That said, there is an enormously powerful exhibit at the Newseum dedicated to 9/11, anchored by the twisted remains of the iconic broadcast spire that sat atop the north tower at the World Trade Center. A couple images below give you a sense, but simply cannot convey the raw emotional impact of standing inches away. It gives new dimension to the enormity of what took place.

Also part of the 9/11 exhibit is an unbelievable collection of photos shot by Bill Biggart, the freelance photographer who lived near the World Trade Center and arrived on the scene shortly after the attack began. He died when the second tower collapsed. His belongings (on display at the Newseum) were recovered a few days later -- including 300 undeveloped close-up frames of the horror that had unfolded over 90 minutes. His widow narrates a short video as part of the exhibit. You'll sit on the stone bench and watch it over and over, unable to break away.

These are smart, respected online journalists taking time in a busy day in a life-or-death-stage absurdly competitive business to debate a topic that has absolutely, positively, inarguably, zero, nada, zip, zilch, goose egg, nil, no-no-and-no-again impact on the bottom line. But here we are, pondering and ruminating over it as it meant a rat's ass to the consumer or to a business that has about a googol of other things (including Google) ahead of it in line to figure out.

This is a particular sore spot for Squared, who along with a key mangaer on the team have been sucked into wasting so much time over this topic within Mama T over the years that it is appalling. "We must change the AP Online headlines to sentence case because that is the newspaper's style! We cannot possibly let this continue!" And perversely, precisely as Mama T, against Squared's loud and long recommendation that not another nanosecond be wasted on this topic internally, was about to implement a technical "fix" -- AP went and fixed the problem at the source. Starting next week, AP heds will be sentence case.  

If TRB were still a public company, we're quite sure we'd see a stock price surge like never before.

C'mon colleagues on the ONA list. Let's find something a little more substantive to chaw on, shall we?

Looking forward to hearing from the purists about further proof of my status as a traitor to all that is holy.

Bring it on. (Or, if you prefer, Bring It On). 

2. (Via Romenesko) Put a fork in outrageous attempts by a quasi-government agency in Illinois to keep photographers out of high school championship games. “It’s over. They can’t control how we do business. End of story,” Illinois Press Association executive director Dave Bennett said in a statement. Full Springfield Journal Register story. Court Settlement PDF

NEW YORK - Newspaper readers agree with editors on the basics of what makes good journalism, but they are more apt to want looser rules for online conversations, a new study on news credibility has found.

Newspapers highly discourage anonymous remarks, for instance, and editors are more likely than readers to want that principle applied to reader comments online, according to the Online Journalism Credibility Study released Tuesday by the Associated Press Managing Editors group and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.

Some 70 percent of editors surveyed said requiring commenters to disclose their identities would support good journalism, while only 45 percent of the public did. Similarly, 58 percent of editors said letting journalists join online conversations and give personal views would harm journalism, but only 36 percent of the public agreed

• Journalists joining the conversation online and giving personal views:  (Readers score this on average 1.06 points higher than editors)
  
• Inviting users to participate without using their real identities: 1.03 gap
  
• Providing convenient links from news stories to related advertising: 0.65 gap
  
• Applying same standards to news produced by citizens as to news written by journalists: 0.29 gap
  
• Users enforcing standards on such matters as crude language and personal attacks: 0.2 gap
  

• Requiring users who participate to state their real identities: 1.13 gap
  
• Creating content intended to attract a diverse group of users: 1.07 gap
  
• Journalists actively seeking varied viewpoints from people to comment on the news: 0.8 gap
  
• Labeling news and opinion: 0.67 gap
  
• Giving the public ways to provide information for news stories: 0.65 gap
  

Executive Summary, here.
Full Report, here.
AP Story, here.