“Change is coming.”

John McCain spoke this line in his acceptance speech last night. He’s right, whether he or Barack Obama prevail in the presidential election November 4. Historic change is inevitable: when the new president is inaugerated in January, someone who is not a white man will occupy one of the top four offices in the nation. Either Obama will be the first African American president, or Sarah Palin will become the first woman to be vice president..

The past two weeks have been extraordinary demonstrations of how the Democratic and Republican parties wanted to portray themselves. No surprise: both want to be the engines of “change.” Obama’s soaring acceptance speech before 84,000 people in a football stadium called for the “change we need.” McCain’s statesmanlike address challenged Americans to “stand up for each other.” The two speeches were contrasts in tone and delivery. But they each reached beyond the rooms they were in: to the millions of people in living rooms, dorms and bars. This was the one chance for most of us to see the men who would be president close up and hear the full arc of their stories.

Only the relative few who have been brutalized as a prisoner of war, or born as a mixed race child to a teenage mother would be able to comprehend the circumstances that sharply define McCain and Obama.

The personal stories of vice presidential nominees Sarah Palin (who stole the GOP show this week) and Joe Biden are similarly compelling. We will hear more about them in the next eight weeks but, as always, they will be secondary to the main figures in the ring.

The polls say Americans are hungry for change. If true, the winning candidates will be those who best tell us how they will work with Congress, the government bureaucracy and the people to make change happen. And also tell us what the change will mean.

The only thing we know for sure is that an historic change is coming.

If Charles Dickens were writing about Indiana newspapers this week, he might conclude that this is the best of times and the worst of times.

First, the good news: Rockville’s Parke County Sentinel put out a special edition observing its 175th anniversary. Called the Wabash Herald when first published in 1833, it’s gone through several name changes and owners. Current owners Dick and Mary Harney give the paper stability: they’ve been at the helm since 1970. Back then, the Sentinel printed with melted lead and slugs. It moved to computers long ago.

I haven’t seen the Parke County Sentinel’s balance sheet, but this small weekly paper may be an example of one of print journalism’s strongest segments. The most vital dailies and weeklies are often in small towns far afield from daily TV and large newspaper circulation. Their success illustrates that people like to read about people they know and about the issues that affect them.

Now, some bad news: the Noblesville Daily Times will put its last issue on the street tomorrow. This newspaper is only five years old and was started by Ted Rowland, a longtime printer and local activist. He believed that the longstanding Noblesville Daily Ledger was inadequately covering local news, so he bought the rights to the Noblesville Times name. It had been a weekly long ago. Then, Rowland sold the startup to Schurz Corporation, owner of the South Bend Tribune and Bloomington Herald-Times.

The Noblesville Daily Times’ fatal flaw was that it fought, and lost, the fight for ad revenue against the nation’s largest newspaper company, the Gannett Corporation, owners of the Indianapolis Star and its regionalized editions that include the Noblesville Ledger. (The “daily” was removed from the Ledger’s masthead to reflect its new status as a three-days a week paper.)

When it went belly-up, the Daily Times circulation was about 6,500 and had about 25 employees. The Rockville Sentinel has a subscriber list of 4,400 people. The Sentinel’s readers probably place a high value on their local read. The Sentinel’s five employees and the paper’s free-lancers can keep on covering local news.

Josh Wolf is a fledgling reporter at a start-up newspaper. But he’s already an important figure in journalism law. He served nearly a year in jail because he claimed the protections of a journalist when others said he was a bystander at best and an instigator at worst. Wolf’s dilemma is at the heart of an argument that hasn’t been decided: who is a reporter in the rapidly evolving media organism that is trying to digest the Internet?

The San Francisco Chronicle has been following Wolf’s story for over two years. Today’s issue provides an update. Read the Chronicle story. What do you think?

Headline: VIDEO BLOGGER WOLF NOW A REAL JOURNALIST
by Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
(08-19) 18:27 PDT -- After Josh Wolf took a job as a general assignment reporter at the Palo Alto Daily Post last month, he had some choice words for critics who've questioned his claim of being a journalist.

"If the haters who said I wasn't a real journalist, are still lurking," Wolf wrote on his blog, "I hope you don't have too much indigestion after eating your words.' "

Wolf, 26, is the San Francisco video blogger who in 2006 began a 226-day stint in federal prison for contempt after refusing to testify before a grand jury and hand over a videotape of a protest against a G-8 summit he filmed in the Mission District in which a police officer was injured.

At the time, Wolf was harshly criticized by some mainstream journalists who suspected that the self-described "anarchist and activist" was a participant rather than an impartial news gatherer. In a court filing, U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan dismissed Wolf as someone who needed "to come to grips with the fact that he was simply a person with a video camera who happened to record some public events."

The case helped fuel the debate over the definition of what constitutes journalism - in an age of blog posts and video uploads by noncredentialed amateurs - and who is entitled to press protections, specifically journalists' ability to maintain the confidentiality of an unnamed source or unpublished material. For now, Wolf said the debate concerning his professional status can be put to rest.

"I felt like it was an irrelevant argument before," Wolf said. "But it feels like it's much harder for them to make their point now that it's how I earn my paycheck."

From blog to print

The shift from only a blogger to a just-the-facts reporter at a 16,500-circulation newspaper may seem counterintuitive at a time when newspapers and their staffs are shrinking. Yet Wolf enjoys the lot of a small-town cub reporter at a traditional local newspaper, which doesn't even maintain a Web site. At the Palo Alto Daily Post, he files 10 to 15 stories a week written in standard newspaper style, devoid of personal analysis, and most of his stories are only a few hundred words long and fail to include what Wolf calls the "significant nuances" of his reporting."I could write 10,000 words on some stories," Wolf said. "But I think it's understood you're trying to get the facts of the story a reader can easily understand, and no story is free of minute details that are also important."

For the Aug. 7 edition of the Post, Wolf penned items for the police blotter ("First block of Embarcadero: Six windows were reported broken at 10:59 a.m."), wrote a lead-up to the county fair (Headline: "Cattle Drive Means it's County Fair Time") and a short item on a homeless woman who was charged with writing threats to a police officer. (Wolf had to use dashes in the family newspaper to convey the offensive word she used.)

Dave Price, the publisher and editor of the Post, said he first met Wolf after trying to dispatch a reporter for a prison interview with him in 2006. After Wolf's release in April 2006, Price said he wanted to meet "the legend among journalists" and, after a short trial period during which Wolf wrote a few stories, offered him a staff job.

Price said Wolf has displayed an ability to work as a traditional reporter, seeking out multiple sources and not allowing personal views to seep into his copy.

"That's how you have to operate in this business," Price said, who launched the paper in May to compete with Palo Alto Daily News, owned by the Denver chain MediaNews Group. "And he's shown he can do that."

Wolf got his first taste of reporting when he worked on his school paper at Serrano High School in Southern California. He wrote news briefs for the weekly Santa Barbara Independent during college and worked at Peralta Community College as a video producer before he collected his infamous video footage.

Activist or reporter

Christine Tatum, former president of the Society of Professional Journalists, who led many of the discussions in 2006 about whether Wolf should receive the national group's support and financial backing, said debates centered on Wolf's description of himself on his blog as an anarchist and activist, not a reporter.

"We didn't see 'journalist' in that (description), and that made us wonder, 'Were we getting behind a guy who was not there to gather news but who was involved (in the protests)?' " Tatum said. "I can't speak for Josh, but there was this thinking going around at the time, 'Oh, man, down with the mainstream media.' Yet, it was the mainstream media who was right there to help Josh out."

Tatum said her group ultimately supported Wolf, making its largest donation ever of $31,000 to support his legal defense, after agreeing that his actions - gathering information for the intent to distribute it - constituted an act of journalism. "There are very few easy poster children for good causes of journalism," Tatum said, noting that every high-profile case, such as those involving Judith Miller and BALCO, has its areas of gray. "It's less important for people to debate who is a journalist and more important for people to consider: Is it journalism?"

Forging a new rep

Even though the debate played out in newspaper columns and blogs and continues at length on Wolf's Wikipedia discussion page where users haggle over his reputation - "If his only journalistic quality is that he runs around with a camera and films stuff, then a whole lot of teenagers can be considered journalists," wrote one anonymous user - the question of professional status was irrelevant in federal court, said David Greene of Oakland's First Amendment Project, one of Wolf's attorneys.

Because shield laws that protect journalists from being forced to submit to subpoena power and turn over sources do not exist at the federal level, Wolf's official job title was of little consequence.

To gain his release, Wolf and his attorneys eventually struck a deal in which he aired the entire videotape on his Web site but avoided testifying before a grand jury about his material. (He also had to declare he did not know who was involved in injuring the police officer.)

Since his release, Wolf has worked as a video producer and a volunteer reporter at the Berkeley radio station KPFA. He also unsuccessfully ran for mayor of San Francisco in 2007, though he said that was "to make a statement" against the status quo and Mayor Gavin Newsom.

He's also working on a side project, a live video news site called Local Live, where users will be alerted to updates via Twitter, a social networking site that limits exchanges to short posts, text messages or e-mail alerts. Wolf envisions Local Live cameramen will receive texts from viewers, who will then be able to relay the queries at a press conference or a breaking news event.

But for now, though still blogging, Wolf is honing his chops in a medium that began in 1605.

"The fact is that all journalism is based on solid writing," Wolf said. "And there is no better place to practice the fundamentals of journalism than at a local daily newspaper."

E-mail Justin Berton at jberton@sfchronicle.com.
 San Francisco Chronicle

Going into its final weekend, attendance at the Indiana State Fair is up 25 percent over last year and will likely set a record. Great weather is a good reason, but so is the appearance of the grounds and variety of activities at the fair.

My family walked through it last Sunday. There were 99,000 other people there but they didn’t all try to crowd into the same roast corn-on-the-cob line at the same time.

Tall stalks of real corn are planted in some of the median areas, as are stands of sunflowers that force you to crane you neck upwards to look them in their sunny faces. These real crops are a nice touch.

The kids who raise hogs, cows, sheep and horses work hard and do a great job. Most of their charges follow directions better than our dogs.

There is a lot of machinery at the fair: ranging from combines and tractors (both modern and antique) and the colorful rides rising over the midway. Hopefully, they are all modern and fully tuned.

In the early 90s, the State Fair instituted a parking fee for non-fair events that use the fairgrounds all year around. The Fair administration promised that all the money would go to upgrade the fairgrounds. The Fair has remained true to its word. The fairgrounds once looked rundown. It badly needed repairs. Now, the grounds are clean and the buildings brightly painted.

And one of the vendor’s deep fried bananas foster on a stick even made Good Morning America this week, joining the breaded tenderloin as a unique Hoosier offering to our nation’s palate. That seems to merit a round of applause, and no nagging about fatty foods, please. The State Fair proves once again that there is more than tofu in Indiana.

The members of the U.S. cycling team wore masks when they arrived in the Beijing airport for the Olympics. It may have been a breach of etiquette, and they apologized later. But the incident highlights the fact that China is not getting the PR bounce it might want from hosting the Games.

By now, almost everyone knows that Beijing’s air is thick enough to stir, despite the closings of uncounted factories for the past several weeks. The defending champion in the Olympic marathon, a Kenyan, announced months ago that he would not defend his title. He suffers from asthma (making his previous win seem even more remarkable) and feared the Beijing air would be permanently damaging to him.

Stories leading up to the Olympics aren’t helping China put on its best face to the world: a Japanese reporter beaten by security forces while covering a demonstration and portions of the Internet blocked for visiting press reveal a regime that wishes to remain opaque to outside criticism even as China opens in unprecedented fashion. China’s repression of Tibet and treatment of dissidents among its own citizens are well documented and cast long shadows.

However, as a sporting event and an introduction to the best of China, the Olympics offer hope of some light amidst the gloom: the opening ceremonies will be spectacular, the public’s attention will shift to the athletes, and TV may show us the venues specially built for the Games and some of China’s ancient beauty.

Now that business travel to China is routine for some and interchanges in sports and arts have become more common, it is natural for the Olympics to pull our attention to China for a few weeks. (And the International Olympic Committee, as a private concern, can hold the Olympics anywhere it wishes.)

China’s atmosphere, both meteorological and governmental, will be on display.

The title is not a political statement.

Did you get a free coffee card? Folded in the pile of advertisements in last Sunday’s Indianapolis Star was a glossy sheet with a credit card attached. Except it’s not a credit card, it’s a card for free coffee, every day, at Starbucks through July 14.

We know now that the next day Starbucks announced it would shut 600 stores in the next few months, throwing 12,000 baristas out of work. This retrenchment is accompanied by what appears to be a major effort to create more customers by hooking them on free coffee for a while.

I’ve used my card. The folks behind the counter punch in a number, but they do not take a number off the card (there isn’t one) or scan it (no electronic tape). So I don’t know how Starbucks will track where I get my free coffee.

Today in the Capitol Avenue Starbucks south of 16th Street, the man in line behind me used his free card. Walking back to my car, I cut through the drive through line and a young woman was holding her freebie, ready to order a Joe to go.

One other thing: a few blocks away from Starbucks I noticed a sign in the White Castle lot with a picture of either donuts or bagels. They were round and were not tires.

Can America be headed in the wrong direction if you can now buy donuts with your sliders?

U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker was correct when she tossed out Indiana’s law that would have required sellers of sexually explicit materials to register with the state.

The problem, Judge Barker found, was that the law was “too broad.” It covered (pardon the term when discussing sexually explicit material) nearly everything. No wonder the law was challenged in court by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, local bookstores and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

The law would have gone into effect yesterday (July 1). If a seller of, say, Cosmopolitan magazine, forgot to register and local authorities deemed the content objectionable, the fines and publicity would have been embarrassing. The local chain drugstore could have been lumped with a smut peddler selling books from under his trench coat.

Judge Barker’s ruling was a clear victory for the First Amendment and a call for clarity.

A review on NPR today of a new movie somehow relates: Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said that the film Hancock starring Will Smith is full of profanity. He was baffled that a movie containing language that “would make a stevedore blush” qualified for a PG-13 rating, allowing anyone over that age to attend.

I haven’t seen the movie, but that’s a fair question. It is very difficult to find movies that the entire family can enjoy without being grossed out by violence, sex or language. And I’m no prude. But we’ve sat in plenty of films in which small children have been hauled in to feast on images of slam-bang action, gratuitous sex or profane dialogue. (Come to think of it, is anyone old enough for that?)

Drawing the line between a relatively permissive PG-13 and the R rating (a death knell in many suburban and small communities) is a subjective decision.

The story of a flawed super-hero, the substance of Hancock, sounds interesting, but Turan does't think the filmmakers successfully told it.

There’s a gray area that the ratings can’t cover, and that is the nature of the story. The wonderful new Pixar movie, Wall-E, is a good example. It’s a terrific movie. It doesn’t preach. Instead, it allows the story of a little trash compactor to gently warn us of what could happen if our throwaway society remains unchecked. The consequences are obvious from the first frame of the film, and they are not pleasant.

The movie is animated and most of the adults in the screening we attended brought their children. The kids were not harmed by this movie, but I’m not sure I would be capable of explaining to a four-year old what the movie meant.

A standard piece of PR advice is crumbling. For many years, advisors to public figures and executives might counsel to ignore rumors and even legitimate bad news. It’s human nature. The thinking was that an untruth would die from lack of verification and soon no one would believe it. Or that bad news would run its course and people would forget.

If a rumor or charge happened to be true, then some advisors offered this wisdom: question the motives of the accuser or the person who started the rumor. THEY were the problem!

That advice is dust in the changing winds of modern communications. A public figure that ignores rumors or bad news in the age of the Internet and round-the-clock news cycles does so at substantial risk to his or her reputation and effectiveness.

Public figures have realized this for years. They get so much attention that they can’t sit back and wait for rumors to die a natural death. That’s why President Bill Clinton denied he had sex with that woman.

Well before the Internet, but at the dawn of television, Richard Nixon saved his candidacy for vice president in 1952 by appearing on TV. Nixon was then just 40 years old and had been a member of Congress for only six years. Shortly after Dwight D. Eisenhower selected Nixon as his vice presidential running mate, the New York Post ran a sensational headline: "Secret Rich Men’s Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary." The paper ran a story to back it up. Eisenhower was pressured to drop Nixon from the ticket, and do it fast.

But Nixon went on national TV, with his wife sitting silently by his side, to deny all wrongdoing and attack his opponents. The speech is one of the most famous in political history and is recalled as Nixon’s “Checkers speech.” Checkers was a dog given to Nixon’s young daughters, and Nixon vowed, “I want to say right now that regardless of what they say, we’re going to keep it.”

Eisenhower and Nixon were elected in a landslide, and many politicians have used Nixon’s speech as a model.

But back to the present day: Barack Obama is denying rumors 21st Century style. In the right hand column of his campaign website is a box entitled “Know the Facts.” Click, and you will find a list of popular rumors about Obama that turn out to be untruths.

Our clients are not as well known as Barack Obama. But they do wield influence in the state, metropolitan area and in the business and social communities. A bad rumor left unsquashed or an investigation ignored until too late could kill their business or render them ineffective in completing their mission.

Without divulging confidential information, it’s safe to say that we have helped several people do something that is very uncomfortable for anyone: deliver bad news about their place of employment. But in doing so, they have brought honor to themselves and strengthened their organizations.

Read the papers, listen to the news on radio and watch it on TV. Who does the best job of managing bad news and correcting untruths? (I'm not talking about Hollywood news, those people thrive on gossip and most don't care if it's true or not.)

Organizations stay strong because they follow Mom's advice: "Stand up straight, look people in the eye, and tell the truth."

The Presidential primaries are often good theater, and Indiana is getting a road show this year that it hasn’t had in four decades. It’s exciting that Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama want to spend so much time with us and leave so much of their money with our TV stations and hotels. I was in the newsroom at the Princeton Daily Clarion the day before Sen. Clinton spoke to thousands on the city’s courthouse square. “This doesn’t happen very often in a small town like Princeton,” the publisher told me. He was right. The last presidential candidate to speak on that square was John Kennedy in 1960.

Obama and Clinton have honed their stump speeches. They tell us about their backgrounds and their values. They talk about their ideas and ask for support. That’s good, and might even encourage some people to be involved in some type of community service. And that may be a great lasting effect of this presidential road show when it packs up and leaves the state.

Candidates can argue all they want about the fairness or unfairness of their opponent’s campaign commercials. Who wants to be criticized in front of thousands of TV viewers, regardless of the accuracy of the attack?

How tough is it to run for governor when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are crisscrossing the state and flooding the airwaves? Ask Jill Long Thompson and Jim Schellinger. Ordinarily, reporters would be all over this race. Not this year. Obama and Clinton are playing the main tent while Long Thompson and Schellinger work the sideshow.

So it’s important that every commercial gets their story right. Back to the fairness argument: Today’s Indianapolis Star rehashes the “he said, she said” nature of their ads. Is it fair to criticize Schellinger’s architectural firm for designing school buildings paid for with public funds? Probably not. Is it OK to select a few Long Thompson votes in Congress that appear to cast her as opposing Medicaid? Again, probably not.

But Schellinger may be doing Long Thompson a big favor in at least one of his ads. His voice over narrator uses Long Thompson’s name three times and Schellinger’s just twice. There is no doubt the commercial is a slap at Long Thompson and mildly laudatory of Schellinger. But in a race where the low name ID of candidates is a factor, why would Schellinger’s campaign want to mention the opponent’s name more that that of their own candidate? TV watchers don’t always pay close attention to the substance of a commercial.