One of the most common complaints I’ve heard over the years is that we “only cover Decatur.” You may have even heard some people refer to us as the “Decatur Messenger.” I’ve never quite understood this, but then again I live and work in Decatur, so maybe I don’t have the perspective of someone who lives in one of our smaller communities or out in the county.

I did a little research to find out if the majority of our stories are about Decatur, and the results are quite interesting. Since we use what we call “city tags” over the stories in the paper in an effort to alert readers to their communities of interest, I was able to do a quick count, based on the the city tags, of stories or photos since Jan. 1 of this year. That’s almost two full months – a pretty good sample size I would say. I only counted news stories, not sports or All Around Wise content.

Here is the breakdown, by percentage (rounding to the nearest percentage point):

Wise County: 35

Decatur: 19

Bridgeport: 11

Boyd: 6

Alvord: 6

Paradise: 5

Rhome: 4

Newark: 3

Aurora: 1

Northwest: 1

New Fairview: 1

Greenwood/Slidell: 1

Chico: 1

Other: 5 (mostly Fort Worth Stock Show, but all with a Wise County connection of some sort)

The fact that “Wise County” tops the list is no real surprise, nor that “Decatur” is second. What I think is interesting is if you take out Wise County and Decatur, you are still left with 46 percent of the news we report coming from the other cities or communities in the county.

We don’t sit down every week and count how many stories we have from each community. We look at news as “Does it affect the people of Wise County” or “Does it have a strong Wise County connection?” We truly strive to be a “Wise County” paper, even though we are also Decatur’s hometown paper as well.

By the way, the above photo is one of my favorite Far Side cartoons - a reminder that sometimes we see what we want to see.

Your cutline here

Joe Duty has done it again.

At last week’s Wise County Legislative Days, Joe captured this image on the steps of the capitol at the official “photo op” with the Wise County contingent and our local representatives.

A man in a suit, with a banana, and a rather interesting look on Rep. Phil King’s face. This photo is crying out for a cutline.

Have fun.

To see more of Joe’s photos from Austin, check out our Legislative Days blog.

Brian McDermott comforts his wife, Kim, during Saturday's fire.

As an Update to my last post, we have started to receive some information about how to help the McDermott family who lost their home and all their possessions in a house fire in Alvord last weekend. A benefit account has been set up at Legend Bank under Brian McDermott’s name. You can make donations at any Legend Bank location. I have confirmed this with the bank after receiving an e-mail from Adrian Smith. We will continue to find out what other needs the family may have and pass them along as we find out.

(Update) New information: According to a family friend, donations may be taken to the home of Bobby Leach at 214 PR 2689 in Alvord. The children’s sizes are (11-year-old girl) size 12 slim clothes, size 5 shoe; (8-year-old boy) size 10 clothes, size 2 shoes and (infant girl) size 24 months to 2T, size 6 shoe, size 4 diapers

It sometimes seems like the “bad news” comes in bunches around here. Just take a look at our front page today and you’ll see what I mean. It reminds me of a week last spring that it seems like Update was filled with tragic news. My wife called me and, half-jokingly, said she wanted to see “rainbows, puppies and sunshine” in her Update. So I made her up a “mock” Update with such headlines as “BREAKING NEWS - PUPPIES ARE CUTE” and “SUN TO COME UP TODAY.” My last entry was “WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY? – Please use the rest of Update to draw pictures of what makes you happy.”

I still have that “mock” Update tacked up next to my computer for weeks such as this. In the span of 36 hours last weekend, we had the death of a 15-year-old in Aurora in an accident with a fence, a family of five lost their home and all their possessions in a fire in Alvord (see above photo) and a 5-year-old (her birthday is today) killed in a car wreck near Lake Bridgeport. I’ve recently written about the challenge of covering fatalities, especially children, so I won’t go into that topic too much again.

Even in the midst of the tragedy, I can see good. The good often comes from readers who see our reports and e-mail or call the office asking how they can help. Here is an e-mail I received just hours after we posted the news this weekend about the fire:

“This article that is found in the update online-other than the red cross helping the family-has there been a fund for donations set up yet? Or could this family need some furniture or clothing? We have a sofa and a chair and a coffee table that could use a new home. These pieces are in excellent condition-they just need to be picked up. Best of all they are free. I know how it is to do without-especially after a fire; I just want to help if I can. Please contact me via email if you know of any specifics.”

If we hear of any ways you can help out with any of these families who have undergone tremendous loss, we will let you know.

Super Bowl commercials have become as big as the game itself. I’ll admit that I didn’t even tune into the game until the start of the third quarter. Based on the score of the game at the half and what I’ve read about the commercials, I didn’t miss much.

For those interested, mediacurves.com features all the ads and rates them on a number of factors. It looks like last year’s ads received higher ratings than this year.

Some say the economy may have played a factor. I haven’t seen what companies paid this year for the 30-second spots, but I would guess they might have tightened the purse strings a bit. Advertising across all media, including newspapers, is taking a hit due to the weak economy.

While smaller, family-owned papers like the Messenger are probably better equipped to ride out the economic downturn, many larger papers are not so lucky. Last week, A.H. Belo, the parent company of the Dallas Morning News, announced 500 more job cuts.

While we often look at the local large dailies as the competition, it is not good for the industry to be weakening so much. Let’s hope our elected officials in Washington can come to an agreement on an economic stimulus plan that will work, and let’s hope it works fast.