S.J. CAHN -- Editor’s Notebook

It’s been a tough summer at the Pilot.

As most readers probably realized -- and certainly our regular sources

know -- two of our reporters, Jennifer Kho and Mathis Winkler, moved on.

Jennifer is starting graduate school at UC Berkeley and Mathis went to

work for a paper in Las Vegas, where at last report he was melting in the

desert heat.

Then, we did ourselves the disservice of promoting our education

reporter, Danette Goulet, to assistant city editor of the Pilot’s Surf

City sister paper, the Huntington Beach Independent.

While we filled Jennifer’s Costa Mesa beat immediately with Lolita

Harper, the other changes left our newsroom a little thin for the past

month.

Changes like these aren’t unusual for the Pilot, and are built into

the system, essentially on purpose.

The Pilot, in the minds of its editors and publisher, has two main

functions: it serves our readers and it’s a training ground for young

reporters.

The first of these mandates has been summed up as a “four-pronged

approach” to covering our community:

* Community watchdog -- Our foremost mission, we strive to keep an eye

on your government and report anything they do that might be troubling.

* Community forum -- Largely played out on our community forum pages,

our news pages also are meant to become part of the discussion of local

issues, topics and trends.

* Community record -- This not only relates to reporting actions taken

by City Hall or police and fire officials, but also to newsworthy awards

or accomplishments people receive and even marriage and death notices.

* Community cheerleader -- When good things happen in our community --

as they often do in Newport-Mesa -- we believe it’s our job to let you

know about it.

The second of our mandates seemingly might affect readers less, but

striving to make the Pilot a training ground for young reporters is what

brings the paper the vitality we hope you notice every day. When we hire

new reporters, we look for people who are excited about the business, by

the thought of getting a scoop and by weaving a compelling story.

We expect that these reporters will grow, mature and improve in their

craft while at the Pilot. Reporters here get to do a little bit of

everything -- breaking news, investigations, features, columns -- so they

can stretch themselves, all while meeting our four-pronged mission for

our readers.

At some point, of course, we expect our reporters to grow out of the

Pilot. They should want to take on new challenges, tackle new beats and

see different parts of the country and world.

We’ve sent reporters to papers around the country, from the St.

Petersburg Times to the Detroit Free-Press. We trust that what they

learned here serves them well.

We also trust that while they’re here, they serve you well. And

starting today, we’ve got two new reporters we are sure will do just

that.

Deirdre Newman, who comes to us from a weekly paper outside of San

Francisco, started Tuesday as our education reporter. A graduate of

Cornell, she’s actually been a teacher -- been behind the firing lines,

so to speak -- so she knows what she’ll be reporting.

June Casagrande, who starts today as our Newport Beach reporter, has

worked with several of the Pilot’s staffers before, has been a city

editor as well as a reporter and is getting finished with a stint at a

business news wire.

We expect great things from them here, and wherever they go to next.

* S.J. CAHN is the senior city editor. He can be reached by phone at

(949) 574-4233 or by e-mail at o7 [email protected] . Editor

Tony Dodero has the day off. His column will return next week.