Shares of McClatchy, owner of the News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer, jumped more than 25 percent today after the Sacramento, Calif.-based newspaper chain reported fourth quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations.

The company reported net income of $42 million, or 49 cents per share, compared to income of $15.7 million, or 18 cents per share, during the fourth quarter of 2010.

That beat the consensus of 40 cents per share among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Revenues in the fourth quarter were $351.4 million, down 5 percent from the same period in 2010. Advertising revenues were down 5.7 percent and circulation revenues were down 3 percent.
 

We will name our Tar Heel of the Year on the front page of Sunday's paper. The profile was written by education reporter Jane Stancill,  who has worked at The News & Observer since 1988. She has reported and written almost every kind of story that appears in a newspaper, from police news to developments from the UNC Board of Governors. But this is her first Tar Heel of the Year profile.

It’s a good assignment, Stancill said. “Anyone chosen (as Tar Heel of the Year) is an overachiever, someone doing something remarkable,” she said. “You have to figure out what drives that individual, what makes that person want to have a strong impact.”
The N&O has selected a Tar Heel of the Week since 1950 and a Tar Heel of the Year since 1997. One year we named two people (Ann and Jim Goodnight), so we've named 15, including banker Hugh McColl (our first Tar Heel of the Year); historian John Hope Franklin; and scientist Joe DeSimone.

I hope you will look for Stancill's fine profile about one of our state's most accomplished leaders.

--John Drescher

Documents:

Pardon the commerical interruption....

You still have time to sign up for my coupon class, which is Saturday, Aug. 27. There are just a few spots left.

I'll be covering basic and advanced coupon techniques in a half-day session at our downtown Raleigh offices. No worries about the parking. We'll have spots for you in our employee parking deck.

This Sunday's News & Observer will contain two coupon inserts worth approximately $96 in savings.

That's before you factor in double coupons, of course.

I'll have all the coupons entered into our handy coupon database early Sunday morning, about the same time your paper hits the driveway.

You can view it online or download it, print it out and take it with you to the grocery store.

I'll also have all the Sunday deals posted bright and early so you can make an early morning dash to the drugstores, Kroger or Target, if you're so inclined.

A couple months back, I ran into a UNC employee who asked me if I had been sick the previous week.

I had, and I asked him what made him suspect as much.

Well," he said, "There wasn't as much stuff on the blog last week as there usually is."

This was encouraging news, since it meant that Campus Notes was gaining some sort of foothold. It was flattering that at least one person followed it regularly enough to notice an occasional gap in service.

I've tried to use this blog to bolster my higher education reporting for the News & Observer in print and online. The blog and its twitter feed, @campus_notes, have helped me reach new audiences. They've also taught me what's popular on the web. For example, people seem to like videos of silly college kids engaging in what I like to call "planned spontaneity" in the campus library.

And blog posts about controversial Muslim leaders headed to town are popular too. And of course, the Granddaddy of all Twitter Trash Talk, UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp's Krzyzewskiville blast. That was an amusing day.

I'm really going to miss it all.

It's bittersweet for me to report that I'm leaving the News & Observer, my third newspaper in a 15-year journalism career, for a new job with the news office at Duke University.

My last day is Friday.

These are tough times for newspapers, which struggle to make money. (You're probably reading this on your computer. For free.) But the News & Observer is committed to its coverage of higher education here in the Triangle, one of the nation's most complex and dynamic higher education markets.

And the blog will remain as well, with contributions from a number of reporters and editors.

I've spent most of the last dozen years writing about universities here in the Triangle. I've learned a lot and I hope my reporting has been useful. I'm leaving this beat just as it's getting interesting, with sweeping changes to public universities beckoning on the horizon.

I'll follow all the twists and turns in the newspaper. I hope you will too.

Thanks for reading.

If you're not sure what sort of silly hat your kid was wearing Sunday at UNC-Chapel Hill's commencement, we've got you covered.

Navigate your way over to this super-fantastic, interactive panoramic photo of the graduation ceremony, zoom in and find your child in all his or her silly glory.

Have fun.

The News & Observer is among seven McClatchy newspapers that have partnered with online news aggregation website Ongo.com. The newspaper's stories will be available through Ongo, along with those from major news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and USA Today.

The website offers users stories from the above publications for a $6.99 monthly rate. Users can then customize their news by opting to add additional news outlets, including The News & Observer, for a monthly fee of 99 cents to $14.99, depending on the source. The News & Observer's content will cost users 99 cents per month.

Company organizers say that they believe consumers will be willing to pay for the stories because Ongo organizes them in an easy-to-use and navigate format. Text is arranged in columns, as it would be in a newspaper. There are no advertisements on Ongo.com. And, unlike many news aggregators, reading stories on Ongo.com will not require users to click on a headline and visit another site to actually read the story.

Along with The News & Observer, stories from the McClatchy newspapers in Anchorage, Sacramento, Fort Worth, Kansas City, Charlotte and Miami, are also available on Ongo.com.

The News & Observer and several other media outlets are suing UNC-Chapel Hill over documents related to the ongoing football investigation.

The lawsuit is seeking documentation the newspaper has requested but not yet received related to alleged academic misconduct by members of the football team as well as ties between former assistant football coach John Blake and sports agents.

The Charlotte Observer, the Daily Tar Heel and several local television stations have joined the N&O in the lawsuit. It seeks documents the university has not yet released, citing privacy laws.

Lee Fowler shouldn't have been fired.

That's the stance of the News & Observer's lead editorial today, which argues in part that Fowler did plenty of good things in his time as N.C. State's athletic director.

(Fowler was let go earlier this week)

It reads in part: "The university doesn't cover itself in glory when it dismisses someone like Lee Fowler, who worked hard to unite all the members of the university community and alums, who had the respect of the faculty, who did by all accounts (even those of his critics) a terrific job in overseeing some facilities upgrades that have given NCSU a showplace for football, and in partnership with the Carolina Hurricanes (and taxpayers) also a palace for basketball."