But for The N&O, it was a test of journalistic nimbleness. Editors and reporters off for the holiday scrambled back into the office on Friday to produce a package of Helms stories for Saturday's paper. The rest of the weekend was interrupted for others who came in or worked from home to provide coverage for the Sunday paper and beyond.

They produced. By my count, The N&O ran 15 pages of Helms coverage last week, including an authoritative political biography by reporter/historian Rob Christensen that ran, miraculously, the day after Helms died. (More on how that happened, below.)

The coverage included 14 stories, 27 photos, an editorial, five opinion columns, five Dwane Powell cartoons, 39 letters to the editor and reader comments and a host of other elements -- career timeline, VIP comments, Helms speech excerpts and various information boxes. Much more -- videos, photo galleries, audio recordings, reader forums -- ran on The N&O's Web site.

That I could see, there was not a Helms artifact left unturned. All this for the man that The N&O labeled "Senator No" and who delighted in using The N&O as a whipping boy on the campaign trail.

Was the coverage too much? Was it fair? Let's ask the readers:

* "I think you guys did a fantastic job. As far from the middle as Jesse was, and you guys always being accused of being to the left, yet y'all were right down the middle and fair on everything." -- REX WHEATLEY, Raleigh (and frequent conservative critic of The N&O).

* "Even us yellow dogs agree that Helms was a giant, and his passing should get giant hometown coverage." -- TOM PARKS, Raleigh.

* "One whole edition the day after he died would have been fine, but every day ...? Too much. Also, his segregationist viewpoints should have been examined and analyzed more closely, such as looking at the effects on individual lives of various people from the minority populations in North Carolina that his opinions impacted." -- TERI REID, Oriental.

* "Though there is nothing in Helms' political career that I ever agreed with, I believe your coverage has been adequate, fair and, as near as I can tell, accurate." -- DAVID STINSON, Mebane.

* "A hundred years from now, a reader will look back at these pages and find an accurate portrayal of what the whole public thought of Jesse Helms." -- GENE MONTAGUE, Wake Forest.

* "I think you were justified in the pages and pages of coverage, because he was such a huge political figure in the state and in the country. I hope some day The N&O can give that amount of coverage to a North Carolinian we don't have to be ashamed of." -- JANET PALMQUIST, Raleigh.

* "This was a no-win situation for The N&O. The paper did about as well as could be expected, but there are some subjects, and some persons, so polarizing that 'objective journalism' will satisfy no one." -- EDISON MCINTYRE, Durham.

As you might guess, the comments I received generally reflected the strong viewpoints that Helms engendered among the readers. Liberals thought the paper was too kind, conservatives thought the expansive coverage was fine.

Except, that is, for Barry Saunders' column Sunday, which recalled Saunders' pleasant personal encounter with the senator. Then he added: "It's no stretch to say that if his spiritual forebears and he had succeeded, I'd be in a field chopping cotton under a broiling sun and singing 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.' " That brought this comment from reader Frank Braswell: "Why would The N&O, as the major paper in central North Carolina, condone kicking dirt on a dead man before he's buried? Why would you print what Barry Saunders wrote?" (Answer: Saunders is paid to write opinion, and it no doubt reflected the sentiments of many readers.)

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