Newsroom

Because of a telephone system upgrade Sunday, May 9, the newsroom might not be able to receive phone calls until 6 p.m. Readers with questions about circulation and other customer service issues can still call 888-539-1280 until noon.

I believe to this day that I accepted the job I was offered at the Evening Sun in 1981 because of the Bromo Seltzer clock. The route from the airport took us right past the downtown tower that (at the time) still defined the Charm City skyline, and I was immediately taken by it. It was retro. It was kitschy. And it seemed real. Just like Baltimore in 1981. Although I'd come to town for an interview at the morning paper, Bob Keller, then the editor of the afternoon paper, was clever enough to snatch me up at the airport.

Howard County police emailed a news release just now that inspired Sun grammar guru John McIntyre to tweet: “I worry about opening this message.” The subject line reads: "Attached is a copy of a Fatal Press Release in Howard County. " While we’re on the topic of news releases, I’ll pass along one that a colleague called the “most hilarious pitch ever.” It arrived the other day from Arizona-based Pitch Public Relations. “Along with any coverage you might be planning around the Anthony Weiner photos, I thought you might have interest in featuring this item,” it begins.

His great sin is that he never looked the part: The ruddy complexion and the insubordinate hair and that godawful mustache that should never have belonged to anyone with more solemnity and poise than an East Baltimore Street pimp, drunk and luckless, down to his last working girl. The wardrobe was disastrous. He made the rest of the slumming metro veterans look almost plausible. His laugh was a cackle, employed liberally against the farts and foibles of the important and famous.

Writing about the past four seasons of HBO's The Wire has been one of the great pleasures of this job. But reviewing the fifth and final season, which begins next Sunday on the premium cable channel, is more of a mixed blessing. It's not that the series has suddenly taken a drastic turn away from its epic and compelling exploration of life in a downsized Millennial America. Steeped in a dense and seething urban sociology, the Baltimore-based series is still one of the most daring dramas in the history of the medium.

LEVEL -- Is Chuck DeCaro crazy or is he a man of vision?This was the question on the minds of many of those who gathered at a small airport in Harford County yesterday morning for a demonstration of something that looks like an overgrown model airplane.Mr. DeCaro is counting on the pilotless drone to provide live aerial television news coverage of battles in the Middle East if the current crisis escalates into a shooting war.The drone is just part of the aerial information-gathering operation created by the 40-year-old former Cable News Network journalist with a longtime fancy for flying, who has mixed his two loves to form his own company, Aerobureau Corp.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - In the past three weeks, Tereza Engelova has left the newsroom of state-run Czech Television only twice. She has eaten in the conference room, slept on the editing suite floor and used a portable toilet in the audio suite. It is something more than dedication to a story. Engelova is one of about 40 journalists who went on strike Dec. 23 and seized the TV newsroom to protest the appointment of a new general manager, Jiri Hodac. They accused Hodac of representing the political interests of a former prime minister, Vaclav Klaus, and of compromising the station's independence.

The Sun said yesterday that it will offer voluntary buyouts to employees across the company with the goal of eliminating 75 positions, marking the newspaper's latest response to sluggish ad sales and an increasingly fragmented industry. Sun Publisher Denise E. Palmer announced the cost-cutting plans in a memo to the staff, saying it is part of an industrywide struggle to cope with rising costs and declining revenue as the Internet, cable television and other news sources continue to chip away at readership and revenue sources.

A disagreement between The Sun's managers and the leaders of its largest employee union has raised the specter of layoffs at Baltimore's oldest and largest newspaper, including involuntary staff cuts in the newsroom that would be the first in modern memory. Denise E. Palmer, publisher and chief executive officer of The Sun, announced Monday that the newspaper would reduce its staff through a voluntary buyout plan, calling it "part of our ongoing process of aligning our people resources with the areas we feel have the best potential for growing readership and revenue."

Baby Face was such a pest.Reporters in a Raleigh newsroom in 1984 took his clockwork calls, heard his baby voice, and fibbed about sending someone out to cover his "news" event. We made no such plans that year.No one took him seriously. He was tagged a community nut forever trolling for media attention. Who was this guy anyway? Who is this Christian? Who goes around making a big deal about being a Christian anyway? A newsroom was certainly no place for such talk!We religiously covered the mandatory cycle of North Carolina stories: Jesse Helms wins Senate seat again; tobacco farmers urge higher price supports; Dean Smith's Tar Heels advance to Final Four.

Sunni Khalid, managing news editor at WYPR-FM, has been dropped by the public radio station after more than nine years on the job there. His departure from WYPR was confirmed in an email by a newsroom staffer sent to colleagues at the station and elsewhere Monday. His last day was Friday. Khalid and WYPR management both declined comment Wednesday. Khalid, a former Baltimore Sun reporter, had been on probation in February for comments he posted on the Facebook page of a friend questioning the influence of Israel on American politics.

Robert L. Skillman III, a professional photographer who had been a part-time weekend assignment editor at WMAR-TV for a decade, died Tuesday of a heart attack at Northwest Hospital. The Northwood resident was 59. Mr. Skillman was attending the annual Ed Block Courage Awards ceremony at Martin's West when he collapsed from a heart attack. He was taken to Northwest Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, family members said. Mr. Skillman was born in Baltimore and raised in Northwood.

There was a fine coating of pollen on the car this morning, suggesting that the winter forced-air-dryness allergies are being supplanted by the spring filthy-tree-sex allergies.  Then, yesterday evening I tripped and fell heavily (I never grasped the technic of falling gracefully) at Penn Station in Baltimore, so that last night and today I have been nursing a painfully sprained and swollen ankle.  It's possible that my customarily sunny disposition may be somewhat clouded over.  So now I am at the paragraph factory to oversee the production of half a dozen sections by midnight or 1:00 a.m., making use of the long-neglected newsroom wheelchair, and giving a fresh sense to the term "hell on wheels.

The Baltimore Sun has an immediate opening on its audience engagement team for a community coordinator. This individual will be part of a group of five in the newsroom tasked with cultivating meaningful connections with users and helping enhance and highlight The Sun's digital offerings. We're looking for a creative and innovative digital journalist who's focused on growing and engaging our audience on all platforms. She or he is comfortable taking the lead in content creation or pitching in to expand on the work and ideas of others.

I apologize for my absence on the blog today, but I was in a six-hour newsroom training session learning how to shoot video on an iPhone. I would make some sort of comment about that being a waste of time, but all I did in my first hour back at my desk was look at videos online. That’s how I found a random video of Ravens coach John Harbaugh giving a pep talk about Baltimore being a great tourist destination. Enjoy.

Howard County police emailed a news release just now that inspired Sun grammar guru John McIntyre to tweet: “I worry about opening this message.” The subject line reads: "Attached is a copy of a Fatal Press Release in Howard County. " While we’re on the topic of news releases, I’ll pass along one that a colleague called the “most hilarious pitch ever.” It arrived the other day from Arizona-based Pitch Public Relations. “Along with any coverage you might be planning around the Anthony Weiner photos, I thought you might have interest in featuring this item,” it begins.

Robert L. Skillman III, a professional photographer who had been a part-time weekend assignment editor at WMAR-TV for a decade, died Tuesday of a heart attack at Northwest Hospital. The Northwood resident was 59. Mr. Skillman was attending the annual Ed Block Courage Awards ceremony at Martin's West when he collapsed from a heart attack. He was taken to Northwest Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, family members said. Mr. Skillman was born in Baltimore and raised in Northwood.

His great sin is that he never looked the part: The ruddy complexion and the insubordinate hair and that godawful mustache that should never have belonged to anyone with more solemnity and poise than an East Baltimore Street pimp, drunk and luckless, down to his last working girl. The wardrobe was disastrous. He made the rest of the slumming metro veterans look almost plausible. His laugh was a cackle, employed liberally against the farts and foibles of the important and famous.

Phil Evans, city editor of the old Evening Sun during the 1960s, died of cancer May 8 at his Silver Spring home. He was 77 and had lived in Roland Park. Born Philip Morgan Evans in New York City and raised on a Dorchester County farm, he graduated from the Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J. He studied for a semester at Yale University. He later drove a truck in Morocco in North Africa and served in the Army. He joined the Associated Press in Salisbury and worked in West Virginia before joining The Evening Sun as a reporter.