Category Archives: media news

media news

Rolling Stone gets sued … good!

I spent my professional life in journalism. I’m a fierce advocate for publications’ rights to print the truth and more often than not I have looked skeptically at individuals or institutions that have sued publications for libel or defamation.

Not this time.

A University of Virginia administrator has sued Rolling Stone magazine for $7.5 million, contending the magazine defamed her in a bogus story about a gang rape on the campus.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/university-of-virginia-associate-dean-sues-rolling-stone-over-gang-rape-story/ar-BBjG6jp

I hope Nicole Eramo wins.

She is UVa’s top administrator who deals with sexual assaults. The magazine portrayed her as someone more interested in protecting the school’s reputation than in protecting a woman named “Jackie,” who alleged she was raped by students at a frat house party. Well, the party never occurred, “Jackie” wasn’t raped, Rolling Stone retracted the story — and the reporter and her editors responsible for publishing the false account still have their jobs!

“I am filing this defamation lawsuit to set the record straight — and to hold the magazine and the author of the article accountable for their actions in a way they have refused to do themselves,” Eramo said in a statement.

The retraction gives this lawsuit some traction. Publications rarely retract a story, taking back what they published and in effect admitting that it was wrong. Rolling Stone admitted the story was phony, but still haven’t disciplined the principals involved in publishing it.

Nicole Eramo’s lawsuit needs to make a statement that the magazine did something grievously wrong in its so-called “reporting” of a crime that didn’t occur.

 

local news, media news

Texan of the Year? From Amarillo? Why not, indeed?

The Dallas Morning News makes a huge deal every year about selecting its Texan of the Year.

One of the paper’s editorial writers/bloggers, Rodger Jones, has pitched the idea that Shanna Peeples, the National Teacher of the Year, should be nominated for the paper’s acclaimed award.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/three-candidates-for-texan-of-the-year.html/

I concur with what Jones is suggesting.

But I’m biased. Like a lot of folks in these parts, my path crossed Shanna’s years ago when we worked for the same newspaper here in Amarillo. She went on to pursue her calling as a teacher and, well, she’s succeeded beautifully.

As Jones writes in his blog: “Shanna can tailor instruction to the needs of her students, whether she is working with refugees who have suffered traumatic events in their lives, or AP students who crave challenging curriculum or at-risk students who are attending school in the evenings to recover lost credits,” Palo Duro Principal Sandy Whitlow said. “The bottom line is that her students know she truly cares about them, and she will invest every ounce of energy in helping them attain their goals.”

How can you not consider this dedicated and talented public school teacher to be Texan of the Year?

media news

Fox News owns up to mistake … well done

Regular readers of this blog know that I am not a fan of the Fox News Channel, the network that proclaims itself to be “fair and balanced … and unafraid.”

I’ve determined that a news organization that must declare it is “fair and balanced” usually is neither.

But the other day, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith did something quite commendable.

He manned up and said the network erred in a report from Baltimore about an alleged shooting of a man by police.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/05/04/fox-news-forced-apologize-starting-riot-false-baltimore-shooting-report.html

The field reporter said he saw an officer shoot a man. The police department issued a statement that said the incident didn’t happen. The field reporter, Mike Tobin, thought he saw what he reported.

In the words of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry: Oops.

Smith then went on the air to say the network messed up. It gave incorrect information and broadcast it to its audience.

There’s been some chatter out there about the incident and whether Fox is prone to reporting such errors regularly. I don’t know the answer to that.

One can quibble with how a network — be it Fox, CNN, MSNBC or any of the broadcast networks — spin their coverage, depending on your point of view and your own bias.

But when a network misreports something that it says actually happened, then takes it back, well, that’s part of taking responsibility.

We’re all human. And humans make mistakes.

Fox News’s correspondent made one. The network apologized for it.

I accept the apology.

 

local news, media news

Growing old is turning out OK … so far

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

The older I get the more I learn about myself.

One of things I am learning is how adaptable I have become. Actually, I’ve know about the adaptability for some time. My family and I moved from Oregon — where I grew up and spent most of my first 34 years on Earth — to Texas. I adapted just fine.

My journalism career brought tremendous change over the course of 37 years. In August 2012, when I started sensing my days were numbered at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for more than 17 years, I fell back on my last line of defense in an effort to keep my job in the face of a reorganization scheme. I told my employer: “You’re asking me to make changes in the way I do things. Well, my craft today bears next to zero resemblance to what it was when I began, so the changes you’re asking me to make amount to a tiny fraction of the change I’ve already gone through.”

That pitch didn’t work. They assigned my duties to someone else and I walked away.

Adaptability: That’s my middle name, yes?

Well, I have found a whole new world of new things to which I can adapt.

I’m still writing. This blog is one outlet. I also am writing for Panhandle PBS — the Amarillo College-based public TV station formerly known as KACV-TV. I blog about public affairs programming: PBS documentaries, news specials, Panhandle PBS’s “Live Here” public affairs program. It’s a blast, man. I’ve taken on another writing assignment, for KFDA-NewsChannel 10. I write for the station’s website — newschannel10.com — and they use those news stories as the basis for weekly on-air broadcasts. That, too, is big-time hoot.

Now I’m taking on another task. Let’s call it “managing editor in absentia” for the Quay County Sun in Tucumcari, N.M. I’ve been asked to assist in producing the paper each week — from my home, using my laptop, cell phone and e-mail communication with a reporter who’ll produce the text. I’ve implored my friend, David Stevens — who works as executive editor  for the parent company that also publishes daily papers in Clovis and Portales, N.M. — to please keep looking aggressively for a permanent managing editor. He assures me he will.

But you see, what I’ve discovered is that there really is a market out there for old guys with (lots of) gray in their hair.

I still am looking forward to retirement, although it’s looking less likely that I’m a candidate for The Pasture any time soon.

My wife and I still have plans — eventually — to relocate closer to our granddaughter and her parents, who live just a bit north of Dallas. I hope to take much of my work with me, if it’s possible. The Internet Age has made that kind of transition available, even to old guys like me.

They have that saying about hindsight’s perfect vision. Our foresight remains quite fuzzy.

Neither my wife nor I ever could have imagined this stage of our life together turning out this way.

Hey, everyone needs some surprises in life.

Adaptability makes it easier to cope with them when they show up.

media news, national news, political news

Afflicting the comfortable no longer in vogue?

There’s a saying that a free press’s key mission is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

At the risk of sounding like a whiny baby who never got invited to one of these gigs, allow me now to say that the Washington Correspondents Dinner is a disgrace to the high-minded mission that the D.C. press corps is supposed to fulfill.

Check out this essay about what’s become of this annual event:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/white-house-correspondents-dinner-117287.html?ml=po#.VT2bCFJ0yt8

There’s something more than mildly offensive about seeing reporters and their dates parading along a red carpet, a la the Oscars, Tonys, Emmys and the ESPYs.

Those of us who toiled out here in the Heartland — aka Flyover Country — always have thought there ought to be a natural tension between the power brokers and those who cover them, reporting on their dealings to the “unwashed masses” who depend on journalists to tell them the truth.

Here’s how Patrick Gavin describes the event that occurred over the weekend: “What started off decades ago as a stately formal celebration of the best of presidential reporting has morphed into a four-day orgy of everything people outside the Beltway hate about life inside the Beltway—now it’s not just one night of clubby backslapping, carousing and drinking between the press and the powerful, it’s four full days of signature cocktails and inside jokes that just underscore how out of step the Washington elite is with the rest of the country. It’s not us (journalists) versus them (government officials); it’s us (Washington) versus them (the rest of America).”

Boy, howdy. I couldn’t have said it better.

The D.C. press corps has become something of an echo chamber, where journalists parrot each other’s views and simply cannot wait to be seen in the company of the famous and the powerful. In their own minds, that seems to fit the description of the people who cover government.

I loved Gavin’s note that unlike some of the other dinners — such as the Gridiron — where presidents occasionally are absent, POTUS’s attendance at the correspondents dinner seems to be required. Gavin writes:  “The last president to skip it was Ronald Reagan in 1981 and — let’s cut him some slack — he bailed because he had just been shot.”

The press’s mission to afflict the comfortable now seems almost quaint. How can it do so when the comfortable include the very journalists who keep slapping the backs and yukking it up with the folks they are sent to cover?

I much prefer the tension that is supposed to exist between the media and the government. It keeps everyone — reporters and their sources — a little more honest.

 

local news, media news, Uncategorized

Non-endorsement sends dubious message

Let’s talk about newspaper endorsements and what they intend to accomplish.

Editors and publishers will tell you they aren’t intended to make voters cast ballots in accordance with what the newspaper management wants. The folks who run these media outlets seek to stay on the moral high ground. “We just want to be a voice in the community,” they say. “It’s enough just to make people think. We know we cannot make people vote a certain way and that’s not our intention.”

It’s all high-minded stuff. I used to say such things myself when I was editing editorial pages for two newspapers in Texas — one in Beaumont and one in Amarillo — and at a paper in my home state of Oregon.

But the reality, though, is that newspaper executives — publishers and editors — never would complain if elections turn out the way they recommend.

Is there a dichotomy here? I think so.

Which brings me to the Amarillo Globe-News’s non-endorsement today in the upcoming election for mayor. The paper chose to remain silent. It wouldn’t endorse Paul Harpole’s re-election to a third term as mayor, nor would it recommend voters elect Roy McDowell as mayor.

The paper did express a couple of things about Harpole. It said it is disappointed in the missteps and mistakes that have occurred on Harpole’s watch and it also predicted that Harpole would be re-elected on May 9.

Newspapers fairly routinely encourage community residents to get out and vote. They encourage them to make the tough choices. Pick a candidate, the newspaper might suggest. Hey, none of them might not be statesmen or women, but they’re committing themselves to public service.

Suppose for a moment that Amarillo voters — all of them — took the Globe-News’s non-recommendation to heart. What if no one voted for mayor? What if no voter decided that one of the two men seeking the office deserved their vote? Would the paper declare that a victory? Or would it lament the chaos that would ensue?

This is why I disliked non-endorsements back when I toiled for daily newspapers. I’ve always believed voters expect the newspaper to recommend someone in a race, even if no candidate deserved a ringing endorsement. If nothing else, some voters do rely on newspapers to provide some guidance to voters who might not have sufficient knowledge of all the issues that decide these important elections.

Recommending no one? That’s their call. However, it’s fair to wonder whether a newspaper should ask voters to do something its management wouldn’t do, which is make a choice on whom to support at the ballot box.

 

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.