Category Archives: media news

media news, Sports news

Why the attention to Tim Tebow?

Tim Tebow seems like a fine young man.

He put together a stellar career as a quarterback at the University of Florida. He won the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s top collegiate player. Then he became a pro and has, well, had a not-so-stellar career playing football for a living.

He’s tried out for various teams, been cut, come back for more, been cut some more.

He’s been hired by TV networks to provide soft features and so forth.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/armour-another-tim-tebow-try-that-is-certain-to-fail/ar-AAbp6jZ

And oh yes, he’s also demonstrated his religious faith, which many Americans — me included — find appealing.

Therein might be the reason — his devout faith — for the continuing interest in a young man who probably never will become a full-time starting quarterback in the NFL.

The Philadelphia Eagles have signed him to a one-year contract. He’s the No. 4 QB in the Eagles’ depth chart.

Will he succeed, ever? Likely not, according to USA Today: “The sad truth is that success in college is rarely a guarantee of success in the pros — quite the opposite in many cases. With the exception of Cam Newton, quarterbacks who won the Heisman have generally been a bust in the NFL.”

Tebow’s vocal fan base will keep the interest high as this young man keeps trying to find a place on some team’s roster. But as the essay attached to this post notes, the interest in Tebow has more to do with his faith than it does in football.

Thus, as today’s media culture will allow it, the drama will continue to play out.

 

local news, media news, political news

No lawn signs or bumper stickers … just yet

I had thought that when my daily print journalism came to an end in August 2012 I’d be able to wear my political preference openly.

It’s not going to happen any time soon, or at least that’s my hope.

The last lawn sign I put in my yard — I think — was in 1976. I put a sign out front for U.S. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, who was a candidate for president in the Democratic primary. That was in Oregon, before my journalism career got started.

I went to work on the copy desk of the Oregon Journal in Portland and then took a job as a sports writer for the Oregon City Enterprise-Courier, a suburban afternoon daily just south of Portland. I toiled in the business for the next 36 years, moving eventually to Texas in 1984.

I’ve had a keen interest in politics for many decades, going back to my college days and even farther back, to a time when I was just a year out of high school.

That was when I had a chance meeting late one night in May 1968 with another U.S. senator, Robert F. Kennedy. I shook his hand as he got out of his car on the eve of the Oregon primary, got his autograph, we exchanged a few words and he disappeared inside the restaurant he was visiting.

RFK was murdered a week later in Los Angeles.

My print career ended more than two years ago, but now I’m back in the journalism game once again, in a new format.

So, I’ve decided I still cannot display lawn signs or paste bumper stickers on my vehicles. Since February, I’ve been writing for NewsChannel 10’s website, newschannel10.com, as the station’s “special projects reporter.” Moreover, I’ve been blogging for Panhandle PBS for more than two years, writing about public affairs programming. Thus, I’m back in journalism.

Am I having fun? Does the bear do his business … well, you know.

Does that disqualify me from writing this blog? I don’t see that it does. I just won’t make the leap and endorse candidates for local office, as much as I want to do so, while I’m writing about local political and civic affairs for a local TV news station.

That means my lawn will be sign-free and my vehicle will be bumper-sticker-free for the foreseeable future.

media news, Uncategorized

When Brokaw says it's bad … it's bad

Overstatement isn’t my thing, so I say this with great care.

Tom Brokaw has become sort of today’s version of E.F. Hutton. Whenever he speaks of things relating to broadcast journalism, people tend to listen intently.

He’s been fairly quiet about the Brian Williams matter … you know, the NBC anchor who’s been suspended from his job without pay for embellishing his wartime experience in Iraq.

Brokaw, whom Williams replaced as anchor of NBC Nightly News, has weighed in. For my money, it doesn’t look good at all for Williams’s future.

Brokaw has acknowledged “this is a really, really serious case, obviously.”

Do you think?

Brokaw and Williams aren’t the best of friends. Brokaw said the two men have had a “cordial” relationship, which is more or less a diplomatic way of saying they smile when they see each other but in reality can’t stand to be around the other guy. We’ve all relationships like that, haven’t we?

It’s been reported of late that Williams might have hated succeeding Brokaw on the anchor desk because of the very high standard of excellence Brokaw set during his lengthy tenure. It reminds me a bit of the tension that existed between Walter Cronkite and his successor at CBS, Dan Rather, when Cronkite retired from the anchor job and was succeeded by Rather — who never quite measured up to Uncle Walter’s iconic stature.

Brokaw made his remarks recently in a talk at the University of Chicago. Check it out on this You Tube link. It’s at the 54-minute mark. Quite interesting, indeed.

 

 

 

media news, national news, political news

Rand Paul plays 'standard shtick'

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul had a prickly interview with an NBC News reporter the other day.

According to another NBC news celeb, the Kentucky Republican is treading on some tricky territory if he keeps it up.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/04/08/chuck_todd_rand_paul_played_standard_trick_with_savannah_guthrie_base_always_ginned_up_when_you_beat_up_the_press.html

Paul objected to a question posed by Savannah Guthrie and then proceeded to lecture her about talking over him while he tried to answer the question.

It’s not the first time Paul has done that, particularly with female reporters. Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd noted that conservative politicians like baiting the media because it “gins up” their base. Paul, of course, recently announced his candidacy for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2016.

This, of course, plays to the guts of the GOP’s criticism of the “liberal media,” which it contends treat progressive/liberal politicians with kid gloves while they don the brass knuckles when confronting conservative politicians.

Interesting, yes? I don’t believe Bill Clinton would agree with that. Nor would Jimmy Carter. Or former Congressman Anthony Weiner. And, yes, there have been other liberals who’ve taken their share of hits from their so-called “liberal brethren” in the media.

Sen. Paul has enough to offer Republican primary voters — and perhaps the general electorate — without getting in the face of reporters whose job is to probe and push for answers to difficult questions.

media news

How does Brian Williams come back?

The question keeps rolling through my noggin. I can’t stop wondering: How in the world does Brian Williams ever get back to the NBC Nightly News evening anchor desk?

The answer that keeps recurring? He doesn’t. He cannot come back. His credibility is blown to bits.

You see social media still joking about Williams. Things he has said in the past have been questioned by those who wonder if he made it up, as he did about his so-called shoot down in Iraq, when he said enemy rocket fire brought down a helicopter in which he was a passenger in 2003. It didn’t happen. Williams reported it correctly at first, then “misremembered” it in subsequent years as he kept retelling the fib about being aboard the helicopter when it was brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

NBC suspended him for six months.

He has said recently that he doesn’t know how he made the story up. He talked about a “brain tumor,” or some such nonsense.

The longer he stays off the air the more difficult it becomes for him to return to it in his previous capacity. The jokesters will continue to concoct gags at his expense. Every utterance he makes will be field-tested immediately to ensure its accuracy.

I think it’s time for NBC to shop around for a permanent replacement.

Indeed, something tells me the network already is looking.

media news, national news

Rolling Stone did a hatchet job

The Rolling Stone retraction of a story it published alleging a gang rape at a college frat house presents a graphic lesson in Journalism 101.

Be sure you get all sides of the story before you go to press.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/rolling-stone-rape-columbia-report-116714.html?hp=m1#.VSSXRFJ0yt8

The magazine is paying a huge price in its loss of credibility. And it should.

It well might pay even more — as in financially — if it loses a planned lawsuit filed by some of the principals involved in the coverage of the bogus story.

The magazine reported a woman named Jackie was raped by members of a University of Virginia fraternity. However, the magazine didn’t bother to check with Jackie’s friends, or with the fraternity members, or with others who might be able to corroborate Jackie’s story.

It turned out that on the night in question, there wasn’t even a party at the frat house.

The story broke down.

The magazine issued a retraction and an apology.

And this story now has put the media under the looking glass once again.

What still astounds me is that the reporter, her editors and the “fact checkers” still are employed by the magazine. No one has lost his or her job.

I’m scratching my head over this one. I’ve seen reporters and editors fired for less than what happened at Rolling Stone. No one bothered to check the details of Jackie’s story? No one thought to ask the reporter to talk to the fraternity members? The reporter didn’t bother to do her homework?

Where I come from, they call such so-called reporting a “hatchet job.”

To retract a story is to admit that it is false, that it is bogus, that it doesn’t stand up to the basic test of good journalism. Rolling Stone has issued its retraction.

Why hasn’t it punished the people responsible for soiling the magazine’s credibility?

local news, media news

Blog streak looks like it's about to end

2 Comments

This blog post is going to be — and I’ll be fairly brief — about my blog.

High Plains Blogger has been on a roll of late.

It has set seven consecutive records for monthly page views and unique visitors. I’m quite proud of that streak, and I’ve been none too bashful about sharing the good news with my social media friends.

April isn’t looking so good. Just six days into the month and I’m sensing a trend that suggests my streak is going to stop at seven. That’s all right. I’ve enjoyed a good run and I’m hopeful it will resume soon.

This blogging adventure has pretty much consumed my life for the past, oh, couple of years.

I don’t have a full-time job. I’ve three part-time jobs — and I enjoy them all immensely. Two of them involve writing: One of them is for Panhandle PBS, based at Amarillo College; the other one, which I just started in early February, is for KFDA-NewsChannel 10, the CBS-TV affiliate in Amarillo. They’re both blogs. The PBS blog discusses public affairs programming; the NewsChannel 10 blog looks at on-going news stories in our region and the station is good enough to broadcast an on-air report based on the blog I’ve posted on the station’s website.

The third job is as a customer service concierge with a Toyota dealership here in Amarillo.

But writing is what I love to do. I was blessed to pursue a fulfilling career in print journalism. It was a 37-year run that ended in late August 2012. My work with public and commercial TV stations allows me to continue to working on my craft.

My first post-newspaper-career passion, though, is my own blog. I truly enjoy venting, ranting, raving, commenting, critiquing public affairs on my blog. Occasionally I veer into what my wife and I call “life experience.”

I guess the purpose here is to ask you to keep reading High Plains Blogger. If you think you want to share it with your friends, well, have at it. I’m anxious to reach more people and to have them comment on my musings.

Do not worry about hurting my feelings if you disagree with my particular political slant. Most of my neighbors and most of the people I encounter daily disagree with me. That’s the nature of living in this part of the world.

Let me know what you think.

 

media news, political news

'Kennedy whitewash' critique was expected

I knew this critique would come from those who opposed the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy’s view of government and the world.

It arrived from Brent Bozell and Tim Graham, two leaders of the Media Research Center, a conservative-leaning media watchdog organization.

These gentlemen were offended at the recent opening of the Edward Kennedy Institute and the ceremony that praised the Liberal Lion’s work in the Senate.

http://nypost.com/2015/04/03/a-kennedy-whitewash/

They called the event a whitewash, glossing over the many personal foibles — and the tragedy — that stalked Kennedy for much of his life.

I get that Bozell and Graham thought that the media should have told the rest of the story about Kennedy: the womanizing, the public intoxication, the overall bad behavior and, yes, Chappaquiddick.

The event at the Edward Kennedy Institute was meant to honor the man’s public service. The bad stuff happened off the clock. He was clearly a flawed human being — as we all are.

However, it is no mere coincidence that Kennedy had many friends with whom he shared little or nothing politically. His across-the-aisle relationships became almost legendary on Capitol Hill. Kennedy’s best friend in the Senate arguably was Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, who counseled his friend Teddy and became something of a father confessor to the youngest member of the Kennedy “royal family.”

Did the late liberal lawmaker fight hard for his beliefs? Yes, as Bozell and Graham noted in their essay. He savaged the late Robert Bork when President Reagan nominated him for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. However, Kennedy’s ferocity against Bork has been matched in recent years by the right’s assault on, say, the president of the United States and any number of key appointees he’s sought to install in high office.

Watchdogs such as the Media Research Center do provide a valuable service to the public. They remind us that the media need to be monitored carefully, to ensure they tell the complete story. The left has its share of watchdogs, as does the right.

The unveiling of the Edward Kennedy Institute, though, was meant to honor one aspect of a senator’s public life. The private indiscretions remain part of the man’s larger legacy. I see nothing wrong with examining them both — separately.

 

media news

Retracting a story is a huge deal

During my 37 years in print journalism, I had to write some corrections to news stories or editorials I’d written.

You get a fact wrong, you write a brief explainer of the actual fact. It usually goes into a file your editor would keep. I’ve written a clarification or two in my time. That’s when you report or commenting on an issue without using the proper context. Those, too, go into a file.

No journalist likes to write those.

A retraction? That’s a very big deal. That’s when you retract an entire story. It was bogus. False. It’s a firing offense. I’ve seen reporters lose their jobs because their files contained too many corrections or clarifications.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/04/rolling-stone-retracts-uva-rape-on-campus-article-205020.html?hp=c4_3

Rolling Stone magazine, a usually reliable journal, has retracted a story it published alleging that the University of Virginia fraternity house was the scene of a horrible rape in 2012. The magazine drew a scathing critique from the Columbia Journalism Review about how editors allowed the story to pass through various checkpoints before being published.

The writer of the bogus story, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, reportedly didn’t contact any of the alleged assailants.She acknowledges she relied too heavily on the alleged victim’s account of what happened.

One of the more astonishing elements of this story is that Erdely and the editors who worked on her story are continuing to work for Rolling Stone. She has apologized to the readers of Rolling Stone and has vowed never to make the mistakes she made while writing the article.

Whatever.

But can readers trust her fully again? Journalists are supposed to trade on the trust they build with their readers. That trust is built on the journalist’s ability to tell the truth, completely and fully and without a hint of doubt about the veracity of the story being told.

When a nationally known publication such as Rolling Stone retracts a story, it in effect is admitting it has inflicted a grave wound on that trust.

It’s a real big deal.

 

media news, national news, political news

Indy Star goes out front with 'Fix it' editorial

Newspaper editorials have their place: usually on a page marked clearly as “opinion,” or “comment,” or “editorial.”

Except when the management of a newspaper decides an issue is so critical, so important and so compelling that they take that editorial to the front page, where everyone who sees the paper can see what’s on the editors’ minds.

The Indianapolis Star has gone out front in today’s edition with an editorial demanding that Indiana legislators and Gov. Mike Pence “fix” the state’s religious freedom law.

Good for the Star.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/03/indy-star-fix-religious-freedom-law-now-204758.html?hp=b2_l3

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been seen by critics as a pretext to allow businesses to discriminate against citizens because of their sexual orientation. It protects them from lawsuits if they deny service to gay individuals. The LGBT community across the nation — and its allies — have unleashed a barrage of criticism against Indiana lawmakers and the governor for approving the bill and signing it into law.

The editorial’s headline screams “Fix This Now.” Pence is scheduled to have a news conference today to address the issue. It’s not clear whether he’ll seek to amend it, or whether he’s actually empowered to repeal it unilaterally.

The Star is asking for a new law to add to the religious freedom law that exempts LGBT residents from its provisions.

The bottom line here is the bottom line. The state is facing a serious economic impact if businesses pull out of Indiana. The NCAA men’s basketball Final Four tournament takes place next weekend in Indianapolis and the repercussions of this law can be significant.

The law looks to many folks — me included — like a pretext to sanction discrimination against a certain group of Americans. It shouldn’t stand as it is written.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/?tfp_show=100&tfp_page=2&tfp_id=IN_IS