tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17364846568445055642024-03-05T09:52:28.708-06:00The Ancient Newspaper EditorA blog about the news media -- newspapers in particular -- past, present and future.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-87456400974854044892017-07-20T08:10:00.002-05:002017-07-20T08:10:42.712-05:00SINCE O.J. SIMPSON IS ONLY IN PRISON FOR WHAT HE STOLE, LIKE IT OR NOT YOU MUST PAROLE <span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today's big -- non-Trump related -- news is the parole hearing in Nevada for former football legend O.J. Simpson. And it seems that the big question being asked is: "Why is someone who murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her companion, Ron Goldman, up for parole again after only nine years in prision?"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, the simple answer is that he is not in prison for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. He was -- like it or not -- acquitted (found not guilty) of charges in connection with their brutal slayings.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">O.J.'s parole hearing today involves his conviction on charges of armed robbery and kidnapping in connection with his criminal efforts to regain possession of sports memorabilia he sold to pay the legal fees and civil judgments against him in connection with his trial on charges of killing Nicole and Goldman.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And, frankly, it is my feeling that after nine years in prison -- with a record of good behavior -- that he probably should be paroled.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When he was sentenced, he was a first-time offender and most first-time who are convicted on similar charges and establish a good prison record are usually paroled after five years. Simpson has been denied parole in the past largely because -- despite not having been convicted of Nicole's and Goldman's murders -- most people believe that the did murder them and therefore should remain in prison.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sorry, folks, but that isn't how the American system of justice is supposed to work.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do I think Simpson killed Nicole and Goldman? Hell yes I think he did and I believe that had he been convicted he should be in prison for the rest of his life, without chance of parole.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But under our justice system an offender is supposed to be punished for what he/she is CONVICTED of doing, not for what we are pissed off about because we THINK he did and should have been convicted of.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">O.J was acquitted of the Nicole and Goldman murders with the mantra: "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit" ringing in out ears. Now, I think he needs to be freed on parole under the mantra; "Since O.J. is only in prison for what he stole, like it or not you must parole."</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-17001296825560063882017-07-03T12:32:00.002-05:002017-07-03T12:32:50.889-05:00CNN FINALLY DISPLAYS JOURNALISTIC TESTICLES<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="9urup" data-offset-key="7hloi-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<div style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="7hloi-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"> CNN took every possible opportunity to disappoint me with most of its coverage -- until close to the very end -- of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, receiving an overall D- in terms of any seriously hard hitting reportage or stand-up-on-the-hind-legs journalistic courage in its Trump coverage until the GOP convention.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Until then the CNN's coverage essentially treated Trump as little more than a loudmouth buffoon whose rantings made great video snippets, but they in almost no way took into account the idea that he might win the nomination and did very little to show that he was thoroughly unfit to be elected street sweeper, much less president of the United States. At times, they even seemed to be quite cozy with him allowing him to frequently call in to say something or respond to something in a manner not really accorded to other candidates Republican or Democrat. I don't think they allowed this in order to give him an edge over the other candidates but rather they did it because they thought it was humorous and just ASSUMED their viewers would understant Trump was just making a fool of himself. Well, you know the old saw about the word "assume," and it the end CNN did make an ass out of itself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Now that it's too late, I think CNN is finally doing a responsible job of covering Trump's pathethic "presidency." Nothing CNN has done, however, has really wowed my in the area of journalistic courage as much as its response to the incredibly childish and frighteningly ominous tweet that Trump released over this past weekend showing him in a WWE wrestling mode, violently taking down a person whose face was replaced on the video with a CNN logo. If you've not seen or heard CNN's pull-no-punches response, here it is and it earns the network my first "BRAVO" in a very, very long time: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i><b> “It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly [deputy White House press secretary] Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the president had never done so.</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b> Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his healthcare bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behaviour far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.”</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> This is the first time, in a long time, that CNN has looked like the news network Ted Turner founded. Now, CNN, STAY STRONG!!</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-65476051567323726232017-06-19T11:15:00.000-05:002017-06-19T11:15:36.221-05:00MAKING NATIONAL NEWS LOCAL NEWS -- OR NOT<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As it turns out, one of the seven sailors killed aboard the USS Fitzgerald when a Japanese freighter ran into it off the coast of Japan on Saturday is a local man from Weslaco, Texas --Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Petty Office Noe Hernandez.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During my 12 years as editor of The Monitor one of the things I learned was that it seemed that whenever there was an announcement from the Defense Department that three or more US service men and/or wormen were killed at one time -- whether in combat or in an accident -- at least one of them would very likely be from the Rio Grande Valley.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And when that happened, we always got the news staff moving very quickly to localize the story by contacting any local family members, friends, former teachers, ministers, priests, anyone local who could help us put a human face on the tragic death of Valley native killed while serving his or her country. The staff would update the story online throughout the day and for the morning print edition would usually craft and excellent profile of the deceased service person with photos of family and friends, etc.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a while, particularly as the death tolls mounted in Iraq and Afghanistan, the staff's quick reaction became almost automatic and The Monitor's reporters and photographers produced some outstanding -- an in many instances award winning, well read and greatly appreciated by the community -- work detailing the lives of servicemen and servicewomen who had sacrificed all for their country.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think every member of the staff felt it was the right thing for us to do to honor the local fallen members of our armed forces for what they had done for us.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">I fully expected this tradition -- which is followed by many American newspapers -- would continue because it is expected by and respected by the local community. It is just one of the ways a local newspaper keeps faith with its readers.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have, however, been quite dismayed with the way my former newspaper has thus far handled the death of Petty Officer Hernandez.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sunday evening -- several hours after the U.S. Department of Defense put out a news release giving the names and hometowns of those killed aboard the USS Fitzgerald -- The Monitor, under the headline "Navy: Weslaco man among 7 killed aboard USS Fitzgerald," posted an Associated Press story online that read, in it entirety:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 7.0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>YOKOSUKA, Japan (AP) — The U.S.
Navy says a 26-ear-old Weslaco man is among the seven sailors who died in a
collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship off Japan on
Saturday.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>They are:<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>— Gunner's Mate Seaman Dakota
Kyle Rigsby, 19, from Palmyra, Virginia<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>— Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo
Alexander Douglass, 25, from San Diego, California<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>— Sonar Technician 3rd Class
Ngoc T Truong Huynh, 25, from Oakville, Connecticut<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>— Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe
Hernandez, 26, from Weslaco, Texas<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>— Fire Controlman 2nd Class
Carlosvictor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, from Chula Vista, California<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>— Personnel Specialist 1st
Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24, from Halethorpe, Maryland<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>— Fire Controlman 1st Class
Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37, from Elyria, Ohio<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently, someone at least thought to rewrite the lead so that it emphasized the fact that one of the dead was a local man. However, the person who handled the rewrite committed an uncorrected typographical error saying Petty Office Hernandez was a "26-ear-old." Whatsmore, the rewrite failed to give his name in the lead. That was left for the list that followed and even then Hernandez's name was left at the No. 4 spot on the list.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even KRGV TV-5 did a better job with it's online story, posting this:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Weslaco
- The U.S. Navy has confirmed a Weslaco native was killed when a ship container
off the coast of Japan hit the U.S.S. Fitzgerald.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6pt 0in;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The collision happened around 2
a.m. Saturday Japan time.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6pt 0in;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Commander Ron Flanders,
Spokesperson with U.S. Naval Forces in Japan, tells CHANNEL FIVE NEWS Gunner's
Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez is one of the 7 sailors killed in the collision.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6pt 0in;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Commander Flanders says
Hernandez was in the birthing space of the ship when it was struck by a 30,000
ton Philippine cargo ship. The cargo ship's bulbous head hit the crew's living
quarters, giving sailors just minutes to escape.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6pt 0in;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">"The crew shined in this
moment and kept the ship afloat. Unfortunately, two of the ships crew birthing
spaces where the sailors were sleeping were flooded and 7 sailors were trapped
inside and were lost at that time." said Commander Ron Flanders.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6pt 0in;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Officials are questioning what
that Philippine container ship did just moments before hitting the U.S.S. Fitzgerald.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6pt 0in;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Multiple maritime trackers show
the ship made a U-turn minutes before the collision.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6pt 0in;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Commander Flanders says the
U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, and Japanese Coast Guard is investigating.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<br />
<div style="background: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 6pt 0in;">
<i><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The U.S. Navy is planning a
memorial service in Japan next week.<span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">At least in it's online story, Channel 5 didn't bury Hernandez' name half way down on a list of people from elsewhere and it appears that someone from the TV station at least made the effort to actually talk to a Navy spokesperson </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was a story on the front page of The Monitor's print edition this moring under the one-column headline: </span></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;">Navy: Valley</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;">man among<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;">7 sailors who<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;">died on USS<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<b><span style="font-size: 20.0pt;">Fitzgerald</span></b></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">But no one bothered to rewrite the AP lead to reflect that a local man was among the dead. Despite the headline, the interesting local angle on the Fitzgerald story was left until 8 to 10 column inches into the story (in the eight paragraph which appeared on the inside "jump" page). The subject of the lead was the mother of one of the surviving sailors who was from Raleigh, N.C.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has now (10:40 CDT) been about 14 hours since The Monitor's online story was posted and, as yet, no attempt has been made to update it, not even to correct the "26-EAR-old" typo.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">This makes me wonder if anyone on the news staff is busy working to profile Petty Officer Hernandez to update The Monitor's online presence today or even a for tomorrow morning's print edition.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is not a good exampe of keeping faith with the readers and if a newspaper does not keep faith with its readers, it can hardly expect readers to keep faith with it -- this explains, at least in part, why the circulation of many newspapers is in decline. I've said if before and I still believe it to be true: Newspapers are not so much dying as they are committing suicide.</span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-47450393615104060322017-04-30T09:37:00.000-05:002017-05-01T06:50:39.000-05:00"IT'S NOT STEVE FAGAN'S PAPER ANYMORE"<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Four years ago today -- on April 30, 2013 -- I retired
from newspapering after a 45-year-career that began with a post-Navy reporting job
at the New Albany (Ind.) Tribune in 1977 and ended with an 11-year and 8-month
run as editor of The Monitor here in McAllen, Texas. Along the way I worked at
reporting and various editing jobs at nine newspapers ranging from major metro
to mid-sized dailies in seven different states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This morning, it seems somehow fitting the fourth
anniversary of my retirement comes the day after the White House
Correspondents' Dinner in Washington that was boycotted by America's so-called
president, Donald Trump. It was an event keynoted by speeches by Carl Bernstein
and Bob Woodward the two Washington Post reporters whose Watergate reporting
led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. They were introduced as
two reporters whose work inspired a generation of American Journalists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was one of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As they spoke, I could not help but reflect on where
American Journalism rose to in the wake of their Watergate work and where it
has descended to today, something that has troubled me seriously since well
before I retired as I watched the newspaper industry withering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many of my former newspapering colleagues along with
newspaper industry critics and analysts say the newspapers are dying because
they are an outmoded medium that readers are abandoning. I, however, have long
disagreed with that assessment, contending instead that newspapers aren't
dying, they are committing suicide and continue to lose readership not because
readers are abandoning them but rather because they have abandoned readers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Proof of my theory is quite evident with this morning's
edition of the final newspaper that I had been editor of, The Monitor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As editor, I always felt that the Sunday edition -- the
highest circulation paper of the week -- should be a showcase with a front page
featuring at the very least one well-planned, primary story package that was
investigative or interpretive or analytical in nature and always an in-depth
piece with photos or illustration or graphics and always of real and serious
importance to and impact upon readers. It was a philosophy my staff always shared
and executed throughout my tenure as editor even as the company that owned the
paper -- Freedom Communications -- slipped into bankruptcy and was taken over
by investment bankers interested only in profits who gutted our budget and
forced me to reduce staff by nearly half -- fortunately, mainly through
attrition rather than any large layoffs. In the end, the paper was sold --
along with Freedom's other Texas papers -- to its current owners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, only seven members of the news staff that was at
the paper when I departed remain and only one staffer remains who was there
when I arrived for my first day at the Monitor on August 27, 2001. At its peak
that news staff numbered 53 people, many of whom -- because of their talent and
hard and outstanding work at The Monitor -- have gone on to bigger and better
things at some of the nation's top major metro dailies or highly respected, and
REAL online news sites and at least one having a piece of two separate Pulitzer
Prizes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some my former staffers, who have now no longer with The
Monitor, told me a couple of months after my departure that after they
mentioned to my successor that something wasn't being handled the way it would
have been while I was editor, he told them (quite correctly) that "this
isn't Steve Fagan's paper anymore."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And that was quite evident in today's fourth anniversary
of my retiring from newspapering edition of The Monitor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The main story package was not an in-depth investigative,
interpretive or analytical piece, but rather at five-paragraph, five-inch-long,
"Staff Report" story revealing that a float normally featured in the
McAllen Christmas Parade had been carted up to San Antonio for the 2017 Fiesta
Flambeau Parade. The story -- which read pretty much like a press release --
was accompanied by three really bad (and badly reproduced) handout photos
provided "courtesy of McAllen Parks & Recreation" department. In
Steve Fagan's Monitor, this would have been a single photo and cutline probably
inside the Valley & State section, but certainly NOT on the main package on
Page 1.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the other three Page 1 stories -- also bylined as
a "staff report" -- announced that former San Antonio Spurs forward
Robert Horry would be the keynote speaker at the 2017 All-Valley Sports Awards
Banquet, an even sponsored by The Monitor and its parent company AIM Texas
Media, which also owns the Brownsville Herald, El Nuevo Heraldo, the Valley
Morning Star in Harlingen and the weekly Mid-Valley Town Crier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A third story was a piece headlined "Island LGBT
celebration wraps up with parade today." This story had some promise particularly if it had dealt,
at least somewhat, with the issue of LGBT discrimination in Texas -- which has
long been pretty rampant -- and where it stands as we rapidly descend into
becoming Donald Trump's bigoted America. It could have featured, maybe, some
interviews with actual participants in the event and their feelings on where
things are headed with LGBT rights, etc. It, however, didn't and ended up
reading more like a South Padre Island Chamber of Commerce press release.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The last story on the page, headlined "Valley
businesses joining May 1 strike," had the most potential. In fact, in
terms of its topic, it could have been the main story package for the Sunday
paper. But it fell woefully short because, apparently, no one recognized its potential
for being something better than it was or, if they did recognize that
potentially, they simply didn't care enough to push to develop it. Hispanic
organizations across the United States are calling for a nationwide "Day
Without Immigrants" (Una dia Sin Immigrantes) strike to call attention to
the importance of immigrants in the United States' society and economy and to
decry the immigration policies and attitudes of Donald Trump, his
administration and the Republican controlled Congress. This could have been a
meaningful, Valley wide story that took a serious look at immigrants and the
roles in America. This area, after all, is something like 90+ percent Hispanic
in population and tens of thousands of people here are immigrants both legal
and undocumented and hundreds of thousands are descendant of immigrants. Here,
a strike by a significant number of immigrants and their supporters who grind
everything to a complete standstill. This story could have explored how many area
businesses are going to support their employees' participation in the strike
and how local government officials, chambers of commerce, schools, the University
of Texas Rio Grande Valley, South Texas College, etc. view the strike. The
story could have included interviews with workers, students, etc. who are
planning to participate in the strike and what message they are hoping it will
send and what good they think it might actually accomplish. It could have been
a very strong Sunday package including photos of the anticipated participants,
perhaps with strike placards they are making or have already prepared. But to
have carried that off would have required that someone be awake at the switch,
which didn't happen. The story instead was simply coverage of a press
conference in which two businesses said they are supporting their workers who
might want to participate in the strike -- a disappointing piece full of
unrealized potential.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Essentially, the Sunday edition of The Monitor, published
on the fourth anniversary of my retirement from newspapering had a front page
that gave readers absolutely no reason to pick it up off the lawn and certainly
no reason to buy a single copy newspaper off a rack. And a such is
unfortunately way too representative of what's wrong with too many newspapers
today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yep, "it's not Steve Fagan's paper anymore."</span><br />
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<o:p></o:p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-57483862347096494362016-06-24T09:01:00.002-05:002016-06-24T13:35:08.031-05:00A 45-YEAR NEWSPAPER CAREER IS CHOCK FULL OF SOUVENIRS, MEMORIES THAT CAN'T BE BOUGHTENIn his song "Souvenirs" the late, great Chicago folk singer, songwriter Steve Goodmam came up with this in his lyrics:<br />
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</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Memories, they can't be boughten</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i> They can't be won a carnivals for free</i></div>
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<i> Well, it took me years</i></div>
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<i> To get those souvenirs</i></div>
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<i> And I don't know how they slipped away from me</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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Well, I was in the garage earlier this week weeding through boxes of sourvenirs from my 45-year career in newspaper newsrooms -- with the intent of getting rid of stuff I really didn't want -- when I came across a picture frame containing a white name tag enclosed in a clear, plastic sleeve with a swatch of red ribbon attached and a purpling with age 3 x 5 photograph of three guys in tuxedos, each with a name tag and red ribbon pinned on them. The ribbon has gold leaf on it reading "DSA (Distinguished Service Award) Winner." Here is the photo: </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbmlsaTxLiLaMWEZD9XiO4RMYq80OZ4QuIzyf-ES261Mmalt2nbMj6XMAb0NG4-wyjDrwEBXHCuVsJBmfBAvGO3HWiSUaJvWwbpmp7LkoJG_ogtIZA7xEDcq69Dd4FnA8ZokFouMx9P9Lm/s1600/StartleGramAward.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbmlsaTxLiLaMWEZD9XiO4RMYq80OZ4QuIzyf-ES261Mmalt2nbMj6XMAb0NG4-wyjDrwEBXHCuVsJBmfBAvGO3HWiSUaJvWwbpmp7LkoJG_ogtIZA7xEDcq69Dd4FnA8ZokFouMx9P9Lm/s400/StartleGramAward.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The three tux-clad mokes are (from left to right): Me, then assistant managing editor; Mark Thompson, then Washington Bureau reporter; and the late Jack Tinsley, then executive editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.<br />
<br />
The photograph was shot in 1985 in Salt Lake City where Mark, Jack and I had just picked up the Society of Professional Journalists national Distinguished Service Award for Public Service in Journalism. The newspaper won the award, one of American journalism's most prestigious, for Thompson's incredible five-part series detailing a design defect in the Cobra and Huey helicopters that Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter built for the U.S. military. The series revealed that the company had known about the design defect for years and had a fix for it but did not correct it even though it had apparently been responsible for the loss of many choppers, costing the lives of numerous GIs, particularly during the Vietnam War. As a result of the work by Thompson, who now reports on the military for Time Magazine, all of the U.S. military's Bell Cobra and Huey helicopters were grounded and retrofitted with a device that corrected the design defect.<br />
<br />
Naturally, finding the the picture frame with this souvenir ribboned name tag and aging photo kicked off a wave of memories.<br />
<br />
During my 45-year newspaper career, the Bell Helicoter series was one of the finest pieces of journalism I was ever associated with, had the privilege of editing and, as it turned out, defending in the face of demands from Bell's top officials that the series be halted and that Thompson and I be fired -- him for pursuing and writing it and me for being responsible for its oversight and publication. Ahhhhhh, yes, those were the days. Incidently, the series went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and several other major national awards that year.<br />
<br />
The first part of the series was publish on Sunday, Mar. 25, 1984. By the time Monday morning rolled around, after publication of the second part, the angry phone calls from officials and employees at Bell -- then Fort Worth's single largest employer -- had reached a fever pitch. When I walked into my office shortly after 9 that morning, I was greated by phone and written messages inviting me to Jack Tinsley's office immediately.<br />
<br />
Jack informed me that Jack Horner, the president of Bell Helicopter, had called him after trying unsuccessfully to contact Publisher Phil Meek, who was, I think, out of town on business. Tinsley told me that Horner was demanding that the series be halted immediately and that the paper issue an apology to Bell and that Thompson and "the editor responsible for publishing" the series be fired. Tinsley told me that he had left a message for Meek to call him ASAP so they could consult on Horner's demands and he said there was certainly chance the I might lose my job.<br />
<br />
Meek finally called back and Jack -- with his phone on speaker and me sitting there across from his large cluttered desk -- told the publisher about the rising storm from Bell and its employees and about Horner's call and demands. Phil assured Jack that he did not want to halt what might be one of the paper's best-ever jounalism efforts and that neither Mark nor I would be fired.<br />
<br />
"Well, what do I tell Jack Horner," Tinsley asked. Without hesitation, Meek replied: "Tell Horner to go fuck himself."<br />
<br />
So, moments later, and still on speaker phone with me sitting there, Tinsley called Horner back.<br />
<br />
"I talked to Phil Meek about your demand that we halt the series, publish an apology to Bell and fire Mark Thompson and Steve Fagan, the editor responsiblefor publication of the series," Tinsley told Horner.<br />
<br />
"Well, what did Phil have to say," Horner asked with icy smugness.<br />
<br />
"He said for me to tell you to go fuck yourself," said Tinsley. A Loud click came over the speaker followed by the dial tone. Tinsley hung up his receiver, and turned toward me with a big grin on his face and suggested I get back to my office because I was probably going to have a lot of phone calls to answer.<br />
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Before I could get back to my office, however, Circulation Director Jim Tingle -- an ex-paratroop officer who stood about a head and a half taller than me -- cornered me in a hallway and angrily backed me into a corner.<br />
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"What the hell do you think you're doing? Do you now how many cancellations we've had this morning already," he asked with a glaring red face. "More than 300 and that's just for starters."<br />
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He then informed me that officials at the Bell plant had pulled all of our circulation boxes off the property and tossed them outside the main gate and the off-work Bell employees were planning to show up and picket outside the newspaper building after lunch (which they did).<br />
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Tingle then demanded to know "why the hell are we running this story and did anybody consider what kind of problems it would cause" for his department.<br />
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I blurted out that we were running it "because it's a great piece of Journalism."<br />
<br />
"Oh, yeah," he responded. He then drew the thumb, index and middle finger of his right hand tightly together and used them to pound on my sternum with each word as he growled emphatically: "Well, if it's such a goddammned great piece of journalism, why wasn't it in the New York Times or Washington Post first." With one final snort, he stormed off leaving me shaken and my sternum bruised.<br />
<br />
Once the flood of memories subsided, I decided to post the photo on Facebook. It almost immediately started drawing "likes" and comments -- lots of them -- from my, Mark's and Jack's mutual and individual friends.<br />
<br />
Among the comments, the one that surprised and touched me most came from Phil Meek, who has Mark as one of the select few people he has friended on Facebook. During my newspaper career I was fortunate to have worked for several pretty good publishes including Barry Bingham Sr. and Barry Bingham Jr. at <i>The Louisville Courier-Journal and Times</i>, and Olaf Frandsen and Ray Stafford at <i>The Montior</i> here in McAllen, Texas. But I think, perhaps, the best publisher I ever worked for was Meek because unlike the others who came up with a newspaper background, Meek come to the business from the automobile industry. However, he seemed to have an innate understanding of the role and responsibility of the press in general and newpapers in particular. As publisher he seemed absolutely fearless and was 100 pecent supportive of his newspeople, putting his full faith and trust in their work until they were proven beyond doubt to be wrong. He seemed to truly believe that the purpose of a newspaper was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.<br />
<br />
In his comment, Phil wrote regarding the photo:<br />
<br />
<i>"It was so appropriate that by his presence Steve was recognized for his largely unheralded work behind the scenes that helped Mark's four part </i>(actually five part)<i> investigative series lead to the awarding of the Granddaddy of the Pulitzers, the Gold Medal to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for Distinguished Public Service in May 1985."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Appreciating that sort of comment from a publisher I greatly admired, it replied with this:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; line-height: 16.08px;"><b>PHIL:</b> Editor's seldom get publicly heralded for their behind the scenes work and editing of fine pieces of reportage. That, rightfully goes to the reporters who have to bust their butts and often even put their personal safety on the line to piece togethe</span><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129; line-height: 16.08px;">r the information that makes up a good story or series and then write it in a form an editor can grasp and hone. Editors, the good ones, take their pleasure from seeing the people they supervise doing good journalistic work and knowing that, in part, their directing, influence and encouragement have an impact on that work. As far as the Bell Helicopter series was concerned. I felt I got all the heralding I needed from the people whose heralding really mattered most to me -- you, Mark, Jack, my colleagues at the Star-Telegram and from those who had worked for or with me at other papers who knew and understood that this was one of the finest examples ever of the kind of journalistic efforts I tried to promote and encourage my staffers to engage in.</span></i></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-7666429930941807752016-05-26T14:51:00.001-05:002016-05-27T14:02:46.760-05:00LIBERAL MEDIA? BAH, HUMBUG!<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I ever hear the term "liberal media" again after this presidential election I think that, despite my advancing age, I will have to throttle the son of a bitch who says it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The "media" today is largely corporate owned and in the case of the print media largely owned by investment bankers or companies heavily indebted to investment bankers who are nearly all, by definition, very conservative.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And if you don't think the money is calling the shots on the way things are covered and that that money is anything but either right leaning or flat out right-wing sympathetic you're crazier than an outhouse mouse.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result, March-Hare-mad billionaire Donald Trump is allowed, particularly in the electronic media, to say whatever he wants, whenever he wants without question or challenge. Not only is It positively disgusting, but it is enabling the bigotry, hate and fear that he spews to already alter the character of the nation and a large number of its people.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If today's media moguls think that some how after the election they will be able to control Trump and keep him from carrying out his ego-based, insane, fascist agenda that will destroy this country and likely lead to a third -- and this time nuclear -- world war and possibly a second civil war, they are dead wrong and 65 to 80 percent of us will wind up just plain dead.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">For nearly 45 years, I was proud to be a member of -- and for many of those years a leader, as the editor of three different daily newspapers, of a small segment of -- the U.S. media.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, throughout that time I was, and still am, a liberal, but I kept my personal politics out of the way the newspapers I was in charge of covered news. (It should be noted that I worked for nine newspaper during my career and only one, the Louisville Courier Journal & Times, was owned by liberals.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As an editor, I also struggled -- for the most part effectively -- against the efforts, even then, of conservative owners and/or publishers to bend the news to their liking.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When it comes to the term "liberal media," let's be totally honest. Even when print media was largely privately owned, the owners were wealthy and mostly conservative. Then, they started selling off their newspapers to corporations, which were/are mainly conservative. The electronic media has pretty much always been under conservative corporate ownership. Essentially, "liberal" has played an almost non-existent role in media ownership in this country for decades.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">During most of my nearly 45 years in the daily newspaper business, most of the top news executives that I've known of being fired for political reasons were let go not because they were too conservative, but rather because they were regarded by those whose money controlled their medium as being too liberal.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, with all of the nation's "mainstream," traditional media in general in financial decline, and newspapers in particular suffering, it seems to me that the money interest that are in control of most media outlets -- particularly electronic -- are being allowed by job scared news executives to dictate, subtly or even overtly, the manner and nature of political coverage for this election. It seems that virtually every network news cast begins with the words "Donald Trump today..." And what follows is video and/or audio of Trump rattling off a litany of hate, racism and bigotry unfettered by questions.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">From that manner and nature of the coverage, it seems quite obvious, at least to me, that the money behind the media has settled for and is embracing the idea of Donald Trump, who appears to be as certifiably nuts as Adolf Hitler, as America's president/fuhrer.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-85877218391827921822016-03-09T11:51:00.000-06:002016-03-09T11:51:25.383-06:00TV NETWORK PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY COVERAGE: All Trump, All The Time?<em><strong>NOTE: </strong>This marks the return of The Ancient Newspaper Editor, which has been on too long a hiatus, which was due in part to my having been through an extended hospital stay in connection with a heart attack and bacterial spinal cord infection. I'm doing better now, thank you, but will be having back surgery next week. My apologies for the hiatus.</em><br />
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A story on Huffington Post Politics this morning (<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-networks_us_56df9346e4b0860f99d72720?section=politics">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-networks_us_56df9346e4b0860f99d72720?section=politics</a>) makes in it's headline this interesting observation: <br />
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Networks Didn't Cut From Donald Trump's Speech Once To Air Hillary Clinton</h1>
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Instead, America got to watch Trump promote his line of steaks</h2>
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The story by Jennifer Bendery, White House and congressional reporter for the Huffington Post, goes on to say:<strong><em> "<span style="font-weight: 400;">Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton gave a stump speech Tuesday night, but chances are you didn't see it, since none of the major TV networks covered it. They were all glued to GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump's rambling speech/press conference/self-promotional event happening at the same time."</span></em></strong></div>
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It seems to me that this has gotten to be a really serious problem with all of the networks and not just when providing live primary election night coverage.<br />
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This morning, for instance, ABC's Good Morning America allowed Trump to drone on unchallenged, and virtually uninterrupted for way more than 5 and probably closer to 10 minutes -- which is an exceedingly long and unusual amount of time to devote to a single "news" interview -- about his win in Michigan. Meanwhile, George Stephanopoulos sat there largely staring into the camera slack jawed, particularly after Trump verbally slapped him around for "making a negative out of a big win" after the GMA anchor pointed out that exit polls showed Trump had "lost" with late deciders -- a valid point considering 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney's recently launched "Stop Trump" campaign.<br />
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On the other side, how long was the GMA interview with Bernie Sanders regarding his stunning upset win in Michigan?<br />
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Yeah, that's right, what interview with Bernie Sanders. Or, what interview even with Hillary Clinton for that matter.<br />
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Yep, you've got it, the ONLY candidate from either party actually interviewed live or even recorded on GMA this morning was Trump.<br />
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This has become the disturbing reality thus far during this presidential primary election season. It's been my feeling for months now that for all practical intents and purposes when it come to viewing political news on the TV networks, Trump almost appears from the frequency, the coverage time devoted and the extent of coverage to be the only candidate running. Certainly, he's the only candidate given so much network time to just run his mouth. It's gotten so bad on Good Morning America, an about 25-year viewing habit that my wife and I just can't seem to break, that we refer to the show these days as the "Morning Trump Hour."<br />
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The all-Trump, all-the-time coverage by the networks has gotten so pervasively bad in at least my view that is has me wondering -- against my normally better judgment -- if it's not time to employ some provisions of the Equal Time rule to help retool and bring back the Federal Communication Commission's Fairness Doctrine, which died in 2011.<br />
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Between them, the Equal Time rule and the Fairness Doctrine recognized the advantage that excessive TV time/coverage could give a politically charged issue or political candidate and required the networks to provide fair and balanced coverage and/or to give all political candidates equal time on the air.<br />
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Granted, living by and complying with an FCC rule that would combine aspects of the Equal Time Rule and the old Fairness Doctrine would be burden on the networks, but I think it would insure equitable and responsible coverage -- something the networks seem to have totally tossed out the window this election season.<br />
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It's my feeling that they have done so in favor of fawning over Donald Trump and giving him whatever his bullying heart desires and demands to the detriment of the kind of fair, balanced and inquisitive political coverage they should be providing. In essence, the networks -- intentionally or not -- have been helping Trump sell a rotten bill of political goods that is based on hatred, bigotry, jingoism and Fascist/Nazi philosophy -- all things that are supposed to be totally un-American.<br />
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I'm sure the current crop of network news department <em>"leaders"</em> justify to themselves the excessive Trump coverage by telling themselves that they want to be careful to avoid being accused of being "liberal media," which is a myth anyway.<br />
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Once upon a time, TV network news operations were run, or heavily influenced, by the likes of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings -- journalists with an inbred sense of fairness and balance and the intestinal fortitude and character to challenge bullshit no mater how powerful, wealthy or well-placed the source or politician it was coming from. In their day, network news programming was regarded almost strictly as the coverage and passing along of vital information. Electronic news media leaders with their character and keen sense of journalistic ethics didn't need the Fairness Doctrine or the Equal Time Rule to ensure fair coverage or equal time and treatment.<br />
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Today, network news is run by the likes of Fox's Roger Ailes and has become way too heavily regarded within the industry as entertainment and -- particularly in the case of Fox and to a slightly lesser degree MSNBC -- point-of-view propaganda that are passed off as news.<br />
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It's as if all of the TV networks have lost any and all sense of journalistic responsibility at a time when their influence is extremely powerful, particularly as the usually much more inquisitive, hard-hitting, fair, balanced and in-depth print media continues to fade from public consumption.<br />
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<em>(As a footnote and for the sake of transparency, let me point out that during this primary season I have personally supported Bernie Sanders because he is the one person running who I regard as a progressive idealist of the John and Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey variety.)</em><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-40050443175635394932015-05-07T12:04:00.000-05:002015-05-07T12:04:14.137-05:00ARE COWS BECOMING TOO SACRED FOR TOO MANY OF TODAY'S TROUBLED NEWSPAPERS?My friend Michael H. Price, who I worked with many years ago at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, posted this provocative early 20th Century cartoon, by socialist editorial cartoonist Art Young, depicting the newspapers of the time as brothels:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQOJevyLhJnutQvjduh9WypHx2Y51byp59wdjCEknbMpu6kFx1S6dEc_iiIa7R_f_GPUL6xpjDstNhI8e0SKLnKuZF6CIX_RP3nCvqBU0uQUxuyVubxz420zPQR2OMihgYVYMKoR0fl7oF/s1600/newspaperprostitution.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQOJevyLhJnutQvjduh9WypHx2Y51byp59wdjCEknbMpu6kFx1S6dEc_iiIa7R_f_GPUL6xpjDstNhI8e0SKLnKuZF6CIX_RP3nCvqBU0uQUxuyVubxz420zPQR2OMihgYVYMKoR0fl7oF/s400/newspaperprostitution.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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With the posting, Mike wrote: <i><b>"The newspaper racket as a brothel. True enough at the start of the 20th Century, when Art Young published this cartoon, and truer in the Great Here & Now. Exceptions all along, of course, but fewer and fewer exceptions. Too much Bread & Circuses, and nowhere near enough provocative substance."</b></i><br />
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I really wish I could disagree with Mike, but, frankly, I think the sentiment expressed in this cartoon is just as accurate today -- with newspapers continuing to suffer financial hardships due to declining advertising revenues -- as it probably was then. Perhaps even more so.<br />
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I've touched on this topic before, in my Feb. 13, 2015, post "NEWSPAPER ETHICS: MAINTAINING (OR NOT) THE LINE BETWEEN DOLLARS AND SENSE," which you will find still available among my older blog posts.<br />
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Many of today's papers have seemingly accorded "scared cow" status to large local advertisers -- who seem to have no qualms about using the weight of their advertising dollars to bully publishers and editors -- and to prominent local people, business leader and particularly vocal groups in their communities who raise objections to certain kinds of content.<br />
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Once upon a time, back when newspapers were making higher profits than almost any other industry in the United States, most reputable newspapers took great pride in contending they had no sacred cows.<br />
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Prominent among those newspapers was afternoon <i>Louisville Times</i> -- where I took my first, post-college reporting job in 1970 -- and its morning sister publication, <i>The Louisville Courier-Journal</i>. But even then and even there, the "no sacred cows" contention wasn't exactly true as I learned when I wrote a story about Democrat Louisville Mayor Dr. Harvey I. Sloane not paying several years worth of a state tax (the exact title of which I can no longer recall) that applied only to those who, like Sloane, were extremely wealthy.<br />
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I knew Sloane was good friends with the also very wealthy Bingham family, owners of the papers at the time, who had thrown their full and the newspaper's full support behind his bid to become mayor.<br />
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By the time I turned in the story to the city desk the evening before it was to be published in the next afternoon's paper, I had all of my facts confirmed and double checked and even had the mayor acknowledging that he'd "overlooked" the payments due under the tax and his promise that he would immediately make good on what he owed. My editors and I figured that with all of this nailed down, the cozy relationship between the Binghams and the mayor wouldn't matter when it came to publishing a story about him being significantly delinquent -- we're talking many tens of thousands for dollars delinquent (over the intervening 40 some years I can't recall the exact amount, but I think is was something like $72,000 and change) -- in the payment of any rightfully owed tax.<br />
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We were wrong.<br />
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When my story was published in the day's first edition, it appeared stripped six-columns across the top of the front page under a large headline that said something like "Mayor fails to pay $72,000 in taxes."<br />
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When copies of the first edition hit Publisher Barry Bingham Jr.'s desk, our managing editor, apparently got a call from Barry Jr. raising cain over the story.<br />
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As a result, in the day's second edition, the story was moved to the bottom of the page, with the same headline. But that apparently didn't salve Barry Jr.'s state of pisstivity. He didn't want the story on Page 1, period. In addition, Bingham contended that the story was minimalized by my high-up sentence explaining that the particular tax Sloane owed only applied to the very wealthy.<br />
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So, by the day's final edition, the story had been moved to a page deep inside the local section under the headline "Mayor fails to pay obscure tax."<br />
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As a reporter and then editor at other newspapers where I worked throughout most of the rest of my more than 44 year career, I encountered similar experiences, even though most of those papers also took great pride in saying they had no sacred cows.<br />
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Of course, I did enjoy and number of instances where advertisers or prominent individuals and/or business leaders were told that their dollars or their influence were not going to interfere with the publication of valid news stories.<br />
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One such instance occurred while I was assistant managing editor for news and projects at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in connection with the Bell Helicopter series that went on to win the 1985 Public Service Pulitzer Prize. The series dealt with a design flaw in some of the helicopters that Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter built for the U.S. military. In the five-day series, Washington Bureau Reporter Mark Thompson revealed the design flaw -- which led to an in-flight phenomenon called "mast bumping" -- had caused the deaths of nearly 250 service men between 1973 and 1984 and that it had gone uncorrected even after Bell's chief attorney brought it to the attention of company executives in 1979 and recommended the problem be fixed immediately.<br />
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The series, which began its five-day run on Sunday, March 25, 1984. enraged Jack Horner, president of Bell, which was the city's single largest employer. On Monday morning the furious Horner called to speak to Publisher Phil Meek, who was out of town. So he settled for screaming over the phone at Executive Editor Jack Tinsley, demanding the series be immediately halted, that the people responsible for it be immediately fired and that a top-of-the-front-page apology to Bell Helicopter be published across six-columns of the Tuesday paper, or else.<br />
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Tinsley called me -- as the editor responsible for overseeing those who produced and did the primary editing on the series and for actually putting it in the paper -- into his office. Frankly, I fully expected to be fired.<br />
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However, Tinsley told me he had reached Phil Meek by phone and informed him of Horner's demands.<br />
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"I asked him what I should tell Horner and Phil told me to tell Horner to go fuck himself. So, that's pretty much what I did," Tinsley told me. Although, by that afternoon, all of our single-copy sales boxes on Bell property had been ripped up and tossed outside the plant gates and a group of Bell employees had begun picketing outside the newspaper, the series continued and my job, Thompson's job and job of State Editor Roland Lindsey, who directly oversaw Thompson, were safe. Here is a link to the stories that were part of the series, which I still think is one of the finest examples of quality American journalism: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/mthompsondc/star-telegramseries">https://sites.google.com/site/mthompsondc/star-telegramseries</a>.<br />
<br />
Considering the financial condition of most newspapers, I wonder how many of today's publishers would come up with that sort of response to livid complaints from an important advertiser, business leader or heavy hitting employer.<br />
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I fear the answer is not very many.<br />
<br />
Certainly, during the waning years before my retirement as editor of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, and departure from the newspaper business, I experienced several incidents in which important local advertisers where allowed to directly browbeat me, call me unethical and irresponsible and even accuse me or one or more of my reporters of taking payoffs during meetings called to let them bitch about things published in the newspaper that they didn't like.<br />
<br />
And, as I communicate with editor and reporter friends who still are employed at other newspapers around the country, I hear more and more tales of such incidents in which outside influencers are allowed to successfully interfere with what gets published in their papers. The main reason usually being cited is fear of lost advertising revenue. The consequence, valid and important news stories with, as my friend Mike Price put it, "provocative substance" -- and even online comments from readers on some stories that do get published -- are being thwarted.<br />
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The result: As more of these sorts of things happens, readers lose faith and trust in their newspaper, which loses relevance for them. And we all know what happens when people no longer feel their newspaper is relevant in their lives.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-6980418570178417402015-05-05T09:45:00.001-05:002015-05-05T10:59:08.135-05:00WHERE DOES THE BLAME BELONG FOR THE ABORTED GARLAND, TEXAS, TERROR ATTACK?Although I sometimes lapse into the belief that just because I spent more than 44 years in the newspaper business I had pretty much seen it all, there are still occurrences almost daily in the news that befuddle and amaze me.<br />
<br />
Such is the case with today's latest "revelation" regarding last weekend's shooting incident in Garland, Texas, in which two home-grown, wannabe, Islamic terrorists got themselves killed in a botched attempt to wreak Charlie Hebdo style mayhem.<br />
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So, let's see if I have this right.<br />
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According to CNN (and other media outlets), ISIS is claiming "credit" for the two assault-weapon-wielding nincompoops who -- after wounding a security guard at an ill-advised “Draw Mohammed” cartoon contest in Garland put on by a group whose only purpose is to hate and inflame all Muslims -- got themselves killed by a sharp-shooting traffic cop armed with only a pistol?<br />
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Seems to me that ISIS should be running from the blame/credit for this one, especially since it's questionable whether anyone in the Islamic terrorist organization had ever even heard of the two fools before they got themselves dispatched to collect on their virgins.<br />
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In case you haven't already seen it, here is the link to CNN's report on the claim of "credit": <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/us/garland-texas-prophet-mohammed-contest-shooting/index.html">www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/us/garland-texas-prophet-mohammed-contest-shooting/index.html</a><br />
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For what it's worth, I think that in this story, CNN does a reasonably good job of trying to not play into the "we're all gonna die at the hands of Islamic terrorists" hysteria. However, I shudder to think how this is being handled by Fox News, which specializes in ginning up fear of everything. Despite my better judgment, I guess that, out of morbid curiosity, I am going to have to check on how Fox is playing this latest "development" and how far back into their "news report" it pushes Mike Huckabee's announcement that he is launching yet another costly and futile bid for the GOP's 2016 presidential nomination in an already overcrowded field.<br />
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To me, the bigger question in all of the latest media buzz over the two Garland moron "Muslim martyrs" is how in the world did the FBI lose track of them, especially since it had been keeping tabs on at least one of the two, Elton Simpson of Phoenix, since apparently at least 2011 when he was arrested and convicted on federal charges of making a false statement involving international and domestic terrorism. <br />
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According to various news reports over the past few days, Simpson had recently been posting all sorts whacked out tweets on Twitter that one would expect just might seem suspicious to the FBI. I suspect, of course, that when it comes to tracking head cases like Simpson, the FBI has its hands more than full.<br />
<br />
Getting back to the issue of who really deserves the "credit" for the Garland attack, it seems to me that Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, co-founders of the far-right-wing, Islamic hate group the American Freedom Defense Initiative -- which organized the contest for artists to draw demeaning cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad -- are a pair of good candidates. It's hard to believe that Geller and Spencer didn't have a clue that such an "event" might be the equivalent of tossing a can of gasoline onto a burning fire.<br />
<br />
Although to most American's Geller has, at least until now, been a fairly obscure figure outside of far-right-wing circles, the Garland attack has propelled her into some prominence. A May 4, CNN opinion piece by Haroon Mohgul turned an interesting spotlight on her and her hateful stand against all Muslims. Here is the link to that report: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/04/opinions/moghul-texas-shooting-gellar/">http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/04/opinions/moghul-texas-shooting-gellar</a>.<br />
<br />
Although there seems to be lots of blame -- or "credit," if you want to call it that -- to be shared for the Garland attack, it's fortunate that the only people to die were the two men most deserving of being sent off to their just rewards.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-74846167298253731602015-04-30T04:06:00.001-05:002015-04-30T08:45:39.347-05:00TWO YEARS INTO RETIREMENT, THE NEWSPAPER-CAREER MEMORIES, GOOD AND BAD, STILL FLOW<div style="text-align: center;">
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As I approached this day, April 15, 2015, the second anniversary of my retirement after nearly 12 years as editor of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, and at the end of a more than 44-year career in the newspaper business, a flood of disjointed memories has been washing over me -- many wonderful and others not so much.</div>
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Over the past two years, the thing that has surprised me most is that I haven't really missed the job nearly as much as I thought I would. This impresses me as quite odd since I always regarded newspapering as more of a way of life than just a job. It was, at least for most of my career, something that you invested yourself in even though you knew that no matter how much you loved a newspaper, it would never love you back, and that as places to work, all newspapers sucked, but many sucked much worse than others.<br />
<br />
Before I retired, I used to frequently say the once I did step out of the business I expected to die within three months from lack of stress.<br />
<br />
Well, here it is, two years later, and I'm still here and what remains of the business for me is my memories, weird highlights of which have been almost magically washing over me since Tuesday.<br />
<br />
It think that what sparked my Magical Mystical Memory Tour was a photo that popped up Tuesday on my Facebook timeline under the heading (oddly enough) of "Your Memories." It was a post I had put up on April 28, 2013, two days before my retirement. The post consisted of a photo of my barren-looking office at The Monitor after I had carted off about eight to 10 boxes of my personal stuff and a cutline. Here is what I had written:<br />
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<span lang="EN"><b><i>"The only personal
possessions now remaining in my office at The Monitor are my Monitor coffee
mug, a few packets of sweet n low and what remains in the bottom of a
Coffeemate container. Oh yeah, and 11 years and nine months of mostly great
memories."</i></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
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And, here's the photo:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD773HZrsBIRZZXDe5GC-k4Ov9l6ltvo2jiX7CH6ZCta1W3HS3sEPDTkQV7Gi-oSNO2futbh38-ezUHf5L3BenNe5iE7uhek2mw5h2m7lfMv0KmZokDYGv676fMnm_5zqeQdQrIF3SsDQP/s1600/emptyoffice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD773HZrsBIRZZXDe5GC-k4Ov9l6ltvo2jiX7CH6ZCta1W3HS3sEPDTkQV7Gi-oSNO2futbh38-ezUHf5L3BenNe5iE7uhek2mw5h2m7lfMv0KmZokDYGv676fMnm_5zqeQdQrIF3SsDQP/s1600/emptyoffice.jpg" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
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Then, several hours later on Tuesday, the wonderfully witty Michael H. Price, who had been a feature writer and reasonably renowned film critic at The Fort Worth Star-Telegram before, during and after my tenure there -- first as business editor, then assistant managing editor-news and projects and finally night managing editor -- put up a Facebook post that drew comments from a number of former Starlegram staffers, many of them also named "Mike" or "Michael."</div>
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That immediately brought to mind the fact that will I was at the Star-Telegram, I was impressed at the overabundance of Mikes in the news department. There was not only Mike Price, but also, to name just a few, Mike Perry, Mike Strickland, Mike Gerst, Mike Norman. Here a Mike, there a Mike, everywhere a Mike, Mike.</div>
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I recalled thinking the if I walked into the newsroom and screamed "MIKE," more that half of the guys would look up, including even Sports Editor Jimmy Walker, who may not have been a "Mike" but sure as hell wouldn't want to miss out on a share of anything good that might be coming the way of the Mikes.</div>
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That was the first of the disjointed memories that have been coming not so much as long, drawn out episodes, but rather as quick and sometimes, often downright weird, snapshots of a more than 44 year career of doing something I truly loved.<br />
<br />
Here is just small fraction of the other career recollections that have been rumbling in my head since Tuesday:<br />
<br />
In another Star-Telegram memory, I recalled a mid-April 1985 afternoon huddled in the paper's small "wire room" with Executive Editor Jack Tinsley, Assistant Executive Editor Phil Record and several others as our news service teletypes clickety clacked away while we nervously awaited word on the winners of that year's Pulitzer Prizes.<br />
<br />
Although the winners are supposed to be secret until actually announced by the Pulitzer Board, there always seems to be leaks. Two days before, I had been informed by two "sources" that Star-Telegram Washington Correspondent Mark Thompson was to be awarded the Investigative Reporting Pulitzer for his series revealing that at least 250 U.S. service men had lost their lives due to a design flaw in Bell helicopters built in Fort Worth for the military.<br />
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I was more nervous than any of the other assembled editors because I had relayed the information from my sources to Publisher Phil Meek, who had enough faith in what I'd told him to set in motion a plan for a celebration costing thousands of dollars.<br />
<br />
That morning, however, I got calls from both sources who regretted to inform me they had learned that the Investigative Pulitzer would go to reporters at The Philadelphia Inquirer, NOT to Thompson. I decided to not pass THAT information along, opting to be fired after the announcement rather than earlier in the day.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ09lc31EmgpP2k1yq4POVPirCicu_UKh8i3NbMExl_Atz4lArzGSNAC7lrytccs88oNVGOGvDDn59Jvz4vy45KAGbaTm1OBqXsKRNuw-rsRwh_Qu-ZpvjbJzHROBoct3iWs3GHNajfzD_/s1600/PulitzerHat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ09lc31EmgpP2k1yq4POVPirCicu_UKh8i3NbMExl_Atz4lArzGSNAC7lrytccs88oNVGOGvDDn59Jvz4vy45KAGbaTm1OBqXsKRNuw-rsRwh_Qu-ZpvjbJzHROBoct3iWs3GHNajfzD_/s1600/PulitzerHat.JPG" height="132" width="200" /></a>As it turned out, my sources were right, Thompson didn't win the Investigative Reporting Pulitzer. Instead, The Star-Telegram was awarded the 1985 Public Service Pulitzer, journalism's highest and most prestigious award. The celebration -- which might be better described as a gala with two live bands, loads of catered eats and hundreds of bottles of champagne -- went off as scheduled and I kept my job as assistant managing editor for news and projects. What's more, I was left suspecting that Phil Meek may have had better sources than mine.<br />
<br />
Another memory that reared up was from my tenure as metro editor at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss. This one from a Monday in 1978, the day after we published a Sunday tabloid special section called "North Mississippi Justice," a massive investigative undertaking spearheaded by reporter Rick Tulsky, who later -- as a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer -- won the 1987 Investigative Reporting Pulitzer. The special section provided a very detailed, in-depth look into the circumstances surrounding the unsolved murders of numerous African-American men in North Mississippi and the Ku Klux Klan's apparent involvement in many of them.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="textexposedshow"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;">The Monday
following Sunday's publication of the special section, I started getting
the "how-dare-you" phone calls, lots of them, from irate
white readers. All of whom were upset not about the murders, but
about the fact the we had exposed the racist reasons behind their
having gone unsolved for years. Finally, after probably answering at least 100 calls, I had had it. The next call was from an ignorant (there, I said it)
sounding woman with a very heavy Mississippi drawl. It went something like this:</span></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span class="textexposedshow"><b>CALLER:</b> I'm tired of this, y'all are turnin' this
into nothin' but an (n-word) paper. Nothin' but stories about (n-words) and
pictures of (n-words). Everywhere I look nothin' but (n-words). Y'all ain't
become nothin' but a bunch of (n-word) lovers.</span></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span class="textexposedshow"><b>ME:</b> Ma'am, sorry but I really don't care to listen
to this any longer.</span></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span class="textexposedshow"><b>CALLER: </b>Why?</span></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span class="textexposedshow"><b>ME:</b> Well, because I'm black.</span></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span class="textexposedshow"><b>CALLER:</b> (After a protracted pause) Oh, uhhhh...I'm
sorry (Click).</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 115%;"><span class="textexposedshow">I never knew whether she was sorry for what she had said, or sorry for me because she thought I was black.</span></span></span></div>
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That memory churned up another, somewhat related recollection, of the mind games I was sometimes forced to play with then Clarion-Ledger owners Robert Hederman Sr., who was publisher, and Thomas Hederman, who carried the title editor-in-chief. Both, though well educated (Tom even had a masters degree in journalism from Columbia University), were inveterate racists who would from time to time call me downstairs to their offices to grouse at me over the number stories and, in particular, the number photos we published regarding "minorities" engaged in something other than criminal activity. I think they liked to use the word "minorities" to pretend to themselves that they weren't really racists. Typically, I would just nod my head, say "I understand" and then go back upstairs to continue ignoring with they said.<br />
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However, after one particularly brutal downstairs session, I decide to put an end to such discussions which I knew were bogus because it was quite obvious to any objective person that the paper still ran far more stories about and photos of white people than black. So, after being drubbed while I remained silent for at least 30 minutes, I finally spoke up. "I guess what you're saying is that number stories and photos we publish dealing with white and black people should reflect the racial demographics of the city?"<br />
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Mr. Bob and Mr. Tom -- as they were referred to, in Southern fashion, by every newspaper employee -- readily agreed that that was precisely what the wanted..."to be fair." Apparently, they did not realize the Jackson's population was, at that point, somewhere between 48 and 49 percent African American.<br />
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I promised them that I would do a thorough study of the paper's story and photo coverage whites and blacks compared to the local demographics and get back to them on Monday of the following week.<br />
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That weekend, I took home two months worth of newspapers to perform an extensive story and photo count with the help of a brand new bottle of Wild Turkey 101.<br />
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First thing Monday morning I went downstairs to inform Mr. Bob and Mr. Tom of the results of my perusal of the two months of papers. They listened intently and smiled as I informed them that contrary to prior beliefs, during that period just barely 30 percent of the stories and photos the paper had published dealt primarily with black people.<br />
<br />
I concluded my presentation saying: "It appears -- in accordance with what you told me last week that you wanted the story and photo content to be more representative of the city's demographic breakdown, which is now about 49 percent black to 51 percent white -- that we need to work harder to increase our number of stories about and photos of our black residents."<br />
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Mr. Bob quickly responded saying: "Uh, uh, no, no, that's all right. I think we just need to proceed as we have been doing."<br />
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I went back upstairs and never again heard another word from either of them regarding our percentage of white to black coverage.<br />
<br />
Of course, when you're hit with a flood of memories, some are of embarrassing moments. During my career, one of the most embarrassing moments came on the night, in 2003, we started up the new, very expensive,"state-of-the-art" Goss press installed at The Monitor's new, more than 100,000 square-foot building.<br />
<br />
Although neither the newspaper's then General Manager Stephan Wingert, who over saw the construction from start to finish and is now publisher, or then Publisher Olaf Frandsen had at that point ever been party to the installation and start up of a new press. I had. While I was there, new presses were installed at The Clarion-Ledger, at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and at The Morning News in Florence, S.C.<br />
<br />
I learned from experience all three of those installations that, no matter what, when you first try to kick those new presses into high gear, SOMETHING is invariably going to go wrong. Therefore, it's usually a good idea to run them for a couple of nights putting out the paper before you make a big public announcement and invite a bunch of local dignitaries in for the GRAND start up.<br />
<br />
I passed that information along to Stephan and Olaf, who carefully listened to what I had to say and then ignored the advice, relying instead on assurances from the still on-site Goss technicians who anticipated that things would go smoothly and glitch free right from the git go.<br />
<br />
Boy, were they wrong.<br />
<br />
The night -- after a large, ill-advised front-page story in that morning's paper proudly announced that the next morning's edition would be printed on the much-heralded new press -- the monster was fired up to produce the actual run of the paper for the very first time. Our beautiful new, totally computerized, state-of-the-art press room was crammed full of local muckety-mucks, one of whom was even accorded the honor of pressing the start button.<br />
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At first things went fine with the presses running at slow speed and everyone was all smiles and back slaps. But as the speed began to pick up, the web breaks started happening and the Goss techs started tinkering. It seemed like the more they tinkered, the worst things got.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, the first edition of The Monitor, printed on that much-heralded new press didn't get delivered to readers' homes until well after 3 p.m. There wasn't a steak big enough to soothe that newspaper black eye.<br />
<br />
Oops, told ya so.<br />
<br />
Another, personally more embarrassing moment came while I was editor of The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill., involving a political endorsement I was obliged to write for a candidate for the Lincoln Land Community College board of trustees. At the time, the newspaper was owned by now defunct Copley Newspapers, all of which were required to endorse only Republican candidates -- so much for the "liberal media" myth. Although I make no bones, particularly now, about being a lifelong Democrat and liberal, it was sometimes not too awful having to endorse some Illinois Republicans like former Congressmen Ray LaHood and his predecessor Bob Michel, both of whom were good, moderate politicians. LaHood went on to serve as President Barack Obama's first Secretary of Transportation.<br />
<br />
However, the Republican candidate for the Lincoln Land board of trustee was not cut from the same cloth as Michel and Hood. At this point I no longer remember his name, but he was an assistant director of the state Department of Human Services.<br />
<br />
To be honest, under most circumstances I would not have been all that upset about being force to endorse a community college board of trustees candidate who I probably wouldn't vote for on a bet because, frankly, that was an elected position I really didn't care that much about.<br />
<br />
However, in this instance, the circumstances were anything but normal. In this case, the GOP candidate was under federal indictment for directing millions of dollars in state contracts from his department to a computer services company operated by his wife that did not properly perform the work as specified in those contracts but still collected the money. At first I spoke out against endorsing him but was finally forced to do so by SJ-R Publisher Jack Clark. It was not one of my prouder moments in journalism.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, the candidate was convicted and went to prison before he could take his seat on the community college board of trustee.<br />
<br />
I think ever newspaper probably gets more than it's share of callers who are mad. I don't mean readers who are angry and want to take the paper to task for something that appeared in that day's edition. I mean mad, nuts, borderline or certifiably insane. People who live their lives in some bizarre alternate universe of their own making.<br />
<br />
For many of us working at The Louisville Courier-Journal & Times in the mid-70s, one of the most familiar telephone wackos was a woman known to us only as "Dixie." For some reason, a lot of her calls used to find their way to me. Over time, Dixie apparently decided we were pals, maybe because I usually tried to be polite and listen to her at least for a little while before saying I had to go and maybe also because I once made the mistake of giving her my name.<br />
<br />
Dixie was never nasty or threatening. Instead, she was almost always frantic because "they" were after her because of the "secrets" only she knew. Mostly she called when she was sure that "they" were hiding under her house waiting to either grab her when she came out or were trying to saw their way up through her floor. "They" also sometimes sent her secret, threatening messages over the country music station she listened to regularly.<br />
<br />
At the time I was getting the frequent calls from Dixie, I was the county government reporter for The Louisville Times, the now-defunct afternoon edition of the sister papers.<br />
<br />
One afternoon when I was working feverishly to finish writing a rather complex breaking news story for our final edition I got a call from Dixie who said she was at they very moment receiving one of those radio messages from "them" and she wanted me to hear it for myself. I told her as politely as I could that I really didn't have time to listen to the message because I was trying to meet a deadline, but she would have none of my excuses. She turned the radio up full blast and put her telephone receiver down next to it.<br />
<br />
"Please, Dixie, hang up the phone and call me later when we can talk," I screamed into my receiver. But, it was no use, she couldn't hear me over the radio. So, I hung up on her and waited a few minutes make a much need call to a source on my story, but when I did, instead of getting a ring tone, all I heard was Dixie radio still blasting away at maximum volume. This was back in the days before you got an automatic disconnect a second or so after hanging up your receiver. After picking up the phone several more times in an effort to place my critical call only to find the music still blaring, I finally moved to the desk of one of my fellow reporters who was out in the field, made my call and finished writing my story. For the rest of the day, I kept picking up my phone receiver only to find the music still playing. It wasn't until sometime after 4 p.m. that Dixie finally returned to her senses and hung up on her end. I was pissed.<br />
<br />
The next morning, I called a police detective friend to see what I could do about Dixie. I told him, without naming her, that I was getting phone calls from a head case and related what she had done to me the day before. He asked if I felt that she was a threat. I told him no, and explained that she mainly called seeking help to protect her from the people hiding under her house waiting to harm her.<br />
<br />
"Ah, sounds like Dixie," my detective friend said.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, that's her name, Dixie. How did you know that," I replied.<br />
<br />
"We get calls from her, too, coming into the Detective Bureau. She's harmless. We usually just let her talk for a few minutes and then promise that we'll send someone out to check on those guys under the house. That usually satisfies her for a while," my detective friend told me.<br />
<br />
"We accord her more courtesy than we might to other crazy callers because of what she's been through," he added.<br />
<br />
He went on to explain that Dixie had been one of the Bataan nurses who was captured by the Japanese after our besieged, beleaguered, starving and nearly out of ammunition troops finally had to surrender the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines at the start of World War II. He said that she and the other nurses were interned in prisoner of war camps in the Philippines where many of them were beaten and raped. Dixie, along with many of the other nurses, was eventually transferred to Japan where she was interned until VJ Day, he said.<br />
<br />
<i>"We're the battling bastard of Bataan, no mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam. No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces, no pills, no planes, no artillery pieces. And nobody gives a damn, nobody gives a damn"</i> -- Frank Hewlett, 1942.<br />
<br />
After that, every time I got a call from Dixie, I treated her with renewed respect, listened for a few minutes to what she had to say and then promised I would call the police department and have them send someone to her house to scare away the men hiding under it. That always seemed to satisfy her and we'd hang up on good terms.<br />
<br />
As I sit here now, thinking about Dixie and the dreadful memories she must have had, I'm getting depressed.<br />
<br />
But, my recollections of her, also make me grateful for the multitude of mostly wonderful memories I have of my more than 44-year newspaper career.<br />
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-44701495676243287992015-04-28T09:41:00.000-05:002015-04-28T09:41:38.356-05:00PET PEEVES: SOME ARE CONSIDERABLY MORE JOURNALISTCALLY FORGIVEABLE THAN OTHERSI think every newspaper editor has his or her pet peeves. Certainly, it seems that all of them that I've ever worked with did.<br />
<br />
For the late Bob Crumpler -- my wonderful, curmudgeonly, legendary city editor at <i>The Louisville Times</i> back in the early '70s -- it was the usage (or more accurately the improper usage) of the word "presently" as in a sentence something like this: "The city council is presently considering and ordinance that would..."<br />
<br />
If you used "presently" in that manner, Crump, a stickler on English language usage, would call you to come to the city desk and, as you stood there before him, publicly embarrass you by quite accurately pointing out that the word "presently" was not a proper substitute for "currently" or "now" since in "proper English" its first definition essentially is "soon to."<br />
<br />
He would then go on to further embarrass the miscreant by snarly pointing out that if you meant the city council was at this time considering "an ordinance that would...", you were not only being incorrect to use the word "presently," but were also employing unnecessary verbiage if you used either "now" or "currently" since that is implied by merely writing "the city council is considering and ordinance that would..."<br />
<br />
Crumpler's very public pointing out of these sorts of "egregious" errors -- a method that would drive into apoplectic shock today's newspaper HR people, who've contributed so much in recent decades to destroying such pointed newsroom learning experiences -- ensured that the offending reporter never again made THAT particular mistake.<br />
<br />
For my very first editor in the mid-60s, John Anderson, managing editor of the <i>New Albany (Ind.) Tribune</i>, a major pet peeve was usage of the word "last" when what you really should have used was "past," as in: "At its last meeting, the city council..." When you committed that error, Anderson would call you to his desk and inquire: "Are you saying here that there will never be another city council meeting?" Touche.<br />
<br />
As anyone who ever worked with me will readily confirm, I had a few pet peeves of my own, including those I acquired from Anderson, Crumpler and other editors I worked for before suddenly finding myself sitting in the city editor's chair.<br />
<br />
One of my biggest pet peeves -- and something that still drives me nuts when I see it almost two years after I retired and last set foot in a newsroom -- is what I always referred to as "who-that-which confusion" (or, more informally, "who dat witch"). The improper usage of the words "who, that and which."<br />
<br />
Rather than go into the complex details of what, in this instance, is the proper word to use when, let me refer you to very good and simple explanation on website <a href="http://dailywritingtips.com/">dailywritingtips.com</a> of when to use who, that or which. Here is the appropriate link: <a href="http://www.dailywritingtips.com/when-to-use-that-which-and-who/">http://www.dailywritingtips.com/when-to-use-that-which-and-who</a>.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, when to use who, that, or which is something that most spell check programs -- particularly the Microsoft Word version seemingly used by most newspapers -- not only won't help you with, but may also make you an innocent of. I've found, for instance, that the Microsoft Word's spell check, which is the only one I've ever used, almost invariably automatically changes a properly used "who" into an improperly used "that."<br />
<br />
As disturbing as the word usage pet peeves may be, let's be very honest and acknowledge that most ordinary readers have become so lackadaisical about the English language that they generally go unnoticed by all except cranky English teachers and grumpy editors. Other than making a reporter and his or her news outlet look a bit stupid and ill educated, these errors don't really do any potentially serious damage.<br />
<br />
That, however, is not the case with what I regard as one of my biggest journalistic pet peeves and one that was always hammered home with particular ferocity by both Crumpler and Anderson -- convicting, in print or on camera, someone who has merely been arrested or charged in connection with a crime.<br />
<br />
The system of justice in the United States is based on the principle that any person accused of any crime -- including even the most heinous of offenses -- is presumed innocent until he or she either pleads or is found guilty by a judge or jury.<br />
<br />
All too often, however, that presumption of innocence can effectively be stripped away by the wording used in stories that report an arrest.<br />
<br />
Take, for example, this lead from a story posted Apr. 26, 2015, on <a href="http://valleycentral.com/">valleycentral.com</a>, the website for TV station KGBT, based in Harlingen, Texas:<br />
<br />
<b>"Officers arrested a 49-year-old man who was wanted for inappropriately touching a six-year-old girl, when he attempted to enter the United States on Friday." </b>Here is the link to the full story: <a href="http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=1196307#.VT-AGl90yos">http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=1196307#.VT-AGl90yos</a>.<br />
<b><br /></b>
The story, based on a U.S. Customs and Border Protection press release, goes on to name Mario Martin Vasquez of Corpus Christi as the person arrested.<br />
<br />
Because of the way it is worded, this lead, essentially, convicts Vasquez without benefit of a trial by stating that he "<b>was wanted FOR inappropriately touching...</b>"<br />
<br />
He was, in fact, and it SHOULD have been more accurately and appropriately written this way, "<b>wanted ON CHARGES of inappropriately touching a six-year-old girl.</b>"<br />
<br />
Granted, there are few criminal offenses considered more heinous than child sexual molestation, but those accused of such offense -- and any other criminal offense -- are entitled to the presumption of innocence that is stripped away from Vasquez by the thoughtless choice of wording in this lead.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, this sort of lapse in good journalistic practices can be found all around the nation on a daily basis in both the print and electronic news outlets.<br />
<br />
To preserve the presumption of innocence and to be fair and accurate in their reporting, the media -- print or electronic -- need to be more cautious about the way stories are worded when reporting on suspects being arrested or sought in connection with crimes of all sorts.<br />
<br />
This is Journalism 101 stuff.<br />
<br />
Simply put, in arrest stories or even stories where someone is being sought in connection with a crime, the accused should be "arrested (or sought) on charge of" or "arrested (or sought) in connection with," but never "arrested (or sought) for."<br />
<br />
Not only is this the fair, accurate and proper way write these sorts of stories, but -- as any media lawyer will readily tell you -- it also offers the news outlet a strong measure of protection if the person accused is ultimately found innocent of the charge or charges and decides to attempt, in our increasingly more litigious climate, to file a libel suit.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-76856305426560958862015-04-18T08:59:00.002-05:002015-04-18T16:56:44.069-05:0070 YEARS AGO TODAY, AMERICA'S WORLD WAR II 'DOGFACE' COMBAT SOLDIERS LOST A BEST BUDDY -- FAMED WAR CORRESPONDENT ERNIE PYLE<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjz0Kk5kXUOJgZlzSYiAIv8yzrLoknOe5noYvDbwy4QLh9BueX-sRo93QypIt90evC8FMlzho3BYgcyo13JYza0fX73UdaLtznjCcL_t50wi-l6nGcQEcjMpbwlRZ-PC8FNVOK2SNjyj8Y/s1600/ERNIELOST.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjz0Kk5kXUOJgZlzSYiAIv8yzrLoknOe5noYvDbwy4QLh9BueX-sRo93QypIt90evC8FMlzho3BYgcyo13JYza0fX73UdaLtznjCcL_t50wi-l6nGcQEcjMpbwlRZ-PC8FNVOK2SNjyj8Y/s1600/ERNIELOST.jpg" height="640" width="521" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">THIS CRUDE MARKER WAS ERECTED BY SOLDIERS ON THE SPOT WHERE THEIR<br />
"BUDDY," WAR CORRESPONDENT ERNIE PYLE WAS KILLED 70 YEARS AGO TODAY</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
My old school, Indiana University, is honoring one of the best loved products of its School of Journalism -- legendary World War II combat correspondent Ernie Pyle, the GI's most beloved reporter.<br />
<br />
Seventy years ago today, April 18, 1945, Ernie, then 45, was killed in combat on the Japanese held, Pacific island of Ie Shima and around the world hundreds of thousands of ordinary GIs and their families mourned his passing.<br />
<br />
Here is the link to what the Indiana University website has to say today about today's celebration of Ernie's life: <a href="http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2015/04/ernie-pyle-memorial-weekend.shtml">http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2015/04/ernie-pyle-memorial-weekend.shtml</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixWtY7b0pislcu_jojetX8AkTICKumM85SyygfXsWYbY6gfl9o1e7zJQh60hTbNNhbj-zyzOm9Ritd8dm3Tn74t8IW8P9EUBxrCmblJoelwUy9cTgL7uh712AiJcFoMgJsMXYOq3KQpFQT/s1600/erniehelmet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixWtY7b0pislcu_jojetX8AkTICKumM85SyygfXsWYbY6gfl9o1e7zJQh60hTbNNhbj-zyzOm9Ritd8dm3Tn74t8IW8P9EUBxrCmblJoelwUy9cTgL7uh712AiJcFoMgJsMXYOq3KQpFQT/s1600/erniehelmet.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ERNIE PYLE</td></tr>
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Ernie's way of covering the war was vastly different than many -- if not most -- of his fellow war correspondents who spent much of their time courting favor with and covering generals and only occasionally putting themselves into serious danger by accompanying front-line combat troops.<br />
<br />
Unlike them, Ernie, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1944, spent most of his time on the front lines, facing all of the same risks as the men he was writing about in his straight-forward, simplistic style that so many GIs and their families back home could easily relate to. His intimate understanding of and ability to convey the hopes and fears of those men in combat earned him the title of the "Dogface's Correspondent." He was, perhaps, the first truly "embedded" combat journalist.<br />
<br />
Long before I started my journalism training at IU's School of Journalism at Ernie Pyle Hall on the campus in Bloomington, Ind., I was well aware of Ernie and what he meant to the WWII combat soldier. My father -- an Army infantry veteran of some 300 days of combat in North Africa, Sicily and Europe during World War II -- had been among those GIs who so revered Ernie, whose columns appeared in more than 500 papers during the war.<br />
<br />
By the time I returned to IU in 1966, after failing out in 1962 and enlisting in the U.S. Navy, Ernie was already one of my journalism heroes.<br />
<br />
Here's what President Harry Truman had to say about Ernie: "No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen."<br />
<br />
There is a tale that I heard many years ago regarding Ernie and another well-known WWII war correspondent, Robert Ruark, who many of their media colleagues regarded as the best writer among them and who went on to write such great novels as <i>Something of Value</i>. Just how true it is, I can't say, but it does speak well to why Ernie became to ordinary soldiers and their families the most beloved among all the war correspondents. And, of course, we all know that the only difference between a journalism tale and a fairy tale is that a fairy tale starts out <i>"once upon a time"</i> and a journalism tale starts out "<i>no shit, this is the truth."</i><br />
<br />
Supposedly, according to the tale, Ruark and a group of fellow correspondents were gathered in a favorite London watering hole after it was announced that Ernie, who was on the front lines at the time, had won his 1944 Pulitzer. According to the tale, the other correspondents were commiserating with Ruark saying that he, not Pyle, should have won the Pulitzer because he (Ruark) was the far better writer. However, according to the tale, Ruark silenced them saying that Ernie deserved the Pulitzer more because he was, in fact, the best of all the war correspondents.<br />
<br />
According to the tale, Ruark said something like this: "I write the way all of you and everyone else <i>WISHES </i>they could write. Ernie, on the other hand, writes the way ordinary people think <i>THEY </i>write and that's what makes him great."<br />
<br />
Amen.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG2eF0Blw8QyE5OoOLVuWY_T4BJG2XHabMKLrLrqrW1N5xtJlKyjEPpgJqcqBMaAllzBWU2j5FvacilmQ4PT8NT6tcjRUOiPTsSzM7RUtdedQ1P0L_pUxyvz39YuTqbOQklNoUWBjulHU1/s1600/ernietroops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG2eF0Blw8QyE5OoOLVuWY_T4BJG2XHabMKLrLrqrW1N5xtJlKyjEPpgJqcqBMaAllzBWU2j5FvacilmQ4PT8NT6tcjRUOiPTsSzM7RUtdedQ1P0L_pUxyvz39YuTqbOQklNoUWBjulHU1/s1600/ernietroops.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ERNIE (CENTER LEFT)SHARES<br />
CIGARETTES WITH<br />
HIS "DOGFACE" PALS</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTpkUWyrZVekI8CC3E3jfZ3UBj_GxTFRs55YgFf5QyemqdVwDnsf81qNKW9X0E-t66OC7YCh2umBd6jhskKfz_JV6r85dW9LZBNR9IgeyHuTdENHYCRBACha8BbEFrVvn8FY2os8rxPLK/s1600/erniesadnews.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTpkUWyrZVekI8CC3E3jfZ3UBj_GxTFRs55YgFf5QyemqdVwDnsf81qNKW9X0E-t66OC7YCh2umBd6jhskKfz_JV6r85dW9LZBNR9IgeyHuTdENHYCRBACha8BbEFrVvn8FY2os8rxPLK/s1600/erniesadnews.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">THE SAD NEWS OF ERNIE'S DEATH AS IT<br />
APPEARED IN THE CINCINNATI POST</td></tr>
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There is lots of additional reading on Ernie Pyle available online and in libraries. However, for a quite good synopsis on Ernie's life, here is what Wikipedia has to say about him: </div>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Pyle">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Pyle</a><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-89423487012030786942015-04-10T11:30:00.001-05:002015-04-10T16:51:25.617-05:00POST AND COURIER DISTINGUISHES ITSELF WITH ITS COVERAGE OF WALTER SCOTT SHOOTINGThe April 4 shooting death of Walter Scott Jr. by police officer Michael T. Slager in North Charleston, S.C., has captured the attention of the nation and the world since a bystander's video of the tragic incident surfaced.<br />
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As is so often the case when local incidents like this go national and international, print and electronic journalists from all over the world have descended on the Charleston area, swooping in to pick up on a sensationally horrendous event. All that most people outside of South Carolina -- and, more specifically, outside the Charleston metropolitan area -- probably have read or seen in the way of coverage of this story has been by these "outside" media outlets.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, what those outside of South Carolina have not seen is the coverage of the incident being provided by Charleston's daily newspaper, <i>The Post and Courier,</i> and that is truly a shame because the newspaper's coverage of this tragedy has, thus far, been an excellent example of American journalism at its finest.<br />
<br />
Here are two of <i>The Post and Courier's</i> front pages dealing with the incident. The first is from Wednesday, April 8, the morning following Officer Slager was arrest on murder charges in connection with Scott's death and after prosecutors and police officials had carefully gone over the bystander's video of the shooting. The second is from this morning, April 10, and focuses on the national impact of this case in the wake of numerous other incidents -- such as the shooting death on August 9, 2014, of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. -- in which white police officers have shot and killed African-American "suspects."<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglINmHwFlD2Xld4v5eY8Pc3l2O6lSIb6u0GuJbqxzAOG8pfk9bsDcOGz5FfbZvS_xe5tZW32rOP-WNrm5oqlXvq-dnNpVgtTaEGaBDSIxiebVywtI6zaKRI8r58YTRqhu_JMrBxNdIIXGc/s1600/postcourierfront1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglINmHwFlD2Xld4v5eY8Pc3l2O6lSIb6u0GuJbqxzAOG8pfk9bsDcOGz5FfbZvS_xe5tZW32rOP-WNrm5oqlXvq-dnNpVgtTaEGaBDSIxiebVywtI6zaKRI8r58YTRqhu_JMrBxNdIIXGc/s1600/postcourierfront1.jpg" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaqafv-2fm_dlm7CDkRn42oyqYpkOYkenWQ039LJPaynjfrR-jfGJrom5YJYHbvAhyORd0VrfXLND_jdkrGie5KFxiastfc1wNBYOZHs0jaZ26PEBl4UtRZ1xwWFj1KiwpGNFWz__r93U2/s1600/postcourierfront.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaqafv-2fm_dlm7CDkRn42oyqYpkOYkenWQ039LJPaynjfrR-jfGJrom5YJYHbvAhyORd0VrfXLND_jdkrGie5KFxiastfc1wNBYOZHs0jaZ26PEBl4UtRZ1xwWFj1KiwpGNFWz__r93U2/s1600/postcourierfront.jpg" /></a></div>
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To say the very least, <i>The Post and Courier's</i> coverage has been riveting, but that's almost automatic with an an event this sensational. It's the sort of incident that virtually any daily newspaper worth its salt should be able to cover well.</div>
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However, <i>The Post and Courier's</i> coverage has been so much more than just good. It has been exhaustive and exemplary.</div>
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Under the leadership of Editor Mitch Pugh -- who I think has been, since taking over the paper a little over two years ago, proving himself to be one of the nation's finest young newspaper editors -- <i>The Post and Courier </i>has been providing the sort of thorough, in-depth coverage that no national medium could hope to equal, covering every possible angle and nuance of this incident which is so tragic on virtually every level.</div>
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The paper, as should be the case for every local paper covering a local indicent that becomes a national story, has remained far out in front of every new development. It has produced a multitude of stories, every one of them well-balanced, unbiased, and fair and all of them well-written, well-edited and impossible to not read.</div>
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Beyond that, the coverage has also been courageous. I say this as someone who served for more than three years as the editor of a South Carolina daily newspaper -- <i>The Morning News </i>in Florence, S.C. -- and is well aware of the racial divide that still very much exists in the state where the American Civil War began.</div>
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From my own experiences as the editor of newspapers both in South Carolina and Mississippi, I am pretty certain that Pugh and his staff likely are being deluged daily with calls, letters, emails, Facebook post and Tweets -- many of which go well beyond just ugly -- from angry members of both the white and black communities alleging that the coverage has been unfair to one side or the other. That's what happens when a newspaper engages in the straightforward, evenhanded and vital coverage that has so far been the hallmark of <i>The Post and Courier's</i> handling of this story.</div>
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For those truly interested in following what I am sure will continue to be the best coverage available of this major story, I highly recommend that you do yourself a favor and go to <i>The Post and Courier's</i> website: <a href="http://www.postandcourier.com/">http://www.postandcourier.com</a>.</div>
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My hat's off to Editor Mitch Pugh and his entire news staff. After nearly a week of hard work covering this story, they must all be running on raw adrenalin, but it's clear from their stories, photos and page designs that neither their minds nor their desire to give the community they service the best possible coverage have been fogged by the doubtlessly long hours and effort they are putting in. In my estimation, what they have done so far should be a worthy contender for a local reporting or even possibly a public service -- depending on how their coverage continues to progress once the current furor dies down -- Pulitzer Prize.</div>
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<i style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </i>For the sake of transparency, let me say that although Mitch Pugh and I are Facebook friends and he worked for a while at the State Journal-Register, in Springfield, Ill., but after I left my position as editor there, we have never actually met. However, his wife, Peri Gonulsen Pugh, who is originally from Springfield, is the daughter of long-time family friends Aydin Gonulsen and Mimi Gonulsen. She even served for a summer as a nanny for our twin daughters. None of that, however, comes into play in my admiration for the job that Mitch and his staff are doing with this story.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-1132781116163351232015-04-02T10:58:00.000-05:002015-04-02T10:58:09.555-05:00INDIANAPOLIS STAR'S BOLD FRONT-PAGE EDITORIAL DRAWS, GRATEFUL LETTER FROM BROTHER OF DECEASED, GAY, VIETNAM VETERAN<div class="MsoNormal">
On Tuesday morning, March 31, <i>The Indianapolis Star </i>took the unusual step of boldly running as its full front page an editorial condemning Indiana's new, so-called "Religious Freedom Restoration Act."</div>
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The paper demanded that Republican Gov. Mike Pence and the GOP-controlled General Assembly move immediately to fix the new law, which -- despite the governor's contentions to the contrary -- encourages, enables and legalizes discrimination, particularly against gays (please see my March 31 blog post "INDY STAR DEMANDS HOOSIER LAWMAKERS FIX THE 'MESS' THEY'VE MADE WITH ANTI-GAY LAW).<br />
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Here is another look at that March 31 front page:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwB53F2hzgEYnJuNwsDFr9b26YBKkwQF8pJJlFLLBdLSiOcoZgiAn2ppDadGmnLy2EtdIrgGR_V11olB2VWAO7UNIPDA4NbKU_xKTqpIevzJJ4nY5rsHQgpDkzBLQ-5iUzuGqsHKVlEqtv/s1600/Indystarhed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwB53F2hzgEYnJuNwsDFr9b26YBKkwQF8pJJlFLLBdLSiOcoZgiAn2ppDadGmnLy2EtdIrgGR_V11olB2VWAO7UNIPDA4NbKU_xKTqpIevzJJ4nY5rsHQgpDkzBLQ-5iUzuGqsHKVlEqtv/s1600/Indystarhed.jpg" height="400" width="197" /></a></div>
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I am certain this gutsy action on the part of <i>The Star's </i>editors and publisher drew a lot of swift and angry response, particularly from nearly berserk, "Christian" religious zealots.<br />
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Likewise, I am sure it also garnered considerable grateful and positive response from among the state's many millions of fair-minded citizens who have been horrified by the new law and the damage it has already done to their state's image and economy.<br />
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One such grateful response came in the form of a letter to the editor written by the brother of troubled Vietnam Veteran who died of AIDS 30 years ago. The letter is not only sad and touching, but also uplifting. And I think it serves as proof that there is still a place for print newspapers in American life, particularly when they have the courage to unmistakably stand up for what is right and just.<br />
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Here is the text of that letter:<br />
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<b> "On Tuesday, I did what I never
do. I walked my dog down to our local market and bought a copy of The
Indianapolis Star. In fact, I bought two copies. The reason: the "Fix This
Now" emblazoned on the front page.</b></div>
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<b> With the papers under my arm, I
walked to Plainfield's Maple Hill Cemetery, and found my brother's grave. My
brother, who had been a troubled Vietnam War vet, was gay at a time when being
gay was a very difficult thing to be. When he died of AIDS in 1985 in a far-off
city, his refuge from his closed-minded native state, some in our family were
sufficiently ashamed that his cause of death was not discussed.</b></div>
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<b> At the grave I opened The Star. I
said, "Well, Charlie, times have changed, thank God. It turns out you were
on the right side of history after all." Then I read aloud as much of the paper's editorial as tears would let me get through.</b></div>
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<b> And today I'm doing what I never
thought I'd do. I'm renewing my subscription to The Star. I'm doing this
because, if for no other reason, I believe we must all support those who stand
against discrimination and for inclusiveness. I do it too as thanks to The Star
whose courage and right-mindedness on this issue made this moment of personal
closure possible for me.</b></div>
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<b> Nick Crews, Plainfield"</b><br />
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As someone who grew up in Indiana and is a veteran of the Vietnam era, I share Nick Crew's pain and grief. I also share his gratitude to <i>The Star</i> for its straightforward, clear and concise editorial. As the retired editor of daily newspapers, I also understand the courage it took for the folks at <i>The Star</i> to not only take this stand, but to give it the sort of play it truly deserved.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-57214462608600666502015-03-31T10:53:00.000-05:002015-03-31T11:48:29.231-05:00INDY STAR DEMANDS HOOSIER LAWMAKERS FIX THE 'MESS' THEY'VE MADE WITH ANTI-GAY LAW<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRkTcEToLkGJDZ4Y5EuQlCFRxGvN97FnoOf4yWL1KqIQSzDPpychoj6xk3zrMD7IJjZuyYAzQmLJf9S6B5Xc-VcgGfytxhU_tZgGPyVB0Pnhd-jSMqrDdgTLxdlcMHbCPIeRqFWd1EGxq5/s1600/Indystarhed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRkTcEToLkGJDZ4Y5EuQlCFRxGvN97FnoOf4yWL1KqIQSzDPpychoj6xk3zrMD7IJjZuyYAzQmLJf9S6B5Xc-VcgGfytxhU_tZgGPyVB0Pnhd-jSMqrDdgTLxdlcMHbCPIeRqFWd1EGxq5/s1600/Indystarhed.jpg" height="640" width="315" /></a></div>
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<i>The Indianapolis Star</i> today boldly went where newspapers rarely go.<br />
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Under the headline "FIX THIS NOW," the newspaper published a full-front-page editorial calling on Gov. Mike Pence and the Indiana General Assembly to move immediately to undo the damage that has been done to the state's reputation and the already evident damage to the state's economy caused by Indiana's newly adopted Religious Freedom Restoration Act.<br />
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The placement, the content and the clarity of the editorial can leave no doubt in anyone's mind where the newspaper stands. Here is a link to the well-written, easy to understand editorial: <a href="http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2015/03/30/editorial-gov-pence-fix-religious-freedom-law-now/70698802/">http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2015/03/30/editorial-gov-pence-fix-religious-freedom-law-now/70698802/</a>.<br />
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The law -- which, despite statements to the contrary by Gov. Pence and the other key Republican lawmakers in the state who pushed for its passage -- encourages, enables and legalizes discrimination against gay people under the thin guise of protecting business owners' rights to refuse them services based on the religious beliefs of those business owners. Simply put, the law endorses bigotry and, to my way of thinking, is a total violation of the intent -- if not the specific wording -- of the federal government's Civil Rights Act of 1965 which bans all forms of discrimination.<br />
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Almost immediately after Pence signed the RFRA into law on March 26, the Hoosier state found itself the focal point of a storm of controversy and protests that have gone far beyond the outcries of just the LGBT community.<br />
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Businesses such as Walmart, Apple and Salesforce and, even more importantly, the homegrown, Indianapolis-based pharmaceuticals maker Eli Lilly lodged strong condemnations of the new law. Saleforce, a large and growing cloud computing company, even put some serious teeth in its protest by immediately cancelling all of it's already scheduled events in Indiana.<br />
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Other national organizations, such as AFSCME (American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees), condemned the law and began cancelling conventions and other events scheduled in the state -- particularly in Indianapolis which stands to suffer millions of dollars worth of economic damage. AFSCME immediately withdrew its national Women's Conference which was scheduled to take place in Indianapolis this year and said the event will be moved to another state where is members need not worry about being discriminated against. In a statement released shortly after Pence sign the law, Lee Saunders, the union's president, said "This un-American law allowing businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers sets Indiana and our nation back decades in the struggle for civil rights. It is an embarrassment and cannot be tolerated." <br />
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A wide variety of entertainers cancelled show they'd scheduled in the Hoosier state and even the NCAA, which is based in Indianapolis, briefly considered moving the men's basketball Final Four which is to take place in the city this weekend. Although NCAA officials decided it would not really be feasible to try the move the Final Four location on such short notice, they did threaten to not only decline to schedule future events in the state, but also to move the national headquarter elsewhere.<br />
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Then, yesterday, Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard, who had spoken out against the law numerous times before its passage and warned of the adverse impact it would have on the state's reputation and economy, came out with his strongest public condemnation of it. Here is a link to the coverage of Ballard's press conference by the NBC affiliate Indianapolis TV station WTHR, Channel 13: <a href="http://www.wthr.com/story/28652260/indianapolis-mayor-greg-ballard-denounces-religious-freedom-law">http://www.wthr.com/story/28652260/indianapolis-mayor-greg-ballard-denounces-religious-freedom-law</a>.<br />
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This morning's Indianapolis Star front page is the perfect punctuation point for what Ballard had to say yesterday.<br />
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The editorial opens saying:<br />
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<b><i>"We are at a critical moment in
Indiana's history.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>And much is at stake.</i></b></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<b><i>Our image. Our reputation as a
state that embraces people of diverse backgrounds and makes them feel welcome.
And our efforts over many years to retool our economy, to attract talented
workers and thriving businesses, and to improve the quality of life for
millions of Hoosiers.</i></b></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<b><i>All of this is at risk because of
a new law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that no matter its original
intent already has done enormous harm to our state and potentially our economic
future.</i></b></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<b><i>The consequences will only get worse
if our state leaders delay in fixing the deep mess created.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Half steps will not be enough.
Half steps will not undo the damage."</i></b></div>
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The editorial goes on to demand in no uncertain terms that the governor and state lawmakers move to immediately shore up the damage by passing a state law "to prohibit
discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations on
the basis of a person's sexual orientation or gender identity." The editorial says that such a human rights law, which would be similar to an Indianapolis city ordinance adopted a decade ago, could coexist with the RFRA, making an obviously contentious and drawn out attempt to repeal it unnecessary.<br />
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<b><i>"Only bold action -- action that
sends an unmistakable message to the world that our state will not tolerate
discrimination against any of its citizens -- will be enough to reverse the
damage,"</i></b> the editorial contends.</div>
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In closing, the editorial states:</div>
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<b><i>"We urge Gov. Pence and lawmakers
to stop clinging to arguments about whether RFRA really does what critics fear;
to stop clinging to ideology or personal preferences; to focus instead on
fixing this.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Governor, Indiana is in a state
of crisis. It is worse than you seem to understand.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>You must act with courage and
wisdom. You must lead us forward now. You must ensure that all Hoosiers have
strong protections against discrimination.</i></b></div>
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<b><i>The laws can co-exist. And so can
we."</i></b></div>
<br />
As someone who grew up in Indiana and is giving serious thought to moving back there when my wife, Gail, joins me in retirement, I thank and commend <i>The Indianapolis Star</i> for it's strong and well-reasoned stand against discrimination in any form.<br />
<br />
And, as the retired editor of daily newspapers, I fully understand the courage it took for the <i>Star's </i>editors and publisher to write and/or approve this strong stand and to defy convention by making it the paper's full front page under a straight forward, no-nonsense headline.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-84045350176912444432015-03-20T11:05:00.000-05:002015-03-20T11:05:47.173-05:00HOSTS OF FOX NEWS' "OUTNUMBERED" UN-AMERICAN FOR URGING CITIZENS TO NOT VOTEOK, I'll admit it right at the outset -- I aggressively avoid watching Fox News. I also avoid, but to a lesser degree, watching much of what's on MSNBC.<br />
<br />
I guess I am one of those old-fashioned U.S. journalists/editors who just can't grow accustomed to a supposedly "professional" news organization engaging almost exclusively in point-of-view "news" reporting and presentation.<br />
<br />
So, to find out what's going on those two networks, I pretty much rely on some of the websites that I trust and regularly visit, one of which is <a href="http://mediamatters.org/">mediamatters.org</a>, the website for Media Matters for America, my favorite site for watchdogging and being enraged over what Fox News is doing.<br />
<br />
In the two years that I've been writing this blog, I have seldom referred to Media Matters or made mention of the things for which it criticizes Fox News. In large part, that has been because, after all these years, few of the outrageous things that are "reported" by or discussed on Fox News truly surprise me anymore. This is because I realize everything they do and say comes strictly from a right-wing perspective and, as I have freely acknowledged before, I consider myself a liberal.<br />
<br />
However, Media Matters yesterday (Thursday, March 19, 2015) reported on something that came up on the Fox program "Outnumbered," that I find so disturbing that I just have to say something.<br />
<br />
I was frankly flabbergasted to learn that the show's hosts spent a segment of their program on March 19 actually urging people to NOT vote. This was done in response to President Barrack Obama's recent speech in Cleveland in which he said it would be "transformative" if every eligible voter in the United States actually turned out to cast his or her ballot. Here is Media Matters' link to that Fox "Outnumbered" segment: <a href="http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/03/19/outnumbered-hosts-tell-unengaged-americans-plea/202964">http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/03/19/outnumbered-hosts-tell-unengaged-americans-plea/202964</a><br />
<br />
Although there has been a rush by some media outlets -- particularly Fox -- to twist what the president said into him calling for "mandatory voting," that's not what he did.<br />
<br />
What he DID do was mention that in numerous countries, voting is mandatory and then went on to say that in the United States "it would be transformative if everybody voted" as a means of countering the wave of corporate and billionaire dollars that have flowed into political coffers in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. That action by SCOTUS lifted the limits on campaign contributions made by corporations and individuals -- a decision that has left many, including me, feeling that elections in this country are now basically a commodity for sale.<br />
<br />
From a personal standpoint, I would be just as opposed to any effort to make voting mandatory as I am to the Citizens United decision, neither of which is what democracy is all about.<br />
<br />
I do, however, believe that it is every U.S. citizens responsibility and duty to vote because the right to vote is what has kept our democracy in tact for more than two centuries and is the key to its continuation.<br />
<br />
Throughout my career as the editor of a daily newspaper in several different cities, I wrote an editorial for every election calling on people to get out and vote, pointing that the anyone who doesn't do so essentially surrenders his or her right to later bitch about the results of that election or about those who are elected. I was not alone in this. Every other editor I knew wrote, or had their editorial writers write, similar editorials for every election because we all realized that voting is an important part of maintaining freedom of the press.<br />
<br />
This is why I am particularly dismayed that the nitwits (yeah, there, I said it) on "Outnumbered" had the audacity to suggest that people not vote. OK, to be more specific, they quite lamely called for people who are "not engaged" to not vote. Sorry, but that is not the answer -- especially since I suspect that what they really mean is that anyone who is not "engaged" in believing what Fox News wants them to believe and might not cast a vote that has the Fox News seal of approval should not vote.<br />
<br />
If Fox was a what I would describe -- in my old-fashioned ways and thought mode -- as a valid news organization, those hosts of "Outnumbered" would have urged people, regardless of their political persuasion, to become engaged, to learn what the issues are and where candidates stood on them and then get their lazy, apathetic butts to the polls and vote for the candidates who best represent their interests.<br />
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In my view, to urge anything else is thoroughly and blatantly un-American.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-80488513958418158792015-03-05T12:46:00.000-06:002015-03-05T14:28:55.788-06:00ALLEGED DRUNK DRIVER'S ACCIDENT WITH SCHOOL BUS LEAVES LOTS OF QUESTIONS FOR RIO GRANDE VALLEY MEDIA OUTLETS TO ANSWEROn the bottom right hand corner of Page 3B in this morning's edition of <i>The Monitor</i> in McAllen, Texas, and on the newspaper's website, <a href="http://www.themonitor.com/">www.themonitor.com</a>, is a story that should be garnering a lot more local media attention than it apparently has so far.<br />
<br />
The story involves Alexander Correa, 23, of Edinburg, one of McAllen's numerous neighboring cities, who, on Monday morning, plowed into the back of a school bus with, according to the newspaper report, 10 students on board. Fortunately, no students were injured.<br />
<br />
If that was all there was to the story, it, frankly, wouldn't be all that big of a deal. Accidents in which there are no injuries, even ones involving school buses, happen everyday and most go without so much as a passing mention in the media.<br />
<br />
But this accident was not that simple because police ended up arresting Correa on charges of driving while intoxicated -- his sixth such charge in less than two years, the paper reported. Here is the link to the story posted at 7:16 p.m. on Wednesday on The Monitor's website: <a href="http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/edinburg-man-gets-sixth-dwi-in-years-after-crashing-into/article_fd0f16f4-c2d5-11e4-85e7-177a259d7b63.html">http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/edinburg-man-gets-sixth-dwi-in-years-after-crashing-into/article_fd0f16f4-c2d5-11e4-85e7-177a259d7b63.html</a>.<br />
<br />
The story was reported earlier in the day by the area's English-language Fox affiliate TV station KXFV, which even had video of Correa's arraignment in Edinburg Municipal Court before Judge Terry Palacios. Here is a link to that report: <a href="http://www.foxrio2.com/repeat-drunk-driver-slams-into-bus-filled-with-middle-school-children/">http://www.foxrio2.com/repeat-drunk-driver-slams-into-bus-filled-with-middle-school-children/</a>.<br />
<br />
To their credit, <i>The Monitor </i>and KXFV were, as of 8:30 CST this morning (Thursday, Mar. 5, 2015), the only area news outlets reporting this story.<br />
<br />
I suspect that by the end of the day, this could wind up being the news story that is the most talked about by Rio Grande Valley residence once the news departments at the area's other English-language TV stations -- KRGV, KGBT and KVEO -- finally get around to looking at <i>The Monitor's</i> Page 3B and KXFV's website and begin playing catch up.<br />
<br />
I hope that all of the local media take out after this story the way they should and don't -- as is so often the case here and in far too many other communities around the nation -- just let it drop until Correa's trial, which may or may not be covered live by any of the local media outlets.<br />
<br />
My old friend, Bill Marimow, editor of <i>The Philadelphia Inquirer</i>, alerted me to a story his paper published in September that could serve as a great guide for Rio Grande Valley media to follow if they want to do a high impact followup story on this accident. The Inky story deals with Pennsylvania's pretty abysmal record for keeping repeat drunk drivers off the roads. Here is the link: <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140907_Despite_tougher_Pa__DUI_laws__many_repeat_offenders_stay_on_the_road.html">http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140907_Despite_tougher_Pa__DUI_laws__many_repeat_offenders_stay_on_the_road.html</a><br />
<br />
Hopefully, <i>The Monitor</i>, or one or all of the TV stations, will very quickly follow up by giving the details of Correa's other five DWI cases, one of which was dismissed and the other four of which are yet to be adjudicated. The Monitor's and KXFV's reports mentioned the other cases but gave no details regarding when they occurred, where they occurred, what was involved or where exactly they stand in the judicial process.<br />
<br />
Beyond that, there are still many questions to be answered with regard to this incident, which I am still rather surprised was not played at least on the front of the Valley & State (B) section of <i>The Monitor</i>.<br />
<br />
I think the question that will be most on the minds of those area residents who take note of the story is why in the world Correa, with five prior DWI arrests, continues to have driving privileges. That's an important question that must be put to the area law enforcement agencies that have arrested him and to the judges and prosecutors who are handling, or in the past have handled, the cases against him.<br />
<br />
Jeff Allen Lindau, who commented on the story on <i>The Monitor's </i>website quite rightfully and fairly said, "the media could probably trace the reasons this person is still driving and hasn't been convicted on any of his previous 5 charges of DWI. The question is will they get to the bottom and expose it?"<br />
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In another comment on the story, Lindau said: "All one has to do is research DWI's in Hidalgo County and
you'll see our county has one of the highest rates of DWI incidents with one of
the state's lowest rates for prosecuting DWI offenders. The local media half heartedly has looked into these numbers in the past but never fully held the
DA's office accountable." Although he is substantially correct, Lindau failed to mention that the area's judges who handle drunk driving cases should perhaps be held even more accountable than area prosecutors since, in the final analysis, it is up to them to determine the punishments handed out to first- and multiple-time DWI offenders.</div>
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Lindau is also on point with his offhanded bash at the local media for only "half heartedly" looking into the drunk-driving issue in the Rio Grande Valley, where it seems to be a serious problem considering the number stories on DWI accidents, many involving multiple injuries and fatalities, that are reported here every year by <i>The Monitor </i>and area TV stations.</div>
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As much as I hate to admit it, even I have to plead guilty to Lindau's charge of media half-hearted reporting on the area's drunk driving problem.</div>
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There were several times during my nearly 12 years as editor of The Monitor -- usually after a particularly horrendous DWI accident -- that I considered having my reporters launch a full-scale examination into how drunk driving cases are handled, or mishandled, in the Rio Grande Valley, but failed, for whatever excuse, to not follow up on.</div>
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In retrospect, I consider myself particularly remiss in not having done so since I had considerable experience with such projects at papers where I had previously worked. As the courts reporter for <i>The Louisville (Ky.) Times </i>in the early 70s I produced a several-day series of stories on lenient handling of DWI cases by judges in the area's municipal courts. As managing editor of <i>The Clarion-Ledger</i> in Jackson, Miss.; and later <i>The Cincinnati Post</i>; and then as editor of <i>The State Journal-Register</i>, in Springfield, Ill., I directed examinations of how drunk-driving cases were handled by the courts and even identified the top 10 to 20 repeat DWI offenders in those cities. In fact, our drunk-driving series at <i>The State Journal-Register</i> resulted in me being invited to speak at that year's national convention of Mother Against Drunk Driving (MAAD) in Washington, D.C.</div>
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I urge my former area media colleagues to not follow my lead. Don't let this opportunity to take a serious look at how the many drunk driving cases are handled by the judicial systems in the Rio Grande Valley. Let this case be the impetus for an in-depth look into the issue by one or all of our area media outlets because lives are at stake and law enforcement, prosecutorial and judicial feet should and must be held to the fire and repeat offenders, in particular, need to be exposed and prevented from killing themselves and/or innocent potential victims.</div>
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Thanks to the expansion of computerized record keeping by area courts, the task should be much easier now than it was in the past, when reporters had to go through the tedious task of reviewing hundreds of pages of sometimes handwritten court dockets to identify and track such cases. That's the upside.<br />
<br />
The downside is that due to the fees public agencies are allowed to collect under Texas law, accessing those records could cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars -- a factor that has put a serious crimp in investigative reporting by all but the state largest newspapers and television stations.<br />
<br />
That considered <i>The Monitor</i> and one or more of the local TV stations might want to think about joining forces to not only devote the sort of reportorial resources need to produce a meaningful and game-changing examination of the issue, but also to share and defray the costs of the undertaking. As leery as I am of the concept (see my Feb. 13, 2015 post "NEWSPAPER ETHICS: MAINTAINING (OR NOT) THE LINE BETWEEN DOLLARS AND SENSE) this might just be one of those rare instances when one or more media outlets might consider seeking crowdfunding from readers and/or viewers to help finance a project that is -- or certainly should be -- a matter of significant public concern.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-25905562587521845792015-02-23T10:23:00.001-06:002015-02-24T06:45:14.441-06:00BILL O'REILLY IS A PROPAGANDIST -- WE EXPECT HIM TO LIE AND HE'S QUITE ACCOMPLISHED AT ITMy old friend media-blogger, journalism-educator and digital-media-advocate Steve Butty does an excellent job in his latest blog post of analyzing the current public swirl around the war "experience" lies told by now-suspended NBC News Anchor Brian Williams and Fox News "pundit" Bill O'Reilly.<br />
<br />
The post on his blog, The Buttry Diary, is headlined "WHY BRIAN WILLIAMS' LIES MATTER AND BILL O'REILLY'S MAY NOT. I highly recommend that you read it yourself and save me a lot of extra verbiage by trying to clumsily encapsulate it for you. Here is the link: <a href="https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/why-brian-williams-lies-matter-and-bill-oreillys-may-not/">https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/why-brian-williams-lies-matter-and-bill-oreillys-may-not/</a>.<br />
<br />
In typical Buttry fashion, the post is extremely thoughtful, well researched and well balanced. Its conclusions are hard to ague with unless you are a Fox News executive or one of the network's mindless right-wing minions and apologists. Almost needless to say, I thoroughly agree with Steve's analysis.<br />
<br />
However, it seems to me that he expends a whole lot of words to point out that the real difference between Brian Williams' and Bill O'Reilly's war experience lies rests in their media functions.<br />
<br />
Brian Williams is a real journalist and news anchor for a still highly respected news organization. Everyone expects -- and has a right to expect -- that he always tells the truth in his reportage.<br />
<br />
However, no one with any sense seriously considers O'Reilly a real reporter or journalist. What he is is a propagandist pundit, all of whom we KNOW are liars -- it's their job. And in O'Reilly's case, for better or for worse, it's a job he's proven to be absolutely outstanding at despite the damage it does to the truth and to the understanding that millions of Americans have of the real world.<br />
<br />
Of course, I expect that many of my right-leaning friends both inside and outside the news business will very quickly counter, as they seem to always do, by contending that MSNBC talkers like Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O'Donnell are "left-wing" propagandist pundits who also "always lie."<br />
<br />
My answer to that is that I don't recall any of them having ever been nailed for lying about their alleged reporting "experiences." And as far as their punditry and opinions go, they are usually backed up by facts.<br />
<br />
O'Reilly's punditry and opinions, on the other hand, are usually backed up by...well...more of his punditry and opinions and -- when pushed into a corner as he has been in regard to his lies about his "war zone" experiences covering of the Falklands War -- exceedingly vicious, baseless and often highly personal counterattacks.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-54591232822895538342015-02-19T11:59:00.001-06:002015-02-19T11:59:55.990-06:00FANCY GANNETT FOOTWORK: THE RENAME GAMEAs anyone who has any interest whatever in following what's going on in the media already knows, Gannett is currently in the throes of an orgy of job description reinvention and renaming. And to what end?<br />
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Gone are simple to understand titles like managing editor, city editor, sports editor, reporter, photographer, copy editor, etc. They're being replaced with long winded, supposedly "digital-age" titles and job descriptions that just make most long-time newspaper veterans' heads hurt.<br />
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It seems to me that all of this renaming -- and, in some cases, forcing people to reapply for jobs -- is doing nothing to make it easier for news staffers to understand what their job are (or are <i>supposed</i> to be) or what they are expected to do within the framework of the brand-spanking new titles.<br />
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And if the mucks at Gannett think these new monikers are going to make it easier for readers and the general public to understand what news staffers do or who to call when they want to provide a tip, suggest a story or seek news coverage, I think they are dead wrong.<br />
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If that's the case, what, if any, purpose does all this renaming frenzy serve? Well, I think it's possible that it's being done, in part, to bedazzle and perhaps confuse investors who are disgruntled that American newspapers are no longer making the borderline obscene profits they once made. After all, a little fancy footwork might make investors think -- at least for the time being -- that you are doing <i>something</i> worthwhile to improve their return on investment.<br />
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If you want to see just how ridiculous it's gotten, I suggest you read this Feb. 18 blog post by renowned media blogger Jim Romenesko regarding the job title and job description changes at the Louisville, Ky., <i>Courier-Journal</i>, which used to be considered one of the nation's top 10 newspaper before Gannett got it hooks into it: <a href="http://jimromenesko.com/2015/02/18/louisville-courier-journals-new-job-descriptions-use-young-or-younger-45-times/?fb_comment_id=fbc_797864906955195_797950940279925_797950940279925#f3ebc28f295858">http://jimromenesko.com/2015/02/18/louisville-courier-journals-new-job-descriptions-use-young-or-younger-45-times/?fb_comment_id=fbc_797864906955195_797950940279925_797950940279925#f3ebc28f295858</a>.<br />
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If you read the Romenesko post, one thing that you may find truly laughable is the bit where <i>Courier-Journal </i>Executive Editor (I guess maybe he gets to keep that title instead something like "Grande Content Poo-Bah) Neil Budde tells readers "the result of that exercise was a revamped set of 'beats' for news and sports. It’s actually a few more beats than we’ve had in recent years."<br />
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This evokes a chortle because all of us know that Gannett, which has spent the past several years chopping news staff numbers like a berserk lumberjack, probably has no intention of adding a few more reporters -- or whatever in the heck they're now calling them -- to cover those "few more beats" this exercise in managerial masturbation will supposedly create.<br />
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As ridiculous and disturbing as it is, I am actually pretty certain that executives at Gannett are not engaging in all of this title and job description changing with malicious intent. Instead, they probably <i>think</i>, or at least hope, that in the final analysis all of this will contribute to making their newspapers more meaningful, appealing and relevant to readers and potential readers.<br />
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However, it seems to me that the thousands and thousands of dollars likely being pumped into this effort would be better spent adding back staffers and training them to find news stories -- REAL news stories, the more hard hitting the better -- and giving them strong play on Page 1 where readers can readily see them and they can contribute to selling newspapers.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-51238081862242300482015-02-15T10:27:00.000-06:002015-02-24T06:34:07.317-06:00A VETERAN EDITOR AND FORMER BOSS SPEAKS UP ON PAY-FOR-PLAY REPORTING<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">My old friend and former boss, Henry J. Holcomb, who retired a few years ago from his last newspaper position at <i>The Philadelphia Inquirer</i>, posted a comment on my last blog entry "NEWSPAPER ETHICS: MAINTAINING (OR NOT) THE LINE BETWEEN DOLLARS AND SENSE" (Feb. 12) that I think deserves more prominent play than just as simple tagged on response to the entry.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">I've always held Henry -- who, as managing editor of <i>The Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram</i>, hired me away from <i>The Clarion-Ledger</i> in Jackson, Miss., to be his business editor -- in high regard as one of the best, though not always easiest to please, editors I ever worked for.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Henry is one of the most philosophically thoughtful editors I've known, and that aspect of him frequently showed up in our editor meetings when he would toss out for discussion an often controversial idea or concept that would land like a hand grenade chunked onto the middle of the conference table where we all gathered.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">One of the things I admired most about Henry was his finely honed sense of journalistic principles and ethics and the fact the he truly believed in the adage that holds "the purpose of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," which seemed to serve as one of his philosophical guideposts in managing the news department at <i>The Star-Telegram</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Henry departed Fort Worth in, I think, 1983 to go to an editing position at <i>The Inquirer</i>, which under legendary editor Gene Roberts was, at the time, perhaps the nation's leading newspaper when it came to afflicting the comfortable, but his influence remained with me throughout the rest of my newspaper career -- another 30 years.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Weighing in on pay-for-play journalism, here is what Henry had to say:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>"Steve: You raised issues here that need raising (and stirred unpleasant memories of the Camel scoreboard affair).</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>Sponsored content is spreading in digital media. Ads pop up in stories — even in digital products of good papers — according to data modern technology is harvesting for advertiser about the individual reader’s needs and interests. This is leading to stronger efforts to manipulate content — and even greater reader cynicism about journalists' ability to tell it like it is.</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>Crowdfunding is unlikely to produce clear thinking and vigilance that serves the whole community. I've written and edited so many stories that irritated a large number of people for a time until the full impact of what was being reported sunk in.</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>Reporting funded by foundations poses risks, too. Foundations tend to be controlled by the wealthy whose good fortune gives them a different feel and sense of a community. Some may not to meddle in the stories they fund. But they clearly influence which projects were pursued.</b></span><br />
<b><br style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;" /></b>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>This, of course, is hazardous to the health of a free society. So write on.</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>You remember the past more fondly than I do, though.</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>These issues have always been a struggle. There have been a few newspaper owners like James B. Quigley of <i>The Orange (Texas) Leader</i>, where I worked long ago, who understood the importance of credibility and what built it. For example, he stood strong when a local car dealer threatened to pull his ads if we reported on his son's rather public misbehavior. Mr. Quigley told the dealer that he hoped he wouldn’t do that — because that would mean he couldn’t afford a new car.</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>'If we don’t run the story,' Mr. Quigley said, 'the people in this city won’t respect either of us.' (Eventually declining car sales forced the dealer to advertise again, and Mr. Quigley could afford to buy his badly needed a new car.)</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>Few fresh-out-of-business-school publishers of papers owned by the big chains have been able to be as principled as Mr. Quigley was on this story -- and on broader issues related to the news and commentary needs of the community. Missing the corporate revenue goals has long been very hazardous to career health."</b></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">Thanks for the comment, Henry, I couldn't agree with you more.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-54935568121583261972015-02-13T00:50:00.000-06:002015-02-13T16:49:03.563-06:00NEWSPAPER ETHICS: MAINTAINING (OR NOT) THE LINE BETWEEN DOLLARS AND SENSEIn the late 1970's newspaper editorial and advertising departments across the nation faced off in an epic nose-to-nose battle over a "revenue-generating" idea proposed by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., makers of Camel cigarettes (my brand -- the unfiltered ones -- at the time).<br />
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The cigarette maker approached newspaper ad executives with an idea they said would generate revenue from the sports statistics that virtually all daily newspapers in the country were already running as news copy that was generally not specifically supported by ad dollars. It almost goes without saying that advertising department's were pretty much unanimously in favor of the idea.<br />
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The proposal called for participating papers to run what essentially would be an ad frame -- duplicating the frame on the front of a Camels package -- around a full page of sports stats. At the top of the frame would be a large page header reading "Camel Scoreboard" and at the bottom there would be an about two-inch-deep by six-column-wide shelf ad promoting Camel cigarettes. In exchange for running this ad frame daily around information already being gathered and published, R.J. Reynolds offered to pay each participating newspaper's going rate for a full page ad.<br />
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I've no doubt that such an offer today would be snapped up in the blink of an eye by every cash-strapped newspaper in the United States . That's NOW, but not THEN, when ad revenues were still soaring and newspapers where achieving profit percentages that made them the envy of even oil and utility companies.<br />
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In those days, the line between dollars and journalism ethics was very clearly defined.<br />
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At the time, I was managing editor of <i>The Clarion-Ledger</i> in Jackson, Miss., and based upon advice from other members of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and members of the national and state Associated Press Managing Editors organizations -- as well as the icky feeling the proposal gave me and Sports Editor Tom Patterson even without input from colleagues -- I declined to go along with the proposal based on journalistic ethical considerations. My decision to just say no -- perhaps a little surprisingly even then -- won the support of the newspaper's publisher, Robert Hederman Sr.<br />
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I was not alone in my opposition to what now must seem like a very generous offer from R.J. Reynolds. Virtually every reputable daily newspaper in the country also rejected the proposal based on ethical considerations. Mainly, it was felt that framing the page as requested would make it appear as though news people were gathering and publishing the statics for (ergo, working for) the makers of Camels as opposed to providing it as an informational public service of the newspaper. Some also opposed it based on what might today be best described as the Joe Camel objection. Much of the statistical information run by papers was for local high school sports and was well read by teens. At the time, the office of the U.S. Surgeon General was just beginning it's push against tobacco usage -- which eventually resulted in warnings on tobacco product packages and newspapers ceasing to run tobacco ads -- and many editors and publishers wanted to avoid anything that might seem like enticements for teens to use to tobacco products. The Camel Scoreboard sputtered along briefly and then went up in smoke.<br />
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Times have changed in the intervening years since the collapse of the Camel Scoreboard concept when U.S. newspapers were still fiscally fat and sassy and virtually no reputable daily, regardless of size, ran ads on news section fronts, much less on their front pages.<br />
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Now, the newspaper industry -- in the continuing throes of financial a crisis -- is debating two new and similar revenue-generation concepts that threaten to further blur, if not totally obliterate, the line that has traditionally separated dollars and news content.<br />
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The two concepts are "content underwriting" and "crowdfunding." Although they are somewhat different, both concepts involve pay-for-play strategies that I find ethically repugnant and the worst threats yet to the once treasured American newspaper value of news objectivity, since both seem to me to be first cousins to what we in the newspaper industry have known for years as advatorial writing.<br />
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I find both concepts at least as onerous -- and as detrimental to a newspaper's credibility and perceived ethics -- as the Camel Scoreboard idea. They are, in essence, journalistic prostitution.<br />
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Under the content underwriting concept, certain groups would provide a newspaper with money to "enhance" specific areas of coverage. For instance, a local arts group might -- as they did with the Greensboro, N.C., <i>News & Record </i>last June -- provide funding so the newspaper will provide more coverage of arts in the community.<br />
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In conjunction with crowdfunding -- which seeks a broader base of "community" support requiring more people to each give fewer dollars -- a newspaper's general readership would be surveyed to find out what issues, topics or areas of coverage are of most interest to most people. Funds would then be solicited to help defray the expense of providing enhanced reporting on those issues, topics or areas of coverage.<br />
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Let's be totally honest here. Does anyone really think that any reputable newspaper would consider either content underwriting or crowd funding if they still had reporting staffs large enough to adequately cover everything important in and to the communities they serve? I don't think so.<br />
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What's more, I think that to satisfy the coverage underwriters in either concept, a newspaper will have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Realistically, I don't foresee any newspaper that decides to "take advantage" of either concept hiring additional staff to provide the promised "enhanced" coverage. Instead, to achieve the desired -- and paid for -- result, they would have to begin skimping on other areas of coverage -- areas that, while not as ethereal as the arts, might have a greater impact on a larger number of people. As I see it, the result would be even greater general community dissatisfaction with coverage by a larger readership audience. Editors would be having to ask themselves on an almost daily basis what they are willing to skip because their arts organization content underwriters expect (and the dollars demand) that they cover, say, a performance by the community orchestra instead of something that possibly could have a greater impact on the community at large.<br />
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There is also the question of where the line gets drawn as far as who gets to underwrite what sorts of coverage and content and how much control do they get to exercise over what gets written and published. For instance, what if the local automobile dealers association is allowed to underwrite enhanced coverage of all things automotive? I can guarantee that the enhanced coverage they have in mind does not included a newspaper series on widespread repair ripoffs by local dealer service departments like the one we published when I was managing editor of <i>The Clarion-Ledger</i>. <i>(Please see my July 22, 2014, post MODERN MEDIA PERIL: NEWSPAPER INTESTINAL FORTITUDE VS. ADVERTISER BULLYING.) </i>So, in order to maintain the flow of added cash for enhanced automotive coverage, does the newspaper simply forego such a series that could be very valuable to the general readership and if so what does that say about the paper's journalism ethics and credibility?<br />
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Frankly, as disturbed as I am about the content underwriting concept, I am even more put off by the idea of crowdfunding.<br />
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Not only do I think it's fraught with all the same potential problems as content underwriting, but I am also seriously rankled by the idea that large groups of readers should be asked to pay additional for the type of coverage they have every right to expect they'll get in a newspaper they already pay for daily. It's my feeling that the executives at any newspaper that wants readers to do that should just go ahead and have the balls -- and honesty -- to institute the sort of price increase that will allow them to hire enough new staff to provide the sort of coverage readers expect and deserve. Enough said.<br />
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For further reading on the two concepts, I suggest this piece by former <i>News & Record</i> Editor John Robinson <a href="http://johnlrobinson.com/2014/07/paying-for-journalism-community-based-crowdfunding/">http://johnlrobinson.com/2014/07/paying-for-journalism-community-based-crowdfunding/</a>.<br />
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This by Corey Hutchinson, Columbia Journalism Review's Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina correspondent, <a href="http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/revenue_experiment_throwdown_crowdfunding_vs_underwriting.php?page=all">http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/revenue_experiment_throwdown_crowdfunding_vs_underwriting.php?page=all</a>. <a class="_2qo3" href="http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/revenue_experiment_throwdown_crowdfunding_vs_underwriting.php?page=all" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a><br />
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This by media blogger Steve Buttry <a href="https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/could-crowdfunding-help-restore-some-newspaper-beats/">https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/could-crowdfunding-help-restore-some-newspaper-beats/</a>.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-18224556899169460302015-02-11T08:30:00.000-06:002015-02-12T19:37:22.548-06:00BORDER NEWSPAPERS NEED TO MAKE IT VERY CLEAR WHERE INCIDENTS OF DRUG VIOLENCE OCCUR SO THEY DON 'T SCARE THE LIVING BEJESUS OUT OF READERSI wonder how many other online readers of The Monitor, based in McAllen, Texas, had a lump rise in their throats on the morning of Jan. 28 when they read this headline "GUNFIGHT BETWEEN CARTEL GUNMAN AND STATE POLICE ENDS IN ARRESTS" on the newspaper's website.<br />
<br />
Of course, seeing that The Monitor is a Texas paper, my immediate impression was that the spillover violence is getting worse than I thought when Texas State Police officers end up in a "gunfight" with Mexican drug cartel members.<br />
<br />
Reading the lead of the story didn't clarify things much: "State police arrested two men after a gunfight on Monday, according to a news release."<br />
<br />
Having been the editor of The Monitor for nearly 13 years before my retirement in May 2013, I know the state police in Texas issue loads of press releases. So reading that lead didn't help.<br />
<br />
It wasn't until I got to the second paragraph that I was able to breathe a sigh of relief upon finally learning that the "state police" the story was talking about was, apparently, the state police in Tamaulipas, Mex. I say "apparently" because no where in the story -- attributed in the second paragraph to a press release from the "Tamaulipas attorney general's office" -- does it specifically say that it was the Tamaulipas state police who were involved in the gunfight which you learn still later in the story occurred on the Mexican side of the border "along the Mier-Miguel Aleman highway."<br />
<br />
Seems to me that in reporting on violence involving Mexican drug cartels, the numerous newspapers along the US-Mexico border from Texas to California have a special obligation to make quite clear from the outset (as in the headlines and certainly the leads of stories) where the outbreaks of violence they are reporting on occurred.<br />
<br />
The numerous, and seemingly increasing, outbreaks of drug violence in border areas makes residents on the US side justifiably nervous and worried about the possibility of spillover. Border newspapers need to report on the violence when they can, but in doing so, I think they are also obliged to make it very clear, beginning with their headlines, who's "state police" are involved in "gunfights" where.<br />
<br />
Clarity in reporting and headline writing is every bit as important as accuracy.<br />
<br />
Here is the link to The Monitor story: <a href="http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/gunfight-between-state-police-and-cartel-gunmen-ends-in-arrests/article_d4a6a786-a764-11e4-8ae0-37af1e01224f.html">http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/gunfight-between-state-police-and-cartel-gunmen-ends-in-arrests/article_d4a6a786-a764-11e4-8ae0-37af1e01224f.html</a><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-61707655535628097792015-01-07T16:18:00.000-06:002015-01-08T08:39:10.715-06:00NO ISLAMIC RADICALISM APOLOGIST CAN JUSTIFY THE PARIS MASSACRE<div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I
think that anyone who knows me or who has read this blog probably knows where I stand on the horrific massacre in Paris. But, lest there be any doubt, let me make my position clear.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Charlie Hebdo is a satirical publication. Like <i>The
Onion</i> in the United States, it pokes fun at everything deserving of having fun poked at
it, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or politics.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It has a history of
being fiercely independent.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The magazine and its staff have every right under the tenets of press
freedom to publish whatever they want, regardless of who it might upset or
offend.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">They've taken after prime ministers and presidents, popes and
protestants, Jews and Jesuits. I don't think they are hardcore Muslim haters.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">From what I've seen of the Charlie Hebdo staff's work, it seems to me that it
has always been humorous and well earned and deserved by whoever or whatever they've
targeted.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">There is nothing that can be said by even the stoutest Islamic radicalism apologists that justifies what happened today.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Je suis Charlie.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-2724152116178090772014-12-03T10:14:00.000-06:002014-12-04T21:47:55.057-06:00AT TODAY'S NEWSPAPERS STAFFERS WONDER WHY CHARITY DOESN'T BEGIN AT HOMEIt's that time of year when many newspapers across the nation have kicked off their annual Christmas charity drives meant to provide food, toys, clothing and other creature comforts for the needy in their communities.<br />
<br />
There are many good reasons why newspapers should engage in these holiday charitable efforts, which take on many different forms, the main one being that returning something to the community, especially at Christmas, is the right thing for any media outlet to do. Many of these efforts provide significant assistance to those in need and they pay off nicely in public relations benefits for the newspapers that operate them.<br />
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And, once upon a time, they were also a strong morale builder for virtually all of a newspaper's employees in every department, who felt good about doing something for the people in need in their communities.<br />
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But that is increasingly less the case, particularly among news staffers who, over the past several years, have seen many colleagues laid off, have had their pay cut and have not gotten raises in five or more years.<br />
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It's not that news staffers are turning into Scrooges, but they are growing increasingly more disgruntled over their personal financial situations and job uncertainty and are asking why it is that the top management can't seem to grasp the concept that "charity begins at home."<br />
<br />
As one reporter -- who used to work for me at one of the newspapers where I was editor and now works at a major metro daily for one of the nation's largest media companies -- put it when we talked last week:<br />
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"They've kicked off our Christmas charity drive and loaded us up with stories to do about poor people to generate donations. But, there's a lot of resentment, particularly among some of the younger reporters who are still saddled with college loans and other debts and can hardly make ends meet from month to month. A lot of us are feeling that the only charity WE can expect from (the newspaper company) is that they'll suspend new layoffs until after the first of the year."<br />
<br />
"Sure, participating in (the charity effort) still makes us all feel good and warm and fuzzy despite the additional workload, but's it a temporary high that won't do anything for our overall newsroom morale. As far a morale goes, I think it would have to undergo a lot of improvement just to say it's in the toilet. Right now, if it wasn't for lousy morale, we'd have no morale at all. A lot of people are saying -- and I think this runs through all departments -- that maybe what we raise for charity this year ought to go to newspaper employees who've been laid off and still haven't found jobs."<br />
<br />
A long-time editor friend who has been trying for years to shake loose some raises for news staffers at his mid-sized daily, told me he thinks that if anything the Christmas charity efforts at his paper have, in recent years, actually been "detrimental to general newsroom morale."<br />
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"The grumbling just seems to be growing year by year. It seems like every person I assign a charity story to brings up the fact that they haven't had a raise in years, with some pointing out, and I don't know whether it's true or not, that they made more money, what with tips and all, waiting tables part-time while they were in college. I mean, we're a mid-sized paper and don't pay all that much as a starting salary and I have people who started working here at the minimum starting salary three years ago who haven't gotten a dime more since, but the cost of their rent and food has sure gone up. So, I guess it could be true," he said. "I just know that the grumbling is getting worse all the time and I really think that if my people could find jobs they're suited for outside the business that paid more, they'd be gone in a flash and I don't think that would be at all good for the paper because most of people on my staff are very good at what they do and I think it's their impression that they care a lot more about the paper than the paper cares about them."<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04403408168536864705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1736484656844505564.post-62408680987990010302014-12-02T09:24:00.000-06:002015-01-08T22:02:18.099-06:00NEWSPAPER FRIENDS: WHEN LIFE STOPS GIVING AND STARTS TAKING AWAY<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>UPDATE (1-8-2015): </b>Queenie Pemelton, my friend and my Community Editor for the nearly 13 years I was editor of The Monitor, succumbed to her long battle with breast cancer this evening after more than a month in hospice care. Rest in Peace, Queenie. They simply don't make them like you anymore. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>UPDATE: </b>Sometimes, there really is nothing I like better than good news. My friend, Monitor Community Editor Queenie Pemelton, after having her ventilator removed last night and breathing on her own, has taken a turn for the better. Perhaps prayers and well wishes do work. Either way, there now appears to be some reason for at least cautious optimism.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">******</span></div>
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This morning I am reminded of an actually pretty poignant line from the last Indiana Jones movie, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:"<br />
<br />
"We've reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away."<br />
<br />
For the second time in less than a week, a newspaper friend could to be headed toward the final edition.<br />
<br />
Last Wednesday, we lost longtime friend Larry Nighswander, who was my assistant managing editor for photo and design when I was managing editor of <i>The Cincinnati Post</i>, who died of a sudden heart attack. Larry was one of the media's best photo editors and visual educators of the past 30+ years.<br />
<br />
Today, Queenie Pemelton, my community editor for the nearly 13 years I was editor of <i>The Monitor, </i>in McAllen, Texas, before my retirement last year, is hanging on by a thread at Rio Grande Regional Hospital. Like Larry, Queenie, 61, is a very special person.<br />
<br />
She is a veteran of more than 30 years at <i>The Monitor</i>. And, although Queenie is not a "trained" (i.e., college graduate with a degree in journalism) journalist, she is nonetheless not only the news staffer best known to the public, she is probably the person whose name most often comes to mind when anyone in the public thinks of <i>The Monitor</i>.<br />
<br />
For tens of thousands of full-time area residents and part-time "Winter Texans," Queenie -- who came to the newsroom from the back shop and got her journalism training on the job -- personifies <i>The Monitor</i>.<br />
<br />
As community editor, a title I crafted for her years ago, her job for more than two decades has been to do the intake, editing and placement of the scores of press releases the newspaper receives every day from a wide variety of community people, groups and organizations from across <i>The Monitor's </i>circulation area, many of them hand delivered by the procession of mostly ordinary people who show up at her desk daily. Although most of these people could just as easily mail or email their press releases about a garden club meeting or a son or daughter receiving special honors at college or graduating from military boot camp, etc., they come in person because they love talking with Queenie, who always gives each of them a few minutes to chat despite her inordinately heavy workload created by the many press releases in need of editing.<br />
<br />
To me, Queenie represents one of the things that I've always liked best about <i>The Monitor</i> -- it makes room daily to run many seemingly mundane community press releases dealing with the accomplishments and highly localized interests of thousands and thousands of readers and subscribers and does so not in some segregated "special" publication, but as part of the daily newspaper without in any way "harming" the paper's well-recognized professionalism.<br />
<br />
I firmly believe that through her work, her character, her caring and her boundless love for the ordinary folks of the Rio Grande Valley, Queenie, for years, was highly instrumental in helping <i>The Monitor </i>stave off some of the precipitous circulation drops experienced by many other daily newspapers.<br />
<br />
But for years now, Queenie has been waging war against breast cancer. For a while there, after several operation and much chemotherapy, many of us thought -- and hoped -- that she had won her battle. However, last week she suffered a seizure that again sent her to the hospital where she ended up being put on a ventilator. A CAT scan, according to information passed along to me, revealed that she had developed five brain tumors that have been ruled in operable.<br />
<br />
Yesterday evening, the decision was made to remove the ventilator and although she was breathing on her own afterward, the prognosis is not good.<br />
<br />
A mutual friend, who is keeping my updated via text messages, sent one last night that said: "Queenie is no longer the Queenie we know."<br />
<br />
But, I beg to differ. Regardless of what happens next, in my mind, Queenie will <b>ALWAYS </b>be the Queenie I have known -- a very special person and a very special brand of journalist.<br />
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