Category Archives: media news

Whether to ID sources

September 6, 2020 kanelis2012

Jeffrey Goldberg is taking a good bit of heat these days over a story he wrote for The Atlantic magazine.

You no doubt know of what I speak: the story about Donald Trump’s reported denigration of men and women in the military and the tale it tells of Trump’s profound disrespect for those who serve in defense of the country.

Goldberg is getting panned by those on the right because he granted anonymity to several individuals who he says have direct knowledge of hideous statements Trump has made.

Which brings me to the point of this brief blog post: Should he have granted them anonymity?

Well, I worked for nearly 37 years as a print journalist for small and medium-sized newspapers. I would get requests from sources to remain anonymous. My bosses always had a rule: We don’t grant anonymity unless naming the source posed a threat to that individual’s well-being. I never granted anonymity.

Goldberg’s sources, from what I understand, had to remain hidden because of severe threats they face from none other than Donald Trump himself. Goldberg has told media interviewers that he knows who they are and he knows whether their knowledge is legitimate. Thus, he remains comfortable with the decision to grant them anonymity.

I don’t know Jeffrey Goldberg, but I surely know of his work and of the work contained in the page of The Atlantic. He is a time-tested journalist who takes his work quite seriously. Yet, there are those who say categorically that Goldberg’s story is false, that it’s made up, it’s fiction.

I simply would respond with this: No journalist who has developed the reputation for meticulous reporting that Jeffrey Goldberg has acquired is going to toss a career’s worth of work aside for the sake of publishing a false story.

Journalists don’t take an oath to report the truth. They rely instead on the protection guaranteed in the Constitution against government recrimination. They cherish that protection and — take my word for it — no serious journalist is going to flout it for the sake of a “fake news” story.

I am going to stand with Jeffrey Goldberg on this one.

media news

Is POTUS protesting a tad too much?

September 6, 2020 kanelis2012

So, how angry is Donald J. Trump at reporting from The Atlantic that he has spoken boorishly about servicemen and women who serve, are injured or die in the line of duty?

He is so angry he is calling on his base of supporters to “bombard” the magazine with messages of protest over what he calls “fake news” and “another witch hunt.”

There you go. The president of the United States is engaging in one of the tactics for which he has become infamous. He is showing off his bullying skills.

And to think he is now launching this attack on an esteemed publication, led by an esteemed reporter and editor — Jeffrey Goldberg — who has checked, rechecked and rechecked again his sources for the explosive story.

Goldberg writes that Trump has called those who were injured or killed in battle “suckers” and “losers.” Goldberg has reported on a litany of examples of Trump denigrating the service of military men and women. Some of them are quite well known, such as, oh the late President George H.W. Bush and the late Sen. John McCain.

Trump, though, is firing back.

He should save his breath as far as I am concerned. I happened to believe Goldberg’s account of what Trump said. It is consistent with what we know he has said about McCain, for example.

As for his bullying of a media organization, well, I guess the First Amendment protection against government coercion of a free press doesn’t extend to presidential petulance.

media news

Moving farther away from the past

September 6, 2020 kanelis2012

It pains me to say this, so it is with some anguish that I must report that my tie to the last full-time print journalism stop on my journey has been all but severed.

The Amarillo Globe-News no longer resembles the place I worked for nearly 18 years. I worked there longer than I did at any of the four newspapers where I practiced my beloved craft.

The building is vacant. What is left of the news reporting staff and the advertising department is holed up in an office suite down the street in a downtown bank tower.

Here is what really hurts: I look at the online edition and am amazed at how little actual Texas Panhandle news is being reported. I shouldn’t be surprised, given that the G-N now has precisely two general assignment reporters, or roughly about 2 percent of what it once employed. I have to subscribe to the paper to read the stories, so I all I see are the headlines.

What’s more, a real head-scratcher deals with all the Texas Tech and Lubbock-centric headlines I see on the home page. Tech and Lubbock? Yep. That’s what I see. I have looked at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal home page, too and I have discovered that the A-J offers none of the kind of Panhandle-centric news for its readers that I see in the other direction at the Globe-News.

This is my way of admitting that I am letting go of a big part of my professional and personal journey through life.

I enjoyed some modest success along the way. My career began in Oregon; it took me to Beaumont and then to Amarillo in Texas. Indeed, the Oregonian — where I worked briefly before gravitating to Oregon City, Ore. — bears no resemblance to what it once was. The newspaper in Oregon City is gone, pfftt! The Beaumont Enterprise has shrunk dramatically, too.

Looking at the last stop on my journey, though, is one that hurts the most.

The good news? I am a happy fellow today. That was then. The here and now is quite good.

local news, media news, national news

Who has ‘moral authority’?

August 31, 2020 kanelis2012

Moral authority isn’t written in the presidential oath of office specifically. However, it’s implied throughout the oath. Thus, when a president places his hand on a Bible to swear “so help me God” that he will perform the duties of his office faithfully, well, there’s a moral equivalence to be found.

The Dallas Morning News today published a lengthy editorial, part of a series of issues discussions preceding the presidential election. The DMN chose this way of examining the contest rather than endorsing one candidate over the other.

That leaves outside observers to draw their own conclusions about the issues at play. The topic of today’s piece is “moral authority” and how a president should use the authority given to him.

Hmm. Wow. That’s pretty heavy stuff to ponder.

I will state categorically one more time — and surely not the last time — that Donald J. Trump lacks moral authority at every possible level. The Morning News reminds us that moral authority helps guide the president to a “greater purpose.” How in the world does this president find that purpose? How does he dispense his moral authority? How can he even pretend to possess any semblance of moral authority to do anything?

Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger, seeks to expose the president’s lack of such authority while campaigning to restore “the nation’s soul.”

It seems that we learn more about Trump’s lack of moral fitness daily. We can start with his well-chronicled marital infidelity; then we can look at the way he conducted his business and how he treated those who got in his way; we can examine how he handles government appointments and the manner in which he disposes of individuals; we can look at the absence of any public service on his record prior to running for president; let’s examine this individual’s faith and its authenticity.

I hope you get my point here.

The DMN won’t offer a specific recommendation for the upcoming election: Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Instead, it is examining in detail the issues it believes should drive this election. Read the editorial here.

The DMN opines: So what’s at stake in our presidential elections is more than who will hold the office. What’s at stake is whether the person who wins in November can marshal the moral authority necessary to unite the country, prioritize national problems, and rally our political system to carry us through perilous moments ahead.

“Marshal the moral authority necessary to unite the county.” Imagine that. Have we seen any semblance of unity coming from this president? No. We haven’t.

That, right there, serves as all the evidence I need as an American voter to cast the incumbent aside.

local news, media news

No coverage for Big Beaners

August 27, 2020 kanelis2012

Given that I no longer live in Amarillo, Texas, I am at times prone to ask some of my snitches/sources/former colleagues about news events that occur there.

I did so the other day, inquiring with a media friend of mine about the status of the Big Beaners restaurant — opened by flashy and occasionally controversial Amarillo personal injury lawyer Jesse Quackenbush. My friend was pretty blunt: He chooses not to cover the story for his organization. Why? He believes it’s a non-story and that Quackenbush doesn’t deserve the publicity he is getting from all the hubbub surrounding the story.

You know … I kinda/sorta see my friend’s point.

Big Beaners is now closed. I had thought the city of Amarillo might have closed it on some sort of violation. My friend said a lack of business led to its closure.

Big Beaners had come under pretty intense fire because the term “beaners” is considered in many circles to be a slur against Latinos. It was a Mexican food joint, so I guess Quackenbush thought he would, um, push the envelope a bit by attaching that name to it. He stood by the name, which, by the way, I find offensive.

The strategy, if you want to call it that, didn’t work.

Is the story worth covering? I believe it is to some extent. I mean, I have devoted about four blog posts to it. This, though, likely is the last one. I don’t expect Quackenbush to reopen it. He is a smart enough fellow to know how to measure the consequence of a failed effort.

media news

A tragic metaphor

August 23, 2020 kanelis2012

The picture attached to this blog post symbolizes something that is troubling to me on at least two levels: one of them is personal, the other speaks to a broader phenomenon.

It came to me today from a friend who is visiting Amarillo with her husband on a family matter. Hubby snapped the picture. I want to call your attention to the graffiti on the second floor of the structure.

The building used to house the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years as editorial page editor. I left the business in late August 2012. The corporate ownership changed hands a few years later and then the new owners vacated the building. They moved what was left of the newspaper operation into an office suite in a downtown bank tower.

What you see here is the rotting hulk of what used to house a once-proud community institution.

The personal impact on me is obvious. I went to the Texas Panhandle in January 1995 full of pi** and vinegar and ready to slay some dragons in my new surroundings. The newspaper had a proud tradition. It won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service — which is journalism’s highest award. I was proud to be part of that legacy. We didn’t win any more Pulitzer prizes during my time there, but I developed a lot of close friendships with colleagues and managed to eke out a modestly successful tenure during my time there.

None of us got into the business of chronicling a community’s story to make lots of money. We did it because of our commitment to the craft we pursued.

I had a lot of fun there and managed to embark on many fascinating assignments during my time.

So when I see this picture, my heart breaks on a deeply personal level. The property is up for sale. It’s been on the block for quite some time. I do not know how you repurpose an office building that once served as a newspaper office; the building next to it on the same block once housed the paper’s presses and distribution complex. Good luck with peddling that structure, too.

The picture symbolizes what has become of print journalism in communities all across the nation. Once-vibrant community institutions are being relegated to empty shells. They become targets of graffiti “artists” intent on making some sort of statement about … whatever.

Newspaper staffs are slashed. The paper charges whoever is left to cover a community with virtually no one available to actually do the work of reporting on and then writing what they learn.

Those who once depended on newspapers are turning to other media. I cannot vouch for the veracity of what is being disseminated. Some of it is valid. Some of it, well, is just crap.

I am happy to report that I have moved on, as have so many of my former colleagues. I am in a much better place now. I hope they are, too. The remains of the Amarillo Globe-News? The future for the building and the medium it once housed — to my way of thinking — look decidedly less promising.

I am saddened beyond measure.

media news

‘Fake news’ from its originator

August 9, 2020 kanelis2012

I continue to be astonished that Donald J. “Fake News Purveyor in Chief” Trump continues to hurl epithets at the media in that petulant fashion he has adopted.

He calls the media “fake news.” My ever-lovin’ goodness, the man has no shame, no self-awareness.

He did so again today during that campaign riff disguised as a “news conference” in Bedminster, N.J. He said the media don’t report the progress he supposedly is making against the pandemic, calling them “fake news.”

I feel the need to call Trump out because he, alone, is responsible for more than 20,000 reported instances of misleading statements and outright lies since becoming president, according to the Washington Post. He lies and lies some more. His “base” gives him a pass because, in their twisted view, he is “telling it like it is.”

The most egregious act of fake news, of course, came when Trump kept alive the lie that Barack Obama was born in Africa and wasn’t qualified to run for president. It was a blatantly racist attack on the first African-American ever elected president. He followed that up by questioning President Obama’s academic credentials at Harvard University.

Trump’s familiarity with fake news is well-known to everyone on Earth … except him. A certifiably pathological liar is prone to say things without any realization that he’s lying. That’s what Trump does. He blurts statements out. He gets fact-checked and he is told that what he says is untrue. He doesn’t care.

He recently told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that Democratic nominee-in-waiting Joe Biden wants to “defund the police,” which Wallace challenged on the spot. Trump ignored what Wallace said.

Fake news, anyone? Anyone?

The upshot of all this, maddeningly, is that those who continue to endorse Trump also continue to buy into his claptrap nonsense about “fake news.” They applaud the president for his declaration that the media are the “enemy of the people.” They, too, see the media as peddlers of “fake news.”

I never thought such idiocy would be contagious. Silly me. I was wrong.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump keeps peddling his own version of fake news. The difference between what he seeks to pawn off on us and what he accuses the media of peddling is that Trump is dealing in the real thing.

Donald Trump is a liar.

media news

Allow this boast

August 7, 2020 kanelis2012 2 Comments

I shouldn’t boast, given that I criticize Donald J. Trump for doing so.

Just bear with me for a moment.

I have just logged the 402nd consecutive day posting a blog on High Plains Blogger. I happen to believe that’s boast-worthy.

You might ask: Why?

It’s because I like to think I have a lot to say. It’s importance, of course, is open to interpretation. Much of my blog involves political and policy matters; less of it involves life experience, but I do consider that important, too. I also have series of posts on the blog: I talk about retirement and I also discuss adventures my wife and I have with Toby the Puppy; and I also look back from time to time on the full-time journalism career that concluded nearly eight years ago.

On that last point, my journalism endeavor hasn’t ended completely. I wrote for a public TV station in Amarillo for a time after leaving print journalism; I also wrote for a CBS-TV affiliate, also in Amarillo. Since moving to the Metroplex, I have become a freelance blogger for KETR-FM public radio at Texas A&M University-Commerce. And … I am a freelance reporter for a group of weekly newspapers, writing chiefly for the Farmersville Times.

Through it all, I have kept firing away on my blog. It’s what I do.

Some folks tell me I am a “prolific” blogger. I take that as a supreme compliment. I have help in that regard. The world is bursting with news on which to comment. It’s been that way since, oh, roughly about the time 9/11 occurred. That event changed the world and brought bloggers and other commentators like me along with it.

So, this blog continues apace. I am thrilled to be able to contribute some small perspective to the huge world of opinion.

Hey, it beats working!

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience