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Show A6 Wednesday, March 12, 2008 Vernal Express wm VERNAL tXBTBSS e-P-I-f-I-GHSF AWARDS BRING REFLECTION AT EXPRESS BYKnwAsKBY Express Publisher ? r V" Every business should have an opportunity to experience experi-ence a review process that determines how well they are providing their services as compared to other businesses in their field. This is what the Vernal Express went through last week as they participated in the annual Utah Press Association Better Newspaper Contest. First of all, the process of having employees evaluate their work and determine which is the best in each of the categories is valuable. There are processes of writing and layout that can be guided by rules and these are easily judged and rated. But with newspapers, there is an element of art that is used with layout and photos. These are often governed by abstract concepts and suggestions that a staff has to feel is correct before the submission. This serves as another process for improvement that the contest provides. In the end, it is sometimes difficult to accept what the judges hand down as their favorites, but once again it gives us the opportunity to see our newspaper, and specifically our stories, layouts, photo cropping and placement, advertisement advertise-ment layouts and overall production quality through the eyes of another. Really, that is what our job is all about - giving you, the reader, an informative and well organized news medium. This past year has been one of constant change for the Express and the contest gave us the glimpse into our product and review that the changes we are making are correct and will give us the foundation for change and improvement next year. The contest also provided the newspaper's employees with a pat on the back from their peers letting them know that their efforts are appreciated and valued. val-ued. And the contest should let you - the readers, our subscribers - know we are trying hard to provide you with the best newspaper in the area that money can buy. Putting out a weekly newspaper is challenging to say the least, but we enjoy what we are doing and only hope that we continue to improve ourselves and our product in the future. READING THE READERSHIP BAROMETER ByLesBowehi ! - v Express Associate Editor Last week, as Vernal Express staff saw the front page of the newspaper as it arrived back from the press to notice a glaring error at the top of our page Al. Rather than tell our readers to set their clocks ahead one hour, we advised them to set them back. Regardless of how the error managed to pass our editing edit-ing process - and it's true we should have caught the error before it went to press - we knew that by mid-morning on Wednesday the calls would start coming in, informing us of our blunder. k And come they Hid. With call after call, we joked that our intent was to make everyone two hours late for church on Sunday or tardy to school and work on Monday. Fortunately, most of our readership identified the error and set their clocks forward. For those readers who inform us of our mistakes, we are grateful. Readership response is one of the best barometers for a newspapers to gauge our effectiveness effective-ness in the community. The most common response from readers comes when we fail to do our job correctly. Some comments are as simple as the minor mistake in editing, and we are reminded to pay closer attention to proofs before they go to press. Others are more serious, such as missing an issue altogether or missing some crucial element of the story. In these cases we are reminded to step up our news gathering. By redirecting our efforts and correcting failures in our news gathering habits, we get closer to the goal of offering readers the best spectrum of information from across the Basin. There have been times when we reached that goal. Occasionally, when we do, comes the occasional accolade for getting the story right, releasing it in a timely manner and providing important information to the community. Iib an ongoing process that reporters and editors face daily in our newsrooms. And reader response is the key. Without the readers providing feedback, our barometer is blank. So tell us what you think. Send us a letter to the editor or call us to tell us how we're doing. Submissions can be sent by e-mail to editorfavernal.com, faxed to 759-8690 or mailed to Vernal Express 54 N. Vernal Ave., Vernal, UT 84078. Or feel free to call any of our news staff at 789-3511. T7 4 ..' - . ; W -j. V tOvTC&MtSOO. ) t yr v "' Web opinion poll Each week the Vernal Express offers an online poll to ife readers. To participate in the poll, visit www.vernal.com and click on the opinion link. Polls are not scientific and represent the opinions of voluntary Internet users. New polls are posted weekly and printed results represent voting as of Tuesday morning. If you have an idea for an opinion poll, e-mail it to editorvernal.com. Results for this week Are you happy with the decision to put bison in the Book Cliffs? a) Yes (100) b) No (0) Question for next week Do you agree with the DWK's decision to sell more big game hunting permits? a) Yes. b) No. BERTHA BUTTERBEAN Spring ahead, fall down .yi, BlDanaColpvich. Guest Writer So, I set my clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time wait a minute (pun) itwill really take me at least a week to get all of the clocks in my life set to the right time. There are the bedside clocks, the stove clock, the 24-inch clock, the decorative clocks, the mantel clock, the microwave clock, my watch, the clock in the car, the clock at work, and some I haven't thought of just now. Some of them approach rocket-science skill levels to set, and for some of them I will need a chair to stand on. Some of the low priority clocks just might have to wait six months (I guess it is more than that now) to be correct again. After the clock-setting ritual, I will have to be watchful watch-ful for a few days. Father Butterbean thinks that he can trick me into being on time if he sets the clocks 10 minutes ahead. So I have to figure out which clocks are on time and which ones are set ahead so I will know when to subtract 10 minutes and when not to. Don't experts tell us to simplify our lives? And don't think that I can subtract correctly all of the time. I get cranky and tell Mr. B. that I want to know what time it is, not what time it isn't. Speaking of experts and time, a young friend of mine told me about a study that was done to try to determine which nations and which cultures were more productive. produc-tive. It sounds like warped Bertha-logic to me, but they sent observers out to different differ-ent cities in the world and stationed them in business districts. Their study criteria were: how quickly people walked a certain distance, how many of the clocks in the city were correct, and the length of time it took a public servant to complete a task. Well, what do you think? Just checking. Keepon thinking. think-ing. Now if I were to use those criteria to measure my productivity, pro-ductivity, the results of my study would be skewed to say the least. First of all, I can't walk as fast as I used to, especially if I have been sitting (not doing nothing, by the way) for a while. Second, Mr. B. sabotages my productivity produc-tivity scores by deliberately setting the clocks ahead; and third, no one could fairly measure the time it takes me to complete a task, because I am always working on at least three of them at one time (Okay, I didn't say I was doing them right). Interesting as that study is, I feel free to pitch it, part and parcel - especially the part about clocks being set to the correct time. I beg your pardon, but I walk slow no matter what my clock says. My physiological clock is something else again. If I were to set 50 clocks ahead by one hour, my internal clock would still not get the message mes-sage and never quite catch up. There is something about getting up in the dark. I am in good company, though; small children and animals don't adjust so well to fiddling around with the clocks either. They can't tell time and can't subtract (or is it add?) an hour and conclude, "It's really only six o'clock." I understand from the ten o'clock news (it's really the 11 o'clock news now) that the reason they, Congress, moved Daylight Savings Time up by three weeks was to conserve energy, not yours or mine, but ours. There was a study which suggested that in Australia, energy was indeed saved by doing just that. I don't know what the model was, but the Good Lord only gave us so many daylight hours. Try as we might, we aren't going to be manufacturing any more except by turning the lights on. It doesn't matter whether we stay up later or get up earlier, it's all the same. So a new study done after a year of the longer, better, DST season shows that, instead of saving, we are using more energy. Hmm... those darn studies. Are you still thinking about that productivity study? Have you guessed which country scored the highest? How about the one most noted for superior timepieces? That would be Switzerland. Having your clocks set precisely on time must stand for something. I don't know for sure what, but Mr. B. should take notice just in case it's productivity. Public Forum - Letters to the Editor What is your opinion? The Vernal Express welcomes letters from its readers concerning any subject pertinent to the Uintah Basin. There are no restrictions on contents, if in good taste and not libelous or vindictive. Letters may be edited for grammar and style, length and content. All letters must be submitted exclusively to the Vernal Express and bear the full name, signature, phone number and address of the writer or writers. Letters for the sole purpose of expressing thanks to individuals or groups will not be printed in this forum. Submissions may be mailed to 54 N. Vernal Ave., Vernal, UT 84078; faxed to 435-789-8690 or sent by e-mail to editorvernal.com The name or names of the persons submitting letters must appear on all published letters. Letters express the opinion of the writer or writers and are not necessarily the opinion of the Vernal Express. CUTS AT MONUMENT CARRY IMPACT Dear editor, Did anyone else note the extreme irony in the running of the Feb. 27 letter to the editor lamenting the position cuts at Dinosaur National Monument adjacent to the announcement of the fossil frogs being returned to the park? I did. It could be a really long time before the Vernal Express may be able to publish pub-lish another article on such material as those beautiful, delicate frog specimens. That's because the man (Scott Madsen) who found them, collected them, and prepared them may soon be out of a job after 20 years of service to Dinosaur National Monument. I am a paleontologist. In fact, I moved to Vernal after ependingthe summer of 2005 as an intern at Dinosaur National Monument. I came because of Madsen's reputation reputa-tion as a world-class prepara-tor, prepara-tor, field paleontologist and the opportunities working alongside him presented to me as a recent graduate. That experience may explain both my bias and my unique understanding of the situation. situa-tion. In this field of paleontology, paleontol-ogy, there are specialized professionals whose job it is to collect and prepare the fos- WESTSIDE SCHOOL BOUNDARIES Dear editor, Regarding your opinion in the Vernal Express, "The question of westside school boundaries," (March 5), may I suggest you read the editorial in the Uintah Basin Standard very apropos. So the students in Whiter-ocks, Whiter-ocks, Lapoint and Tridell are so entrenched in the Vernal schools they are not able to experience the educational transition? Offensive to say the least! Do you not have the courage cour-age to put in the real reason for not wanting to make the change? Your opinion has nothing to do with reality. May I suggest you and outsource open borders Sen. Bob Bennett start a Russian olive tree farm, something you may both have a feel for? Respectfully, Charles Gray Fort Duchesne " "You first." sils. These "preparators," as they are known, may or may not have a higher degree but anyone who understands the process of paleontology can tell you how indispensable their work is to our understanding under-standing of past life on this planet. Apparently, some one forgot to tell Superintendent Risser that fact (based on the article "Monument paleo program pro-gram remains intact despite cuts," Express, Feb. 20). Madsen's expertise in microprep goes hand-in-hand with his research interests in mammals that lived along side the big dinosaurs pre served on the quarry wall. Under his own initiative after arriving at the park, he has used his skills as a preparator to collect and find all sorts of "small" critters, includ,-ing includ,-ing mammal teeth that fit on the head of pin. And, in collaboration with outside researchers, he has published on this material and, as such, is an acknowledged expert in this academic field. Even, gasp, without a Ph.D., his research re-search and preparation skills are distinct complements, not overlapping, with Dr. Chure's specialization in dinosaurs and management plans. Perhaps the park was trying try-ing to minimize the irony of their press release on the frog material when they failed to credit Madsen's critical role in bringing these specimens to the world. That treatment of an employee, it appears, reflects the park's overall understanding and handling of the paleontology program as a whole. Do they really not understand the value and roles of their own employees or is there something else going on? Margaret Imhof Vernal NADER INTENT QUESTIONABLE To the editor, Ralph Nader is running for president again as a third-party third-party candidate. Has Ralph forgotten how his 97,000 votes in Florida threw the 2000 presidential election into the Supreme Court allowing George Bush and his crowd of social and neo-conservatives neo-conservatives into the White House? Has Mr. Nader not witnessed wit-nessed the ensuing war, gratus of George Bush; the monumental debt anti-tax Republicans have piled up, tho downward spiral of all things honest and just? Seems like Nader originally origi-nally ran on integrity, what is he running on this time? Will Nucler help put another Ropubl icun , Job n M cCa i n , i n the Oval Office? Ralph Nader is a questionable candidate. Ron Lowe Grass Valley, Calif. r jepj?es: TV&TDOrlT l . L3 I |