. . . a noontime bento box of tidbits, from and about The Baltimore Sun and local media.

* Bemoaning the loss of the colorful tradition of puking-drunk debauchery in the Preakness infield, now that you can’t bring your own booze to the event? Then you didn’t make it to the 13th paragraph of the Sun’s story today about the first BYOB-less Preakness. It says the price of a beer tomorrow will be: “$3.50 — except for a special from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., when the price drops to $1.” Party on!   

* Add to the roster of distinguished reporters leaving The Baltimore Sun education reporter Sara Neufeld.  She bid a bittersweet farewell in the Sun’s excellent InsideEd blog yesterday and explained that she volunteered to be laid off, to help a colleague with low seniority who was about to be “bumped.”

* UPDATE: Also yesterday, the newsroom bid farewell to another terrific and prolific reporter, Nick Madigan, one more victim of the “bumping process.”

Kudos to veteran Baltimore reporter Sue Kopen Katcef: A wrenching report on campus rape by University of Maryland journalism students, directed by Katcef, has won a 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.

The broadcast, “Out of the Shadows” — which aired on WMUC Radio — features the voices of victims describing their confusion, anger and anguish following assaults, most committed by friends and acquaintances.

The woman describing her father’s reaction to her rape will make your heart hurt. And guess how some men on campus answer when the interviewer asks: “who’s to blame?”
Read the rest of this entry »

Details only a beat reporter could get will leave readers as  angry and energized about Baltimore schools as their tender, touchy leader.

The Baltimore Sun’s recent  three-part series on Baltimore schools chief Andres Alonso  is full of great scenes from his early life (bored with his job at a Manhattan law firm, reading ”War and Peace” at his desk) and his life today as Baltimore schools CEO (he’s sitting in a school meeting and a rat scampers by.)

    The rat’s not a cheap shot, either. Writer Sara Neufeld earns it with nuanced descriptions of the Herculean task before Alonso… and anybody who cares about the city .   

   Only a beat reporter who did what Neufeld did — cover endless schoolboard meetings, develop sources over years, conduct hundreds of interviews — could have presented such an authoritative urgent set of stories.

The schools are cash-poor, the City College pool is mold-plagued, the team’s season is a wreck & your image needs rehab. Michael, what about it?
By Fern Shen

Another school year and more woes for the Baltimore City public school swimming pools, as the Sun reports today. City College has been particularly hard hit, causing plenty of heartache for the swim team members, many of whom have quit out of frustration.
Mold, problems with the drains. Poly’s pools are out right now too. Today’s meet was canceled. Suggestion to Dr. Alonso and his facilities team: Start working on the pools NOW, so they might be ready for NEXT YEAR’S swim season. And maybe put in a call to Phelps’ publicist? But don’t call this guy. Try to figure out who on Phelps’ team is going to survive the shake-out after the hemp-rich smoke from this p.r. fiasco blows away.
related story: Cringing over Cake & Ice Cream A Baltimore Public School Parent Unloads to his Private School Neighbors