Breaking News, Good Art Carry Thursday Section

Wednesday brought a good breaking news story and -- after a lot of hair-pulling -- a breakthrough on getting a photo to carry the Thursday page. And there was one more major development. More on that later.

The breaking story came from reporter Bob Norberg, who has been carefully following developments in a major telecom merger in our area, Tellabs purchase of Advanced Fibre Communications of Petaluma. He discovered in a Tellabs Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the company is reviewing terms of its buyout offer. This is a good story for us, reflecting the still-fragile telecom industry in which Sonoma County is a major player.

As for photo breakthrough, art is forever one of the greatest, if not the greatest, challenges facing a daily local business section. Business, quite frankly, isn't always that photogenic. This particular story about a food processing company taking over an historic and idle apple juice plant in the Sonoma County town was important to the city of Sebastopol. But because the story got out before any of the developers wanted it to, none would agree to a photo. Reporter Michael Coit went through a half-dozen attempts to arrange a photo, all unsuccessful.

But early in the afternoon, we realized the buyer of the building had an existing processing plant in Healdsburg a few miles north. Bingo! With a map, photo and breakout on the company, we had a strong centerpiece.

The page was filled out with a story and local insert on an anti-monopoly investigation into Dairy Farmers of America, which had an operation here where dairy farming remains a major industry. The last wire story of the day dealt with oil prices and Saudi Arabia agreeing to increase production.

But perhaps the biggest development of the day didn't deal with the daily paper. It dealt with our outsourcing and globalization project. We made significant progress on the scope and deadlines for the project and hope a new burst of energy will come as we head down the home stretch.

Tomorrow, on Thursday, we'll hear earnings from our largest telecom company, Agilent Technologies. And on Friday, the local unemployment report will be out on the heels of the poor national numbers last week. Add in weekend processing and editing Thursday and Friday, and a little time set aside to write a column, and we have a couple of big days ahead of us.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism