Category Archives: media news

media news

Lamenting newspapers’ demise

This is the Gospel truth, so help me: I detest writing critical items on this blog about newspapers that provided me with great joy and satisfaction as I pursued a craft I loved so very much.

Still, it pains me terribly to watch the demise of what used to be a mainstay in people’s homes. Daily newspapers everywhere in this great land are withering up and dying before our eyes.

It’s a slow and painful death to be sure.

I have commented on the end of Saturday publication of the Amarillo Globe-News, the last stop on my daily journalism career. The newspaper ceased the Saturday edition this weekend. Amarillo, Texas, is far from the only community watching this happen to their newspapers.

Cities far larger than Amarillo (population, 200,000) are seeing the same thing happen. The city of my birth, Portland, once was where The Oregonian published 400,000 copies every Sunday; daily circulation was around 250,000. Today? It’s a fraction of those amounts. The newspaper doesn’t even deliver to every subscriber seven days a week, although it does publish papers every day, but sells most of them from news racks.

Newspapers used to be what we called “cash cows” for their owners. They operated with enormous profit margins, exceeding 30 or 40%. They did so while paying huge amounts of overhead to salaries employees. Publishing a newspaper was labor-intensive to be sure, but the owners made tons of dough while publishing them.

Those days are long gone.

I am proud of the craft I pursued. I did so in good faith as a reporter and then as an editorial writer, and then as an editorial page editor. No one ever called me the “enemy of the American people.” Indeed, those with whom I toiled to publish newspapers all felt as I did, that we sought to tell our communities’ stories with honesty and fairness.

I believe we succeeded.

I remained saddened by the demise of daily print journalism as I remember it when I took up this craft.

I came of age in journalism about the time that Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were telling the world about the 1972-74 Watergate scandal. Their reporting for the Washington Post sought to hold those in power accountable for their actions. They exposed some monumental corruption.

Sitting on my bookshelf at home is a first-edition copy of “All the President’s Men,” the story that the two journalists told of the scandal that brought down a U.S. president and sent many of his top aides to prison.

A publisher gave me this book as a Christmas gift and wrote on the first page of what he called his “favorite book.” He continued: “This is really where it all began for great journalism!” I aspired to make a difference in the world the way these men did. I didn’t get there, but I managed to carve out a modestly successful career that made me proud of the path I took.

I just am saddened to see newspapers dying before my eyes.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Retrenchment continues

A newspaper that employed me for nearly 18 years and which served as the dominant source of information for the Texas Panhandle and three nearby states has taken quite possibly a step closer to oblivion.

It saddens me greatly.

The Amarillo Globe-News has suspended one day of publication; it no longer publishes a Saturday edition. The end of the Saturday newspaper was effective yesterday. The paper announced it was “combining” Friday and Saturday editions into a Friday newspaper, which is a kinder/gentler way of telling readers that they no longer will receive a Saturday edition of a once-solid newspaper.

Oh … sigh.

I practiced my craft at the Globe-News for nearly 18 years. Then I walked away in August 2012. I haven’t looked back too often. When I have, though, I see things that distress me. The newspaper has changed corporate ownership twice since I departed. Morris Communications sold its entire newspaper holdings to GateHouse Media, which then merged with Gannett Corp.

The retrenchment has commenced in the Panhandle just as it is in communities across the country.

I don’t like what I fear is going to happen eventually to a newspaper that in 1961 earned a Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service but which is now devolving into a shadow not just of what it was during those great days but also of what it has become just in the past few years.

The newspaper that once covered communities throughout every county in the Panhandle, into eastern New Mexico, the Oklahoma Panhandle and even a sliver of southwestern Kansas now barely covers events inside the city of Amarillo. It now employs a tiny fraction of the staff it once boasted. Advertising revenue has plummeted, along with paid newspaper circulation.

Hey, it’s not unique to that region. It’s just that it hurts me, your friendly blogger, to watch it happen in a place that brought me great joy during the final stage of my print journalism career.

I am not looking forward to what I believe lies ahead for the Amarillo Globe-News.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, media news

Time still flies by

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Time does have this way of getting away from most — if not all — of us. Why that observation? Well, it dawned on me earlier today that this is the 10th year since I walked off the last full-time job I ever would have.

It has been a marvelous ride ever since that amazing moment in an equally amazing day.

It was Aug. 31, 2012. My employer informed me the previous day that the job I had performed at the Amarillo Globe-News would go to someone else. I worked as editorial page editor at the Texas newspaper for nearly 18 years. I thought I did a good job. My employer, I was left to presume, thought differently.

So, he informed me that my task would fall to someone else. I went home that day and returned early the next day to clean out my office. The very first item I tossed into the trash can was a stash of business cards with my name on it. Gone! Forever!

I walked away. On the way out I had one final meeting with now former employer. The conversation was an unhappy one. I left the building. I called one of my colleagues on my cell phone. I said “so long” to him and hung up.

Then, while sitting in my car, I cried.

That all occurred nearly a decade ago. You know what? I have gotten over that anger, and the pain of that moment. I have moved on. I am no longer angry. I no longer hurt. I no longer miss the daily grind of meeting deadlines and writing commentary.

I have had a number of part-time jobs in the years since. I write this blog each day. I am getting more proficient at using social media to spread the musings I post. I have written for public television, for commercial TV, for a community newspaper in New Mexico, for a major metropolitan daily newspaper in Dallas, for a public radio station in Commerce, and for a weekly newspaper near the city where my wife and I moved. I also worked for an auto dealer in Amarillo and for six months I worked as a juvenile supervision officer for the Youth Center of the High Plains, a detention center run by Randall County.

I have declared myself to be a highly adaptable human being. My life has provided proof of that declaration. I am damn proud of the career I pursued for nearly 37 years, and I am equally proud of the adjustments I have made, with enormous help and support from my wife of 50 years, sons, daughter-in-law, sisters and their families, in the life I have led for the past decade.

Time is still just flying by. It does that when you’re having so much fun.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

‘Enemy of people?’ Hardly!

Let’s take a brief moment — shall we? — to ponder the stupid utterance of a former U.S. president who declared on more than one occasion that the media and those who work for them are “the enemy of the American people.”

OK. Now, let’s juxtapose that stupidity with what we’re hearing from the battlefield in Ukraine.

We are hearing of casualties being inflicted among journalists who are covering that battle between Ukrainian forces and those from Russia who have invaded their country.

A Fox News Channel reporter is hospitalized after being wounded seriously in an attack that killed one of the producers from that network. Journalists from other news-gathering organizations have been wounded and killed while covering the war for their readers, viewers and listeners back home … where “home” might be.

The former president is fond of hammering the media for purportedly producing “fake news,” never mind that he also produces fake news simply through his own stupidity, his own lying.

Journalists who thrust themselves into harm’s way to cover world events — regardless of the danger they pose to those who get too close to the action — are heroes. Their only “enemy” rests in the hearts and minds who deny — or denigrate — the value they bring to a civilized society.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, media news

Ethical breach? Yep!

A candidate for a Texas Senate seat has confirmed for me a suspicion I had hoped would prove false. Dang! I hate to rat out someone who works at a newspaper that paid me nicely for nearly 18 years.

I reached out to a candidate who had lost the Republican primary to Kevin Sparks, who won the GOP nomination for Texas Senate District 31. I was curious about something I read on the eve of the March 1 primary in the Amarillo Globe-News: It was a lengthy op-ed column from the guy who won the primary; he extolled his virtues as a candidate for the Senate seat. It was, to put it bluntly, nothing more than a political advertisement for which he should have paid money. He didn’t. The newspaper granted him the space for free.

I asked the fellow who finished second in that primary — Tim Reid of Amarillo — whether the newspaper had given him the space to sing his own political virtues. His answer: “Not at all. The GN didn’t even run my announcement press release.”

Let me blunt. The Globe-News committed what I consider to be a serious ethical sin. It occurred in two parts. One was that the paper reportedly offered only candidate — the man it endorsed for the primary — a chance to bloviate on why voters should choose him over any other candidate in the race. The second sin concerns the timing of the op-ed column: It ran on the day before the election, giving no one a chance to rebut, refute or rebuke whatever the candidate had to say about himself.

I also reached out to the editor of the opinion pages of the Globe-News, inquiring about whether any of this is true. He hasn’t responded. Therefore, I feel no hesitation about speaking my mind about how I believe the readers of a once-good newspaper have been let down by the publication.

Fairness dictated that the newspaper would offer all the candidates the same opportunity to speak out. It is unfair in the extreme that a publication such as the Globe-News would fall far short in meeting that responsibility. What’s more, the notion of fairness also requires the newspaper to grant anyone the chance to challenge an assertion that a candidate makes about himself, or about his opponents. Sparks didn’t say a word in his essay about another candidate, so that’s not an issue.

However, what is an issue is the obvious bias displayed by the publisher of the Globe-News in favor of one candidate for public office. That is unacceptable.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, media news

War fatigue sets in

Allow me this brief admission, of which I am not proud, to be sure: I am suffering from early onset of “war fatigue.” Yes, the Ukraine-Russia war has worn me out.

Understand this, though. Our hearts are breaking over the suffering that Russia’s bombing and artillery attacks are inflicting on people who are simply trying to defend their homeland against an invading military force. It’s not that I am going to dismiss their suffering and wring my hands over having to watch it on TV.

It’s merely that the brave journalists who are reporting from the front have saturated me with news that is beginning to sound repetitive. Russians are escalating their attacks; they are hitting civilian targets; they are inflicting casualties among civilians, including defenseless children; those who die are being buried in mass graves; Vladimir Putin keeps shunning pleas to stop the invasion. Over and over again.

We had our granddaughter with us for a couple of nights. My wife made the decision to shield her from the news.

Does this mean that High Plains Blogger is taking a break from commenting on information that leaks into your blogger’s noggin? Hah! Hardly.

I am likely to end my news boycott soon, given that I happen to be addicted to the news. I’ll certainly divert my attention fully to this unfolding story when something significant happens. The war might expand into NATO nations; Putin might deploy chemical weapons; President Biden might decide to ratchet up sanctions even more.

Or, and this would be the best news, there could be a cease-fire that paves a clear path to a peace treaty.

Until any of that happens, I’m tuning out the war … for now.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

entertainment news, media news

Sen. Cotton wimps out

Tom Cotton this morning revealed himself to be what many of us have known for a long time. The U.S. senator from Arkansas is a wimp, a weenie and, dare I say it … a coward.

The Republican appeared this morning on ABC News “This Week” program. He was grilled by George Stephanopoulos, who asked Cotton three or four times a simple, straightforward question about the “leader of your party,” Donald John Trump.

Why can’t Cotton condemn the GOP “leader” for calling Vladimir Putin “savvy” and a “genius” for invading Ukraine and putting virtually all of Europe in potentially dire peril.

Cotton would answer the question. He kept telling Stephanopoulos that he should invited The Donald to appear on his show, presumably to let him answer the question himself as to why he keeps cozying up to his pal Vladimir Putin.

It was a remarkable demonstration of cowardly evasion from a U.S. senator who gets paid to talk to media representatives and to convey messages to those he represents on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Cotton didn’t go there. He choked.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Time of My Life, Part 62: Community knowledge

A primary election is about to occur in Texas and newspapers around the state have concluded interviewing candidates for federal, state and local political offices.

I can recall a time when I did that, too. It was a full-immersion learning experience for me.

We would summon candidates into our editorial board rooms and grill them on issues pertinent to the offices they sought. We would pepper them with questions about their political history, on statements they made out loud and in public. We would inquire about their previous public service experience. We also would ask how that experience came to bear on the office they sought.

Through it all, though, I managed always — without fail! — to learn a little more about the community I served as editor of opinion pages, whether it was in Beaumont at the Enterprise or up yonder in the Texas Panhandle when I worked at the Amarillo Globe-News. Indeed, my learning experience began earlier than that, at the Oregon City Enterprise-Courier, where my journalism career got its start.

Through it all, I always learned something about the community where I worked and which I sought to serve as editor of the newspaper’s opinion pages. Back then, people would turn to the editorial page for a little bit of guidance, for some advice from the newspaper on how to handle pressing community issues. Or they would turn to our pages just to find one more reason to disagree with whatever opinion we sought to foist on our readers.

It was a learning experience to be sure, one that I always anticipated at the front end of the interview process. I always appreciated what I learned at the end of it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

 

local news, media news

This news hurts … a lot

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We all have people who come into our lives and never really leave us, even if we no longer see them regularly. They are work colleagues, or those with whom we establish a sort of sibling-like relationship.

Ben Hansen filled both roles in my life. I got some heart-shattering news this morning, that Ben had died peacefully during the night.

I am trying to collect my thoughts and reel in my emotions as I bang out this post. Suffice to say, Ben Hansen — who was a physically imposing man — cast a large shadow over my life and over the communities he served as a newspaper editor in four states over many decades.

Our paths crossed the first time in early1977. Hansen was editor of a suburban daily newspaper in Oregon City, Ore. He had a position to fill on his staff; it was a temporary slot as a sportswriter. The sports editor of the newspaper had taken maternity leave, so Ben needed someone to pinch hit while she was away. I got the job, knowing it could end several weeks later.

Well, it didn’t. Another opening came up. Hansen hired me on a permanent basis. He helped launch my career then. He would leave the paper to take another editor’s job in Utah. After that, he gravitated to Beaumont, Texas.

That’s where our relationship took off. He called me one day to ask if I would like to interview for a job as an editorial writer for the Beaumont Enterprise. I flew to Texas for that interview; he hired me again. Ben told me that the Golden Triangle was a hotbed of news. He was so right.

Ben promoted me to editor of the opinion page. We raised a hackle or two on the editorial page of the Enterprise over the years. I was proud to be part of that effort. I reported to Hansen for nearly 11 years in Beaumont before I departed for the Texas Panhandle.

Ben and I stayed in touch, even after he left Beaumont for another editor’s gig in Prescott, Ariz., where he eventually retired.

I learned much about my craft from Ben. He was a stickler for “active-voice” writing. He despised text that contained “passive-voice” narrative; you know, the kind of the thing that would tell you that “mistakes were made.” He insisted that an active voice required you to say that “so-and-so made mistakes.” Even to this day I am keenly aware of that and seek to avoid lapsing into passive voice when I write this blog.

Ben Hansen was a good and decent man who saw himself as a crusader. He was quick with a quip and could knock out a nearly spot-on impersonation of John Wayne with barely a provocation.

I will hold him in my eternal gratitude for taking a chance on a young man seeking to start a career in print journalism. It worked out well for me and I owe much of what I was able to achieve to the patience he showed me decades ago.

I will miss my friend.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news, media news

Phones make my head spin

Whenever I have to discuss telephone technology with anyone younger than, say, 30 my head starts spinning around like a top … kinda like Linda Blair’s noggin spun around in the “The Exorcist.”

It happened again today. I purchased a new cellular telephone. My old one croaked on me. It wouldn’t hold a charge. So, with my son’s help this weekend I found a juiced-up new phone and today I trudged to the phone store in Princeton to select what we had chosen.

Now, it got dicey when the young woman who I guess is in her late 20s began chattering in technospeak. I told her she might as well speak to me in Martian. My age was obvious to her, so she got it.

I then reminded her to ask her grandparents about the phones they used when they were her age. Her immediate response was, “My grandpa didn’t have a phone.” Well … there you go.

Furthermore, I told my young friend, there was a time when I was a boy that my parents purchased a new telephone for the kitchen wall plug-in that had a “coiled” cord that allowed whoever was talking on the phone to walk away from the wall a little farther; we weren’t restricted by the stiff cord that came with the previous phone. It was a big deal, I told her. She got it!

It’s a different era these days. I won’t call it a “new” era, because cell phones aren’t all that new.

I try to be a relatively hip old guy. At times, though, the language used to navigate through all this high-powered technology flies over my occasionally thick skull. I’m getting better at understanding some of it.

It’s going to take a good while longer for me to obtain total fluency … if that day ever arrives.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com