If you’ve seen the front page of Thursday’s Wise County Messenger that hit newstands today, you might have noticed a strange sight: black and white on the front page. It was done on purpose.

The story accompanies photographer Joe Duty’s ongoing multimedia piece “Simply People.” The presentation features all black and white photos and audio provided by the subject. We debated the merits of using a black and white photo on a color page. Joe’s argument was that the front page photo is meant to grab your attention, and when color photos were first introduced in the world of black and white photos, the color stood out. Now that nearly every paper has color on the front page, the occasional black and white would stand out. Also, if you read the story, the black and white photos work well. Phil Sams describes how he has to keep his emotions out of his job to be able to perform - it seems very black and white.

So what do you think of our little experiment? Does it grab your attention? Did you like the change of pace? Or would you have rather seen color photos? Some in-house feedback I’ve heard so far was that the secondary photo of Sams on his motorcycle was a little hard to figure out until you realize it is a close-up of Sams and the reflection in his sunglasses.

E-mail me at bknox@wcmessenger.com and let me know what you think.

Regular visitors to wcmessenger.com may be asking what has happened to the ability to comment on our news items. The comments have been taken down until further notice.

Our story posted last weekend about the arrest of a Chico High School senior for aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old student at the school drew a flood of comments on our Web site. Healthy discussion is a good thing, but the majority of comments that followed the story were at times vicious and added nothing to the discussion. We’re talking about teenagers, people. Sure, it appears several made some very poor choices, but what does it say when the adults start acting with even less maturity than the kids - slinging hurtful words with the cloak of an “anonymous” or made up name to hide their identity? What does the community gain from that? That kind of discussion may be fine for personal bloggers, but not for a community newspaper.

I think the ability to post comments on stories is a good thing. It’s the same reason we’ve set up this blog - to help increase communication both among readers and between readers and the newspaper. My hope is that we can come up with a system to return comments to our Web site, perhaps with some sort of registration system.

In the meantime, if you want to comment on one of our stories, you’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way - write a letter to the editor (Note: we don’t publish anonymous letters, and we have certain guidelines we enforce). Those letters are always welcomed. You can e-mail them to me (news@wcmessenger.com) or fill out the form on this Web site.

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services Web site, a report released today lists one confirmed case of the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, in Wise County. That brings the total in Texas to 208 (all but 1 are Texas residents).

We’ll see if we can find any more details and let you know.

UPDATE: A spokesperson with the Texas Department of State Health Services said the case involved an adolescent male who has recovered. No other information was available.