Orange Water and Sewer Authority reports that as of 4 p.m. Friday, there have been 2.7 inches of rainfall at the Cane Creek Reservoir (primary water source) and 3.3 inches at the Jones Ferry Road Water Treatment Plant in Carrboro.

The Cane Creek Reservoir level rose 1.5 inches and University Lake gained 4.5 inches. Overall they went from 50.0 to 50.6 percent full. Streamflow to Cane Creek is still zero because the soil is soaking up the rain.

“This has not been a drought-busting rain, but it is a much needed start,” said Greg Feller, OWASA public affairs officer.

Weather reports indicate the rain is expected to clear up tonight, and stage two water restrictions are still in place.

New study finds that sleep helps with memorization by putting learned details together. This should partially dispel the myth that an all-nighter is a useful tool in every college student’s arsenal. I knew there was a reason I did better when I started the study guide a week before. Now it’s empiric!

NYTimes: An active, purposeful machine

“We think what’s happening during sleep is that you open the aperture of memory and are able to see this bigger picture,” said the study’s senior author, Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist who is now at the University of California, Berkeley. He added that many such insights occurred “only when you enter this wonder-world of sleep.”

I can’t make this stuff up:

N&O: Fake turf watered as supplies dry up

As Chapel Hill comes under stage two restrictions, and as Durham and OWASA report about 60 and 180 days of water remaining respectively, one has to wonder about the prudence of picking athletics as a priority use for our drinking water. I used to play club lacrosse at Navy Field, which is where the field hockey team plays its games. I definitely agree that the artificial turf is a lot slicker and that it’s harder to maneuver than on real grass. So I buy the safety argument, but it’s still crazy.

“Sprinklers aren’t even the right term, they’re like fire hoses.”
– Brad Schnurr, a Chapel Hill contractor (N&O reports)

“It’s a dangerous time to be a journalist,” declared Ryan Thornburg, a new professor at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication and former managing editor of USNews.com.

In line with him was the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Gordon Crovitz, who said, “It’s a tough world for all of us.”

Both were speakers at the 2007 SABEW Conference this weekend.

Everyone recognizes that the media industry has changed with the advent of the internet, and this conference gave journalists, both editors and reporters, a chance to ask each other for solutions to budget and readership problems. Questions tossed around included:

“How long does your reader spend with each issue?”

“Do writers for you become branded?”

“What’s the appetite for video snippets?”

“I’ve got a story here, what’s the best multimedia treatment?”

“What do you have to offer up that’s unique?”

In an industry in which many firms are scaling back jobs, another popular question was:

“Are you hiring?”

The good news for the business journalists in attendance was that at least some magazines, wire services and newspapers are hiring, and business journalism is one of the very few areas, and possibly the only area, in newspaper reporting which is growing.

Events such as the SABEW Conference give journalists the chance to network but also to keep their skills updated with workshops on topics such as “Effective Blogging.”

If they want to survive, it seems the journalists will have to work hard. Fortunately for readers, at least this SABEW group is already rolling up their sleeves.

– From city writer Melissa Moser

The 2007 SABEW Conference is in full swing at UNC’s School of Journalism.  The overarching theme of the conference is health care, and attendees have had discussions on the drug industry and the media with the CEOs of GlaxoSmithKline and Laboratory Corporation of America.  Additional talks offered this weekend are on the business of college sports, consumer reporting, business wires, ethics, financial accounting, covering financial companies and blogging.

Reporters and editors from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Reuters America, Bloomberg, The Miami Herald, The (Raleigh) News and Observer, Consumer Reports, Kiplinger Personal Finance, among others, are busy networking and discussing the happenings of their changing industry. 

Today’s luncheon talk is eagerly anticipated. Gordon Crovitz, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal will speak on the redesign launched earlier this year and the changes happening at the Journal. 

 – From city writer Melissa Moser

Check back for more from the SABEW Conference.

Business journalists from across the nation – including places such as Chicago, Washington, Memphis and Tulsa – have already arrived for the 2007 Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) Conference to be held this weekend at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 

These business writers are participating in “Business Journalism 101,” workshops created to help journalists understand the financial side of business and to give them practical information to produce better business stories.  UNC journalism professor Chris Roush, the founder of the Carolina Business News Initiative, is the main driver behind “Business Journalism 101.”

Considering the media’s adoration of big companies like Enron and WorldCom before their tremendous falls, educating business journalists to be critical thinkers and to analyze the financial numbers they report is crucial.

Thursday, the approximately 30 journalists, many new business editors or reporters who have recently switched to the business beat, may have experienced flashbacks to earlier math classes.  Professors Wayne Landsman and Robert Bushman, both from the Kenan-Flager Business School, showered the journalists with information on financial accounting and executive pay.  Landsman explained standard accounting practices and helped everyone learn how to make sense of financial statements.  Bushman, who at one point caught the journalists by surprise by asking them a question about derivatives, strongly argued that CEO pay is not out of line with other talented groups of people whose pay has skyrocketed in the last 10 years.

The journalists, aged from in the 20s to the 50s, were eager to learn, asking intelligent questions both in the sessions and on the breaks of the guest lecturers.

Friday the education continues with the focus moving away from the numbers and towards journalistic practices, with lectures on covering bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, finding the best sources for various business stories, and humanizing number stories. 

The main SABEW conference begins Saturday morning, where the journalists will be joined by many of their peers. 

– From city writer Melissa Moser

Check back for more updates from the SABEW conference.

James Moeser announced today in his State of the University address that he will be leaving his post as chancellor effective June 30. DTH story here. UNC announcement here. OrangePolitics thread here.

From the looks of the UNC page with links to timeline and accomplishments, this has been expected for a while. In fact, I remember an article by Shari Feld last semester that speculated whether this would be Moeser’s last year. Looks like she was right.

Last semester I covered a lot of the international initiatives that Moeser was behind. He definitely accomplished a lot of his goals in making Carolina a more “global campus.” Study abroad enrollment is at an all-time high, new exchange programs are being unveiled all the time, and the brand-spanking new Global Education Center will be dedicated officially on Oct. 12, University Day.

According to the DTH story, the Board of Trustees is in charge of selecting our next chancellor. Let the speculation begin as to who it will be. Dean Smith, perhaps?

Subway makes a triumphant return to south campus tomorrow (Wed Sept. 26), officially opening inside the Ram’s Head Market. I’d copy and paste the coupon for a free fountain drink with sandwich purchase if I didn’t think that a) Carolina Dining Services already sent this to everyone with an “email.unc.edu” address, and b) it’s some kind of copyright, ethical violation to re-distribute someone else’s coupon.

Subway coming back kind of makes me wish I still lived on south campus. Kind of. Chase Dining Hall was demolished at the end of my freshman year, and with it went the Subway that used to be inside the mini-mart. Chase deserved to go, don’t get me wrong. The building wasn’t ventillated right, so anytime you spent more than five minutes inside, the smell of fryers stayed in your clothes. It was so bad people even separate “Chase clothes” that they only wore to the dining hall to keep their whole wardrobe from smelling like peanut oil.

But the mini-mart in Chase was superior to the Ram’s Head Market for one simple reason: it stayed open until 2 a.m. (the Market closes at midnight). So many nights freshman year I’d come back to Hinton James North (none of this Horton nonsense) late from lacrosse practice or meetings on main campus and grab a meatball sub covered in banana peppers and Ranch. I’m actually just now starting to not be completely sick of Subway after over-consuming it two nights a week.

In any event, I just hope the new Subway fares better than the cash flow disaster that was End Zone.

Has anyone else seen these panda fliers around campus? The ones that ask if you do it three or four times a day, if you think about it when you do it, if it’s your reason for getting out of bed in the morning, etc.? They’re pretty mysterious. They’re in a bunch of the major academic buildings as well as the Union, and the only thing they appear to be plugging is this:

First meeting: Wednesday, September 19, 11:15 A.M., Student Union Art Gallery

It’s a weird time to be having a meeting, 11:15 on a Wednesday morning. And the only name given is “CA,” which makes me think it stands for “Class-a-holics Anonymous,” although to say anything about the nature of these fliers or what they represent is merely speculative. I kind of hope it’s something like Fight Club, even though Edward Norton didn’t exactly pass out fliers with cuddly pandas. He was more inclined to let his imaginary friend give him chemical burns and spout off Nietzschean philosophy about fathers as models for a nonexistent God.

I can’t go on Wednesday because I have class (although in what seems to be the spirit of the posters, I might blow off news-reporting and go anyway). If anyone does happen to go, please do tell what happens. Especially if the first rule of CA is not to talk about CA.

I covered Carolina United, a five-day diversity retreat for UNC student leaders, at the beginning of the semester. One of the things the counselors and students expressed was a strong desire to bring the atmosphere and experience of CU back to campus. This Wednesday it looks like they’ll meet that goal.

CU-NITE will have its first dinner in the Campus-Y Lounge on Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. Snippet from the Facebook event:

This month we will be discussing the importance of 1st impressions. If you are interested in applying for CU, heard great things about it, are interested in diversity issues and social justice, want to make a difference in the Carolina community, or just want a FREE MEAL come out and participate!

With more than 100 confirmed guests in that event already, I don’t know if there’s going to be room. The Campus-Y Lounge is nice, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the Great Hall or anything. I’d be going if I didn’t have LSAT class at the same time. Everyone I met at Carolina United was super excited and motivated, and the small-group discussions I was able to sit-in on could get pretty intense at times. And hey, even if the conversation isn’t enlightening, there’s still free food. For more information, email Liz Humphrey, who’s helping to organize Wednesday’s dinner and was one of the CU counselors this summer.