Fiona Morgan at the Independent reports that a number of newsroom staff have accepted the buyout offers that the McClatchy-owned News & Observer offered last month.

Among them is Samiha Khanna, who covers Durham County and its school system; Matt Dees, a former Durham city reporter who was recently transferred to the Orange County bureau; and Cheryl Johnston Sadgrove, who covers Orange County government. Until the newsroom is reorganized to adjust for these losses, that leaves one Orange County and four Durham reporters.

- Triangulator: N&O loses more reporters, 9/22/08

"I think if we got the right price, we'd be interested in talking with somebody," John Drescher, The N&O's executive editor, said in an interview.

Lots of interesting stuff in the Opinion section of today's Chapel Hill News. First is the editorial called Flap over benefits turns ugly.

The council made a serious error in judgment -- several of them, actually -- and in so thoroughly misreading the public's likely response it gave the appearance of being out of touch with its constituency.

But it didn't commit high crimes and misdemeanors. It didn't make off with the Town treasury, lead the town into war on false pretenses or kick puppies. [...]

Plus there is Laurin Easthom's guest column called Controversy stoked by those with other agendas. Its on her blog too.

Yesterday's Chapel Hill News is the last edition of that paper before tomorrow's election. Surveying the entire news section of the paper shows that the only mention of this is in the endorsement letters, the political advertisements, and two opinion columns on the presidential race. Apparently the journalists at the News just didn't think there was anything new to say about the local election. However, they did find time to interview folks in the street about the nonexistent hula-hoop "issue."

[I stand corrected! See comments. The border shown is the pre-1967 line. Edits below. -RS]

Thanks to the Chapel Hill News for publishing the Hidden Voices walking tour of downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro. In today's paper there was also a map, which they seem to have wisely chosen not to publish online, that showed the points of interest on the tour. It also showed a completely made up historic border between Chapel Hill and Carrboro, as if someone just took a ruler and made a nice straight line from North Greensboro & Pleasant to Cameron & Roberson!

Someone needs to let them know that all of Broad Street is in Carrboro, while all of Graham Street and the entire Pine Knolls neighborhood are in Chapel Hill. This is especially relevant in a discussion of the history of the area.

The Independent reports that veteran journalist Mark Schultz will be returning to Orange County:

The N&O has also lured away longtime H-S reporter and current metro editor Mark Schultz, who will be in charge of both the Orange County bureau of the newspaper and its community paper there, The Chapel Hill News.

This can only be good news for the local news. It indicates a serious commitment to our area by the N&O and a willingness to compete with the Herald for coverage and circulation. The competition should keep both papers engaged in Orange County, much to our benefit.

From a reader's perspective, Schultz did a great job when he previously edited the Chapel Hill Herald. He is a fitting replacement for Ted Vaden.

Welcome back, Mark.

The Chapel Hill News is replacing long-time editor and publisher Ted Vaden with Brenda Larson ("business development analyst for The News & Observer's community newspapers") who will also act as the publisher of the Cary News. The loss of Vaden is bad in itself, but replacing him with someone who is not from Chapel Hill and won't be focused on Chapel Hill sounds like a disaster to me. I hope I'm wrong!

Before joining The N&O, Larson was director of new product development for York Region Newspaper Group, a group of Canadian community newspapers north of Toronto. In addition, she served as editor-in-chief for seven newspapers in that group, which is owned by Metroland.