North Carolina vs 2010 Census Count...Accuracy Matters

2010 Census poses unique challenges to area NC Counties


Brunswick County is trying to help the U.S. Census Bureau get a more accurate picture of how many people live here.

“2010 is around the corner,” Brunswick County Manager Marty Lawing said.

The Census Bureau is encouraging all the counties in North Carolina to form committees of trusted and prominent locals who will help answer questions and ease concerns about filling out census forms.

The 2010 census forms will be sent out in March and must be returned by April, Lawing said.

For the 2000 census, Brunswick County had a return rate on census information of 47 percent. The state rate was 64 percent and the national rate 67 percent. New Hanover County’s rate was 61 percent.

Knowing exactly how many people live in Brunswick County is important, county officials say, because its share of most state and federal dollars is based on population.

But that low percentage is misleading because many of the households receiving census forms belong to part-time residents.

The U.S. Census Bureau sends forms to homes in Brunswick County and also goes door to door counting people, said Constance Hyman, local census partnership specialist.

She said the census does not consider whether the residents are seasonal or full-time when sending out the requests for information.

“That’s one of our challenges with the coastal communities is the fact that there are a lot of seasonal residents,” she said.

At a recent meeting, Brunswick commissioners questioned whether there would be a way to look at the county’s tax records to see which are part-time and which are full-time residents.

But there might not be a clear-cut answer to that issue.

“I don’t know of a real good way to improve that accuracy,” Lawing said.

Hyman pointed out that Brunswick’s 47 percent response rate does not mean 53 percent of the county was not counted, just that 53 percent of homes didn’t return forms that were left on doorsteps.

Census workers also fan out in May and June to interview people who have not mailed in their responses. Residents who have multiple homes might fill out the census documents in more than once place, and the workers interview them as well to see where they spend most of their time.

“It’s really up to the person where they decide they would lay their head most of the time,” U.S. Census media relations representative Tony Jones said.

Hyman said one of the goals for the 2010 census is to increase the mail-in response rate by at least 2 percent in North Carolina.

“Our main focus is those residents who are permanent residents,” she said.

Complete Count committees

To help get an accurate count, Brunswick County at its Jan. 4 meeting will appoint around 30 members to a Complete Count Committee. The committee will be responsible for answering citizens’ questions about the census and getting the word out about its importance, Hyman said.

Each commissioner will appoint two members to the committee.

The board will also select at least one representative from each of the county’s 19 municipalities.

The commissioners at their Monday night meeting asked Lawing to also come back to the board with a recommendation on whether the county should offer stipends to the people who serve on the committee.

The U.S. Census Bureau is trying to get all the counties in North Carolina to appoint Complete Count Committees, Hyman said.

The committees will be trained in January by census officials and will be holding events to get the word out about the census.

She said the census will also be opening an office in Wilmington in January.






N.C. is a State in Transition


North Carolina lawmakers voted this year to give up to $12.5 million a year in tax breaks for Apple so the computer giant will build a data center in Western North Carolina.

The vote sparked arguments about corporate handouts, but lawmakers said Apple offers the sort of new-economy jobs that are critical to North Carolina.

Two months later, with less public attention, the legislature passed $10 million in tax incentives for a paper mill in Plymouth in Eastern North Carolina that will be converted to make diaper fluff. The mill is part of the traditional manufacturing economy that has been bleeding jobs in the state for more than a decade.

The contrasting votes were yet another sign that North Carolina is a state in the middle, pulled in multiple directions as it makes the transition from a rural state to an urban and suburban one. The struggle shows in much of what the legislature did this year – in debates on issues ranging from tax reform to environmental protection.

“We are, on many levels, a state in transition,” said Michael Walden, an economist at N.C. State University.

North Carolina is no longer primarily rural, but it is not yet fully urbanized. It's not a manufacturing state any more, and not yet completely high-tech.

When legislators try to push North Carolina to reflect the new possibilities, they often find themselves pulled back by old realities.

“Rural legislators go back to their districts and see people employed in the pulp mill or the textile mill,” Walden said. “They see that a lot of those cutting-edge jobs are not going to go there.”

Senate leaders this year began trying to overhaul the state's tax code, arguing that the early 20th-century tax laws do not fit a blossoming knowledge-based economy. The change would have lowered corporate, income and sales tax rates but expanded the sales tax to include a variety of services, such as auto repair and house painting.

“Our economy is changing, and we have to make the necessary adjustments so we can compete. One of those is we need to have a modern, competitive tax structure that ensures a steady flow of income,” said John McNairy, who owns a trucking company and John Deere dealership in Kinston and previously led what is now the N.C. Chamber of Commerce.

The reform stalled. Although McNairy argues it would help old industries as much as new, he said lawmakers worried about unintended consequences.

A similar conflict undergirded some of the environmental debates.

State officials, starting with Gov. Bev Perdue, are increasingly pushing for North Carolina to develop a “green” economy. Legislators passed bills making it easier to install solar collectors, providing loans for energy improvements and expanding credits for investing in renewable energy.

A bill to establish a permitting process for windmills, though, failed amid fears of dotting the tourist-friendly mountains with the gangling wind catchers.

“The mountain economy is based on the view. The tourism industry and second-home industry don't want windmills in that view,” said Bill Holman, a former state secretary of environment and natural resources. He is now director of state policy at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

North Carolina data show the population shifting from a slight rural majority in 2000 to a slight urban majority last year, but the state calculates the population differently than the U.S. Census. The census showed a 59 percent urban majority in 2000 that continues to outpace rural growth.

“It isn't urban like the Northeast, but we've created these sprawling metro areas,” said Ferrel Guillory, director of UNC Chapel Hill's program on public life. “Yet we remain, in our traditions and our historical legacy where there's a lot of ruralism alive.”

Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy, who leads the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition, emphasized that urban areas' share of newly created jobs also will continue to grow, even if the workers who hold them live outside the cities.

“Those trends point to a shift in where the state is going,” Foy said. “The legislature is pulled in different directions.”

Rural lawmakers long dominated the legislature and still hold sway, particularly in the House, where Democrats maintain a majority that has to hold together liberals, business-oriented members and the black caucus.

“They need us to get things passed,” said Rep. Jim Crawford, a Granville County Democrat.

He acknowledged, though, that the base of power has shifted.

“The urban folks have certainly gotten control of the votes now,” Crawford said.

The redistricting following the 2010 census is expected to give Charlotte and Raleigh a total of five additional House seats and two additional Senate seats.

That shift was seen when lawmakers banned smoking in bars and restaurants this year, with suburban and urban legislators making the difference. They represent constituents, many of them transplants from other states, unfamiliar with North Carolina's historical ties to tobacco and accustomed to smoke-free, chain restaurants.

At the same time, legislators whittled a proposed $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase to a dime, a nod to the dwindling ranks of tobacco farmers and cigarette plant workers.

Counties won legislation allowing them to boost the sales tax to pay for transit improvements, a win for metro areas. The House, though, approved a bill to make it tougher for cities to annex adjoining communities, a power that metropolitan leaders say they need to manage growth. The Senate did not take up that bill.

Mecklenburg County is the state's largest urban center, but the Charlotte Chamber factors in neighboring rural communities when it constructs economic strategies for the region. It's the same two-directional tug felt in the capital, said Natalie English, a senior vice president with the chamber. It's also not a new conflict for lawmakers, said English, who previously served as the chamber's lobbyist in Raleigh.

“This year might have been more obvious than in other sessions,” English said. But as the population trends point to greater urban growth, “we'll start to see more of this struggle. As long as there are people in rural parts of the state, they will continue to have needs different from the (urban) majority.”

The legislature must tend to both, said Mayor Brian Roth of Plymouth, home of the paper plant that plans to shift to supplying diaper fluff. He supports the cultivation of new industries but wants support for industries that have employed members of his community for generations.

Plymouth is proof that both are possible, he said. State money is not only expected to aid the paper plant but also help expand the local airport, which made it easier to attract medical device manufacturer Micro Invasive Technology Inc.

“It's not this or that,” Roth said, “It has to be all of the above.”



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Sources: US Census Bureau, 2010 Census, Star News Online, McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Youtube, Google Maps

Walter Cronkite, "The Most Trusted Man In America" Dead At 92...Legendary, Accurate, Unbiased Reporter

MSNBC----

(MSNBC reports on the legendary life of Walter Cronkite.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Walter Cronkite, the premier TV anchorman of the networks’ golden age who reported a tumultuous time with reassuring authority and came to be called “the most trusted man in America,” died Friday. He was 92.

Cronkite’s longtime chief of staff, Marlene Adler, said Cronkite died at 7:42 p.m. at his Manhattan home surrounded by family. She said the cause of death was cerebral vascular disease.

Adler said, “I have to go now” before breaking down into what sounded like a sob. She said she had no further comment.

Cronkite was the face of the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, when stories ranged from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to racial and anti-war riots, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis.

It was Cronkite who read the bulletins coming from Dallas when Kennedy was shot Nov. 22, 1963, interrupting a live CBS-TV broadcast of the soap opera “As the World Turns.”

Cronkite was the broadcaster to whom the title “anchorman” was first applied, and he came so identified in that role that eventually his own name became the term for the job in other languages. (Swedish anchors are known as Kronkiters; In Holland, they are Cronkiters.)

“He was a great broadcaster and a gentleman whose experience, honesty, professionalism and style defined the role of anchor and commentator,” CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves said in a statement.

CBS has scheduled a prime-time special, “That’s the Way it Was: Remembering Walter Cronkite,” for 7 p.m. Sunday.

He guided America through our crises:

His 1968 editorial declaring the United States was “mired in stalemate” in Vietnam was seen by some as a turning point in U.S. opinion of the war. He also helped broker the 1977 invitation that took Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem, the breakthrough to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.

He followed the 1960s space race with open fascination, anchoring marathon broadcasts of major flights from the first suborbital shot to the first moon landing, exclaiming, “Look at those pictures, wow!” as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon’s surface in 1969. In 1998, for CNN, he went back to Cape Canaveral to cover John Glenn’s return to space after 36 years.

“It is impossible to imagine CBS News, journalism or indeed America without Walter Cronkite,” CBS News president Sean McManus said in a statement. “More than just the best and most trusted anchor in history, he guided America through our crises, tragedies and also our victories and greatest moments.”

He had been scheduled to speak last January for the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., but ill health prevented his appearance.

A former wire service reporter and war correspondent, he valued accuracy, objectivity and understated compassion. He expressed liberal views in more recent writings but said he had always aimed to be fair and professional in his judgments on the air.

Off camera, his stamina and admittedly demanding ways brought him the nickname “Old Ironpants.” But to viewers, he was “Uncle Walter,” with his jowls and grainy baritone, his warm, direct expression and his trim mustache.

Most trusted man in America:

When he summed up the news each evening by stating, “And THAT’s the way it is,” millions agreed. His reputation survived accusations of bias by Richard Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, and being labeled a “pinko” in the tirades of a fictional icon, Archie Bunker of CBS’s “All in the Family.”

Two polls pronounced Cronkite the “most trusted man in America”: a 1972 “trust index” survey in which he finished No. 1, about 15 points higher than leading politicians, and a 1974 survey in which people chose him as the most trusted television newscaster.

Like fellow Midwesterner Johnny Carson, Cronkite seemed to embody the nation’s mainstream. When he broke down as he announced Kennedy’s death, removing his glasses and fighting back tears, the times seemed to break down with him.

And when Cronkite took sides, he helped shape the times. After the 1968 Tet offensive, he visited Vietnam and wrote and narrated a “speculative, personal” report advocating negotiations leading to the withdrawal of American troops.

“We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds,” he said, and concluded, “We are mired in stalemate.”

After the broadcast, President Johnson reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”

In the fall of 1972, responding to reports in The Washington Post, Cronkite aired a two-part series on Watergate that helped ensure national attention to the then-emerging scandal.

“When the news is bad, Walter hurts,” the late CBS president Fred Friendly once said. “When the news embarrasses America, Walter is embarrassed. When the news is humorous, Walter smiles with understanding.”

Still active in retirement:

More recently, in a syndicated column, Cronkite defended the liberal record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and criticized the Iraq war and other Bush administration policies.

But when asked by CNN’s Larry King if that column was evidence of media bias, Cronkite set forth the distinction between opinion and reporting. “We all have prejudices,” he said of his fellow journalists, “but we also understand how to set them aside when we do the job.”

Cronkite was the top newsman during the peak era for the networks, when the nightly broadcasts grew to a half-hour and 24-hour cable and the Internet were still well in the future.

As many as 18 million households tuned in to Cronkite’s top-rated program each evening. Twice that number watched his final show, on March 6, 1981, compared with fewer than 10 million in 2005 for the departure of Dan Rather, Cronkite’s successor.

A vigorous 64 years old, Cronkite had stepped down with the assurance that other duties awaited him at CBS News, but found little demand there for his services. He hosted the shortlived science magazine series “Walter Cronkite’s Universe” and was retained by the network as a consultant, although, as he was known to state wistfully, he was never consulted.

He also sailed his beloved boat, the Wyntje, hosted or narrated specials on public and cable TV, and issued his columns and the best-selling “Walter Cronkite: A Reporter’s Life.”

For 24 years he served as on-site host for New Year’s Day telecasts by the Vienna Philharmonic, ending that cherished tradition only in 2009.

Trusted in tough times:

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Cronkite was selected to introduce the postponed Emmy awards show. He told the audience that in its coverage of the attack and its aftermath, “television, the great common denominator, has lifted our common vision as never before.”

Cronkite joined CBS in 1950, after a decade with United Press, during which he covered World War II and the Nuremberg trials, and a brief stint with a regional radio group.

At CBS he found a respected radio-news organization dipping its toe into TV, and it put him in front of the camera. He was named anchor for CBS’s coverage of the 1952 political conventions, the first year the presidential nominations got wide TV coverage. From there, he was assigned to such news-oriented programs as “You Are There” and “Twentieth Century.” (He also briefly hosted a morning show, accompanied by a puppet named Charlemagne the Lion.)

On April 16, 1962, he replaced Douglas Edwards as anchor of the network’s “Evening News.”

“I never asked them why,” Cronkite recalled in a 2006 TV portrait. “I was so pleased to get the job, I didn’t want to endanger it by suggesting that I didn’t know why I had it.”

Sources: MSNBC, CBS News