Instead we got one of the driest Decembers on record and January was following suit . . . until we published a story Saturday about the prospects of a drought. Voila, it snowed the next day and now a major front is headed our way. Forecasters are saying new snow in the Cascades to the north of us may be measured in feet rather than inches.

To skiers and irrigators, you’re welcome. To those of you who were enjoying our warm winter, our apologies.

It’s hard to imagine what went through the minds of the firefighters who came upon the victims in the smoky house on West 10th Street or through their minds as they performed CPR in a desperate effort to save them. They probably didn’t have much time to think until it was over and the victims had been carried off to local hospitals.

If anyone beyond the emergency responders had any sense of the grim reality of what was unfolding on that front yard, it was members of the media, particularly those whose job it was to chronicle the news through images. Ryan Pfeil’s column candidly tells the shock he felt as the bodies came out, the anger he felt when he heard they were murdered and the stunned feeling he had later as he tried to assimilate what he had witnessed.

There are no more powerful images from that 10th Street front yard than the photos shot by Mail Tribune Photo Editor Bob Pennell. Pennell had driven to the scene when word came over the scanner of a house fire. He was talking with a police officer as they watched trails of smoke drift from the house and both he and the officer were probably thinking it wasn’t going to amount to much. Then a firefighter came out the door with a limp child in his arms and chaos broke out. Standing across the street with a telephoto lens, Pennell had a shockingly close view of the brutal mayhem.

Pennell’s photos are stunning, tragic, heroic, horrific. The pandemonium of the scene is captured in many of those shots, showing dozens of firefighters and police officers giving CPR to six people on the small front lawn. Plain-clothed officers wearing short-sleeved shirts and khaki pants are down on their knees trying to breathe life into the children and their parents.

It is hard to look at some of the images and we’ve received a few complaints from readers – of print and online content — who were unhappy that we chose to run them.

Believe me, there were some tough choices made. We ultimately decided that we would run photos that showed the responders working on the children but only if the children’s faces were covered, or at least not plainly visible, and most of their bodies were not visible. Some who objected chose to focus on photos that showed the top of a child’s head or a portion of a face, but we really tried to put the focus on the rescue workers — and I think the compassion and desperate energy they put into their work came through vividly in many of the shots.

There are many more photos that we chose not to publish — photos of the children being carried from the house, photos of rescue workers performing CPR on children whose faces were clearly visible, pictures of the children with their arms and legs spread out on the grass as people struggled to save them.

One photo in Tuesday’s paper — an image of a plain-clothed police officer giving a child CPR — was debated at length. Originally, a slightly different version was scheduled to run on Page 1A. But as we looked at it, we decided to back off to a different frame that showed less of the child and that was not as tightly focused on the officer and child. We also decided to run it on Page 3A instead of Page 1A.

I agonized over that decision, because there was so much power, hope and compassion in that photo. We ran it, but we ran it inside rather on the front page. We sent out some of the photos we didn’t run, at the request of The Associated Press for distribution to other papers. For all we know, they may have run those photos on their front pages. But the shots seemed too close to home and too much for a community still trying to come to grips with the raw emotions of the tragedy.

Did we make the right decision on the photos? Based on the comments we’ve heard — and haven’t heard — I’d say we probably were at least close. I know there are readers who disagree and believe we should not have run anything showing a child being worked on. There probably are others who think we should have shown more.

I spoke with a fellow editor, who offered a bit of wisdom that stuck with me: “It’s an awful situation. There are no right or wrong answers, only the answer you come up with.”

Just about the time I start thinking that being an opinion editor would be swell, I get to be one. This week, our opinion editor, Gary Nelson, is on vacation and the second team — that would be me — is on the field.

That means I’m reviewing letters to the editor to make sure they meet our guidelines (length, last one written, libel issues, fact errors, etc.). Then editing the ones that do for spelling and grammar — and sometimes, searching for a point. Then discussing with phone callers why their 1,800-word letter was returned. Then tracking down syndicated columns that are found variously on the wires, in emails and on the Web.

And then, ah, the intellectual moment arrives to take on the editorial. Wait, what? It’s 3:15 p.m.? Intellectual moment gone, time to step on the gas pedal. Hard.

It’s not quite as bad as it seems. There have been previous discussions with reporters, an editorial board discussion, stories to provide fodder for comment and the vast resources of the Internet to (selectively) dig through for facts. So we approach the editorials with a well-stocked arsenal of information. The trick is to sort through all that, develop an approach and write something that’s informative and, we hope, persuasive. And to do it fast.

It helps when you have good ideas. This week, there have been several, for which I’m grateful: a Hispanic war veteran, debate over a popular downtown bar, feds’ decision to ramp up “controlling” (killing) of barred owls and a Title 9 lawsuit that involves several local school districts.

A little more research and a lot more caffeine and I just might survive the week. Next week, Gary’s back and I plan to keep my opinions to myself.

But true, honest-to-god news tips are much more rare. That’s probably as much due to our somewhat “ivory tower” view of the world of news, or at least our reputation of having an ivory tower view. I think many people don’t send in news tips because, 1) They think we won’t be open to the idea or 2) They have no idea where to start.

But 1) We are interested and open to ideas and 2) We have a couple of easy ways to send in tips:

We are always open to the good old-fashioned letter. In fact, we got a letter last week from an anonymous writer who had information that the Medford Police Department had requested that Judge Tim Barnack no longer sit on their cases (see story). We followed up and, sure enough, after some hemming and hawing at the courthouse, it proved to be true and proved to be a good news story.

A few days before that, we got an online tip that Ashland Community Hospital was on a national list of hospitals that had performed a significant number of double CT scans. Checked it out and it proved to be true (although ACH notes it has since greatly reduced the practice and now does it rarely).

That tip came in through the “Contact Us” link on our website. And now we have a new tip form, available under “Submit Story Idea” (which shows up under “Interact” on our homepage.) So we are trying to make it easier.

That obviously doesn’t mean that we’ll automatically publish anything sent to us. We have to weigh it for news value and check it out. But that standard applies to anything we do, whether the idea comes from a reader or from me (and believe me, there’s a long list of my story ideas that have never seen the light of day).

If you’re going to send a tip, we really appreciate it if you can give us information on how to contact the parties involved. We occasionally get tips that say something to the effect that someone in a position of authority is misusing that authority, but no back-up evidence, no one to corroborate the allegation and no contact information. That’s a story that will be hard to get off the ground.

I’ve asked our Web team to put the story idea form out front on our webpage more often to make it as easy as possible for people to send in ideas. So keep those cards and letters and phone calls and emails and tip forms coming.  Thanks.

The speaker didn’t point to the newspaper or even the media specifically, but the underlying message is that the media are filled with negative stories about kids. I can’t speak for other media outlets, but when it comes to the Mail Tribune — and the vast majority of newspapers, for that matter — that is just not the case.

In the past, I’ve told people who make that statement about the newspaper that I’d put money down on the fact that there are at least 10 times as many positive stories in the paper about kids as negative ones. So I thought I’d test my theory — and it proved out in spades.

We have a bit of an unfair advantage with this being graduation time, but nevertheless, I struggled to find any negative references about kids in the seven days stretching from today back to Wednesday, June 1. In the end, I came up with, ta da, 73 positive articles and one (1) negative article.

OK, you could maybe argue that a story about homelessness that mentions homeless kids at one point could be a negative. If so, that would make two. The lone negative story was actually not even a story, but an emergency service listing about an 18-year-old who had been arrested.

As I mentioned, this particular week was skewed by graduates, including the 58 valedictorians (with 57 mug shots) we ran on Sunday that filled two entire pages with good news about outstanding young people. Even if you eliminated that (and I’m not sure why you would), the final count would be 15 positive to 1 negative.

Beyond that, including the valedictorians, the total inch count of good versus bad stories would be somewhere around 400 to 1. Throw in the photos and it’s probably in excess of 500 to 1.

I rest my case. Again.

“The Forest Service approved the expansion plan in principle in 1991 after studying the environmental consequences of adding new chairlifts and ski trails. Now the Forest Service must prepare a less-intensive study of the specific impacts of the new proposal. 

The Forest Service hopes to complete its analysis by the fall of 1998, said Steve Johnson, one of the members of the study team. Ski Ashland managers said earlier that the runs could possibly be built for the 1999-2000 ski season.”

Looking back, it seems laughably naive. But who could have predicted that 20 years after initial approval, Mt. A would still be slugging its way through court to get approval for its expansion?

The Forest Service says it is satisfied that additional studies show the expansion would not harm the Pacific fisher or wetlands in the area proposed for a new chairlift.

Any bets on how long before the next appeal is filed?

For those who missed it, the three recipients of our School Board endorsements all were winners. Then again, we supported the idea of turning the assessor, county clerk and surveyor positions into appointed department heads. I’m happy to report that a healthy 16-19% of county voters agreed with us on those three measures.

My guess is that our endorsements serve as only talking points on races in which people have strong opinions or perhaps strong party affiliations, but don’t sway a lot of votes. The endorsements are more likely to make a difference in a school board race, which is not partisan and often involves people with lower public profiles. So voters are more apt to look for clues from other sources.

The county appointment question turned into more of a poll on the people’s right to choose their leaders and concern about putting too much power in the hands of a few people, or in this case, one administrator. So for a lot of voters, it became more of a personal referendum on who should control government. In that case, they didn’t particularly care what we thought.

There’s some debate in the newspaper biz about whether we should even do endorsements, because we run the risk of alienating those who don’t agree with us. I guess our feeling is that the editorial page is a place for everybody’s opinion, including ours. A good debate about public issues is a good thing, even if no one succeeds in convincing the other side to change.

Pay particular attention to the Democratic plan, because if an agreement can’t be reached (which it almost never is), the decision falls to Secretary of State Kate Brown, a Democrat.

Jack, the escape artist German shepherd, has made news nationwide.

Always interesting what news will move the needle — and we should no longer be surprised that it’s often not the “big” news story that does it.

Monday, as we were coming out of our afternoon meeting in which we decide what will go on Page 1A in the paper, our city editor, Cathy Noah, said, “Maybe we should put the dog escape story out front instead.” (That’s instead of a story about neighborhood opposition to a low-income apartment complex.)

Well, she was right. The story of Jack, the German shepherd that escaped from a local vet’s office, has been the most popular story on our website for two days and has drawn attention nationwide. Here’s are just a few of the websites that have picked it up: cbsnews.com, chicagotribune.com, thestar.com (Toronto Star), MSNBC and dogpostdaily.com (of course). There are dozens more.

Perhaps most curious is this one: extremeskins.com, which describes itself as the official message board of the Washington Redskins football team. Huh?