So it was amazing to me how well most of the student-athletes we interviewed on camera did with it. The first time through, yeah, we did get some giggles. But once they got used to it, they were like seasoned pros. I don’t know what kind of public speaking courses they’re teaching in these schools, but they’re working. I know I couldn’t have done it when I was in high school.

The kids were extremely polite, and to a person, gave thoughtful answers. We were never turned down for an interview — no, not even once. Many thanked us afterward for interviewing them. Honestly, I was impressed with every one of them.

For a student-athlete, one of the hardest things to do is talking to a reporter after a loss, but they handled that well, too. One interview I’ll never forget is the one we did with Greenfield’s Jessica Bowman after the Tigers lost a tough volleyball super-sectional match. Her voice was choked with emotion throughout the entire interview, but she answered all our questions, and helped us write a better story. And to do that on camera — wow. What a remarkable, gracious young woman.

You see, people don’t have to come on camera. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, but it doesn’t give us a license to require anyone to speak to us. We appreciate everyone who did.

It’s the kind of stuff you read on MySpace pages — mildly interesting if you’re friends with the person, but if you’re not, you really couldn’t care less.

Newspaper blogs are different — at least we hope they are. This one will mostly be about what we cover and why, which oddly enough, nobody seems to understand sometimes. More on that as we go along.

Personally (and everything you read here is “personally” — it’s an opinion; in fact, it’s my opinion), I’m excited about our new Web site. It gives us the ability to do things that newspapers aren’t supposed to be able to do. Suddenly, we’re a radio station, a television station and an online scrapbook, all in one. We can bring you news virtually as soon as we know about it. We can post audio and video from news events. And coming in just a little while, you yourself, dear reader, will be able to post photos that you take and video highlight clips that you produce yourself, just like YouTube.

And you can read all the thoughts I should have written in a book and put in a box in the back of the closet.