Behind The Headlines

Dennis the Menace – and currency exchange rates – are back

We made some changes in the comics and the stock pages of the paper recently, and we heard from some of you that you aren’t happy with them. At last count, we had received 545 complaints about the changes in the comics. Among them, more people complained about the dropping of Dennis the Menace than anything else.

So, we have returned Dennis to the paper, but in the pages of the Classifieds section. You’ll find him there Monday through Saturday. The other comics we dropped remain online at www.kentucky.com/comics. We’ll be evaluating soon whether to continue to bring you those comics online, depending on what sort of viewership they are getting. We welcome your comments on the comics at comics@herald-leader.com or 859-231-1368.

The changes in the comics pages came after a summer of auditioning new comics and inviting you to vote by paper ballot or online for your favorites among the new comics and our existing comics. More than 4,000 votes were received, and we were guided by your responses in selecting which comics to keep and which ones to add.

On the stocks pages, we have restored currency exchange rates, Chicago futures, metals and petroleum prices. Prices for gold, silver, natural gas and crude oil are on the first page of business news in the line of arrows across the very top of that page.

We have also added back in several individual stocks or mutual funds that you requested.

We offer up-to-date stock prices online at www.kentucky.com/business, where you can also set up and track your portfolio. We will be offering additional data on stocks and mutual funds soon in the Business Monday section.

If you have comments on our financial coverage, please call Jim Niemi at 859-231-3216 or e-mail jniemi@herald-leader.com.

Thanks for letting us know what you think!

Linda Austin
Editor

We do not ban "Merry Christmas"

Contrary to what’s been discussed on local radio and repeated in e-mails to several of us at the Herald-Leader, we do not have a policy banning “Merry Christmas” from ads on our pages.

What we do have is an anti-discrimination policy, dictated by state and federal laws, that prevents us from accepting ads in the help wanted and real estate sections of the Classifieds section that specify that someone of only a particular religion, ethnic group, race or gender should respond to the ad. That’s why -- out of an abundance of caution -- we have not accepted ads for employment or real estate that say, “Merry Christmas.” A job applicant or apartment hunter might construe that as saying the job or apartment is for Christians only.

If you want to take out an ad in another part of the paper – not in help wanted or real estate – and wish someone “Merry Christmas,” “Happy Kwanzaa” or “Happy Hanukkah,” we’ll be happy to print it.

Linda Austin
Editor