the location, they asked us not to publish it for fear that the Nazis and the protesters might re-enact one of the uglier incidents in the city's history.

We don't normally pay much attention to requests to leave information out of stories. We get them with some routine; they're usually motivated by a desire to make the subject look good or shield them from criticism. This was different.

In the discussion I had with editor Eddie Wooten, we focused on two questions: Would the public be served in publishing the location? What was the possibility harm would be caused if we did publish?

Neither of us could come up with any public service value of publishing, but we could guess at harm that could result. We didn't think it likely, given the police presence at the motel, but it was distinctly possible.

So we agreed not to identify the location. 

Update: Now that the "threat" is over, I fully expected someone to ask the motel be identified. No one did. In any case, in what I would consider a laugh out loud irony, they stayed at La Quinta.

Wouldn't it be fun if City Council member T. Dianne Bellamy-Small called for all council members to take polygraph tests to determine who leaked the selection of the new city manager?

As you'll recall, a previous version of this council -- one in which most of the members remain -- agreed to take lie detector tests to find out which among them leaked the RMA report. Bellamy-Small declined -- all the others did and "passed" -- and, consequently, she was widely presumed to be the leaker, a charge she denied.

It was, in my opinion, one of the more embarrassing episodes of Greensboro's recent history. But given what she went through, who could blame her if, just to watch the other members squirm, she called for a polygraph. Or if a polygraph goes too far, perhaps an affadavit, as member Mike Barber championed.

It's only fair. And consistent.

Update: Other thoughts from Roch Smith.

Tuesday Update: Bellamy-Small has read this and posted this comment on her site:

The only thing I ever asked the newspaper to do, was to say I was not their source. If this is as close as they will come, so be it. FINALLY ! TDBS 

Now let's move on with the 2009 campaign and the needs of Greensboro for the future.

Unfortunately, I guess that means that she isn't going to ask the rest of the council to take a polygraph. It sure would make the meeting interesting. (Someone does need to talk to her about linking and fair use, though.)

Natalie DeBruin, a crackerjack copy editor, completed her summer internship with us to return to Ohio University.

We first connected on Twitter and we were so impressed with her that we hired her for the summer. While I don't think copy editing was her first choice, she brought firepower to our desk. She was an early adopter of Page Turners, too. 

You can follow her on her blog and on Twitter.