Editor & Publisher, the national trade publication, is accepting submissions for its "Photos of the Year" contest for pictures published in newspapers or on Web sites.

Any CNHI newsroom that took exceptional pictures capturing the mosaic of community life -- happiness, sadness, relief, fear, death -- should consider entering the contest.

You can submit your potential prize-winning photos to:
www.editorandpublisher.nielsencontests.com.

The deadline for entries is Sept. 12.

There can be a murky line between fact and opinion in column writing, but an appeals court in Texas has ruled that use of the word “obscene gesture” to describe personal conduct is clearly opinion protected against legal challenge by the First Amendment.

The helpful finding came in the court’s dismissal on Thursday of a libel lawsuit filed nearly two years ago by a rival city’s football coach against the Palestine Herald-Press and sports columnist Scott Tyler. A district court had refused to throw out the coach’s complaint.

Most of our newspapers are not using the Web to its full potential and need to increase their presentation of video, audio and photography to expand audience potential, especially among younger news consumers.

With that goal in mind, CNHI's Editorial Department is launching a continuous conversion project to introduce electronic story-telling techniques into every CNHI newsroom over the next two years.

Plagiarism is one of journalism's cardinal sins, and responsible news organizations don't tolerate it.

Still, it appears to be a growing problem because newspapers are tending to rely more heavily on outside contributors to make up for reduced staff resources.

The concern is stringers and freelancers don't always know the ground rules for attribution of information from other sources. Some have never been exposed to journalism standards and ethics.

The government’s tendency to confuse the messenger with the maker of bad news was a significant factor in a recent Oklahoma fugitive story. The result, however, was a victory for the press.

Prosecutors in McAlester subpoenaed reporter James Beaty of The News-Capital to testify about his published reports on a convicted felon’s escape because, presumably, no one had more details about the crime.