Category Archives: media news

A tip of the hat to the ‘enemy of the people’

October 4, 2018 kanelis2012

I want to tip my proverbial hat to the media, the institutions labeled by the president as the “enemy of the American people.”

They continue to do their jobs. The men and women who practice their noble craft do it with honor and distinction.

The New York Times has just published an astonishing — and lengthy in the extreme — article that peels the bark off the disguise under which Donald Trump hid while campaigning for the presidency.

He told Americans he is a “self-made business success.” The Times story tells an entire different tale, that Donald Trump relied heavily on the generosity of his late father, Fred, and that he manipulated the tax system to obtain cushy deals all along the way.

Now, to be sure none of this likely will change the political balance. Anti-Trump Americans — such as me — will use the material to criticize the president; pro-Trump Americans will use it to bash the media. Trump himself will bash the media and the Times specifically. That’s his modus operandi. It stinks.

However, the media continue to step up. They continue to do what their professional journalists are trained to do. They are holding government accountable.

Every one of Donald Trump’s predecessors as president has understood the media’s role in building our representative democracy and their contributions to strengthening it.

Exhaustive and meticulous reporting by media outlets such as The New York Times demonstrate for all the world the power of a free press, the only privately held business expressly protected against government interference/bullying/coercion in the U.S. Constitution.

None of this, of course, will dissuade Donald Trump from demonizing the media. He’ll continue to speak of what he calls “fake news,” even though he is the No. 1 purveyor of outright lies and prevarication.

Many of the rest of us know better. The media are standing tall. I am proud to have been a member of the mainstream media.

media news

West Texas journalism takes a jaw-dropping plunge

October 2, 2018 kanelis2012 2 Comments

I am just now picking my jaw off the floor.

A friend of mine has just informed me of something that GateHouse Media, the new owners of the Amarillo Globe-News and the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, have done. It has posted a job opening for a “regional associate editor” who will be in charge of the opinion pages of both newspapers.

Ponder that for a moment.

The G-N and the A-J already have a “regional” publisher and a “regional” executive editor. The publisher resides in Lubbock; the exec editor lives in Amarillo. They spend time in the “other” city, I guess to make sure they’re “in touch” with them.

Now we have this idiotic notion of hiring someone who will serve as a regional “director of commentary.”

GateHouse purchased the papers from Morris Communications while promising to maintain a local journalistic presence, committing itself to local news.

What absolute and utter crap!

This latest decision by GateHouse tells me something quite different. GateHouse is trying to run the papers on the cheap. Why hire two people for these executive posts when they get can away with hiring one individual to cover both of them?

Oh, but what’s the cost? It’s plenty! I’ll speak to the commentary that both papers will deliver to these respective communities.

GateHouse seems to presume that Amarillo and Lubbock are identical. That they have identical needs and concerns. That their local issues mirror each other.

Good grief! They do not! How in the world does a regional director of commentary acquaint himself or herself fully with each community by having to split the time between them? He or she cannot do the impossible! GateHouse, though, is asking whoever they hire to do precisely that.

I worked as editorial page editor of the Globe-News for nearly 18 years. It was all I could do to stay current with issues involving Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle. To ask the new person to develop cogent editorial policy for two disparate communities 120 miles apart is a prescription for the destruction of both communities’ editorial voice.

In the old days, that voice was a critical component of daily journalism’s relevance to the needs of a community.

I believe I am hearing the death knell of daily journalism as we’ve known it in a part of the state I grew to love.

media news, national news

Name-calling gets one nowhere

September 25, 2018 kanelis2012

A family member — and a vocal critic of High Plains Blogger — recently paid me a compliment I want to share with you here.

He thanked me for refusing to resort to name-calling to identify those who disagree with the point of view expressed in this blog. He said it showed maturity, or something like that.

I appreciate the compliment.

It’s worth mentioning because I’ve been getting a bit of personal push back from other critics of this blog. Some of those on the right and the far right who read my musings have resorted to some epithets: “Democreep,” that’s a good one; “libtard” is another that also has a nice ring to it.

I can’t think of some of the others at this moment.

Seriously, I do try to avoid this kind of pejorative association when referencing those on the other side of the great political divide.

I concede that I do refer on occasion to Donald John Trump’s supporters as, um, “Trumpkins,” and “Trumpsters.” I suppose you can bust me for using those less-than-flattering terms.

However, I don’t insert parts of derogatory words — such as “creep” and “tard” — into descriptions of those who oppose whatever thought I pitch in High Plains Blogger.

Just so you know, I am not going to block those who engage in that level of name-calling when they choose to challenge a thought that comes from this blog.

Heck, I won’t even ask them to quit the name-calling. I figure it keeps those individuals out there in plain sight. Better to keep them in front of you so you can watch ’em than to let ’em run wild in the dark, behind closed doors.

media news

Not a museum, but it’s a step toward preserving history

September 23, 2018 kanelis2012

The Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum administrators might have read my blog, or they might have been thinking about it already.

I’ll go with the latter, out of a sense of humility.

The Amarillo Globe-News has revealed that the PPHM along with Amarillo National Bank are joining hands in an effort to preserve the newspaper’s archived text for posterity.

This is good news for those of us who loved the G-N, who loved working there (as I did for nearly 18 years) and who cherish the history that was recorded by the once-towering presence in Amarillo and the High Plains region of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and New Mexico.

The PPHM will store the bound volumes and microfiche at a site away from the G-N’s former offices at Ninth Avenue and Harrison Street. The G-N recently vacated that site for new office space in the 31-story bank tower that soon will carry the name of FirstBank Southwest.

I had pitched the idea of converting the Ninth and Harrison building into a museum that would display the history of the newspaper. I get that the cost could be prohibitive to do such a thing.

But at the very least the newspaper’s new owners, GateHouse Media, have worked out an agreement with PPHM and ANB to store the archived material suitably.

As I understand it, the bound volumes and the microfiche have been moved to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal operation 120 miles south of Amarillo. PPHM will locate an estimated 150 file cabinets full of clippings, photos and photo negatives to the downtown Amarillo site.

That’s a start. Perhaps it will lead to something even more grand … such as a museum! I won’t hold my breath.

For now, though, I’ll just applaud to decision to maintain the history that the award-winning newspaper recorded while chronicling the evolution of the region it once served with pride and distinction.

media news

Newspaper surrendering its local franchise

September 21, 2018 kanelis2012 1 Comment

I am not the least bit crazy about critiquing the newspaper where my career ended.

However, I’m going to bite down hard and offer this brief observation about how the newspaper is surrendering its relevance to local readers.

The Amarillo Globe-News is going through a transition at this moment. It has turned the lights out at the building where it was headquartered for decades and has moved into the 31-story bank tower that dominates the downtown Amarillo, Texas, skyline.

The Globe-News physical presence has been absorbed into another corporate entity.

But it’s also doing something else I find totally repugnant. Its editorial page has been co-opted by “canned editorials” that the paper’s publishers are printing in the space that used to be the domain of the newspaper’s locally driven editorial policy.

The paper’s director of commentary, David R. Henry, has left the paper to work for Amarillo City Hall. The newspaper had ceased commenting on exclusively local issues for some time prior to the director of commentary’s departure. Now, though, it is running editorials that (a) reflect the corporate ownership’s conservative editorial philosophy and (b) have not a damn thing to do with issues relevant to Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle.

My hope is that GateHouse Media, the paper’s new owners, wise up to the need to restore the paper’s local relevance on its editorial page. Given that I know not a thing about GateHouse, my hope must stand on its own.

A couple of years before I left the paper, I embarked on a policy to localize the paper’s editorial policy. I actually kept a log of editorial topics published daily. My goal was to concentrate on local/regional issues; state issues became No. 2 on our priority list. My thought, which I shared with the publisher (when we still had a relationship), was that readers didn’t really care what we thought about national or international issues. They were getting their fill of others’ perspective on Obamacare, taxes, world peace and climate change. They could turn only to the Globe-News for commentary on issues close to home.

We sought to deliver that message to them. We were successful in that effort.

I recall a couple of months when we published only local/regional editorials for the entire month. The publisher said he was pleased with that result.

Then I got “reorganized” out of my job. I resigned from the Globe-News and the editorial policy we had pursued gave way to another editorial strategy. Fine. That was their call.

Now, though, the Globe-News’s editorial policy reflects, well, no interest in what’s happening locally.

It’s a shame. However, it can be corrected. I hope the correction occurs soon.

media news

A newspaper museum in our future … perhaps?

September 17, 2018 kanelis2012

One of the many cool aspects of running a blog is that I get to toss ideas out there for discussion purposes.

With that, here’s one I hope sticks to the proverbial wall.

The Amarillo Globe-News has vacated its longstanding home at the corner of Ninth and Harrison in downtown Amarillo. It’s going to produce a newspaper in a sterile bank tower down the street and around the corner.

The Harrison Street building need not stay dark. Has anyone begun pondering the idea of turning that venerable structure into a museum honoring the accomplishments of a once-great community institution?

The Texas Panhandle already is home to one of the great historical museums in the state: the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, based at West Texas A&M University in Canyon.

I throw this idea out there not knowing a damn thing about the practicality of such a notion, or even if there is the slightest bit of community interest in it becoming a reality.

The PPHM would need to negotiate the transfer of the property from the former owners of the Globe-News, Morris Communications, which a few months ago got out of the newspaper publishing business. Yes, the company sold its newspapers to GateHouse Media, but it retains ownership — from what I understand — of the physical property.

The company chairman, William Morris III, always talked about giving back to the community when he owned the paper. Here’s a chance for Old Man Morris to deliver on that noble rhetoric.

How does one fill such a building with artifacts from the grand old days of newspaper publishing? Well, PPHM has a staff of well-educated folks who make a living looking for such memorabilia.

My suggestion? Turn ’em loose to find hot-lead presses, manual typewriters, typesetting devices used for offset presses, cameras that used actual film. Somewhere in the bowels of the darkened building are bound volumes of every edition ever published by the Daily News, the Globe-Times, the Sunday News-Globe — all of which were published under the name of Amarillo Globe-News.

The families of longtime Globe-News legends — the likes of Wes Izzard, Gene Howe, Tommy Thompson, Putt Powell, S.B. Whittenberg — undoubtedly have treasures they might be willing to put on display.

There. That’s my thought.

Oh, I also have a pica pole and a proportion wheel — the ink-stained wretches of the industry know what they are — that I would be happy to donate to a new museum.

media news

They’ve made the move to the tower

September 17, 2018 kanelis2012 1 Comment

I guess I was a day, maybe two, late in assessing the future of the Amarillo Globe-News.

I conjectured that a move was upcoming. Then I saw a story today on Page 1 of the Globe-News. They’ve made the move. It’s done.

The newspaper, a longstanding institution in Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle, now is tucked on an upper floor of the FirstBank Southwest Tower in downtown Amarillo.

It’s still a sad move. It saddens me terribly that the newspaper that once was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in journalism excellence will no longer be visible to onlookers.

I don’t know what the future holds for daily journalism in Amarillo. The trend doesn’t portend a bright future. The paper has slashed its staff; it has cut it resources; it has scaled back its presence; it prints the daily editions in Lubbock.

Does it cover the news with the depth and breadth it once did? No. Not by a long shot.

But now the Globe-News is ensconced in a skyscraper with a bank’s name on it! The paper’s long-standing office at Ninth and Harrison has gone dark.

Dammit!

https://highplainsblogger.com/2018/09/the-media-hits-just-keep-comin/

media news

The media hits just keep comin’

September 15, 2018 kanelis2012

I no longer have many friends left at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years. They’ve all gone on to, um, “pursue other interests,” retired or have been laid off as the newspaper industry continues to struggle in this new media environment.

Here, though, is what I have heard … and I believe this is firm: The newspaper is going to vacate its remaining structure at the corner of Ninth Avenue and Harrison Street, a building it has occupied since 1950. The newspaper will set up its offices in that 31-story bank building formerly known as the Chase Tower, but which will be known soon as the FirstBank Southwest Tower.

This is a profoundly sad development.

Since the early 20th century, the Amarillo Globe-News has been a physical presence in Amarillo and, by association, in the Texas Panhandle. The newspaper reported on community affairs as far away as Dalhart, Perryton, Plainview and Dimmitt. It has retrenched.

The paper even had a presence in Oklahoma Panhandle communities, such as Guymon, Boise City, Woodward. It sold a few copies daily in Liberal, Kan., too, along with running a news bureau out of Clovis, N.M.

It has slashed its physical presence. Its footprint is a lot less visible.

Now the newspaper that once won a Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service is going to be absorbed by another corporate identity.

Those of us who grew up revering newspapers, who practiced the craft of print journalism, who once were associated with media organizations that everyone in the community knew about — even if they didn’t necessarily embrace it — should be saddened by this impending turn of events.

The Harrison Street Building has an inscription over its front door. It says that a “newspaper can be forgiven for lack of wisdom, but not for lack of courage.” It came from the late Gene Howe, the publisher of the Amarillo Globe-Times, the one-time evening newspaper.

They were words to live by if you sought to tell the community’s story to readers who wanted to know about it. The words won’t disappear even after what is left of the Globe-News’s staff leaves that old building for the final time; I trust they’ll continue to appear on the newspaper’s Opinion page masthead.

However, there is something profoundly sad about a newspaper that lacks a physical presence in the community it serves. I get that it will still be there, somewhere, hidden on some upper floor of a skyscraper that will carry another company’s name.

It will not be the same.

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