Good Points?

For those who think we're crazy to launch in Belo's backyard, I give you an excerpt from Adam McGill's analysis of last night's symposium discussing whether or not Dallas is a good place to be smart. (We didn't attend, as we figured we weren't in the target demographic):

A woman took the paper to task for too much "Britney Spears," as she summarized it. Why was there no mention of the semifinalists for some poetry prize (I couldn't really hear the question). She said she called a bunch of people at the paper and the PR firm handling the prize and heard the excuse that the DMN was dumbing down its coverage.

JW [Jerome Weeks] answers: "dumbing down" is not to blame. There have been layoffs, he reminded everyone. "So I was doing seven jobs instead of my usual six. And I had pneumonia. It was a bad time."

"And you'll make up for it," the woman said, in a way that was sort of a question but not really.

JW was just getting warmed up. Later, a gentleman asked if there was even a DMN reporter covering the discussion event. "There's only so much a newspaper can do," JW explained. "Particularly in a market as spread out and diffuse as Dallas."

Jerome later pointed out that when the paper cut his books section in half two years ago "not one of you wrote a letter."

On a related note, several folks have asked me what I thought of the new "Points" section. Let's just say that so far, I'm absolutely thrilled with it.