THE RAIN FELL, LAYOFFS ROSE AND DISASTER LOOMED.

And then there was the weather. …

Steve Buttry gets his feet wet covering a 500-year flood during his first few days on the job as editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette. He writes about how Midwest newspapers successfully got the job done in the face of difficult obstacles. Kurt Greenbaum writes about the newspapers’ use of social networks to aid coverage of the flood, and Matt Erickson shows print editions of the rising water in the Front Pages column.

“Inundated” is a great descriptive word, particularly as it is used in the cover story about the Midwest flooding. The term has a number of meanings, such as to be covered with floodwater, to be overwhelmed, overpowered by some excess, or drowned. Most editors know how it feels to be inundated, whether it’s a natural catastrophe or the financial storm that’s battering the newspaper industry.

Have newspaper companies made mistakes that they can’t recover from? James W. Hopson, a former publisher and corporate vice president with Lee Enterprises, explains where newspapers went wrong and what might be done to turn the situation around.

The summer issue of The American Editor includes coverage of the joint convention of ASNE and the Newspaper Association of America, Capital Conference ’08. The big news was that presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have pledged support of a federal shield law for journalists, which moves the legislation a step closer to reality. Conference attendees also got a firsthand look at the impressive Newseum.

The mercurial Hugo Chávez makes things interesting for members of ASNE’s fact-finding mission to Venezuela. Edward Seaton reports on the group’s experience. Meanwhile, ASNE President Charlotte Hall writes about how redesign can clear the way to reinventing newspapers.

In the editor’s profile, Neil Brown talks about the real value of newspapers and why “pants on fire” is an important concept in the St. Petersburg Times’ new Web site, Politifact.com.

Why are newspapers crying foul? Kevin Goldberg provides a legal view of sports leagues’ attempts to limit journalists’ access to events and why you should be concerned about it.

A collection of videos from the ASNE fact-finding trip to Venezuela in May 2008. Some video was provided by Venezuelan television. The interviews with Gilbert Bailon and Kevin Goldberg are in Spanish and are not translated.

Mark Mahoney writes about Tim Russert’s formative years as a political operative in Albany, N.Y., and Edward Miller tells us how to politely say “no” to requests — or even, gasp, to compromise when time, tempers and resources are in short supply.

The ASNE Freedom of Information Committee embarks on a project to get government records digitized at all stages. Tim Franklin explains the effort. In addition to various comings and goings in the media, Jody Calendar checks in with The Capital Times in Wisconsin to see how its new approach to news is going. The Times went from a six-days-a-week printed product to a 24-hour news Web site and two targeted publications.

We hope that you find this issue of The American Editor useful, incisive and readable. We’re open to your ideas for improving the magazine. Please let us know what you like — or don’t like.

Michael K. Connelly Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune co-chair	Diana Smith Reed Brennan Media Associates, Orlando, Fla. co-chair