Publisher's Notebook

Newspapers base their success on hustling news and selling ads. (And on selling subscriptions, but this item is about the other two).

News and advertising in a paper don’t always jibe. Take this morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch as an example.

The Metro section has a story about a U.Va. student charged with murdering his father. The alleged weapon was unusual – a 4-pound bowling pin, a memento of a birthday party.

(If you take a bunch of kids to a bowling alley for a birthday party, the honoree gets a free actual bowling pin. All the kids who attended sign it. We have one somewhere in the garage or the attic).

The bowling-pin murder story jumps to page B-8, where you’ll find the end of the obits and the crime log.

Then turn the page. On B-10, there’s the jump of a story and a big, half-page, four-color ad for … Bowl America. “You can be a star at Bowl America,” the ad says. Get info at www.bowlingparty.com.

Boy, that was close. The T-D’s production team was either very alert or very lucky. You be the judge.

The obituaries column in any newspaper, including ours, tends to be pretty sober and sobering.

But from the obits in the Richmond Times-Dispatch yesterday, here’s one that will make you read it twice.

A guy who was 67 passed away. The obit says he “was beamed up by Scottie Friday, August 27, 2010, after a long courageous battle with cancer.”

A serious Trekker? Maybe, but once you learn his name you understand.

His name was Danny Kirk. His nickname: “Captain.”