Under the Dome

The N&O and the Dome are all a twitter today with the story of L.F. Eason, a career state employee who decided he didn't want to lower the flag to honor Jesse Helms at his lab in Raleigh, as directed by the Governor. Here's the story as it ran in the newspaper, and as written by Ryan Beckwith.

L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

Following our coverage of the Dome two weeks ago, I received plenty of emails taking me to task for giving the blog the benefit of the doubt. "Beckwith always votes Republican," some said. "The blog leans hard to the right," others said. I dismissed most of the criticisms at the time, but after the current love-fest for Jesse Helms, that's going to be harder and harder to do.

I visit The Dome many times a day. It is a good blog that is part of a good newspaper that is part of a good newspaper company. We all have an interest in The Dome being the best that it can be. Which brings us to our topic of the week.

Under the Dome is your inside source on North Carolina politics and government. Check here for the latest on state and federal government, political advocacy and upcoming elections. This blog is maintained by Ryan Teague Beckwith with the help of reporters Barb Barrett, Lynn Bonner, Rob Christensen, Dan Kane, Ben Niolet, Jane Stancill and Titan Barksdale, along with David Ingram and Mark Johnson of The Charlotte Observer.

Under the Dome has been a regular column in The N&O since 1934.

That's a long time.

The Dome has a post today that opens a new and important conversation about the interplay of blogging, journalism, liability and risk. I don't expect there to be any immediate answers, but there's no doubt these issues will escalate over time. As more and more content finds its way into the blogosphere, the lines between what works and what doesn't will be hard to define. Between all the open-source content available, as well as the never-ending cross-posting and linking of images, stories, video, etc., the lines are blurring as never before.

In any case, here's the opening salvo.

This was covered in the open thread comments, but in the interest of throwing a bit more light on the subject, let's take a closer look.

Rep. Joe Boylan has been charged with driving while intoxicated. Highway Patrol troopers charged the Pinehurst Republican after he swerved off the side of the road, hitting a tree, in Cameron on Thursday, the Southern Pines Pilot reports. He was treated for minor injuries at a nearby hospital.

Ryan Beckwith, master of ceremonies at Under the Dome, wants to hear from folks at BlueNC about your experiences here. I've invited him to use this thread to ask his questions, and to get your answers. His first question:

How would you describe BlueNC to a friend?

Despite our occasional sparring with folks in the mainstream media, I feel like we have pretty good relationships with many of the high-profile bloggers. BlueNC folks cross-post and comment frequently, which I believe strengthens the fabric of the statewide online community in ways both great and small. Knowledge sharing is widespread, the level of antagonism seems mostly manageable, and the snark is always fun.

Last week Under the Dome, the News and Observer's Ryan Beckwith reflected all that is good about our symbiotic relationships when he wrote a post called The BlueNC Primary. I've thought a lot about his post over the past few days, and the more I considered it, the more I appreciated it. Sometimes it takes an outsider looking in to connect all the dots, see that patterns, and draw insights that we may not even recognize ourselves.

Now this doesn't necessarily mean that the McCrory family is challenged on the 'being up front' front, but it still looks kind of cheesey

The Dome reports today that Fred "The Asphalt King" is burning some money on advertising in Charlotte to create the impression that he's got all the momentum on his side.

That's really quite a remarkable claim. Because if you go to Fredly's website, you'll be hard pressed to find innovative solutions to anything. Mr. Smith has one vision for North Carolina and one vision only: more roads. More roads will heal the environment and clean our air. More roads will get us right with god. More roads will make it easier to round up illegal immigrants and bus them back to Mexico.

The lifecycle of a political operative is an interesting phenomenon. It often starts with fresh-eyed idealism, before it evolves into focused pragmatism, followed by dark cynicism, then doddering senility. Gary Pearce, infamous Democratic pundit and consummate insider, appears to be hard into stage three. Either that or he's in Richard Moore's pocket.