Stanley Nelson, who was named a Pulitzer finalist last year for his investigation into a Klan murder in Louisiana, is continuing to report on cold cases from the civil rights era. Nelson, editor of The Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La., feels as though he's in a race against time; a number of witnesses and suspects in two different cases have died since the FBI reopened civil rights cases for review in 2007.

Nelson said he fears people have forgotten the pain and loss that families and communities throughout the South endured. “I've been disappointed in the lack of interest from politicians, committees, organizations and especially the news media in putting some effort into shining a light on these unsolved cases,” he told me via email. “I keep thinking what a wonderful opportunity the country had -- and still has -- to go back into time and try to resolve the murders of so many innocent Americans in the 1960s when the country was making a turn to equality. It is an opportunity that rarely comes in history.”

Associated Press | Honest Appalachia
The AP's Vicki Smith writes that Honest Appalachia co-founder Jim Tobias and his partners decided to focus on seven states -- West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina -- "because of its relatively rural area, believing there was less media scrutiny in the region and that a resource like Honest Appalachia would be particularly valuable." Whistleblowers will be able to upload documents anonymously after downloading software from the site; staff will vet the documents and work with journalists to publicize them. The site, which is funded by the Sunlight Foundation and private donations, differentiates itself from WikiLeaks in a blog post: (more...)

Some light reading for your Friday afternoon:

• Oakland's Tribune Tower bought by call center company (Oakland Tribune)
• A Huffington Post analogy you haven't heard: How HuffPo is like the steel industry in the 1960s (The Editors Weblog)
• Does laughing at an interviewee's answer cross the line from reporting to advocacy? (The Hill)
• Food & Environment Reporting Network launches; first story is on the New Mexico dairy industry (Food & Environment Reporting Network)
• The man who live-tweeted the bin Laden raid had the second-most important tweet of 2011, according to Twitter (ABC News)

Digital Man | Journal Register Co.
Digital First Media Editor-in-Chief Jim Brady says the creation of investigative reporting, breaking news, and audience engagement teams at the Register "shows that you can address the needs of traditional journalism while still reorienting your newsroom toward the future." Journal Register group editor Matt DeRienzo writes that the company was able to create the two new investigative positions (and fill the jobs those journalists previously held) "by consolidating positions that were focused either entirely or primarily on the process of putting out the print edition of the newspaper." || Related: Digital First CEO John Paton envisions just a third of newspaper content being produced by professional, local journalists (Poynter.org) | Brady says Journal Register newspapers must consolidate production of national, international news (Poynter.org) || Disclosure: Brady has done some consulting for Poynter.org

Romenesko+ Misc.
An American Public Media release says that "with Jacqui Banaszynski as collaborations editor, Public Insight Network will expand its editorial team in order to produce stories of national importance and regional relevance and support similar reporting projects in PIN newsrooms around the country." Banaszynski holds the Knight Chair in Editing at the University of Missouri and is a long-time Poynter faculty member. She's also worked at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Seattle Times, and Oregonian. (more...)