-- ProJo executive editor Joel Rawson is taking over the paper's investigative team, which has been overseen by Tom Heslin since the early '90s. While this sounds like a good thing for Rawson, it also represents something of a sop because of the growing power being wielded by executive VP and GM Mark Ryan.
-- Props to the ProJo for mentioning, in coverage of the Rhode Island Spelling Bee, how "Rhode Island came close to not having a spelling bee this year when the Providence Journal withdrew as sponsor." Then again, this took place on a Sunday, and the ProJo's pullout was mentioned, as the story indicated, in opening comments by Governor Carcieri, Valley Breeze publisher Tom Ward, and Channel 12 anchor Steve Aveson.
-- WRNI's Nancy Cook today began offering an important series, entitled Doing Life, on the Installment Plan. The Phoenix has reported on some of the related issues.
-- Poignant story yesterday by the NYT's Barry Bearak, about former Chicago Cubs prospect Adam Greenberg, whose life dramatically changed with his first Major League at-bat.
-- Still more props to the ProJo, for Amanda Milkovits's astute followup to her excellent recent takeout on the so-called High Point anti-crime initative in upper South Providence.
The seven had been accused of drug dealing but — instead of being charged — were offered a second chance in a novel initiative that the Providence police and the Urban League of Rhode Island turned to in an effort to clean up drug dealing in the Lockwood neighborhood in upper South Providence.
But in an obscenity-laced rant during a meeting last week, the young men told the police and Urban League officials that the second chance was just an empty promise sold to them by people more interested in publicity than helping them turn their lives around.
“I can honestly say I was doing better selling drugs,” said one 20-year-old man. “At least I was feeding people.”
As Milkovits reported, city officials appear to be taking these concerns seriously. It helps, of course, when the press offers this kind of appropriate scrutiny.