Sailing into headwinds over the Fourth

Fourth of July leftovers: A number of readers are puzzled that The N&O runs the Bill of Rights on the editorial page every Fourth of July, as it did last Tuesday:

"There was no Bill of Rights or a Constitution but the Declaration of Independence signed on the Fourth, yet your editorial featured the Bill of Rights on the Fourth, Yuck!" writes Mal Owings. "Why do newspapers continue to 'dumb down America'?"

The editorial-page folks certainly do understand that the Declaration, not the Bill of Rights, is the historical document associated with the Fourth of July. But they choose instead to run the first 10 amendments as a historically appropriate, if not chronologically correct, document to commemorate our nation's freedom.

There are several reasons. One -- it's tradition. I checked back with two editorial page editors going back to 1978, and neither could remember when we hadn't done so. Nor could former N&O publisher Frank Daniels Jr., whose family owned the paper from 1894 to 1995.

Another reason is a more practical consideration: It's easier to fit the 482-word Bill of Rights into the editorial space than the 1,322-word Declaration.

But mostly, says Editorial Page Editor Steve Ford, running the Bill of Rights on a holiday that celebrates freedom just seems right for a newspaper. "It's a little quirky maybe," he said, "but we hope it gives people an example of freedoms to think about on the Fourth of July." If that causes readers to engage in debate over our history, he said, so much the better.

Here's another reason: the Bill of Rights is better reading. After the stirring "we hold these truths to be self-evident" preamble, the Declaration becomes a lengthy litany of grievances against King George III. Would you consider this the highlight of a Fourth of July celebration? "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

By the way, Ford points out, not all readers have a problem with the Bill of Rights: "Thank you for continuing to run a copy of the Bill of Rights on the 4th of July," writes Warren Bock. "Every year, I take time to read the Bill of Rights out loud to myself."

A post-script: Actually, John Adams thought the date that would be celebrated was the Second of July, because that was the date in 1776 when the Continental Congress approved the Declaration.

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Some readers found fault with The N&O's coverage of the Tall Ships festival at Beaufort. The event, extensively covered in advance by The N&O and other media, was thronged with an estimated 160,000 tourists over the long Fourth of July weekend. Many ended up waiting in long lines to tour the ships, and parking and roads were overwhelmed. Some blamed The N&O for hyping the story and underreporting the difficulties patrons encountered.

"I felt even more aggrieved when I read the sunny description of events in Sunday's papers," said Margaret McCulloch of Raleigh.

The N&O's Sunday headline said, "Buoyant crowds greet tall ships." I would describe that as "sunny," but the story did include a few cloudy sentences about the crowding. Follow-up stories Tuesday and Thursday included more pointed complaints.

Those stories prompted rebuttals from other readers who thought the festival was fine. John Jenkins of Raleigh, who attended all four days, said, "everything appeared to go quite well, better than I expected." Margie Kling called to say we should write more positive stories.

Jerry Allegood, one of the N&O reporters at the coast, said he wasn't trying to put a spin, positive or negative, on the story but was simply trying to report an event that was very difficult to cover, because of the crowds and the dispersed venues.

My own feeling: I'm glad I wasn't there and could read about it in The N&O.

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Have you ever wanted to tell The N&O how to report the news? Here are a couple of ways to do so:

1) Sign up for the Front-Page Guest Program. You get to come to the paper's daily front-page meeting at 4:30 p.m. for a week (or less if you wish), observe how stories are chosen and offer your own opinions.

2) Join The N&O Reader Advisory Panel. This is a group of readers that we contact regularly by e-mail to ask their opinions of coverage and, sometimes, to help us with reporting stories. In the last year, we've surveyed the panel on such topics as our coverage of Hurricane Katrina, whether the paper should have printed the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, and the elimination of stock listings from the financial pages.

If you're interested, contact me at the number or e-mail below.

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Clarification: This column last Sunday said The N&O has a policy against using anonymous sources. Managing Editor John Drescher says "we have a policy that discourages the use of anonymous sources (but permits their use under certain circumstances)."