Category Archives: media news

I am the ‘newspaper guy’

June 29, 2025 kanelis2012

AMARILLO — I attended the memorial service of a dear friend today, schmoozed with plenty of folks I once knew back in the old days and came away with a strange loss of identity.

You see, I once called this bustling city of 200,000 people my home, My wife and I lived here for 23 years, longer than in any community during our 51 years of married life together. Therefore, I was a bit puzzled by a seeming lack of recognition from some of those folks I once knew.

When I said the words “newspaper guy” or “Amarillo Globe-News,” I could see the light bulbs flicker on in their minds. “Oh, yeaaahhhh!” came the response. “I remember you now! Hey, welcome back home. Man, we sure could use you around here these days,” they would say … or words to that effect.

There you have it. I am identified by the job I performed for a newspaper that once was a significant presence in the lives of residents throughout the Texas Panhandle. It isn’t any longer. The Globe-News exists today mostly in the memories of those who subscribed to the morning Daily News, the evening Globe-Times or the Sunday News-Globe. Many of them read all three papers, given that they were produced by separate newsgathering and opinion page staffs.

Those days are long gone. Forever, too. The paper — if we can call it that — is merely a dimming shadow of its once-glorious self. The Globe-Times won the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service in 1961, print journalism’s top prize.

What does any of this have to do with me? Not much, truth be told. I wasn’t part of that glorious past. I was part of a past that meant more to people’s lives than the present does or that the future ever will. We weren’t a great newspaper when I joined it in 1995, but we were solid and we damn sure reported the news thoroughly throughout the region.

What I didn’t realize is how much the job I did for the community melded itself into my identity. I will not complain about it. I am just realizing it out loud for the first time.

It’s all very strange.

local news, media news

Better friends … than ever!

June 25, 2025 kanelis2012

Someone posted a question on social media that drew an out-loud laugh from this old man.

“How many of you are friends with someone you knew in high school?” this individual asked.

So help me I chuckled out loud … loud enough for my puppies to hear me and come running to see for themselves.

Here’s the back story …

I graduuated from Parkrose High School in Portland, Ore., in June 1967. They called it the Summer of Love. Whatever. The truth of my high school years was that I didn’t have many friends. I was painfully shy around girls and so I didn’t date. That’s right … I dated no one from my high school. I had a few close friends, maybe two or three. I met one of them the day I reported for junior high school in March 1962 after my parents moved us to the suburbs.

Dennis and I have been close friends ever since.

I change came over me in the 58 years since I graduated from high school. I snapped out of my shyness, thanks in large part to the girl I met in college in January 1971 and whom I would marry and spend 51 glorious years in her embrace.

We traipsed through life and along the way I came across men and women I knew back in high school. I was unafraid to chat them up, whereas before I wouldn’t have dared try to engage them in conversation.

Over the years as social media has advanced and taken over many millons of Americans’ lives, I now find myself with quite a few more friends from high school than I had in the olden days. Some of them are men with whom I share a common bond called “the Vietnam War.” Others are guys who just pop up from time to time on Facebook friend request feeds, enabling us to connect. Others still are women who these days are all grown up and understand why some of us boys were too shy to reach out before.

I cannot count a lot of high school-age friends, but my network of acquaintances surely has grown … thanks to social media.

Hey, it’s not all bad. You know?

local news, media news

Gadflies can do good

May 21, 2025 kanelis2012

My freelance gig has allowed me to get better acquainted with communities throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth region, which follows the form I’ve used for decades … meaning that I learn about new places when I am asked to cover them.

I recently began a gig covering the Sachse City Council in a nice city that straddles the Collin-Dallas County line. They have a seven-member council, a competent city staff and lots of people who attend the council meetings on most occasions. They also have what can be referred to as the resident gadfly, a fellow who I understand attends almost every council meeting and brings his version of what’s wrong with the city to everyone’s attention.

This fellow, though, did something I found quite refreshing. He ran for mayor and lost to the incumbent in an election that occurred at the start of the month. He ended up polling around 40% of the vote in a two-man contest. I don’t know about you, but I consider that a fairly strong showing for a fellow who, as I understand it, doesn’t usually offer much constructive analysis when he bellows before the council in the public comment portion of the meetings.

I have witnessed my share of gadflies during my nearly 37 years as a journalist covering issues for daily newspapers in Texas and Oregon. Almost all of them are content to merely bitch about government, but then decline to step into the arena when given the chance. This guy took his shot at it. He fell short.

One such gadfly in Amarillo once was elected to a seat on a county commissioners court. He raised a little bit of hell with the county, then stepped away. He also continued to gripe about alleged mistreatment by City Hall, but has not yet offered himself as a candidate for the city council.

I have no way to know where my newest gadfly acquaintance will take his camaign for civic improvement. Maybe he’ll make another run for political office. He might just be content to bitch out loud from the gallery at City Council meetings.

I do intend to listen carefully to what he has to say and along the way learn a little more about a community I will be serving. Even gadflies can teach me something.

media news

Public radio, TV under attack

May 4, 2025 kanelis2012 4 Comments

Right-wingers’ vendetta against public radio and television would be laughable … if the consequences of this battle weren’t so frightening.

They want to defund National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service. Why? Because they contend erroneously that it’s all “fake,” that it’s biased against conservatives and that the right-wing cabal just won’t tolerate it any longer.

Good fu**ing grief!

In in the interest of full disclosure, I will say I have some experience working for both public media. I freelanced for Panhandle PBS and for High Plains Public Radio for a time after leaving print journalism in 2012. And I worked for a time for KETR-FM public radio in Commerce, Texas, for a while after my wife and I moved to the Metroplex.

I have seen their work up close and I can attest to the absolute professionalism I witnessed while working for them.

I long have held the view that bias rests in the hearts and minds of news consumers, not necessarily in those who deliver it.

I recall a conversation I had with an NPR news director once who explained to me the rules that the broadcast network places on those who deliver the news over the air. They must avoid terms, he said, that connote a point of view. One of those words, he explained, is “reform.”

When discussing legislation aimed at changing current public policy, NPR journalists were told to use the term “overhaul” policy, not “reform” it, as reformation means it would be an improvement.

My friend was quite adamant in telling me that public radio takes its responsibility to be fair, neutral and unbiased quite seriously.

What’s more, I have to point out that the founders protected a “free press” from government interference. They set those protections for the only industry functioning then — and now — in the Constitution.

The right-wing cabal needs to get a grip and perhaps look inward to determine the source of the bias it seeks to eliminate.

local news, media news

Blog decision looms

April 29, 2025 kanelis2012 4 Comments

A possible decision might be looming for High Plains Blogger … that would be yours truly.

The decision involves whether I want to keep pursuing this daily goal of posting commentaries,. Yes, the daily goal. I have been writing blogs each day since The Flood, or so it seems. I have had good spells and slow spells.

I am deep in the midst of a slow spell. I have plenty of topics on which to comment. The response has been, well, rather sparse. As in very sparse. I’m in a slump.

I am unsure if my audience, such as it is, has grown weary of my rants. Maybe I’m not as sharp as I once claimed to be.

I believe I’ll know what to do soon after I post this particular item on Highs Plains Blogger. If the comments pour in from readers saying they want me to keep going, well, then I’ll respond accordingly.

If it remains quiet out there in Blog Land, I think that will tell me something, too. Maybe I can monkey around with the blog platform I use to get more response.

Just know that I truly enjoy sharing my world view with you. It’s my view only. I know it has its friends and its foes. Critics are welcome to offer their negative responses. I am a grownup and I can take it. I’ll be honest, I prefer to hear words of support.

I have sought to broaden the subject matter, to include more slice of life entries, rather than just relying on politics and policy.

I’ll know in due course what my decision will be. I’ll keep you posted on what I decide.

Meanwhile … have a great day.

media news

End of war … under dispute

April 28, 2025 kanelis2012

It was 50 years ago this week when a war we thought might never end actually concluded.

The end of the shooting in Vietnam occurred on Aptil 30, 1975 when Bui Tin reportedly accepted the surrender of forces commanded by Durong Van Minh, also known as “Big Minh.” I guess the gentleman was much larger than your average Vietnamese man.

Why bring this up? Well, in November 1989, I had the high honor of meeting Bui Tin in a dingy Hanoi conference room. I was touring Vietnam with fellow journalists and we arranged for a meeting with Bui Tin and heard his first-hand account of what happened the day North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, captured the enemy government, renamed the city after “Uncle Ho” Chi Minh and began to rebuild the nation torn asunder by decades of war against the Japanese, the French and, finally, the Americans.

Bui Tin eventually fled Vietnam and lived in France for the rest of his life. He died there on Aug. 11, 2018.

He was an unpretentious man, as I recall. He spoke matter-of-factly — through an interpreter — of when he accepted Big Minh’s surrender. His version of events has been disputed by the Vietnamese government in the decades since the end of the war.

For me? I’ll go along with Bui Tin’s story. I recall at the time that he sounded credible and I don’t recall any of my colleagues questioning the veracity of the story he told us.

Many of us among the journalists who made that journey are Vietnam War veterans and for those of us who returned to Vietnam after serving there during war, the whole return was an event that changed many of our lives.

It damn sure changed mine!

The U.S. war effort had ended in January 1973. We brought our remaning troops home, left the embassy in Saigon under fire and began to rebuild our own nation’s life once American blood stopped flowing.

Vietnamese continued to suffer from what we left behind. It’s been quiet there since 1975 and Vietnam is now an ally … of sorts. Yes, even the bitterest of enemies can make it right between them.

media news, national news

How did ‘woke’ become an epithet?

April 19, 2025 kanelis2012

I have many acquaintances, many of whom have hooked up with me via social media … and I have a precious few actual friends.

Some of the actual friendships have carried over from my years as a journalist, when I cultivated sources who would later become my friends. The deepest friendships, though, go back to my childhood. I have some of those, too … people I’ve known since I was a boy.

One of them is my oldest friend. We go back to the seventh grade together. We became friends in our junior high school home-room class and we have remained close over the course of 63 years.

Lately, though, he has taken a dramatic turn from the man I once knew as a fairly progressive fellow. Indeed, our shared world view drew us closer as we would comiserate over the state of the political world. Those days of shared angst are gone, possibly forever.

My friend — who I still love dearly — has gone on an anti-woke binge. His criticism of progressives is steeped in his loathing of their “woke” view of the world.

I had to look up the word “woke” to understand what it means. I found this: The term has its roots as a Black adjective meant to describe racism, but has since been broadened to call attention to sexism and gay rights. Those on the political right have used the term in recent years as an epithet to criticize those who champion progressive causes.

Wikipedia says this: Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. It is synonymous with the General American English word awake.

Sadly, the term has become a four-letter word.

Woke isn’t a dirty word. It’s not a corrupt philosophy. All it suggests to me is a desire to do right by everyone. Yet the 2024 Republican presidential field before it culled itself down to one clown, the nominee, kept hammering against “woke” policies. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis became the lead vocalist in the GOP amen choir blasting those damn woke-minded politicians.

I don’t get any of it.

I dislike the term woke because it sounds kinda foreign to me. However, if you’re going to call me “woke” because I oppose discriminating against people because of their skin color, their sexual orientation or their immigrant status, well, then fine.

Call me “woke.” I stand tall and proud … and I will always love my friend.

media news

Obama: What if I did this?

April 11, 2025 kanelis2012 4 Comments

Barack Hussein Obama, speaking to a crowd of college students the other day, raised a fascinating subject out loud.

The 44th president of the United States wondered, “What if I did any of this?” He explained himself. “What if I had banned Fox News” from the White House briefing room? The outcry from the right, he said, would be vociferous.

He is correct. What’s more, the right would have been justified in expressing anger at a president banning a media organization from access it was giving to other such media outlets.

Then he went on. He noted how Donald Trump has banned some news outlets that have been critical of his policies from access to White House sources. “It’s not a partisan issue,” President Obama said. “It’s about who we are as a culture,” he added.

Indeed, the very people who would be angry as hell at a Democratic president doing such an outrageous thing have grown silent as their guy, Trump, seeks to silence The Associated Press, CNN and MSNBC as they seek to cover the events dictated by the current president.

Obama also noted that “a good many of my predecessors” would be aghast at what is transpiring these days within the White House now run by Trump, the MAGA morons who back him and Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth.

Trump has declared his desire to see MSNBC taken apart. By whom or what, he doesn’t say. The implication, though, is clear. He wants to sic the government on the left-leaning network. Trump, who is astonishingly ignorant of the Constitution, seemingly doesn’t know that the First Amendment declares that a “free press” must be kept free of any government interference.

President Obama was spot on in delivering his rhetorical question. He is right to question aloud where we are as a culture that allows people to accept as normal the machinations of a wildly out-of-control chief executive who exhibits every sign imaginable of wanting to run this country as a dictator.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience