From the Editor

Anonymity on the internet and online comments

2011-08-08T22:41:00.002-04:00

I received a press release today from Zogby International, a polling firm, saying that 60 percent of Americans believe that anonymity on the Internet has made us less civil.

That's not surprising. I think many would agree that not being required to use a real name makes people "braver" and it makes people say things they might not otherwise say to one another.

However, according to the Zogby poll, only 21 percent of people think that real usernames should be required, and 81 percent think that people will always find a way to hide their identity.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL RESULTS OF THE POLL

From accident reconstruction to 'CSI' - The Citizens Police Academy

2011-07-16T11:57:00.010-04:00

Watch out, bad guys. I am now trained in the use of Tasers, batons, pepper spray and handcuffs.

After 10 Tuesday-night classes at the Connecticut Police Academy in Meriden, I’ll never look at a tire track the same way again. I’ve learned about the history of the state police, the different aspects of the agency and what day-to-day life can be like for a state trooper.

I’ve gained a new respect for the physical requirements of the job – not only must a cadet in my age group (30-39) be able to do 25 sit-ups and 19 push-ups in a minute and run 1.5 miles in less than 16 minutes, but those who are accepted into the academy get tested regularly and exercise daily. (I lucked out since there were no physical requirements for the Citizens Academy).

State troopers must stay in shape, constantly learn new defense moves and practice handling their weapons often so they don’t get overtaken and have their weapons used against them. They must always be ready for the worst possible criminals – those who put up a fight.
“It’s almost impossible to control somebody who doesn’t want to be controlled,” said Trooper Matt Allen, a 13-year veteran with the state police.

Allen teaches Safety & Survival. He specializes in Taser instruction, is trained in motor vehicle law and is an instructor for Krav Maga, a hand-to-hand combat-martial arts style from Israel.
“Prison is just like a university for bad guys,” said Trooper Matt Allen, a 13-year veteran with the state police.
The criminals spend a lot of time working out, and then they get ideas from other inmates, he said. Therefore, officers must work just as hard to stay ahead.

***

I have a pretty good idea what it feels like traveling down I-91 south on a motorcycle at 170 mph after watching a recording from the view of a motorcyclist who eventually got decapitated when he clipped the back of a tractor trailer. He had been racing others and was quickly changing lanes during rush-hour traffic in the summer of 2008. His girlfriend on the back lost an arm but survived.

The state police traffic unit has investigated this and 449 other crashes with similarly gruesome results just in the past three years, according to Mark Pereira, an accident reconstructionist who has been with the state police for 10 years and before that worked as an electrical engineer.

Officers can determine the cause of a crash, who was driving what vehicle and at what speed, who was at fault and whether a mechanical failure may have caused the crash.
Using a tool that resembles a tire filled with cement, and a complex math formula, an officer can determine friction on the road.
“This job is very math intensive,” he said (and I mentally crossed it off my list as a possible new career).

Pereira also showed some gruesome accident photos – including rollovers – advocating for people to wear their seat belts.
“A seat belt greatly increases your chance of survival in a crash,” he said. “It greatly reduces your injuries.”
If you get ejected from a moving car, by laws of nature the car will “chase” you and you might end up getting crushed and killed by your own vehicle.

***

“It’s not like CSI,” Director Kenneth Zercie kept saying when we visited the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory in Meriden. “I wish we could solve two to three crimes in 45 minutes.”

But most things he was telling and showing us seemed exactly like “CSI.” Except, of course, for the part where every office was shut down at 6 p.m. because of “limited resources” – the lab cannot afford to keep people working 24/7 like forensic scientists do on the popular TV drama.

Test results are also produced a lot slower in reality (results of a nuclear DNA tests take 3-4 days, not a couple of hours), which is why the lab is about six years behind in its workload, not counting any new cases that might come in. The lab services the entire state – police, fire, FBI, CIA and any other regulatory agency in Connecticut that needs assistance. It also re-examines evidence for convicted felons who appeal their conviction.

“This is a very expensive operation,” Zercie said, although he added that some parts are paid for by federal grants. “This is the only lab in Connecticut that does what we do.”
Of course, big cases like the murder of Yale graduate student Annie Le end up taking up a big part of the lab’s time and end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“I wish we could do that on every case we get in here,” Zercie said. “Every case, if it was treated like that, would be solved.”

Instead, the dedicated, smart people who work in the lab (Ph.D. or six years of forensic experience required for entry-level position) lock up the evidence at night and go home.

But the real action is actually with the Eastern, Central and Western District Major Crime Squads. The crime squad detectives are the ones on the grisly murder scenes documenting, collecting and analyzing the evidence. Exactly like on “CSI.”
“That’s mainly what we do,” said Detective Chris Sudock from the Central District Major Crime Squad. “Although we’re not as pretty, and we don’t solve crimes as fast. But anything that anyone thinks is a ‘major crime’ – we investigate it.”

The characters on television also tend to do things “in the wrong order,” he said. On the show they do tire tracks, analyze, DNA, take photos - they are all over the place. At the state police, the crime investigators always process a scene the exact same way – documentation, evidence collection, specialized processing, autopsy. The evidence is always collected in the same manner, photos taken by two people, sketch maps made, evidence collected inch-by-inch and everything labeled and packaged properly. Afterward, extremely thorough reports are written.
“We are all very good writers,” Sudock said. “We write a report on each photo and why we took it.”

Sometimes they have to write about the lack of evidence gathered. But the key is always in the details. Suduck said his squad’s reports are so thorough that the cases they investigate very rarely go to trial.
“Defense attorneys have no place to attack,” he said.

The three major crimes units in the state handle requests from the FBI, the state’s attorney and local police departments. While the FBI has its own investigators, “they would rather use us,” Sudock said proudly. “But no individual unit will ever take credit for solving a crime.”

The crime squad has colorful, cheap yarn in its van’s bullet trajectory kit (“bullets always fly in straight lines”) as well as a microwave labeled “microwave” in a small kitchenette. The two refrigerators in the van – one for food and one for evidence – are not marked, however, making me wonder if anyone ever dares to store real food in there. The $350,000 van serves as a lab, a kitchen, a bedroom and a conference room. And this is where many crimes get solved, based on forensic evidence.

“Everything you touch, everywhere you go, you leave something behind,” said Zercie, at the crime lab. “But you also take something with you.”
So, remember that, if you’re ever going to commit a crime. You might get to meet a state police officer sooner than you’d expected.

RELATED: CLICK HERE FOR THE TOP 10 HISTORIC FACTS ABOUT THE STATE POLICE

Vsundqvist vs. Jordanfenster

2011-07-14T11:54:00.003-04:00

Using a new, free online tool called Visual.ly, I've created an infographic comparing two Twitter users (myself and New Haven Register Entertainment Editor Jordan Fenster). This was my first attempt at using the tool, but I can see many uses for it in a professional setting to quickly create graphic elements to go with a newspaper story.

New blogs at middletownpress.com

2011-06-29T09:30:00.005-04:00

In case you haven't seen, we have a few new bloggers added to our blog network at middletownpress.com.

Here are some blog highlights:

BLUES BEAT BLOG: Long-time Blues Beat writer Domenic Forcella blogs about blues events in Connecticut and in the nation. Check for weekly blues listings and updates on well-known blues artists. Click here to check it out.

THE BALCONY AND BEYOND: Busy is Bonnie Goldberg's middle name. She loves theater as well as museums, travel, lectures, books and all things entertaining and fun. Read "The Balcony and Beyond" for a cultural tour of Connecticut. Click here to check it out.

PIECES OF THE PAST: The staff at The Middletown Press will post pieces of archived stories from our newspaper on this blog. Click here to check it out.

SARA H'S CUCINA BELLA: Former newspaper reporter Sarah Caron blogs about homecooking and raising a healthy family in Connecticut. Click here to check it ou t.

WEATHER WITHOUT THE HYPE: Local meteorologist Bob Cox discusses the area's current and forecast weather conditions. Click here to check it out.

If you want us to link to your blog, or if you want help starting a blog, please email us at editor@middletownpress.com.

The knitting project

2011-06-28T08:30:00.002-04:00

Reporter Claire Michalewicz covered a story a couple of weeks ago of a local Girl Scout troop knitting comfort dolls to send to the Dominican Republic. She grabbed a kit and instructions and immediately went home to knit a doll.

When she brought it in, her doll got a lot of "oohs" and "aaahs" from the rest of the newsroom, so I decided I was going to try to knit one as well.

Of course, I was so eager I started before I had the instructions, and I used yarn that was too thick. This resulted in a very tall and somewhat fuzzy figure.

You can see the difference between the two dolls in this photo by Catherine Avalone:

If you want to try to knit a doll to donate to the Girl Scouts at Troop 62886, instructions are available here: http://bit.ly/lK6j2l

(I'm working on a second one now with the correct kind of yard and needles). Finished dolls can be dropped off at The Middletown Press, 386 Main St., 4th Floor, Middletown. (Elevator closes at 4 p.m.)

Removing police blotter items or archived stories

2011-05-16T00:34:00.002-04:00

With springtime usually comes a high number of requests from people - mainly graduating students - to have their names removed from old police blotter items and archived stories at www.middletownpress.com.

Some claim their cases were dismissed; others say they are very sorry and can't we just remove it because they are now trying to find a job.

Our policy on altering archived stories is as follows:

We will remove police blotter items and crime briefs from our website if the case was dismissed or nullied by a judge. In other words, if a judge says the police were wrong in arresting the person, which means the arrest never should have been in the paper in the first place, we will remove it. A simple copy of the dismissal letter will be enough for us to remove this item out of our archives.

If there is an old article about a crime or arrest where we failed to update the outcome to show a person was found guilty, the charge was reduced, the person served his time, etc., we will write and update to the story, but the original story will not be removed.

If anyone has questions or concerns about this policy, please contact me at editor@middletownpress.com or Publisher Matt DeRienzo at mderienzo@journalregister.com.

Q&A about Twitter

2011-04-23T23:43:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, I announced that I would attempt to set up Middletown Press newsroom staffers with Twitter accounts. We would then provide training and open a discussion about the usefulness of Twitter. The training is ongoing, and this discussion is open to anyone in the community. You are welcome to leave a comment or ask a question below, or answer any of the questions posted if you come up with additional or better answers than the ones I've provided.

During the first sessions we've had in the newsroom, I've documented the questions people had and tried to provide the best answers I could find.

Thanks to Chris March at the New Haven Register, Ivan Lajara at the Daily Freeman in Kingston, N.Y., and LeeAnn Moran at The News-Herald in Willoughby, Ohio, for helping provide some of these answers.

What is Twitter?
A micro-blogging and social media service where users can send out messages limited to 140 characters.

Why do I need to learn about Twitter?
It is a quick-growing tool for the media industry (and many other industries). For us, using Twitter can help grow our audience it can help reporters grow their sources and their knowledge about the communities they cover

What do I tweet?
You can tweet about anything you think people will find interesting. As a reporter you can tweet about what you are working on for the day, you can tweet questions to your followers, and send out links to your stories. (But try not to tweet about what you had for breakfast)

How often should I tweet?
As often as you’d like, but at least once a day. When sending multiple tweets, try not to send them all out at once, but instead spread them over a few hours in order for people to have a little time to digest them

How is Twitter different than instant messaging, Facebook and email?
Your Twitter posts can be seen by everyone who follows you, and anyone who decides to go to your Twitter feed. Instant messaging and email is usually just peer-to-peer communication. Twitter is similar to the status updates on Facebook, but it does not give anyone the option to “like” or comment specifically on what you said. Instead, they have a chance to send you a tweet or direct message back if they wish to comment

Should I set up a "protected" account or an open account? What's the risk of having an open Twitter account?
For our purposes at work, you should have an open account so anyone can follow your tweets. With a protected account, each person who wants to follow you is subject to your approval first. As with anything you post on the internet, you should be careful about the amount of personal information you post. Therefore, we discourage posting your exact location (unless you are tweeting about an event you are covering for the newspaper), tweeting your home address, what hours you leave work at night, etc.

Who should I follow?
People you find interesting, and people related to the towns you cover, the topics you write about. You should also follow your colleagues – and don’t be afraid to interact with each other via Twitter (retweet each other, answer questions, etc.)

How can I reach people that aren’t following me or already reading my website?
By using hashtags. If you tweet about a specific topic like education or politics, or about a specific person like Charlie Sheen, simply put this symbol # in front of the word you think will draw interest. At the Press, we use #Middletown, #Cromwell and #Portland as hastags, for example, to draw in local readers

How do I create short links? Why should I create short links?
Since you only have 140 characters, you need to shorten a link when posting it to Twitter or just the URL will eat up all the space you have available. You can use sites like tinyurl.com or bit.ly to shorten links. If you use programs like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, they will shorten the links for you.

How do you expect me to manage all these things while trying to do my job?
You can use a program called Tweetdeck, which runs in the background on your computer and new messages will pop up as they come in, kind of like when you get new emails. The key thing is to just work in Twitter to your regular workflow – it should not be something you do at the end of your day “because you had to.” If you do it right, you can have a lot of fun with it.

Here's a presentation on Twitter from LeAnn Moran:
Twitter 101

And here's a video from Ivan Lajara on how journalists can use Twitter:

Sorting through the spam emails

2011-04-13T13:40:00.000-04:00

This week, I’ve won the Spanish lottery, the British lottery and a Dutch lottery. I’ve inherited hundreds of thousands of dollars from a “relative” in Asia and a “former business partner” of mine just died and left me another few million dollars.

I also won the Greencard lottery, and all I need to do is wire $890 to a suspicious foreign account.

I’ve received an “unbeatable voucher” for hair removal and I’ve had the offer to buy – not earn – diplomas in several professional fields of study. I think I might choose to be a doctor, or should I get a diploma for blogging?

All I can think of when I receive all this spam is the television ad featuring an elderly man in front of a computer who yells to his wife “Honey, I just won the Australian lottery!” She calmly replies, “Did you ever play the Australian lottery?” and he says “No.” “Then how could you win?”

I haven’t played or entered any of these lotteries. Perhaps it’s time to figure out why my spam filter isn’t working properly on my work email.

Making your laptop more convenient

2011-04-11T01:55:00.004-04:00

This story from the Daily Local, one of our sister publications in Chester County, Pa., intrigued me.

A regular couple created a novel idea for carrying a laptop around and being able to work on it while waiting for the train or bus without having to balance it in one hand and trying to type with the other. Once your transportation arrives, you can easily snap the bag shut and hop on the train.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE STORY

A few new blogs

2011-04-08T02:08:00.003-04:00

If you are frequent visitor to our blog sections, you will notice that we have added a few more blogs in the past month or so. A few more were added just a minute ago, and will soon be filled with postings, so be sure to check them out!

I'd like to highlight a few:

SNARKO MARX
Our Middletown-area anonymous commenter now has his own blog where he will comment on local, statewide and national events.

MIDDLESEX UNITED WAY
Executive Director Kevin Wilhelm blogs about strengthening lives, helping people, and improving community conditions in the 15 towns in Middlesex County.

LOCAL TOP 10 LIST
Our courts reporter will blog about Top 10 things in Middlesex County - anything from where to get a good pizza to what to do to avoid ending up behind bars. Suggestions welcome. Email wgogolya@middletownpress.com

PIECES OF THE PAST
Our local copy editor and reporter Kelly Ann Gore Oleksiw will share pieces from the archives of The Middletown Press.

Do you want to start your own blog? We would be happy to help you set up a blog and connect you to our blogger network. Contact me at editor@middletownpress.com.

Learning about LinkedIn

2011-04-05T00:15:00.003-04:00

I've never quite known what to think about LinkedIn - a social network that friends and co-workers keep inviting me to via email. Therefore, I was excited to find out that our sister publication The Register Citizen would be hosting a class on the subject in its new classroom with expert Cindy Donaldson from Founders Insurance Group.

The class taught me that it's all about who you know and are connected to on Linked In that matters, and you have to know how to fill out your profile so you will be found.

If you are looking for a job or looking to hire someone, LinkedIn can be a great tool. Through the people you are already connected to, you can find other prospective employers or employees with just the click of a button. And you don't have to used the paid version - the free version of LinkedIn is just fine.

LinkedIn allows you to upload your resume, share some highlights of what you've done in your career and connects to your Twitter feed and your blog, if you want them all connected. You can also join groups that can help you in your career.

My first step after the class was to go in and add my profile picture - that's where I had gotten stuck several months earlier when I first set up the account. LinkedIn also lets you import contacts from your email account to see if people you already know are in the network - kind of like on Facebook - and you can click through your friends and connect with others you might know.

I am by no means an expert on the subject and probably never will be, but I feel more comfortable with the site now and will hopefully be able to use it to make connections with people in the local community. Come find my profile here.

My 30-day project

2011-03-19T20:58:00.006-04:00

As one of 17 members of the Journal Register Company's ideaLab, I am tasked with trying to teach digital skills across our newspaper staff, the Connecticut cluster of newspapers and our company as a whole.

The most recent challenge for the ideaLab is to complete a project in the next 30 days that teaches a skill to our co-workers. I have chosen to set up all my staff members with a company Twitter account and to teach them how to use it.

First, I will start with my 9 newsroom employees. Then, we will move on to the advertising department. I will teach them how to shrink URLs using programs like Bitly or Tinyurl, and I will share how they can each learn to grow an audience of followers, thus increasing traffic to our website on a regular basis.

I am also hoping to get some of our in-house Twitter experts to come to Middletown to teach a brief class in how to best utilize Twitter for business purposes. This class will be free and open to the public - a date to be announced soon.

The next goal is to assist staff at our sister publication in Torrington with the same steps, hopefully by utilizing my newly trained staff members as teachers. Ideally, a Twitter account will be assigned each new employee who starts in our company, just as an e-mail account or computer access would be set up.

You can follow our staff members here:

www.twitter.com/vsundqvist
www.twitter.com/KellyOleksiwMP
www.twitter.com/WaltGogolyaMP
www.twitter.com/CrystalDeyWHN
www.twitter.com/CMichalewiczMP
www.twitter.com/JeffMillMP
www.twitter.com/erikaheyer

(Twitter accounts for Photo Editor Catherine Avalone and Barbara Douglas coming soon!)

And you can also follow our regular Middletown Press accounts:
www.twitter.com/Middletownpress (@Middletownpress)
www.twitter.com/MPsportseditor (@MPsportseditor)

We welcome your submissions

2011-03-14T00:32:00.002-04:00

A month ago, The Middletown Press was asked to send a staff member to help teach a group of nonprofit community leaders how to write and submit material for the news media. We were also asked to provide a write-up that people could take home with them.

Since we value all submissions we get from our audience, but because we have limited space, limited staff and limited amount of time to spend on editing and selecting submissions, I want to share these guidelines with all of you. My goal is that all of you will eventually feel confident sending us press releases, calendar listings, photos and small write-up from various places across Middlesex County - especially from places our staff rarely has time to visit.

How to write/submit press releases

Assign one media person in charge of sending out releases – don’t have multiple people sending them out as it can get very confusing.
Send all releases by e-mail – don’t use fax machines or regular mail as someone would then have to retype what you already typed.
Include a specific town – preferably in the subject line of the e-mail or the first sentence. If you say “Middletown resident” it will immediately get picked up by a responsible Middletown reporter/editor. If you say “area group” or “local student” and we can’t figure out what the local angle is in the first sentence or two, your press release will most likely get deleted.
Don’t send text attachments unless necessary – it just creates an extra step for the person on the receiving end vs. including the text in the body of your e-mail.
Photos should be sent as attachments – All photos should be sent in .jpg format. Make sure to include – in the body of the e-mail – the names of all people in the photo. Do not embed photos in a Word document or in the body of the e-mail.
Include all the basic information – Who, what, when, where and a phone number in case people have questions.
Don’t offer too much extraneous information – If it was a snowy day, was that really relevant to your event? One option is to provide a shorter version, like a calendar item, and a longer version for optional use in the same e-mail, clearly indicated as two separate items.
Write the release in third person – avoid using words like “we” and “us” and “our meeting.” Instead say “The group will meet at…” or “It has four new members this year.”
Avoid subjectivity at all cost – i.e. “This is a wonderful event” or “a good time was had by all.” Adjectives in general are unnecessary (“great,” “wonderful,” “beautiful,” “powerful”) and will most likely get cut.
Cut out the extra zeros – Times should be written like this: 4 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. Ticket prices were $8 or $10.50. There is no need for zeros – zeros mean nothing.
Sending corrections – If you need to send a corrected press release, re-send the entire notice but indicate at the top what has been corrected in case the submission has already been used.
Following up – If your release is timely, follow up with a phone call to the local newsroom, but don’t expect a return phone call if everything is OK.
Learn to take “No” for an answer – if your event is not in our local coverage area, it will most likely not be included. It’s nothing personal; it’s just what makes the most sense to our audience.
Spread the word – If someone posts a story about your group or event on the web, Facebook or Twitter, share it with your friends and other people in your organization by reposting, retweeting or just e-mailing a link to someone.
REMEMBER: The easier you make it for the local media, the likelier it is that they will include what you have submitted.

Changing the way we monitor story comments

2011-03-03T19:26:00.001-05:00

If you are a frequent visitor to www.middletownpress.com, you may have noticed that we changed the way we monitor online comments today around noon. This change was made after multiple requests by readers and community members, in addition to in-depth discussions among the staff on this topic over the past few months.

The Middletown Press no longer allows online comments to appear its site immediately. All comments must now be approved by a moderator before they are posted.

The Middletown Press and its sister publications, The Register Citizen in Torrington and the New Haven Register, are continuously discussing comment systems and their benefit for the community.

We get hundreds of comments every day, and it happens 24-7. Led by some of the more controversial topics of the day, our story comment system has become a place for the community to engage in a continuous, back-and-forth debate with each other.

It has helped “enemies” better understand each other’s viewpoint. It has brought new information to light. It has given frustrated constituents an outlet and a gathering place. All of those positive things were in danger — some would say, long past the point — of being lost in the nasty, offensive, abusive, personal comments that a small minority of readers were making.

The old system allowed story comments to go up immediately, and relied on fellow readers to “report abuse.” When those reports were made, offensive comments were taken down, usually within an hour. Readers still have a chance to “report abuse” on any comment they see on our site that they deem offensive in any way, and we encourage this participation.

With the new system where staff is screening comments before they go up, however, we hope to eliminate the nastiest comments on the site. The tradeoff is a momentary-to-slightly-longer delay before everyone’s comments go up.

Our thinking is that it’s less onerous than requiring readers to register an e-mail address and remember a login and password every time they visit the site. When requiring registration, it is also possible for users to circumvent the system by creating a false e-mail address and a false name, defeating the purpose.

But we are not ruling out a system like that down the road, or any system. We’d like your thoughts on this. Please leave a comment below, send us a letter to the editor at letters@middletownpress.com, or e-mail me directly at editor@middletownpress.com.

Free classes offered online

2011-03-01T14:24:00.004-05:00

Our sister publication, The Register Citizen, has announced its March lineup of classes. While the classes will officially be held in Torrington, anyone can sign up to take the class online for free.

The following classes will be offered:

Tuesday, March 8, 7-8 p.m. – Genealogy Research with Richard Pope

Thursday, March 10, 6-8 p.m. – How to Use Twitter with Cindy Donaldson

Tuesday, March 15, 6-7:30 p.m. – Blogging 101 with Kaitlyn Yeager

Wednesday, March 16, 1-2 p.m. – What Can Google Do? with Time Ingle

Tuesday, March 22, 6-8 p.m. – How to Use Facebook with Cindy Donaldson

Wednesday, March 23, 2-3:30 p.m. – Blogging 101 with Kaitlyn Yeager

Friday, March 25, 3-4 p.m. – What Can Google Do? with Chris Stanley

Monday, March 28, 6-7 p.m. – What Can Google Do? with Andy Stettler

Tuesday, March 29, 6-8 p.m. – How to Use Linkedin with Cindy Donaldson

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR CLASSES

Going out in the field with new technology

2011-02-26T15:15:00.005-05:00

Most of my time is spent behind a desk or running around the newsroom. I therefore jump at the chance to go out in the field, especially if I get to use some of the new technology the company has equipped me with.

For the special elections Tuesday night, I covered the 20^th District candidates for the West Hartford News, one of the papers we run out of our office.

After a quick stop at one of the polling places around 8 p.m., I situated myself at a table in a private room at The Corner Pug in the Elmwood section of town, where the Democratic candidate who was slated to win was expected to meet and celebrate with his friends.

My Netbook with Verizon wireless access was set up, and I had my iPhone, regular cell phone and Nikon D3000 camera out on the table.

In addition to writing, Tweeting and Facebooking the 20^th District election for the weekly West Hartford News, which was going to print that same night, I was also in charge of posting news alerts and Tweets for the 13^th District Senate race and the 36^th District House seat so the Middletown Press staff could focus on getting the print paper out.

Next to me sat a reporter and photographer from a competing weekly newspaper. After polite introductions, we started discussing digital media and the changing newspaper industry. The reporter, who was only carrying a notebook and a Canon, said his paper doesn’t believe in putting the news on the web because it devalues the print content for the advertisers.

So while I posted my stories to the web, e-mailed the appropriate editors at the office, took video with my iPhone and e-mailed it from the phone directly to our new video platform Syndicaster, received texts from other reporters about the results of their races, then walked around the room with my Netbook to make sure I had people’s names spelled correctly, the other reporter feverishly scribbled notes on paper, snapped a couple of shots with his Canon and then told me he was heading home so he could write his story.

I spent an extra hour at The Corner Pug making sure the video had uploaded correctly and was embedded in the story, then updating the story with more information as the winning candidate had granted me a longer interview after the immediate frenzy had calmed down.

When I was ready to head out, I sent a text message to a friend saying, “You were right. Joe Verrengia won the election.” She wrote back, “I know, I already saw it on your website.”

I packed up the technology and drove home.

Most watched videos last week

2011-02-23T00:02:00.004-05:00

Here were some of the most watched videos on www.middletownpress.com from Feb. 14 to Feb. 20:
DEMOLITION DAY

FIRE ON WASHINGTON STREET

CROMWELL VS. MORGAN

Looking for local bloggers

2011-02-17T13:04:00.003-05:00

Do you live in Middlesex County and have your own blog?

The Middletown Press is looking to partner with local bloggers. If you are interested in having your blog added to our local blog network, simply send an e-mail to editor@middletownpress.com with a link to your blog and a brief description of who you are and why you would like to participate.

Don't have a blog yet but interested in starting one? The Middletown Press staff can help you with this. Send us a note via e-mail (editor@middletownpress.com) explaining what you would like to blog about and a brief description of yourself. We will pick the top 5 ideas related to Middlesex County and help those five people get started with a new blog in the next couple of months.

New publisher at The Middletown Press

2011-02-10T14:20:00.003-05:00

The Middletown Press has a new publisher.

Matt DeRienzo, who has served as publisher of The Register Citizen and Foothills Media Group since February 2008, was named Central Connecticut Publisher for the Journal Register Company this week.

You can read more about the announcement here.

Matt has done some great things at The Register Citizen in Torrington, including creating a newsroom cafe, digitizing all newspaper archives and making them available to the public and taking a tough stand on comment moderation.

We are looking forward to working with him more closely here at The Middletown Press and expect many great things to happen in the months to come!

One year ago since explosion

2011-02-07T01:25:00.004-05:00

One year ago today, an explosion at the Kleen Energy plant on River Road shook the area.

Six men went to work that day like any other day, but they would never see their families again. More than 20 other people were injured and some spent weeks recovering. Some may never be able to return to work.

Barely five months on the job, I got a frantic call from a colleague who was visiting a friend in Portland around 11:30 a.m. "There's been some sort of explosion," she said. "It was really loud and it shook the ground."

I tracked down a freelancer who has a police scanner at home. "It's at the Kleen Energy plant," he said. "Multiple units at the scene and more coming. They fear many casualties."

Super Bowl Sunday was put on hold, I told my husband. "Order some pizza or something - I am going to work."

From the second I stepped into the office, the phones were ringing off the hook. News agencies from across the world were calling us - The Middletown Press - to find out what was going on. Sister publications called to see what support they could send our small paper, and we scrambled to find extra staff that could come in just to get the "regular" stuff taken care of - like paginating the weather page or typing obituaries. Somehow, those things seemed irrelevant, but they still had to get done.

The news of the blast went viral quickly since it was the largest explosion that had occurred to date at a natural gas plant. Up to 50 people were reported dead at one point, which was then brought down to 2 casualties, and later confirmed at five. A sixth victim died later in the hospital.

Getting any sort of real information - either at the scene or on the phone - was difficult, and the information we heard on the police scanner was scattered, at best. The entire River Road was shut off to secure the scene. Staging areas were set up. A no-fly zone was ordered. Press conferences were arranged.

Then the officials began coming to town: Rosa DeLauro, Chris Dodd, Joe Lieberman, and each wanted to issue a statement on this horrible tragedy.

While no official cause of the blast has been determined, it is believed to have happened because of a spark from an unknown source igniting gas during a gas buildup. The gas purge procedure has now been banned, the company has been cited by OSHA and numerous lawsuits have been filed by the victims and their families.

But the city has also come together to honor, remember and support the victim of the blast. A pub crawl raised money for the victims, and several thousand people came to a fundraiser last April at Middletown High School. In June, the Lions Den hosted a fundraiser at the XL Center in Hartford.

Of course, the money can never replace what was lost that day. So today, on the one-year anniversary of the blast, let's take a moment to remember the six workers who will never come back home.

Our Top Videos for 2010

2011-01-12T23:52:00.004-05:00

The following are the top 24 videos posted at www.middletownpress.com during 2010. These were all the videos that had 1,000 views or more. List shows amount of views, title of video (and some explanation, date they were published and creator of video:

3,174 views: Sue Weintraub reacts to vote (East Hampton police chief situation) - Nov. 2 - Jeff Mill
3,173 views: Manchester police chief speaks about shooting - Aug. 3 - Jeremie Smith
3,111 views: Reimondo speaks outside court (East Hampton police chief) - Sept. 9 - Jeff Mill
2,692 views: O'Keefe arrives at his attorney's office (ex-East Hampton town manager) - Sept. 27 - Viktoria Sundqvist
2,201 views: Reimondo celebrates (after being reinstated) - Nov. 2 - Jeff Mill
2,022 views: McMahon reacts to council decision (acting chief rejected) - Oct. 5 - Viktoria Sundqvist
1,896 views: Cromwell burglary (Capt. Ed Kosinski speaks) - Oct. 22 - Jeff Mill
1,829 views: Al Waters closing gas station (in Cromwell) - June 13 - Jeff Mill
1,741 views: Sue Weintraub responds to O'Keefe (East Hampton police chief situation) - Sept. 1 - Jeff Mill
1,629 views: Just-cause hearing (for East Hampton police chief) - Oct. 5 - Jeff Mill
1,487 views: Two-car crash on West Street (road closed for 1 hour) - Aug. 26 - Cathy Avalone
1,485 views: CT River Museum on fire (in Essex) - Aug. 11 - submitted video
1,453 views: Evacuation of Woodrow Wilson (electrical fire) - Oct. 1 - Hillary Federico
1,403 views: Crash closes Route 9 south - Dec. 3 - Jeff Mill
1,381 views: Naugatuck Bridge Collapses - June 15 - Viktoria Sundqvist
1,363 views: Crash on S. Main St. (2 people hurt) - Nov. 9 - Walt Gogolya
1,342 views: Fatal crash in Portland - Sept. 27 - Kerry O'Brien
1,302 views: Court Street accident (motorcyclist hurt) - Oct. 28 - Darrell Lucas
1,282 views: Hazmat situation on South Main St. - Oct. 14 - Darrell Lucas
1,209 views: Cromwell electrical fire (home hit by lightning) - July 21 - Jeff Mill
1,072 views: Washington at Main Street (dangerous intersections) - July 3 - Cathy Avalone
1,045 views: Portland soldier comes home - July 12 - Jeff Mill
1,045 views: Crash on Main/Route 66 (1 person hurt) - Nov. 9 - Jeff Mill
1,037 views: Route 9 on-ramp by Route 17 (dangerous intersections) - July 3 - Cathy Avalone

Thank you for your donations

2010-12-21T18:05:00.005-05:00

Last week, I issued a plea for donations to our Warm the Children campaign. Our goal is to raise $56,000 to clothe children of Middlesex County and keep them warm this winter, and we only had $25,000 by last week.

In just a short week, we have received an amazing $14,000! Our total as of today is
$39,396 - only $16,600 short of our goal.

With that in mind, I'd like to take a moment to say thank you to all of the people who have donated so far to this year's Warm the Children campaign. They are all listed below:

Berlin
Florence Kruvka

Cobalt
Marijke Kehrhahn
Lynn Kochiss

Cromwell
Jean Tatro
Richard & Alice Hodge
Barbara McDonald
Jamie Tomasso
Helen & Ann Majewicz
Dorthy Ann Brancifort
James Corbett
Merry Christmas Kathy McPherson
The Bentley Family
Pat Alsup
Virginia Dunham
Dick & Carol Baronowski
Mr & Mrs Alan Schumann
Stanley & Lucille Kalish
Mr & Mrs James Fucini
American Legion Aux Unit 105
August & Jean Reil
Cromwell Public School’s Employees
Glen & Diane Wiegert
Lillian Corvo
Ms Barbara Penney
Mr & Mrs George Schmaltz
Walter & Nancy Seagrave
Douglas & Patricia Sienna
Anne Cartelli
Knights Of Columbus of Cromwell
Gloria Roy
Stan & Sue Mackiewicz

Deep River
Joan & Paul Zaremba

Durham
Tim & Melissa Galonski
in memory of
Daniel & Iva Hauburger
Suzanne Boor
Tracey Flynn
Donna Noonan
Connie Drega
Agnes & Donald Shipley
Bob & Karin Thody
Lillian White
Noreen & John Baris
Carla & Steve Petruzzi

East Haddam
Charles & Deborah Farrow

East Hampton
John & Stasia Murray
Karen Moody
The Lessor Family
Jeanne Hubbard
Charles & Christine Scheer
David & Susan Rogers

Farmington
Carol & Joe Blancato

Guilford
Donna Golden

Haddam
Paul & Carol Ann Peloquin
In memory of
Benjamin Spencer Klimaszewski
Audrey & Scott Brookes
John & Kay Trabucchi
in memory of our son Roger Trabucchi
Vena Spencer
Lorraine Gowac Happy Birthday Wezzy
Lorraine Gowac
belated 75th birthday to Charlotte Stetson
Lorraine Gowac in memory of Ed Gowac Sr
Lorraine Gowac in memory of Richard Scully
Kay Trabucchi
in memory of my Brother Fred Thomas
Kay Trabucchiin memory of Roger Trabucchi
Marjorie Curtis

Hartford
Thomas Atkins Memorial Fund

Higganum
Hap & Ed Scovel
Frederick & Sally Hall
Carole Waz
John & Joann Rider
Hazel Kurlansky
Mary Ellen & Richard Larson
Kevin & Christine Fahey
Charlotte & Buc Stetson
In memory of Guy Thomason
David & Majorie Bengtson
Nicole Salafia
Patricia Harlow, Kate Powell &
Carolyn Macdonald (Apple Rehab)
Pat & Charlie Carlson
Melanie McPherson
on Behalf of Jim Corbett
Sarah & Amanda Commesso
Patrica Harlow
St Peter Church Ladies Guild

Ivoryton
Sal & Sally D'Aquila
In memory of
Ruth D'Aquila & Phyliss McGee

Killingworth
Catherine Brookes

Middlefield
Louis & Victoria Piscatelli
Michael Coonan

Middletown
Joan Richmond
Mimi & Charlie Rich
David Lenz
MS Kathryn Daly
Mary Louise Ross
Joan Russo
Eleanor Rogers
Angela Scripo
Ted & Kathy Ceplenski
Tom Witt
Victor & Dorothy Galgowski
Don & Mary Davignon
MS Evelyn Russo
Edward Waz
Josie Barone
Marie Sheehan
in memory of Felix Sheehan, M.D.
Fred & Kathleen Ellis
Lawrence School Staff
Enza Macri
Jeannie Broomfield
Carm Tomassone
Margaret & Tom D'Aquila
In memory of
Ruth D'Aquila/Amelia, Leroy Sr, Leroy Jr Strohla
Mrs Louis Damiata
Beth Bugai
F. Irene Ettre
Ted & Maria Combe
Dave Bauer Nancy Bauer
Eileen Mulawka
Carl & Helen Campisi
Golden Girls Card Club, Helen Campisi
Thomas & Patricia Hutton
Theresa Dixon
Mr & Mrs Richard Daniels
Peter Spinner
Judith & Robert Walsh
Philip & Louise Russo
Emaly Simone
MiddConn Federal Credit Union Employees
Cover Girl Salon, Brenda, Sheri, Pam, Jean Bousay
Ann Russo
Anthony Marino
James & Enza O'Connell
Anne Tommasi
Joe & Libby Carta
Vivian Flowers
David & Mary Cooper
Peg Arico
The Staff at Rice, Davis, Daily & Krenz
Mr & Mrs George Denison
Chris & Rosemarie Vecchitto
Bob & Pat Frederick
Augie & Claudia DeFrance
James & Leah Meyer
Stan & Kayoko Opalacz
Kathleen McPherson made in name of Jim Corbett
Gaetina Pattavina in memory of my Husband Sebastian
Michele Stanley in memory of Dottie Solek
Paul's Auto Body and Garage
St. Sebastian Church Corp
Employees Council at Middlesex Hospital
Eleanor Tomaszewski
Moody School Social Fund
Richard & Susan Engelhardt
Mary Ann Cannata
Kiwanis Club of Middletown
Louise Berchulski
in memory of Janet Zabicki & Happy Birthday Lorraine
Fred Schaffer
Astrid Bengtson
Mr & Mrs Douglas Ruimerman
Lucy Popalardo
James & Annette Silverman
Customers of Ford News
John Ott
Jim & Ursula Gardner
Mercy High School
Ladies Aux to Middlesex Post 583 VFW
Mary Ann Hall
Shirley Fell
Jane Grady
Shirley Milardo
Jonathan Mehr
Lois Poisant
George Greer
Art & Lucille Carbo
Middlesex Hospital Community Council
David & Lynda Larson
Robert Drouin
Clive & Judith Cowper
Ms Angelina Varato
Mark & Julie Nocera
Patrick Russolillo PhD
Joan & Edward Ohannesian
Barbara & Vincent Malone
Frank & Gloria Tringali
Jesse & Ann Salafia
Edward White
Nancy Rogalsky in memory of Carol Jones
Christine Salamone in memory of Pam Guarino
John & Beatrice Myjak
Edmund Rubacha
Lawrence School Faculty in honor of Dottie Solek
Lawrence School Christmas Gift for Enza Macri,Kathy Ellis, Karen Mosca, Amy Rumberger
Mrs. Roberta Johnson
Thomas& Maryann Serra
William & Katherine McRae
Ms Lillian Guilmartin
Charlie & Rita Souza
Camilla Harvey
Peter & Connie Gillies
Dorothy & Harold Kaplan
Sharen Winter
The Frederick Family
Lynn Baldoni
Aurelie Fitzpatrick
Eva Williams
Ms Barbara Watson
Don & Ann Pehota
Rose Labella
Lillian Bailey
Joe & Marie Serra
Ellen Woodward
Karen Thayer
Drew & Pat Brown
Harold & Lorraine Panciera
Staff of Wilbert Snow School
Ms Muriel Test
Susi Delldonna
John & Rosaanna Pandolfo
Robert & Gayle Peterson
Mr. & Mrs John Zajac
Michael Dipiro
Sally McMahon
Italian American Civic Order (men)
Betty Falco
Theresa Samolik
Edward & Susan Fenton
Middletown Lions Club
Arline Cardoso
The Schatz & Wells Family
John & Corinne Tillotta
Sandra Niemczyk
Angelo & Johnnie Bartolotta
Bob & Joyce Dezi
Paul & Lori Nosal
Fred,Betty & Rick Terrasi
Lucille & Guy Garofalo
Margaret Plosky
Irene Smith
Susan Stevens
Richard & Susan Bright
Anne & John Corbett
Barbara Hickey
Kathy & Jerry Rankin
Jane & Tom Fleming
Theresa Dixon
Ron & Teckla Chapman
Matt & Marisa Scarrozzo
Patrica Francis
Sarah Terrill
Maxine Thumim
Sebastian Santacroce
Millie Cordone
Anne Cannata
Jessie Trotta
Frances Calhoun
Henry & Elinor Novicki
Eleanor Trudelle
Frank & Katherine Ryczek
Jack & Joyce Conklin
Raymond & Josephine Augeri
Joseph Waite Jr
Elizabeth Johnson
Missy & Jerry Winzer
Thomas & Nancy Clayton
Dr & Mrs Daniel Belin
Italian American Civic Order,
Ladies Auxilary
John & Pauline Tosches
The Dutcher Family
Bob & Joan Kenefick
Shirley Douglas
Dave & Linda Maher
Mr & Mrs Ted Samolik
South Congregational Church of Middletown
St. Veronica Mothers Circle % Dorothy Rixon
Raymond & Louise Roberts
William Lawson & Ann Bauer Lawson
Lynne Reilly
VFW Middletown Post 1840 Inc
Philip & Diane Zambrello
Tony & Donna Jaskot
Alice & Austin Saunders
as a Christmas gift for Jim Corbett of Cromwell
Dress Down Day at Farm Hill School
Patrica Kukor
David & Joanne Smith
Elizabeth & Michael Bredefeld
Patrica Sullivan
Margo Gordon
Susan Dikes
Jennifer Gudelski
Elizabeth & Scott Sitz
Lisa Dipiro
Virginia Grasso
Richard & Maryann Notarangelo

Middle Haddam
Elva Creeger

Middlefield
Independent Day School 3rd Grade
Carl & Ceile Zanoni
Ms Sonja Cowett

Moodus
Skip & Pat Ziobron

New Britain
Sylvia Webb

Old Saybrook
Lenore Schumann

Portland
Violssi Family ,Ted & Michele
Howard Parmalee
Valley View Activity Fund
Len & Brenda Bell
Lori & Mitch Kogut
Bruce & Linda Prete
Loraine Taylor
Bill & Diane Russell
Helen Sutkowski
Mr. & Mrs Stuart Bevis
Babs & George Scheer
Precision Plastics Products ,Inc
Ms Louise Anthony
Laura Sutkowski
John & Louise Guiliano
John & Nella Bruni
Joseph & Elizabeth Rosano
Ron & Frani Lee
Mr. & Mrs. William Perruccio
Allen & Jennifer Kensel
Andy Sebula

Rockfall
Carol Blancato
Joan Mazzotta
Sylvia Arabasz
Francis Hunt
Josephine Morello
Rockfall
Ernestine Seaward
Frances Francesco
Lindy & Phyllis McGill

South Lyme
Nancy Cramer
In memory of Bob Cramer U.S National Guard,
by Wife Nancy
Nancy Cramer
In Thanksgiving for Mom Charlotte
Nancy Cramer
Thank You to our Soldiers

Wallingford
Paul & Margot Kawecki

Wethersfield
Chief Edward Brymer

Charleston, R.I.
Mr & Mrs Douglas Durham
In memory of Dorothy O'Brien

Help us Warm the Children in the Middletown area

2010-12-15T02:05:00.006-05:00

The Middletown Press is once again co-sponsoring the annual Warm the Children campaign to help keep kids in Middlesex County warm this holiday season.

Standing out in the freezing cold on Route 66 at the Sunoco station gas pump at 1 a.m. tonight, I wondered what I would have done if I didn't have a winter coat or proper winter boots - or just a scarf to wrap around part of my face as the icy winds kept trying to carry me away.

As our campaign has barely raised $25,000 so far this year, way short of its goal of $56,000 in order to clothe 700 children, I realized that many children in the Middletown area are going to be very cold this winter. About 200 children are still on the waiting list as we have failed to raise enough funds!

But I'm not giving up yet. We have until the end of the year!

So here's my plea: If you haven't yet done so, please help us by giving a donation to the Warm the Children fund. It is tax deductible. Whether you give $5 or $25 doesn't matter - a small amount from many people will add up quickly.

My pledge today will be $80 of my own money - enough for one child's shopping trip. I am writing the check out at this very moment to "Warm The Children" and will mail it out first thing in the morning to P.O. Box 2256, Middletown, CT 06457.

Will you join me in making a donation? All donors will be listed in The Middletown Press print edition, unless you choose to remain anonymous.

Help us pick top stories for 2010

2010-12-12T13:02:00.002-05:00

The Middletown Press is putting together a year-in-review story featuring the top five local stories of 2010. Below is a list of past stories we are considering, but we want to hear what YOU are thinking.

What local stories do you think were the most important in 2010? Comment below or send an e-mail to editor@middletownpress.com with your suggestions.

We are considering including:

* Kleen Energy explosion
* Removal and reinstatement of East Hampton police chief
* Police chief vote in Middletown
* Fight between Middletown mayor and Board of Education
* Xavier winning state championship

Holiday Lights Contest open for entries

2010-12-09T21:27:00.005-05:00

The Middletown Press is hosting its first Holiday Lights Contest. Submit a picture of your home - or your neighbor's - all decorated for the holidays, and you will have a chance to win a $25 gift certificate.

Some of the best photos may also be printed in a special section later this month.

Entries will be accepted at www.middletownpress.com/lights through Dec. 24. Voting will start at midnight on Christmas Eve and will end on Dec. 31. The winner will be announced in January.

The Xavier-Middletown football banquet

2010-11-24T00:53:00.003-05:00

Xavier students sat on one side of the room - Middletown students on the other. It's like it's always been, I was told.

The banquet, now in its 13th year, is held every year prior to the big Thanksgiving Day football game to encourage sportsmanship and camaraderie between the two schools.

Xavier is undefeated this season and Middletown has a chance to go to the playoffs.

"Anyone who thinks they know what's gonna happen Thursday morning could end up very surprised Thursday afternoon," Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano said. "Both teams have a lot to play for."

The game will be played at Wesleyan's Andrus Field, the oldest continually used football field in the United States, according to sports correspondent Jim Bransfield, who was also an emcee at Tuesday's banquet.
"You are going to play on hallowed ground," he told the players.

Middletown coach Sal Morello said he is real proud of his team this year. Xavier coach Sean Marinan encouraged his players to "finish the job."

Wesleyan head football coach Mike Whalen encouraged all students to work hard - in the classroom and on the field.

READ JIM BRANSFIELD'S STORY HERE AND SEE VIDEOS FROM THE BANQUET

The CTWatchdog on the air

2010-11-07T15:29:00.004-05:00

This evening, Register Citizen Publisher Matt DeRienzo and I will be guests on George Gombossy's new radio show, CTWatchdog News Hour. We will discuss Patch and its impact on news in Connecticut. CLICK HERE to read more about this inaugural show.

The show starts at 6 p.m., and you can listen to it right here:

Halloween event today

2010-10-31T11:24:00.002-04:00

The Middletown Press will have a booth at the indoor kids Halloween event today that the city Elks are hosting.

The event will be held from 5 to 9 p.m. at 44 Maynard St. in Middletown. Last year, hundreds of children came to trick-or-treat in a safe environment.

Please stop by to say hello and get some candy! Bring your little ghouls or goblins.

We look forward to seeing you there!

For other Halloween events today, click here.

Our new sign on Main Street

2010-10-29T01:43:00.004-04:00

The Middletown Press finally has its name on an awning on Main Street. We will now be easier to find than we have been in the past, since the only signage before this one was the marquee on the back of the building that can be seen from Route 9.

We are right inside the Main Street Market, 386 Main St., on the 4th floor. Hopefully this new sign will make it easier for everyone to find our entrance from Main Street, right next to the New England Food Emporium!

Go to the back of the building and take the elevator outside It's Only Natural Restaurant up to the fourth floor.

Stop by and see us between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. Advertising and billing representatives are available in the mornings and early afternoons, and newsroom representatives are available in the afternoons and evenings.

You can always reach us at (860) 347-3331 and don't forget to visit www.middletownpress.com for your local news, sports and obits.

Does Middletown have bullies?

2010-10-14T02:01:00.002-04:00

Today, we have two stories related to bullying in The Middletown Press.

MIDDLETOWN BOE HEARS BULLYING COMPLAINTS shares how a grandmother got up at this week's school board meeting to let the officials now her granddaughter is being bullied and that the school district hasn't done much to stop it.

We also offer tips on WHAT PARENTS SHOULD DO if they think their child is being bullied.

This is not a new topic for The Middletown Press. In mid-September we ran an Associated Press story about a father in Florida who threatened children on a school bus that had bullied his daughter, and at the beginning of October we published another story online about THE INCIDENT AT RUTGERS.

We've also covered CYBER-BULLYING and written stories about how LOCAL STUDENTS MAKE YOUTUBE VIDEOS to help prevent bullying.

Now we're asking you - the people who live in Middletown and have children in Middletown schools - is there a problem locally with bullies? And if there is, do you feel that your child is safe, or could the school district be doing more to help protect children?

Tell us in the comment field below or by e-mailing us at editor@middletownpress.com. You can remain anonymous if you wish, but if you want us to follow up on specific events, it would help to know the details and to be able to contact you.

A local editorial

2010-10-08T02:27:00.003-04:00

If I had enough time in the day, I'd write a local editorial every day on topics that concern the community. Unfortunately, we have a daily newspaper and a weekly newspaper to put out with only 10 people in our newsroom, and two websites to run. The time for writing is limited.

However, we as a staff feel strongly about the police chief situation after meeting with several of the key players. So in case you haven't already seen it, here's our editorial for today on the topic:

Stop playing politics with top cop spot

Citing a flawed selection process and a failure to meet residency requirements, the Middletown Common Council on Monday rejected the city mayor’s nomination for police chief.

The rejection is ironic and somewhat hypocritical since Democrats have complained that the flaw in the selection process was that the mayor wasted everyone’s time with his community and assessment panels when he had already made up his mind that Acting Chief Patrick McMahon was his candidate.

At Monday’s council meeting, however, it was clear that the seven Democrats on the council had already made up their minds long before the meeting, where they spent hours questioning the candidate and listening to 20 people from the community speak on the acting chief’s behalf.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL EDITORIAL

Meeting Ken Krayeske

2010-10-03T15:38:00.003-04:00

Green Party candidate Ken Krayeske stopped by The Middletown Press last week for a chat. Krayeske is running against incumbent Democrat John Larson and Republican candidate Ann Brickley for the 1st District congressional seat.

Barely seated at our conference room table, Krayeske expressed his frustration with local traffic and said he wants to eliminate single-occupant vehicles and instead focus on improving public transportation.

"I hate sitting in traffic!" he exclaimed.

Other things he wants to accomplish are Medicare for all, free college tuition (a cap on college prices) and changing the state and nation's drug laws to empty out prisons of non-violent offenders.

"We need to stop being hard on crime," he said. "We have the world's largest prison population - is that the land of the free?"

Krayeske himself spent a brief stint behind bars. While reporting for his Web site, The 40-Year Plan, about Gov. Jodi Rell’s inauguration in 2007, Krayeske was arrested by state police due to comments he made on a message board that were considered to be threatening. Krayeske — who worked on Cliff Thornton’s campaign for Rell’s seat — says the comments were not intended as a threat.

Although Krayeske was cleared of the charges, he still alleges being singled out and says his bond in the trial — $75,000 — was exceedingly high compared to similar cases.

The former newspaper reporter is not opposed to controversy and speaking up on issues he cares about.

While a law student at the University of Connecticut, Krayeske questioned men’s basketball head coach Jim Calhoun about his salary, among the highest for Connecticut employees, prompting Calhoun to say that he would give “not a dime back.”

Krayeske's main goal is to change the electoral system to allow for third-party candidates to easier run for election.

"We need to create a multi-party Democracy without a negative feedback loop," he said, referring to people's willingness to say "I don't want this candidate, so I will vote for his opponent."

"Ballot access in Connecticut is a nightmare," Krayeske said. "We have people wanting to run for office, but they can't even get into a debate."

Krayeske also wants to see more voter participation.

"We also need to create a system where if you're a citizen, you vote," he said. "You perpetuate self-governance by growing voters."

For more information on Krayeske, CLICK HERE.

For a story and videos of Krayeske from our sister publication, The Register Citizen, CLICK HERE.

The Middletown Press will meet with John Larson on Tuesday, and we are in the process of scheduling a meeting with Ann Brickley.

My first newspaper

2010-09-06T12:35:00.003-04:00

I started my own newspaper when I was 13 years old, with some help from a friend. It was called "Ville's" (a combination of Viktoria and "Ulle," my friend's name).

It was a weekly, and we published it consecutively for about two years.

The content featured hand-written stories about cats and cut-outs of colorful animals.

The official price of each issue was $1, but our lone reader - an older relative - got a complimentary subscription, so we never made any actual money off of it.

Sometimes we used a typewriter for our stories, and then we pasted the white pieces of paper onto something more colorful. We glued, we stapled and we cut and pasted for hours on end.

There were no computers back then, at least not in my house, but we managed to get by.

What we didn't realize back then was that this "play" actually taught us something about the journalism world. We learned how to keep a regular production schedule. We learned to plan cover stories. We learned to write headlines and how to lay out pages, even if it was by hand. And even when my friend got sick and couldn't help out, Ville's never missed a beat.

A few years ago, I visited the lone subscriber, who is now in her 40s. From her storage room, she brought out a large paper box with every issue of Ville's that she had ever gotten.

It mostly looks like junk to me now, but I can remember all the hours of hard work I poured into those pages as a teenager. And I knew, I always wanted to be a journalist.

It always happens on Sundays

2010-08-22T13:26:00.002-04:00

We're newspaper people. We get excited when things happen. Today, for example, is a good news day: A fire, a sinkhole and a city man who dies in prison.

All horrible things, but things that must get covered.

When nothing happens, we sit around and scratch our heads and say "what should we FOI today?" Which isn't necessarily bad, because with Freedom of Information requests, we get the good stuff.

Just look at what the Hartford Courant got today by asking to see all e-mails sent and received by East Hampton Town Manager Jeff O'Keefe. We wrote our own brief story about it, and plan to follow up, but we have nowhere near the staff that the Courant has. Sifting through 8 months worth of e-mails takes time.

It's ironic that when things happen, they all happen at once. And they always happen on Sundays.

We only have three people working Sundays, and they are responsible for getting the paper out - both news and sports, as well as keeping the website updated. So when a big Sunday like today happens, we scramble to get everything covered.

After I wrote something up about the O'Keefe e-mails this morning, I saw on Twitter that a police car in Cromwell had been swallowed by a sinkhole. Then I got a press release from the Department of Corrections saying an inmate had taken his own life in prison. Where's he from? Middletown, of course. Had to write something up on that quickly to put on our website.

While posting that to Twitter, I saw that an asphalt refinery in Portland was on fire - it started early this morning. At this point, it was time to make some phone calls.

We now have a reporter on the way to the scenes in Portland and Cromwell. We will also follow up more on the O'Keefe e-mail situation. Even though the Courant beat us to the story, we have been covering it all along and have a more complete picture of what's going on. Another staff member armed with a camera is heading out to take pictures of the Portland fire - apparently it will take a while for officials to clear that scene.

It's hard when everything happens on a Sunday, but we do the best we can to bring you the local news. And, as always, we welcome the support from the community. We always welcome news tips, story ideas and submitted photos. Keep it coming!

An iPad, a Netbook and soon-to-come iPhone

2010-08-19T23:45:00.004-04:00

I haven't had my new iPad for long enough yet to learn to love it.

Most people rave about the iPad, including George Gombossy from CTWatchdog, whom I had coffee with last month. I got mine as part of the JRC ideaLab, where 18 company members were chosen to test out new tools and see how we can utilize them in covering our local communities.

I've also received a Netbook, which I had never expected to be my new best friend, but it is. The Netbook comes with its own wireless card, so while a co-worker drove us down to Yardley, Pa., this week for a meeting, I was able to check my e-mail, look up directions and monitor comments at www.middletownpress.com.

On primary election night, I sent it out with a reporter who was going to cover Linda McMahon's campaign in Cromwell, and the reporter absolutely loved it too. It is small, lightweight and quick to load. Perfect for filing stories from the field.

The iPad circulated around the office for the past couple of days, and I let everyone who wanted to use it have about 15-20 minutes to play with it to see if they could come up with a good use of it. I'm still trying to figure out how it could best serve us at The Middletown Press and how we could use it to better serve our readers.

It is definitely easier to read online newspapers on the iPad than it is on an iPhone, and some day soon I hope we will have an application for The Middletown Press to run on both the iPhone and the iPad, but I'll leave it up to the tech guys to figure that out.

One co-worker realized that while using the Google Earth application and letting the iPad detect your location, the little machine actually tells you exactly what part of the building you are in and it will move with you as you walk around the building. Pretty neat.

Next week as I go down to Yardley again for another meeting, I will be receiving my ideaLab iPhone, I've been told. I've heard those things change your life forever, and you will never go back to using a regular cell phone once you've had an iPhone.

Again, I've been set the task to figure out how all these new tools can help us gather news and better serve our readers. The only thing I know so far that I want to try with the iPhone is to stream live from a local meeting directly to our website, so readers can follow along what's happening in real time.

What do you think we should try with our new tools? Leave a comment below.

JRC partners with GrowthSpur

2010-08-15T23:20:00.003-04:00

The Journal Register Company, the owners of The Middletown Press, has entered into a partnership with GrowthSpur. This partnership will provide local bloggers with the tools and training to become successful self-publishers.

With an initial launch in the Philadelphia region, Journal Register Company and GrowthSpur will work with blogging networks to grow news coverage, audience and revenue for community bloggers.

“Our partnership with GrowthSpur is indicative of our commitment to our Digital First strategy,” said John Paton, Chief Executive Officer. “We recognize that news is now created and consumed in remarkably different ways. We need to partner with our audiences, our communities and others if we are to be successful.”

The partnership between the Company and GrowthSpur provides local bloggers the opportunity to market themselves to advertisers as part of a community-wide network. Bloggers who join the network will receive sales and marketing training, and have the ability to sell advertising, or receive a share of revenue from other network members. The program is open to all bloggers, regardless of sales experience.

“GrowthSpur will help both us and our content partners create robust revenue streams to keep those partnerships viable,” Paton said.

Earlier this year Journal Register Company launched a Community Media Lab training program for startup bloggers. One of them was at the New Haven Register. The Media Lab program provided training for those looking to join the growing number of diverse voices already part of established community blog networks.

“There’s an incredible amount of great local journalism coming from independent local blogs and sites, and GrowthSpur was started to provide support for this grassroots content,” said Mark Potts, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of GrowthSpur. “We’re very excited to be working with Journal Register Company on this project. We’re thrilled to be able to provide the business and advertising support for the blog networks they’re assembling. Together, we think we can create a strong new future for local journalism.”

Community bloggers who are interested in this opportunity can contact Journal Register Company at opportunities@journalregister.com or GrowthSpur at info@growthspur.com.

Get out and vote today!

2010-08-10T02:19:00.003-04:00

Today is the day for Connecticut's primary elections.

Many strong, thoughtful candidates are vying for their respective parties’ nominations for seats like governor, attorney general, secretary of the state, comptroller and for the U.S. Senate.

Several local districts are also offering primaries for the state House, the state Senate and probate judges.

If you are eligible to vote, please take the time to do so today. You may help shape Connecticut's future.

Bye-bye to Dear Abby

2010-08-08T02:13:00.003-04:00

We asked and you answered!

A few weeks ago we asked our readers at middletownpress.com and in our print edition whether we should keep our syndicated "Dear Abby" feature or drop her in an effort to spend more money on local news.

While a few people seem to be very fond of Abby, most readers told us overwhelmingly to let the feature go.

"I haven't read Dear Abby in years. The reason? Most of the questions tend to be the same," one reader wrote.

"I would eliminate the Dear Abby section. I don't see how it benefits the readers at all," another one said.

"If you must lose Dear Abby, go for it," yet another one said.

So that's what we've decided to do. As of the week of Sept. 4, we will switch to "Annie's Mailbox," which is a feature our sister publication, the New Haven Register, uses. If you have any questions or concerns about this, leave a comment below or send me an e-mail at vsundqvist@middletownpress.com

Considering comment moderation

2010-08-01T13:36:00.003-04:00

Because of the increasing abuse of our online comment space, and the tough time my staff is having at trying to keep up with all the comment violators, we are once again reviewing our comment policy at middletownpress.com.

Our sister paper in Torrington, The Register Citizen, switched to comment moderation a month or so ago. This means that comments no longer go up immediately, but that someone on staff has to review every single comment before it gets posted.

My concern is that this will significantly slow down people's discussions. We would need to have a staff member review comments at least every 10-15 minutes in order for this to be effective, and I have yet to figure out how to set a schedule for this so that it doesn't affect all the other work we have to do. Or should we make it one person's job to solely monitor comments all day long?

We are also thinking about combining our web resources with The Register Citizen and the New Haven Register to see if we can have a few people who monitor comments for all three sites.

I do believe a switch of some sort is needed at this point in order to gain back some credibility in our online space. What do you think? Please comment below.

Our new columnist line-up

2010-07-22T15:48:00.002-04:00

Because several of the columnists we were using for our opinion page have retired, The Middletown Press has decided to revise its columnist lineup.

I am also very excited to announce that local journalist and blogger Ed McKeon has been added to a lineup and will be featured in a weekly column every Tuesday in The Middletown Press and at http://www.middletownpress.com/.

MONDAY: George Gombossy/George Will

TUESDAY: Ed McKeon/Chris Powell

WEDNESDAY: Don Pesci/Ralph Nader

THURSDAY: Chris Powell/George Will

FRIDAY: David Ignatius/Eugene Robinson

SATURDAY: Don Pesci/Bill O’Reilly

Staff changes at The Middletown Press

2010-07-19T23:54:00.003-04:00

One of our copy editors and writers, Leslie Poster, is leaving to take a job at our sister publication, The Register Citizen, on Wednesday.

We have hired New Hampshire native Randall Booth to replace her. We were also recently joined by Elisabeth "Liz" Strillacci, another copy editor, and new Middletown reporter Hillary Federico started about a month ago.

Copy editor Sean Connor has been promoted to Assistant Sports Editor, and we also have a new advertising director, Andy Bucci.

If you visit our Facebook page, you can meet our staff. We are in the process of posting photos and videos of all staff members and their contact information - stop by to say hello!

The ideaLab

2010-07-11T12:58:00.004-04:00

Today I was chosen as an honorary member of our company's ideaLab, which means that we will get some new digital tools here at The Middletown Press to experiment with.

READ MORE ABOUT IT HERE.

I think it's mainly due to our success at going Digital First in our newsroom that we will be able to be a part of this new project (this success was mentioned in The Guardian and at MediaBistro). The ideaLab project will mean we get an iPhone, an iPad and a Netbook for the office, which we can use to get local news out to the public faster than ever.

Do you have experience with these tools? Do you have suggestions for how you think we should use them to improve our news coverage? Leave a comment in the section below.

Greetings from Kingston, N.Y.

2010-07-09T22:14:00.008-04:00

This week, I spent two days in Kingston, N.Y., to help the Daily Freeman transition to a new editorial system. We made the same transition when I worked at The Register Citizen in Torrington four years ago.

Walking into the Daily Freeman newsroom, it felt like I had been transported back in time. Not only were they using outdated computers with outdated programs (Quark XPress 3.2) up until a couple of weeks ago, but they are still printing pages on film and carrying them out to the press room, where they print the paper on site.

The Middletown Press hasn't had a press since the old building by the South Green was demolished a couple of years ago; Torrington shut its press room down last year. Here you can see the Life section of the Freeman printing:

The Daily Freeman is located in an old building on Hurley Avenue in Kingston that used to be an A&P supermarket. It has many old rooms that host paste-up equipment as well as paper rolls and old issues of the paper. Through a back room, we were also able to climb an old, metal ladder up to the roof of the building to watch the fireworks Friday night.

What's even better is that with all the new technologies, I was able to put out several pages of The Middletown Press while being in Kingston. I chatted with my ad director via Skype, and I talked to the Middletown mayor on my cell phone. I text messaged with Ed McKeon from The Middletown Eye, and a few minutes later I was up on the roof of the building taking photos - 200 miles away from Middletown.

We did it! - now tell us what you think

2010-07-04T00:16:00.002-04:00

On this Independence Day 2010, we here at The Middletown Press present our Ben Franklin Project to you online and in print.

Named after a journalist, scientist, innovator and founding father of this country, the project seeks to make history by freeing newsmakers from expensive computer programs and involving the reader in the process of journalism.

We did this by asking our readers what they wanted us to work on, through Facebook, Twitter, SeeClickFix and our regular website www.middletownprses.com as well as in our print publication The Middletown Press. We then posted a first draft of our two main stories - one about fireworks and another about dangerous intersections - and asked readers to comment on those. Once we had more input from readers - and a greater idea of what direction to take the stories in - we went back and worked on them some more.

A second part of the Ben Franklin Project is the use of free online-based tools, such as Gimp instead of Adobe Photoshop, Scribus instead of Adobe InDesign, and a free Wordpress site instead of a paid website.

Reporters could use their phones and their computers, but they had to type stories in e-mails, Google Documents or Notepad text files. Our videos were edited using the free Flip software that came with our cameras, and you will see that they have been posted to the free video site YouTube for easy sharing.

Copy editor Leslie Poster organized two live chats with readers using a free program called CoverItLive, which we now hope to use more often for regular chats with our readers.

If you pick up Sunday's paper, the Middletown edition of the New Haven Register, you will notice that our colleagues at the Register went above and beyond for the edition with stories, photos and graphics. The front page is all about Middletown, and that is what we put together here at The Middletown Press.

It was frustrating at times to learn new technologies after so many years using what you know, but we certainly learned a lot. We hope to take this experience and move forward.

Now it's your turn: Tell us what you think about our project, our products and where we should go from here.

CHECK OUT OUR BEN FRANKLIN PROJECT WEBSITE HERE.

Viktoria Sundqvist
Editor
The Middletown Press

It's all in the details at Downtown Car Cruise

2010-06-26T10:32:00.003-04:00

My dad was in town this week, so I took him and his wife to the Downtown Car Cruise on Main Street in Middletown.

I had read about the cruise night ahead of time in our paper, and I was excited to go. But I had no idea how many cars would actually be there!

From Washington Street, we walked all the way down to the South Green and back up again, and shiny vehicles with ornate decorations stared back at us as we went.

The weather was great, although a bit too hot for my taste, but it was good to see so many residents out enjoying a downtown event.

Speaking at the senior center

2010-06-19T18:10:00.006-04:00

The Haddam Senior Center invited me to come speak on Friday, and I was excited to do so. Not knowing exactly what direction to take my presentation in, I asked some friends for help.

"Speak about the website," a friend suggested. "Bring your laptop and show them what the site looks like."

"Tell them how we make the newspaper," another one said. "Let them know who does what and how the paper gets put together."

But a third friend came up with the best suggestion of all: "Bring your Flip cam and let them take video of each other."

I was hesitant at first, but the interest was high when I pulled the little camera out of my bag and started passing it around.

As center Director Fran Oktavec got it in her hands, I said, "Go ahead, press the big, red button!"

Her eyes lit up, and she walked the camera around the room, introducing everyone by name for the viewers. When she was done, I urged her to press the red button again.

"That's it!" I said. "You just took your first Flip cam video!"

Thrilled, some women huddled around Fran as she played the video back to see her work.

"Should I post it on our website when I get back to the office?" I asked.

Fran's eyes lit up again. "Please do!" she said enthusiastically. "Then everyone can see who we are and what we do here at the senior center!"

Tell us about dad

2010-06-17T00:59:00.003-04:00

A few days ago, I posted a story on our website asking readers to leave a nice comment about their dad. We had 21 comments the last time I checked, but it's not too late! You can still leave a comment in time for Father's Day.

CLICK HERE to read the story and tell us why your dad deserves to have a special day. The top 10 comments posted before Friday morning at 11 a.m. will get printed in Saturday's edition of The Middletown Press.

An update on the Ben Franklin Project

2010-06-13T23:56:00.002-04:00

The Middletown Press, along with 17 other daily newspapers in our company, will declare its independence on July 4 by publishing an entire print edition using only free tools you can find on the internet.

While part of the project is to learn about new technology and free programs, another part is learning to listen to the audience. A couple of weeks ago, we posted a story listing some ideas that we wanted to start working on for our Ben Franklin edition.

We also ran a story in the print edition, and we've been following several comment threads on daily stories at www.middletownpress.com.

Two of the stories we suggested - what to do about the fireworks now that Middletown has canceled its display, and dangerous intersections in the city - have been wildly discussed on several parts of our website.

So far, we have gathered comments left to us online, information people have called in and those concerns sent in via e-mail or regular mail, and we are hoping to utilize SeeClickFix for the story on dangerous intersections to add to the concerns people have already voice to us.

Once we have a first draft of both of those stories, we intend to post them on the web for people to comment and offer other suggestions.

We look forward to working closer with our readers than ever before to complete this never-before-seen product.

Have concerns or questions? Leave a comment below or e-mail me at vsundqvist@middletownprses.com.

Can we save the fireworks?

2010-06-06T13:11:00.002-04:00

So I'm sitting here on Sunday morning reading the New Haven Register website about how IKEA and other businesses have come together to save the local fireworks.

Can we do something similar in Middletown?

The fireworks were nixed at a Common Council meeting in May, and this is expected to save $65,000 in the budget. That includes overtime paid to police and other city employees as well as the actual cost of the display.

In New Haven, the fireworks will be moved from Long Wharf to East Rock Park, which will cut the costs since less security will be needed and fewer officers will have to direct traffic and close roads.

What can be done to cut the costs of the Middletown fireworks? And who could be asked to sponsor them, or part of the event?

An update on our Fact Check initiative

2010-06-02T18:32:00.002-04:00

The Middletown Press on Tuesday announced its new Fact Check initiative, where readers can easily report mistakes they see in the paper or on our website. So far, we have gotten several notices from readers about potential errors or things that require further investigation.

One reader pointed out that a headline about the Middlefield budget on Wednesday, June 2, left out the word “million,” therefore saying Middlefield’s budget was only $3.82. An error our editors missed, but we were easily able to correct this mistake after it was brought to our attention.

Another reader said that Middletown High School has had at least five reported incidents of bullying, but the school district told our reporter there have been only two incidents, which we published in a recent story. We are bringing this issue back to the school officials to see if they can explain the discrepancy.

We have gotten some negative feedback on this feature from readers who think we are asking them to do our job for them. The Fact Check initiative does not mean the staff at The Middletown Press will stop fact checking and proof reading stories. But we all know that mistakes happen, and members of the community will know about things that we do not. We do run corrections on a regular basis, now we are making it easier than ever for readers to let us know what we did wrong or what other angles to the story they think we should have covered.

Nobody is required to participate in our Fact Check initiative. However, we hope that as many of you as possible are willing to tell us what we are doing wrong and what we can do better, so that the final product is the best that it can be. This is an effort to improve our service to our readers.

Ben Franklin Project to involve readers in news process

2010-05-30T12:38:00.002-04:00

The Middletown Press thinks readers should decide what is news, and we’re embarking on a project we think will involve readers in the news process in a way never before considered.

The Ben Franklin Project, named in honor of the inventor-innovator-printer-publisher-newsman-statesman, is a challenge: Can we produce a newspaper using only free web-based tools and involve the community in the process of journalism?

At its heart, the Ben Franklin Project is about independence, according to John Paton, the CEO of Journal Register Company, The Middletown Press’s parent company.

"On July 4 we will declare our independence," Paton said. "We will declare our independence from the kind of thinking that has kept our company and industry from transforming to a multi-platform news company. And we will declare our independence from an industry that ties itself up with expensive proprietary I.T. systems and processes that are outdated almost the day they are installed."

Luckily, we at The Middletown Press are not in completely uncharted waters. Sister newspapers have already successfully completed the challenge. The News-Herald, one of our dailies in Ohio, and Montgomery Media, one of our weekly groups in Pennsylvania, recently completed a 30-day Ben Franklin Project challenge successfully where they created, published and distributed news content on the web and in print, using only free tools available on the Internet.

They used programs like Gimp to edit photos and Scribus to lay out the paper. Free word processing tools were used and Google calendar was utilized to compile events.

Perhaps a more interesting aspect of the Ben Franklin Project is the community involvement. As regular readers will know, we encourage community participation here at The Middletown Press, and the Ben Franklin Project offers us a chance to engage our readership at the very start of the process.

"By using digital tools, we are going to the community to find out what they want covered and, by involving them in that coverage, we can dive more deeply into important subjects than we have been able to do before," Paton said.

The News-Herald, for example, put together a community forum, where readers could share with editors and staff what news they thought should be covered.

"The Perkasie News-Herald invited readers to a town hall meeting — a mix of old-school outreach and the new-school crowdsourcing approach,” said Journal Register Company Vice President of Content Jonathan Cooper. “The Q-and-A session of the meeting served as a news meeting where residents requested stories on the local electric rates and the community’s pay-as-you-throw trash collection system. Reporters and editors still did the work but they knew from the time story assignments were conceived that these stories mattered to the audience."

So get ready! In the coming days, we’ll want to hear from you, what you think is important — what we should cover and how we should cover it. This is an unprecedented way for you, the reader, to get involved in the news process, and we want all the help we can get.

For more about the Ben Franklin Project, check out http://jrcbenfranklinproject.wordpress.com, leave a comment below or send an e-mail to me at vsundqvist@middletownpress.com.

21 journalism awards for The Middletown Press!

2010-05-28T18:07:00.002-04:00

I promised I'd give you an update on our awards nominations, and here it is:

The Middletown Press took home 21 statewide journalism awards last night at the annual Society of Professional Journalists event in North Haven.

Our sports department swept an entire category, and we won awards for two of our staff editorials (one on the Jeremy Shingleton controversy and another on the increase of water fees in Middletown). We took home several reporting awards as well as awards in layout, photography and headline writing.

READ MORE DETAILS HERE.

Our CEO as keynote speaker

2010-05-24T23:06:00.002-04:00

Our CEO John Paton will be the keynote speaker at the Editor & Publisher Interactive Media Conference & Tradeshow in Las Vegas in June.

That's gotta tell you something about where our company is headed.

The conference promises a "forward-thinking, ground-breaking curriculum" that will give "valuable hands-on insight to continuous industry transformation," kind of like Paton himself.

While part of me wishes I could be there - a bit part of me has always wanted to go to Vegas - I also know that it's not necessary. Paton speaks about the transformation in the news industry on a daily basis to us here at The Middletown Press.

Via Twitter, his blog and direct e-mails to everyone at the Journal Register Company, Paton tries to get the idea across that we are now a digital first multi-media company - no longer a newspaper of the past.

Those who get stuck in the past have no chance of survival.

Slowly but surely you will start seeing changes here on the local level. We will work hard to invite the outside world in, and we want to hear your ideas.

At the News Herald in Ohio, a news team just completed a never-before-heard-of Ben Franklin Project where they published a newspaper both online and in print only by using free, web-based tools. Pretty soon, we will do the same here at the Press. And we want you to be a part of this change.

More details to follow soon.

Blumenthal wins Democratic nomination

2010-05-21T20:43:00.003-04:00

Despite a quite rough week, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal received his party's nomination Friday for a spot in the U.S. Senate.

Halfway through the roll call at the Democratic convention, opponent Merrick Alpert withdrew, saying the will of the party was clear, according to CT Mirror.

What Merrick Alpert would have said

2010-05-21T16:52:00.005-04:00

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Merrick Alpert, who is running against Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, has been denied the right to speak in front of the delegates at tonight's convention. Here's what he would have said, had he been allowed to address the crowd:

Fellow Democrats,

You deserve a primary!

We need a primary!

And I intend to deliver that to you.

My name is Merrick Alpert.

I was born in Hartford and raised in Colchester by a single mother. My father left when I was a little boy and growing up I never saw him again. We struggled. My mother was a union schoolteacher in Colchester who worked a second job to provide for my brother, sister and me.

I need to thank you. Twenty-five years ago the people of Connecticut loaned me the money to go to UConn. It changed my life. After I graduated I knew I owed you something back, so I enlisted in the US Army National Guard, then transferred to a helicopter unit in the Air National Guard. In 1998 I volunteered as a U.S. Peacekeeper and served on the ground in Bosnia. In that Muslim nation, I learned a lot about what American force can achieve. I also learned that American force has limits.

I returned home and started, along with a friend, a software company. We started from scratch. For the first two years I didn’t get paid. But through hard work, and luck, eventually we succeeded.

I have been involved in Democratic causes my whole life. I worked for Al Gore when he first ran for President and later when he was Vice President, traveling with him both in the States and overseas. During the 2000 election campaign, you remember, the election that Al Gore won, I was in the staff room at a California hotel while the Vice President slept in the next room. Into the staff room walked the most charming, most intelligent, most beautiful woman I have ever seen. And foolishly, I told her so. A few months later we went on a date. And tonight, that woman Alex is my wife; we have 3 little children and live in Mystic……… and I’m probably the only man in America today to look at Al Gore and think romantic thoughts.

I am running for the United States Senate because we need a progressive Democratic to win this seat. I am running because I cannot stand the thought that Linda McMahon from World Wrestling can buy it………and you can’t tolerate that either.

I am here to tell you that, as Democrats, we need a primary. Why?

We’re not ready to win the Senate election. My assessment is if the general election were held this Tuesday, we would lose. After the events of this week, the polls confirm my assessment.

We need a candidate who knows why he is running for the Senate. We need a candidate who is straight with himself and straight with the people of Connecticut. We need a candidate who has fought and earned the nomination, not one who has sat quietly while the crown of coronation has been placed on his head. And, we need a candidate who has been completely vetted so we have no more unpleasant surprises. Think about it in your own life: if you have a son who will play football in the fall, do you keep him in the house over the summer to keep him safe or do you have him running contact drills to toughen him up? And on a national level, remember that the Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton primaries left our party energized and strengthened.

We should find our candidate through a vigorous, issues-based primary. A primary will not only fortify our candidate, it will also permit us to share our vision of the type of democratic America we fight for. We want a government focused on private sector job creation. We want a government of the people, not of the special interests. We want a government investing our money in education, infrastructure, and health care at home, not wasting the money on a futile war in Afghanistan. A WAR THAT I OPPOSE. I have been campaigning on these issues for the last year and I can tell you the people of Connecticut care dearly about them. Every election this year has shown that voters are looking for ideas from outside government: I have new, fresh ideas that challenge Washington and the status quo.

If we have our own vigorous primary, we silence the Republican war machine until August 10th. We all know that the highly effective attack in Tuesday’s New York Times was hatched in Linda McMahon’s office. If we settle on our nominee tonight, that exceedingly well-funded and vicious machine, created by Karl Rove but now housed at World Wrestling, will be gifted three additional months to ruin our candidate. Think about what a few days of that enemy fire has done for our cause. Why would we ask for three additional months of it?

My name is Merrick Alpert. I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. And I want to be the best employee you ever have.

Please give me enough votes so we can have the primary that we all need to keep this seat Democratic.

Thank you. God Bless You. And Goodnight.

******
I rarely take a stand on political issues, trying to stay neutral, but I do believe Alpert should have at least been offered a chance to address the delegates - especially after this week's controversy with Richard Blumenthal.

Story on graffiti - we need your help!

2010-05-18T23:30:00.002-04:00

The Middletown Press is planning on doing a story/photo spread on graffiti in Middletown. Do you know of any problem areas that we should visit?

Comment below or send me an e-mail at vsundqvist@middletownpress.com

Middletown Press nominated for awards

2010-05-17T17:48:00.002-04:00

Next week, the staff of The Middletown Press will attend the Society of Professional Journalists annual awards dinner.

Staff members are finalists in 17 different categories, ranging from photography to page design.

For our staff editorial "First selectman seeks demise of newspaper," we have been nominated in the single editorial category. The Press also submitted a series of articles under the name "Press under investigation," including the above mentioned editorial, for the First Amendment Award, which we are also a finalist for.

Middletown reporter Hannah Vahl, court reporter Walt Gogolya, copy editor Leslie (Parsons) Poster and former reporter Jennifer Sprague are also finalists for their coverage of the Antonio Inglis murder trial.

Vahl was also nominated for her feature of a 91-year-old auxiliary trooper, which also got picked up by the Associated Press.

Sports Editor Jeremie Smith is a finalist for both sports columns and page designs, and reporter Jeff Mill is a finalist in the feature writing category for his piece about a female cop in Cromwell.

Wish us luck! I'll report back after May 27 to let you know what awards we actually won!

Meeting with the acting chief

2010-05-12T20:45:00.003-04:00

Today I met with Acting Police Chief Patrick McMahon and his Public Information Officer Lt. Heather Desmond to discuss some concerns I had with the department's access to records.

McMahon had been up all night because of the shooting late Tuesday, but he agreed to see me anyway.

Due to limitations of the department's current computer system, records are sorted by case number instead of date, which sometimes makes it hard four our reporters to look at arrests from a specific day. We have found that we missed several important arrests recently, and McMahon was able to explain why when I brought up those concerns.

We are now working on a solution so that doesn't happen again.

The chief promised to take some steps to help us get better access to records in a timely manner - on weekends and holidays, for example. And once the new computer system is in place, we should see even better results.

A tour of Wesleyan University

2010-05-08T12:54:00.002-04:00

Last week, Managing Editor Lauren Flaum and I tagged along on an undergraduate admissions office tour of Wesleyan University.

We didn't realize, of course, that it would be the hottest day so far this year, and that the tour would last 2 hours.

It was interesting, though, to hear the story of the secret bell-tower society, find out where the best food is on campus and take a look inside the old library.

SEE WESLEYAN OBSERVATORY HERE.

VIDEO ABOUT STUDENT HOUSING HERE.

What should we work on this week?

2010-05-02T16:41:00.001-04:00

In the past week, a Middletown parent brought up concerns about bullying in the city's schools, residents in Tylerville speoke about contamination and police in Cromwell urged residents to lock up their cars and belongings due to thefts.

What would you like to see us write about this week?

With more budget hearings to come, we intend to dedicate some resources to those to help explain to residents where their money is going. But what would you like to read about?

Please let us know in the comment section below.

Check out our new blogs

2010-04-29T17:43:00.002-04:00

Our copy editor Leslie Parsons is blogging about getting to know the Middlesex County community at Middlesex Treks.

Court reporter Walt Gogolya offers movie reviews at the Courthouse Critic.

And I'm sure you've all seen our MP Bookclub blog, available HERE.

If you enjoy food, cooking and exchanging ideas, check out Live to Eat.

Or you can follow the adventures of Photo Editor Catherine Avalone at The Photo Club.

Comments about comments

2010-04-26T12:40:00.005-04:00

Our website comments have been a hot topic since we removed comment moderation in 2009.

Readers are able to leave a comment on pretty much any story at www.middletownpress.com, and the comment appears immediately and allows others to respond right away.

This provides a forum for local discussion, and over the past year, discussions have taken off on any number of topics. We believe providing this forum is an important part of keeping the community engaged in what is going on.

But not everyone plays by the rules. We frequently see nasty comments, obscene words or hateful remarks. Our guidelines prohibit these comments, and we remove them when we see them. However, with more than 200 comments per day on some stories, we cannot monitor every story every hour of every day.

This is where YOU come in. We expect the readers to help us monitor the site. By clicking "Report Abuse" underneath the inappropriate comment, our editors (myself included) will immediately be sent an e-mail alert and can take the comment down.

We have also set up a system on our staff where everyone has been assigned a specific hour of the day to go in an check out the comments BEFORE they become a problem or get reported.

While there are things we could do with our site - anything from pre-approving comments to requiring registration - we find that these options would kill the debate, limit free speech and would not do enough to limit inappropriate comments as anyone can set up a fake e-mail account or register with a fake name.

In terms of liability - we frequently get complaints that say "how could YOU publish this???" - I have to refer to the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity to operators of websites for allegedly defamatory content provided by third parties.

As long as the staff of The Middletown Press does not go in to edit the comments, or respond to comments that are inappropriate or defamatory while choosing to leave them up on the website, or in other ways exercise substantial editorial control over the comments posted, we are not responsible for the comments, the law says.

However, we will do our due diligence and to remove inappropriate comments in as timely a manner as possible. We may not always be aware that they are posted unless you bring them to our attention.

Anyone who has a problem with a particular story or comment is welcome to contact us here at the office and we will look at the story or comment immediately. Until then, happy commenting, and keep it appropriate!

Visiting the crash site

2010-04-21T19:24:00.007-04:00

Pieces of red plastic and unidentifiable metal scraps lie next to a bunch of flowers, candles and a giant teddy bear.

Here, outside the Fleetwood Auto building on Middlefield Street in Middletown, two young men lost their lives Saturday night.

Those grieving Ryan Weckesser and Nathan Bushnell have covered the entire wall of the building Nathan's Ford Mustang crashed into with memories and tributes, photos, poems, cards and balloons.

As I stopped at the site Wednesday evening, an older couple was just leaving in a gray sedan. While some drivers were flying by down Middlefield Street, most passers-by slowed down significantly to look at the memories left behind by those who cared deeply about the victims.

Some drivers bowed their heads while passing, others just turned to look at this wall of grief.

A woman and two girls came walking up the road, the girls carrying one tulip each. As the girls carefully placed the tulips near the candles, the woman leaned forward to read the notes posted on a pole and looked at some photographs of Ryan and Nathan with their friends.

We've written about many car crashes in the past few months - all of them very tragic. But this one, for some reason, is different. It's like the entire community knew the victims in this crash, and those who didn't are still sharing the pain.

I sat there in my car - observing from a distance - and wondered how long it will take for these brothers, sisters, friends and parents to feel like things have gone "back to normal."

I bet it never will.

You are in charge!

2010-04-18T20:27:00.003-04:00

If you go to our home page, www.middletownpress.com, you will notice a new feature: an interactive online calendar.

While the staff of The Middletown Press will add events here that we hear of, we count on YOU - the reader - to tell us what is going on in YOUR community! This is your chance to be in charge!

You will have access to add any event you want to promote, whether it be a pasta supper, a community meeting or a fund-raiser for your child's Little League team. All we ask is that you stay clear of advertising things for sale or special promotions for a business and that you stick to events in Middlesex County, our local coverage area.

We want this to be a valuable asset to all our readers, so please start entering events happening in your area!

As soon as you enter an event, our staff will receive an e-mail and this event will also be added to our print calendar on Page A2 of The Middletown Press.

Changes in AP style

2010-04-16T20:07:00.003-04:00

The Associated Press Stylebook is like the Holy Bible for newspaper reporters and copy editors. Every so often, the AP comes up with changes to well-established style rules.

Ten years ago, for example, the word online was hyphenated, "on-line." This changed as the word became more common in the English language due to the popularity of the Internet.

This week, AP is changing the way it refers to pages on the World Wide Web. It used to be "Web site," (two words, capital "W" for Web) but will now become "website" (one word, no capitalization).

Perhaps this seems more natural to some, since most people write about websites this way. For us here in the newsroom, however, it will take some time getting used to.

The Press honored by Kiwanis

2010-04-15T12:25:00.005-04:00

The Middletown Press and Walmart were honored yesterday at the weekly Kiwanis Club meeting in Middletown for their contributions to the annual Warm the Children campaign.

This year, we helped raise $57,000 to buy winter clothing for children in the Middletown area.

Mack Stewart, second from left, is the organizer of the campaign and also takes several children out shopping with their parents. All shopping is done at Walmart, and the store then sends the bill to the campaign so no cash has to change hands.

This past winter, there was a greater need than ever for children in the area to receive warm clothes, and The Middletown Press is proud to have been able to help with the campaign by providing free advertising space in its print product. Next year, we hope to also be able to provide online space for Warm the Children in order to raise awareness of the campaign.

MP on the air - UPDATED

2010-04-12T23:01:00.004-04:00

You may have heard me on the radio Friday afternoon as Ed McKeon of The Middletown Eye hosted his weekly "Eye on the Air" show at WESU, 88.1. I was the second guest of his half-hour show, and we spoke about the changing newspaper industry and The Middletown Press. (His show is on every Friday from 1 to 2 p.m.)

Today, I stopped by WMRD up on River Road to record some new radio spots touting the happenings in our newspaper and on the web. So you will soon be able to hear my voice on the radio several times a week at 1150-AM, if you tune in to listen frequently.

And once we hire our new morning journalist, you will be able to hear that person on the air every morning giving you an update on today's news and what's happening in Middlesex County.

Listen to EYE ON THE AIR from April 9 HERE.

Visiting the historical society

2010-04-10T22:52:00.003-04:00

Executive Director Debby Shapiro took me on a wonderful tour of the Middlesex County Historical Society last Friday.

It was raining, and I couldn't wait to get inside as I stood on the steps outside the General Mansfield House at 151 Main St., eagerly ringing the doorbell.

Debby welcomed me inside and told me all about the history of this town, from its early shipping days to the highlights of manufacturing and famous people from the area. She showed me the current Civil War exhibit and the memorial wall of all local soldiers who died. The society also has a small collection of weapons from the war, some of which were made right here in the city.

I learned about a lead mine in the area of River Road, and of secret meetings as part of the underground railroad.

I also found out that the church next to O'Rourke's Diner is facing the wrong way on Main Street, since it was moved from another location many years ago but not turned accordingly.

If you have a moment, you should really stop by the historical society yourself to meet Debby. The society is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and from 10 a.m. to noon on Fridays.

Or you can WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.

Today's community meeting

2010-04-06T20:03:00.002-04:00

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Don Pesci, his wife and their dog during one of our community meetings. Well, we technically met after the meeting since it ended a few minutes early.

Pesci and his wife found their way up to the fourth floor of the Main Street Market to say hello. For those of you who don't know, Pesci is a regular columnist in our newspaper and several others across the state.

He also runs a blog, called Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State.

Tomorrow, I am going to be at a Starbuck's in West Hartford for a community meeting there, since we also run the West Hartford News out of our office here in Middletown.

Budget battles

2010-04-05T16:41:00.002-04:00

My head is spinning from reading the Middletown mayor's budget now for an hour. I'm trying to help reporter Hannah Vahl decipher the highlights of the budget and by calculating the proposed salary increases for all the top positions.

However, I constantly get stuck on little things like the city wanting to spend $20,000 on police psychologicals. What are they, and why do they cost so much? Especially when there was only $9,500 budgeted for them last year.

And why does the city expect to spend $30,000 less on gas this year in the finance category when fuel oil is going up by $20,000 and natural gas by $15,000?

And who spends $3,900 a year on envelopes? That's gotta be a place where the city can save money in today's electronic age.

So many questions. Hopefully we will be able to ask the mayor some of them soon.

And here's a question for you. If you got to sit down with the Middletown mayor, what would you ask?

Successful meetings; more to come

2010-04-03T00:15:00.003-04:00

A big thank you to everyone who came out to see us this week as the staff of The Middletown Press held four community meetings.

I learned about a golf course in Middletown I never knew existed and a third-party candidate running for state Senate. I also learned that many community members would be happy to submit material to us - they just didn't know they were allowed to.

There were some other important lessons as well in trying to set up these meetings. The fact that the Ford News Diner closes at 2 p.m., for example, which I should have remembered. This forced us to rearrange a meeting and move it last minute to Javapalooza down the street.

But no worries! We will schedule a breakfast meeting soon at the diner.

In Portland, I found out that a couple of guys apparently tried to get free lunch at the Portland Restaurant by showing up in suits saying they were from The Middletown Press. Too bad they picked the wrong day - I would have like to see who they were.

For those of you who work during the day, I will hold a special meeting this Tuesday, April 6, at Fusion Bakery inside the Main Street Market from 5 to 6 p.m.

Ed McKeon from The Middletown Eye has also asked me to be on his radio show on Friday, April 9, at 1:30 p.m. at WESU, 88.1 FM. We will most likely talk about changes in the newspaper industry and changes at The Middletown Press.

And, of course, anyone with questions or concerns can e-mail me directly at vsundqvist@middletownpress.com

Meeting in Cromwell

2010-03-31T23:34:00.001-04:00

The food was great and we had good company at our community meeting in Cromwell today at Mitchell's on Main Street.

Tomorrow, Thursday, reporter Jeff Mill and I will be at the Portland Diner from 2 to 3 p.m.

Please come join us!

The first community meeting

2010-03-30T16:57:00.002-04:00

We held our first community meeting today at Javapalooza in Middletown. Three people showed up to say hi and voice their comments or ask questions about the newspaper.

All in all, we consider it a successful first meeting and we look forward to meeting more of our readers throughout the rest of the week.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, we will be in Cromwell at Mitchell's on Main Street from 2 to 3 p.m. Please come see us!

Don't forget to visit with us!

2010-03-29T17:52:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow at 2 p.m., I will be joined by my managing editor Lauren Flaum at Javapalooza on Main Street in Middletown to visit with community members.

Please note that the location has been changed due to the fact that Ford News Diner closes at 2 p.m. and we are unable to meet there.

Anyone interested in asking us questions, telling us how we're doing, coming up with suggestions for how we can improve or just stopping by to pick up a copy of Tuesday's paper is welcome to come see us.

If the table by the window is available, that's where you'll find us.

Bowling update - UPDATED

2010-03-29T17:49:00.003-04:00

So, we didn't get to take home a trophy to the Middletown newsroom on Saturday, but Team Newsies still had a good time at the Middlesex Community College bowla-thon in Wallingford.

The event raised over $1,000 for the college's scholarship fund. A team from Student Activities won both the overall trophy and the campus team trophy.

From The Middletown Press, we had Managing Editor Lauren Flaum, copy editor Leslie Parsons and reporter Justin Kloczko compete against three teams from The Flying Horse, the college paper.

Next year, we're hoping to challenge other media organizations to get them to participate as well.

UPDATE: Below are the official scores from the bowling tournament.

Student Senate 854*

Flying Horse #2 847

Middletown Press Newsies 841

Underachievers 841

Flying Horse #3 809

Flying Horse #1 769

*Campus Champions and Top Team

Top Fundraising Team Flying Horse #1

Top Bowler Dale Griffith, Flying Horse #2

Meet the editor

2010-03-26T10:19:00.005-04:00

Next week, you can come meet with me and another member of my staff as we have lunch at various locations around the county.

We will be available to hear your questions, comments, concerns... anything you'd want to talk to us about, from 2 to 3 p.m. at the following locations:

Tuesday, March 30 - Ford News Diner, Main Street, Middletown

Wednesday, March 31 - Mitchell's, 317 Main St., Cromwell

Thursday, April 1 (no joke) - Portland Restaurant, 188 Main St., Portland

Friday - April 2, Javapalooza, Main Street, Middletown

Managing Editor Lauren Flaum will come along for lunch on Tuesday, and Sports Editor Jeremie Smith will be available to chat on Wednesday. Reporter Jeff Mill will come along on Thursday and Weekend section editor Sean Connor will join me at Javapalooza on Friday.

So you are welcome to bring your questions, ideas and concerns to us between 2-3 p.m. all next week. Looking forward to meeting with you all!

Come watch us bowl

2010-03-25T13:40:00.003-04:00

The Middletown Press newsroom team, Team Newsies, will participate in the Middlesex Community College Bowlathon on Saturday at Wallingford Bowl on Route 5 in Wallingford.

From what we hear, the MxCC student newspaper, The Flying Horse, will participate with three teams as well.

Come watch us and cheer us on as we try to knock some pins down. Games start at 1:30 p.m. Champions will be awarded a trophy (of course, we hope to display one in the newsroom after the weekend).

Editorial conference

2010-03-21T14:32:00.005-04:00

My head is spinning from discussions and presentations at an editorial conference in Philadelphia this week. What will news look like in the future? How do we move our company forward? What does a newspaper need to do in order to survive in this quickly changing climate?

Tomorrow afternoon, I am going to make an attempt to present a compact version of what I learned to my staff with the hope of getting everyone on the same page. Perhaps there will be a blog entry about those ideas later. For now, here's a video clip from our guest speaker, author and journalist Jeff Jarvis. He speaks about links and the value of links on our Web sites.

Some changes here at the paper

2010-03-17T22:56:00.003-04:00

Those of you following Publisher Dan Moriarty's blog may have noticed that it mysteriously disappeared Tuesday afternoon. His name was also taken off the masthead on our editorial page and replaced with the name of New Haven Register Publisher Ed Condra.

It was the same day the Journal Register Company, our parent organization, announced a round of layoffs under the new CEO.

Three senior vice president positions - one for each of the large JRC clusters in Connecticut, Philadelphia and Michigan - were eliminated. Instead, three senior publishers who already work for the company will oversee those clusters.

"The actions we are taking today will streamline our reporting structures so that ideas, decisions and their implementation and resources will flow more freely," said CEO John Paton in a statement to employees Tuesday afternoon. "These changes are fundamental to the way in which we will approach our business going forward. Now each of the local cluster leaders will be accountable to and for their employees."

Four publishers of smaller newspapers in the company were also laid off as part of the plan - the publisher of The Middletown Press and West Hartford News one of them.

"Our company needs to invest in more resources in the field and less in management oversight," Paton said. "We need more feet on the street and we need to empower our employees and managers in the field to make the best decisions for their divisions and their communities and to be able to do it quickly. We must become a much more flexible and less top-down organization than we have been in the past if we are to succeed."

The New Haven Register publisher now overseeing us is set to take over the Philadelphia cluster in about two months. Then, it will be announced who the new senior publisher of Connecticut will be (That publisher will oversee The Middletown Press when Ed Condra leaves).

Until then, if you have any questions about editorial coverage, please feel free to contact me at (860) 347-3331, ext. 235 or via e-mail at vsundqvist@middletownpress.com and if you have questions about advertising, please contact Russ Lennon at rlennon@middletownpress.com.

Some new blogs

2010-03-16T16:39:00.003-04:00

After some requests, we have started a book blog at The Middletown Press.

You can check it out here.

Our photographer, Catherine Avalone has also started a blog called The Photo Club, which you can find here.

And don't forget that we also have Live to Eat, a blog written by our managing editor, Lauren Flaum.

A visit from the new CEO

2010-03-13T01:26:00.003-05:00

This week, everyone's desks in the newsroom were spotless.

We talked for days about the Nutella cupcakes our managing editor, Lauren Flaum, were going to make, and we hung pictures and awards that had been sitting in boxes since last year's move to our new office in the Main Street Market.

When our company's new CEO, John Paton, stopped by The Middletown Press for a visit on Thursday, we were ready.

Paton spoke to the staff about his vision for the company, which you can learn about here.

We also got a chance to brag a bit about how we at The Middletown Press have embraced the new Flip cameras we received by taking 106 videos in just two weeks. That's right - a newsroom of only 10 people took more than 100 videos in just two weeks - and we got them all posted on our Web site.

The only problem? The site isn't quite ready for that many videos, so the new ones keep bumping the old ones off the front page in just a couple of days. (I've been told we will soon have several pages so people can scroll through our older videos as well).

To show Paton how much we like the new cameras, our photographer also recorded some of his visit to our office, which you can watch below.

My visit to Middlesex Community College

2010-03-09T21:21:00.007-05:00

While my collegues were over at Wesleyan University for a press conference about a new coach on Monday, I headed over to Middlesex Community College for a visit with President Wilfredo Nieves.

Nieves took me on a tour of his 4-building campus.

A graduate of Westchester Community College in Valhalla, N.Y., I do have a special place in my heart for community colleges. It is where I learned the most in my college career. Sure, Quinnipiac University was good, too, but the community college helped me build a solid foundation for all future learning.

As I was a communications major and later journalism major, I find college television studios interesting. I like to look at the equipment - look, but don't touch. Here's the one at MxCC, which is used throughout the semester and also during the summers to teach special film and TV production classes:

More videos from Middlesex Community college can be found under our "Video" tab on our home page or by clicking HERE.

Videos by Catherine Avalone and Viktoria Sundqvist:
Intro to Physics
Wilfredo Nieves
Game Room in Founders Hall
Magazine Room at MxCC library
Chemistry 112
Digital Photography
3-Dimensional Design

What I'm reading

2010-03-05T18:16:00.002-05:00

After a day full of reading articles, thinking up Twitter phrases and browsing Web sites, I find it difficult to pick up a real book when I get home - especially a non-fiction book.

Sometimes I'll let myself escape reality for a few hours by re-reading "Harry Potter" or a "Mrs. Pollifax" book. Other times, I just crash in front of the TV - or do more work in front of the computer.

When I do read, I have a hard time sticking to just one book at a time.

Right now, for example, I am reading Merrick Alpert's "Morning Sun: A Story of Hope, Purpose, and Power of Family." (Alpert is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and we had him here in the office a couple of weeks ago). But I am also reading Jeff Jarvis' "What Would Google Do?" that I got in the mail from our CEO John Paton.

Since Paton is coming to Middletown for a visit next week, it seemed like a good diea to pick up my "homework" book. So far, it's been very rewarding.

It talks about how we can distribute our news better and how to learn to be where the readers are, instead of just forcing readers to come to us.

Publisher Dan Moriarty is reading it too, and I'm sure we'll have lots to discuss when we're done. You'll also be reading more about our thoughts for the future on these blogs.

Alpert's story about growing up in Colchester, serving in the war, and starting a family is just going to have to wait.

We've got work to do.

Living in Twitterland

2010-03-01T21:50:00.003-05:00

Twitter is serving an increasingly important role for newspapers.

With the help of our Twitter account, we can reach out to a wider audience and draw them back into our web site with enticing tweets in less than 140 characters.

Headline writers are often the best at writing Twitter updates, because their job already consists of mending the words so they fit just right.

Last Friday, I received some ideas from our online specialists in the company on how to increase our Twitter audience, and I've spend almost the entire weekend engulfed in Twitterland. It worked, though, since our followers (the people who sign up to read your Twitter updates) more than doubled by Monday morning. When I last checked a few minutes ago, The Middletown Press was at 578 followers - and we surpassed our sister paper in Torrington, The Register Citizen, around 6 p.m. tonight.

The only problem with Twitter is that it can be very addicting, especially as you sit there and watch the numbers slowly go up, up, up. "Just one more," I thought to myself this afternoon. "Just one more tiny follower and then I get to go home."
An hour later, I was still sitting in front of the computer.

If you want to see what The Middletown Press is up to on Twitter, CLICK HERE.
If you want to follow our sports department on Twitter, CLICK HERE.

The cameras are here!

2010-02-26T09:45:00.003-05:00

Our staff received 6 additional Flip cameras yesterday from our corporate office. I spent a big part of my day tagging them and writing down serial numbers to make sure we know who has what camera should something happen.

Then I got to give them out to my staff - the most exciting part of my day.

A few minutes later, photographer Catherine Avalone came back to my office and said, "Why is it all in French?"

In her eagerness to get started, she had bypassed the English instructions and we had no idea how to get them back.

An e-mail to our techies in Yardley resulted in four quick responses - one of them actually in French, translated via Babel Fish (when translated back via the same method, it made no sense whatsoever).

As usual when things get a little messed up, it was very simple to fix it, and Cathy is now well on her way to taking videos for our web site. Check out the 8 videos she took yesterday afternoon at Middlesex Community College HERE.

Our small newsroom

2010-02-22T23:56:00.001-05:00

The Middletown Press newsroom consists of 10 staff members who do everything from taking photos and writing stories to laying out pages and writing headlines (and yes, that includes our sports department).

In newsroom comparisons, we would probably be considered one of the smallest around. But we do get the job done, and we try to get better at what we do every day.

Sometimes, the mail we get helps us see what the world was like when newsrooms had a larger staff. Mail is often addressed to the “Business Editor,” “Religion Editor” or “Assignment Editor” – titles that are long gone and may have never existed at our publication. We frequently get comments online or phone calls asking, “Where was your proofreader?” The truth is, there is no such person, and there hasn’t been a proofreader for many years. It is now called “the person sitting next to you.”

Most newsrooms are shrinking – the need for staff members who can do any and all jobs is greater than ever. And we are lucky. We have many multi-taskers on our staff. But we cannot do everything on our own.

This is why it is more important than ever for the community to participate in our message board discussions, for online readers to report abuse on comments that are inappropriate and for those with knowledge of area events to send us a note to let us know what’s going on.

We always welcome submissions at editor@middletownpress.com, and you are welcome to send us photos. We want The Middletown Press to remain a community newspaper, but we need your help in keeping it that way.

Lieberman arrives for press conference

2010-02-18T19:09:00.002-05:00

U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman comes down the hill from the Kleen Energy plant and gets ready for his press conference in a muddy parking lot.

My personal favorite thing in this video is the TV reporter who jumps out and says "How've you been?" like they were old friends who haven't had a chance to catch up in a really long time.

Is everyone ready for the mayor?

2010-02-18T18:37:00.004-05:00

This gives you an idea of what it's like before a press conference begins (The video below is from today's press conference with Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano and U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman outside the gates of the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown).

The awful ride on Route 66

2010-02-16T22:53:00.000-05:00

Tonight while driving home from work I realized two things: I definitely need new tires on my car, and the state is doing an awful job plowing Route 66.

Perhaps if this week’s snowstorm had been played up as much as last week’s I would have been prepared. And perhaps the state would have been prepared too.

I remember hearing on the police scanner in the early evening hours that “westbound 66 is absolutely awful.” I figured that by 7:15, it would be all cleared up. After all, Route 66 is a major road. The worst part would surely just be getting through the lights from Main Street and up to Route 3, I told myself.

But I knew already as I pulled out of the McDonald’s parking lot that I wouldn’t have enough speed to make it all the way up the hills of Middlefield. I was lucky I had stopped for gas a few minutes earlier, because I ran out of speed right before Victory Christian Church and had to roll back down until I could turn around and head back downhill.

I waited patiently in the Agway parking lot in Middlefield, thinking a plow truck must surely come any moment. I’m sure I’ve heard an official at some point say that the state plows each of its roads at least once an hour, and if it’s bad it’s just because the plow trucks can’t keep up with the snow.

Well, I waited. And waited. And waited. It even stopped snowing while I waited, but no trucks came.

I read Merrick Alpert’s biography, then his campaign goals. Twice. I even started jotting down questions for the meeting I have with him tomorrow, but I gave up because it really wasn’t something I wanted to be doing in an abandoned parking lot. I just wanted to go home.

Hope flooded through me as I saw two orange trucks come down Route 66 and head toward Middletown. Surely, it wouldn’t be too long now until they turned around and came back up the hill. After all, plowing the hills should be a priority, right? Everyone knows how dangerous those are when they are slick and wet.

9 p.m. came and went, and there wasn’t another plow truck in sight. Finally, I started moving back and forth in the parking lot just to make sure I wouldn’t get stuck. There were probably about 5 inches on the ground where I sat, idling.

Just as I was about to give up and head back to the office – I had been avoiding this because it felt like giving up, plus, I would have never known when the coast was clear if I turned around now – I saw the blinking lights easer their way up the hill from Middletown.

I had waited over 90 minutes at this point. “The roads better be good now,” I thought as I followed the trucks, trying to gain enough speed to make it through the traffic light before it turned.

Once I got past Guida’s, I knew I’d be OK. However, the roads didn’t improve much until I got to I-84.

My ride home normally takes me 35 minutes in good conditions. Tonight, it took 3 hours. A co-worker who left around 4:30 to beat the rush-hour traffic said it took him an hour just to get from Middletown to the Meriden mall.

It snows every year – several times. Why is it always such a big surprise? And why can’t a New England state do a better job to clear the roads?

More good news from our CEO

2010-02-13T20:09:00.004-05:00

The Middletown Press staff received a letter from our CEO, John Paton, last week.

"I am committed to investing in our future," he wrote. "We will invest in our people through training and in upgrading our technology to make the neccessary changes to take this company into the future and we will make sure all employees share in our growth."

As someone who has been with the JRC for more than 5 years now, I have to say Paton is a breath of fresh air.

If anyone can help small, local newspapers transform into a future world - it will be him.

"Going forward we will be a team," Paton writes in his letter. "When the Company wins, the employees win. We will win together."

Like I said in a previous post here, these are exciting times to be in the newspaper business. Everything is changing quickly, and yes, it is sometimes very stressful, but think about all the new, cool things we get to do.

Not all news is bad news

2010-02-10T10:57:00.001-05:00

The Middletown Press has a story today about how quickly Middlesex Hospital and its staff responded to the explosion at the Kleen Energy power plant in Middletown on Sunday. Check it out here.

What you learn in the field

2010-02-08T22:02:00.002-05:00

Today I learned that getting a 2-minute video clip from a press conference up on our web site can take up to six hours and several phone calls to tech support.

WATCH IT HERE.

I also learned that when someone whispers to you very near your camera, it will get caught on tape.

If you watch the video in the link above from today's press conference at Middletown City Hall regarding the Kleen Energy plant explosion on Sunday, you will hear Sal Nesci from the health department whisper to me "Did everyone get this?" as he shows me a the script the mayor is reading from. I thought I was being very subtle, but you can clearly hear me whisper back: "No, we got a different one."

That, dear people, is "real life" journalism.

Covering a major news story

2010-02-08T13:59:00.006-05:00

Was there anyone in Middlesex or New Haven County that didn't feel the explosion on Sunday from the Kleen Energy power plant in Middletown?

I felt it at my house, and I live 30 miles away. Of course, I didn't know what it was. It seemed minor, like when the neighbors slam the front door too hard.

Then I heard the news, and I knew I'd have a good excuse to miss the Super Bowl. That's alright, I thought as I headed to work. I really don't like football anyway.

We called in a reporter and a photographer that were scheduled to be off, and we coordinated efforts with the New Haven Register, who sent two reporters and a photographer. Our friends in Torrington at The Register Citizen helped us with Twitter.

One person in the newsroom was in charge of getting everything up on our web site, and you can soon watch all the coverage related to the explosion on THIS PAGE.

What we didn't count on was the floods of phone calls from the rest of the world - we spoke with BBC and Sky News in London as well as two Australian news organizations, a newspaper in Italy, someone from Canada and one in France. All wanted to know more about the explosion, and we ended up going on air with them trying to help them with their coverage while still trying to focus on our coverage.

A daily newspaper in France actually ended up using our staff photographer's photo on their front page, via the Associated Press. I think I saw the same photo on a Swedish newspaper's web site as well.

For tomorrow's paper, we are hoping to get some aerial photos via the New Haven Register, and hopefully we'll know more soon about the victims involved. Stay tuned.

From the Editor

Top videos: Storm damage

Top videos this week

Anonymity on the internet and online comments

Top videos this week

From accident reconstruction to 'CSI' - The Citizens Police Academy

Vsundqvist vs. Jordanfenster

New blogs at middletownpress.com

The knitting project

Top videos this week

Removing police blotter items or archived stories

Q&A about Twitter

Sorting through the spam emails

Making your laptop more convenient

A few new blogs

Learning about LinkedIn

Top videos this week

My 30-day project

Top videos this week

We welcome your submissions

Top local videos this week

Changing the way we monitor story comments

Free classes offered online

Going out in the field with new technology

Most watched videos last week

Looking for local bloggers

New publisher at The Middletown Press

One year ago since explosion

Our Top Videos for 2010

Thank you for your donations

Help us Warm the Children in the Middletown area

Help us pick top stories for 2010

Holiday Lights Contest open for entries

The Xavier-Middletown football banquet

The CTWatchdog on the air

Halloween event today

Our new sign on Main Street

Does Middletown have bullies?

A local editorial

Stop playing politics with top cop spot

Meeting Ken Krayeske

My first newspaper

It always happens on Sundays

An iPad, a Netbook and soon-to-come iPhone

JRC partners with GrowthSpur

Get out and vote today!

Bye-bye to Dear Abby

Considering comment moderation

Our new columnist line-up

Staff changes at The Middletown Press

The ideaLab

Greetings from Kingston, N.Y.

We did it! - now tell us what you think

It's all in the details at Downtown Car Cruise

Speaking at the senior center

Tell us about dad

An update on the Ben Franklin Project

Can we save the fireworks?

An update on our Fact Check initiative

Ben Franklin Project to involve readers in news process

21 journalism awards for The Middletown Press!

Our CEO as keynote speaker

Blumenthal wins Democratic nomination

What Merrick Alpert would have said

Story on graffiti - we need your help!

Middletown Press nominated for awards

Meeting with the acting chief

A tour of Wesleyan University

What should we work on this week?

Check out our new blogs

Comments about comments

Visiting the crash site

You are in charge!

Changes in AP style

The Press honored by Kiwanis

MP on the air - UPDATED

Visiting the historical society

Today's community meeting

Budget battles

Successful meetings; more to come