Two items from yesterday make reappearances in today’s edition:

Editor responds to funeraltweet criticisms: An editor at the Rocky Mountain News has responded to criticisms — first leveled by the Colorado Independent, but picked up by Poynter, Journalism.co.uk, and others — about its reporter who used Twitter to liveblog the funeral of a 3-year-old boy killed by a hit-and-run driver. In an email to a concerned reader (posted on  a SportsJournalists.com online forum), RMN editor/publisher John Temple wasn’t exactly apologetic:

…I think you’re making a mistake in not differentiating between the execution (yes, some of the updates could have been better) and the idea itself. We don’t attend funerals without permission of the family. We wrote a story for the paper about the funeral. The death of that child was a huge local story. It touched many people. Why not connect with them in real time, as long as we’re not disruptive at the funeral, which we weren’t and wouldn’t be? And by the way, I’m the father of three children. And I’ve covered more tragedy than I could ever have imagined, including the Columbine shootings.

Strib Teamsters concessions “null and void”: A switch in the Star Tribune’s Teamsters contract story. As reported yesterday, the Teamsters Joint Council reportedly claimed that no agreement existed between three Strib locals that stated that if any one union chapter voted against contract concessions, all three Teamster locals would reject the concessions. After a petition by Teamster mailers and drivers, word now is that the concessions were indeed rejected. A Thursday memo to drivers by Robert Moore, Teamster Local 638 business agent, and Mark Rime, the local’s secretary treasurer, stated in part: “As you are probably aware, on Monday, Sept. 8, 2008, the Pressmen of Local 1M rejected the company offer. It is our position with management that the offer voted on by Local 638 members on July 31, 2008 is null and void. The contract that you voted on in November 2007 is in effect and the wages, pension, health and welfare and all working conditions will remain the same.”