A few viewers have emailed us in the past 24 hours to ask about our reports following the termination proceedings against two New Haven Police Department officers arrested on corruption charges, and in particular the decision by the union representing the officers to fight the termination decision.

So why haven't our reports expressed some outrage about the whole situation?

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We get this question fairly often when we air/post a story about a budget brouhaha at the Capitol. Folks want to know how their $1 for a lottery ticket is divvied up. As "Brian" commented in Mark Davis' post Can Governor Rell Limit Property Tax Increases?, "Mark, I thought the Main Purpose of the LOTTERY was to pay for Education." The short answer is NOPE. Here's how it's divided.

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There were more than a few emails from viewers this week about Bob Wilson's story on surviving a fall through the ice that aired on Wednesday and Thursday. (You can watch the story online by clicking here.)

While some people have written in to thank us for the story, others have asked the question "What Were We Thinking?" in subjecting Bob to a dangerous and potentially life-threatening situation?

The answer is that we were hoping to show people just how dangerous being on the ice can potentially be and what you can do to increase the chances of surviving such a situation. But did we go too far and take too much of a risk in doing so?

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In our newscasts today, we aired a story about a Massachusetts family who was ordered off of an AirTran Airway flight in Orlando because their 3-year old daughter would not stop crying or take her seat after getting on the plane.

It is a story that many people have emailed us about, in part because our poll today asked the question "Should a family be kicked off a plane if their child will not stop crying?" and that somehow we didn't tell the whole story about what happened.

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Regular visitors to this section of wtnh.com will note that we have made some changes to our blogs in the final weeks of 2006. Those changes were necessary because of some technical upgrades to the hardware and software that power our blog pages.

But as Webmaster-extraordinaire Jeff Bailey is putting the finishing touches on those upgrades and we draw close to the first anniversary of blogging being a vital part of wtnh.com, I wanted to share with you a brief look ahead to what we have planned for 2007.

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All that furor over O.J. Simpson's TV interview and book 'If I Did It' was apparently too much to handle for News Corp. The company has cancelled publication of both the book and TV special. Chairman Rupert Murdoch decided the project was "ill-considered," according to Fox News. Even before the announcement, a number of broadcast companies, including LIN TV Corp., the parent company of News Channel 8 and MyTV9, said it would not run the show on its Fox stations.

You can read more about it at http://www.wtnh.com/global/Story.asp?s=5705749

While we appreciate all of your comments here on our blog over the past few days, a couple of misconceptions need to be addressed directly towards the issue of Mark Davis's questions in Monday night's debate.

Mark asked two questions in the debate of all the candidates. As moderator George Stephanopoulos stated at the beginning of the debate, the rules were determined by the League of Women Voters. The candidates position on stage and the order of each of the candidate's answers determined by lot before the debate began. That sequence changed with each questioner, but since there were three questioners and three candidates, Mr. Lamont was the first candidate to answer both of Mark's questions. Mark nor WTNH "granted Mr. Lieberman the last word" as has been alleged here.

In terms of running advertising for each of the candidates, WTNH, like any broadcast station, is required by federal law to carry any advertising that a candidate wishes to place, as long as it meets the criteria set by the Federal Election Commission. The rates our station can charge for such advertising is also specified, by the same federal agency that licenses our station, the Federal Communications Commission.

It's clear that everyone sees our coverage of this highly charged campaign through the filter of their own opinion, which is certainly to be expected. Some people may see Mark's questions of the candidates as leaning in one direction or the other, because often candidates don't like to answer the questions we ask of them. But as the person ultimately responsible for all of our station's political coverage, I can tell you that both Mark and our entire newsroom have worked very hard to present balance in that coverage in every single report throughout the election year.

Having reviewed every second of that coverage, I can assure anyone that is indeed the case and any bias perceived is simply not supported by the facts. Given that we have produced more debates and more political coverage than any other television station in Connecticut throughout the year, we certainly understand the importance of making sure our coverage is as balanced as possible. We appreciate your viewership and know you always have a choice as to where you get your news from.

Kirk Varner
News Director
WTNH/WCTX Television

In the wake of last night's election coverage, we received a few emails about our Chief Political Correspondent Mark Davis, specifically about when he was trying to interview US Senator Joe Lieberman, moments after the Senator was conceding that he had lost his Democratic Primary race to challenger Ned Lamont.

As any good reporter would do, Mark was pressing the Senator on stage for what he would do as an independent running for office, given that other Democrats would likely not support him. It was a tough situation, because Mark was working in a loud ballroom as supporters of the Senator were cheering him after his speech.

What some saw as aggressive reporting and trying to get a straight answer to questions that were pertinent in that moment, other people saw as "negative", "unprofessional" or even "a taunting tirade".

But to anyone who has spent more than a few minutes with Mark, the last thing you would believe is that he is anything other than a true professional and one of the hardest working journalists in this state.

So why the disconnect? Obviously not everyone might find Mark Davis to be "their cup of tea" so to speak, but is it out of place to try hard to get straight answers to questions in an unprecedented situation such as this?

Is there a line where being aggressive as a reporter just comes off as being rude or editorializing in some fashion? We actually do think about this sort of thing and we'd be interested in your take on what you saw and how it may have looked to you. Click on the comments link below to share your feedback with us.