Frequent feedback

I get a lot of correspondence in this job. Some very kind and thoughtful, some less so. Most of it is focused on something we didn't get quite right, or on something somebody wants us to put in the paper.

The string of emails that follows illustrates the kind of feedback I get each day, and one typical response. The lesson here, I hope, is the folks at the newspaper are all very busy and we are trying our best to cover a community of more than 300,000 with less than 50 journalists. But if you come at it the right way, you can frequently get exactly what you want. . . Or as my mama always said: "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

Ben Holden
Executive Editor