For years, I’ve wanted to write a book about community journalism — a pursuit that is so different from being at arm’s length from your readers at newspapers like the Los Angeles Times or Sacramento Bee.

Compiling serious notes on the subject since the mid-1970s, I find now that I’ve missed a chance.

Friend Joe Egan turned my attention to a book, “Emus Loose in Egnar,” in which author Judy Muller intelligently and succinctly tells “big stories from small towns.”

Muller is a former journalism professor and broadcaster. In “Emus …” she gets what my colleagues and I are all about.

“Small-town journalism is where much of the profession’s quirky grandeur lies,” Muller reports.

Yeay! I like being called quirky and grandiose.

Muller goes on to downgrade/praise (?) what we at The Davis Enterprise do for a living …

In a New York Times review of Muller’s research, the book focuses on “a different kind of bottom line. One that lives in the hearts of (local) newspaper editors and reporters who keep churning out news for the corniest of reasons — the belief that our freedom depends on it.”

OK, I’ll take that as a compliment, too. I (we) love corny, but the protectors of freedom? Wow, thanks, Judy.

I have told people for 30 years that newspapers such as The Davis Enterprise will be the last ones standing. What we do is too valuable to be ignored.

From features on unique fundraisers to news about the Smith triplets’ birth to coverage of Tuesday’s Little League games, our community is clued in to what matters most to us. Our lives.

When we have to be, watchdog has a certain appeal.

Sure, I read other news sources — but when I want to know what time the Davis High volleyball game starts, there’s only one place I can get it.

Back to Muller’s delightful 246-page effort …

“Coverage of local sports is especially important — challenging, given that writers are covering not Alex Rodrirguez and Derek Jeter, but sons and daughters of subscribers,” she writes. “There is no such thing as understatement on the sports page of a small-town newspaper.”

Mmmmmm. You had me at “Hello.”

While I Have You Here: I’ve been gnashing my teeth over the unfettered access folks have to the comment section in the new-wave electronic world of The Davis Enterprise.

I appreciate feedback, but … (looking for the right words).

Oh, crud. I’m going to let somebody else do my talking for me. This comes by way of the California Newspaper Publishers Association …

“When you start a discussion about comments, you get more comments,” is what Jamie Butow of Bakersfield.com believes. Last week she wrote a column on meanness.

“If you have to resort to name-calling to get your opinion heard, do you really have an opinion worth hearing?” she asks.

Her follow-up piece explored “who can — and should — moderate comments?” We have a site editor and the Grand Boss herself.

Butow wonders if a site should require real names (my vote is yes).

After her first work, Butow got 97 comments.

“Thank you to those who were civil,” Butow replied. “Know your thoughts will be considered as we move forward.

“To the users who felt the need to call me an idiot … well, I don’t plan on replying.”

Jamie, you complete me.

— Bruce Gallaudet is a staff writer for The Davis Enterprise. Reach him at [email protected] or (530) 747-8047.

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