Know what every newspaper needs now and then? A pep talk. In print. From one of its own.

Baltimore Sun staffers received just that yesterday, when ombudsman Paul Moore congratulated colleagues for, uh, doing their jobs over the holidays.

This holiday season, The Sun sparkled with its coverage of news - some of it late-breaking, some of it "enterprise" reporting and some of it the result of careful preparation and sharp execution.

Most notable was the reporting and presentation of the death of former President Gerald R. Ford in the Dec. 27 and Dec. 28 editions. The bulletin announcing Ford's death hit The Sun's newsroom at midnight - right in the middle of the first-edition press run. Editors quickly notified the newspaper's printing plant to slow the presses so that the news desk could remake the front and inside pages to accommodate the story.

Moore goes on to say that, just like other newspapers, the Sun had a prewritten obit ready for Ford — but that it needed a lot of updating on deadline. How come? We'll guess the newsroom had been lax in updating their obit roster. Which is always worth congratulating.