Annapolis showed why world news is important

December 2, 2007

Last week's Middle East summit meeting in Annapolis was major front-page news in The Sun, which offered significant coverage for much of the week. While serious gains from the daylong talks appeared unlikely even before they began, The Sun's coverage was, in my view, appropriate for two reasons. First, finding a path to peace in the Middle East is vitally important to the stability of not just that region, but the United States and the rest of the world. Secondly, it was a reminder for readers of the importance of world news.

Recent columns

• References to Cox's religion prompt questions of fairness

  July 9, 2006

  The Sun's coverage of Kristen Cox's selection as running mate to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. last week thrust the issue of religion and politics back into the spotlight. The relatively unknown Cox is head of Maryland's disabilities office (Cox is legally blind), a mother of two and a member of the Mormon Church - the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• Neighborhood 'abandoned' but not ignored

  July 2, 2006

  Last Sunday, The Sun devoted much of its front page and three full inside pages to a detailed examination of life in an East Baltimore neighborhood devastated by the social and economic ills that haunt areas of the city, despite encouraging evidence of regeneration along the Inner Harbor and other neighborhoods. On Monday, a second substantial Page 1 piece - with three additional pages inside - assessed efforts at recovery.

• Violence against children poses reporting challenge

  August 7, 2005

  NOTHING TROUBLES most readers as much as stories about violence against children.

• Text of Ehrlich complaints against The Sun

  April 21, 2005

  On Dec. 19, 2004, the publisher of The Sun and top editors met privately with Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and members of his staff. At that meeting, the governor's staff distributed a document with 23 items detailing complaints about news stories, editorials, headlines and columns published in The Sun between October 2001 and December 2004.

• Weighing the merits of Ehrlich complaints

  April 21, 2005

  The following column by Sun Public Editor Paul Moore is being published in an effort to provide readers with a timely report on a list of complaints about Sun coverage compiled by the press office of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s administration. The list was given to Sun executives at an off-the-record meeting in December. Mr. Moore, who reports directly to the publisher and works independently of The Sun's news and editorial page operations, has carefully investigated the complaints on the list. The Ehrlich administration is expected to release the list today, along with other materials related to the governor's dispute with The Sun that led to the banning of two Sun journalists.

• Meet the public editor

  May 9, 2004

  IN THE 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, a prison camp warden beats an inmate into submission and then observes, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." That line, rendered ironically, has become part of our popular culture and is a metaphor for the misunderstanding between readers and journalists about the role of a newspaper in our society.