Category Archives: media news

media news

Sharing some good news about this blog

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I feel the need to share a bit of good news about High Plains Blogger.

The old year is about to become history, and I want to thank readers of this blog for reading these musings and sharing them when you feel compelled to do so.

2017 gave High Plains Blogger its most page views in a calendar year, most unique visitors, best daily views/visitors average over the course of the year, best monthly views/visitors average.

I thank you for that.

My goal with this blog has been to expand its reach. My Word Press enables me to look daily on the worldwide reach of this blog. During the course of 2017, my blog was seen in virtually all of North and South America, most of Europe, a huge chunk of Asia (and we can include Australasia) and a growing portion of Africa. All told, more than 150 nations were represented in the past year by High Plains Blogger readers.

Much of my attention in the coming year will continue to be on politics and public policy. As those of you who follow this blog know, however, I’ll likely spend more blog-writing energy commenting on retirement and the joy it brings my wife and me as we continue our ongoing transition to this new way of life.

Bear with me on that. I simply enjoy sharing these outlooks with those of you who might be heading in the same direction we are heading.

Oh, but this is an election year. Political junkie that I am, I will be unable to contain myself as I comment on what I see occurring on the myriad campaign trails across this great country of ours.

For now, I simply want to say “thank you” for giving High Plains Blogger its best year yet.

Happy New Year. Let’s enjoy the ride together.

media news, national news

Dear Mr. President: Ditch the ‘fake news’ mantra

There you have it, Mr. President. That’s my New Year’s resolution for you to ponder … that is, if you read this blog.

I’ll try to shoot you a copy of it and hope you’ll take a moment to read it.

This “fake news” yammering you keep tossing out there is, um, tiresome, boring and oh so very lacking in self-awareness.

You, sir, are the master composer of fake news.

You have revived the lie about President Obama being born abroad and being unqualified to serve in the office he vacated nearly a year ago after serving two successful terms; you lied about Hillary Clinton getting votes from millions of illegal immigrants; you lied about witnessing “thousands of Muslims” cheering the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11; you lied about losing “many friends” in the towers on that terrible day.

Don’t you get it, Mr. President? Every time you accuse the media of putting out fake news, you expose yourself to the very same accusation — which is tangibly and demonstrably more accurate than the bogus allegations you make about the media.

Why not start semi-fresh in 2018? You can do that by declaring your intention to stop repeating that phony mantra about fake news. It disserves the nation you were elected to lead and you vowed to “unify” after you took your oath of office.

You have failed to unify us, Mr. President. Pitting the media against America doesn’t make anything or anyone “great again.”

Happy New Year, Mr. President.

Now, get to work.

local news, media news

Break from politics? Umm, not this year, folks

The past couple of years have enticed High Plains Blogger — meaning me — to take a break from political commentary during the Christmas-New Year holiday period.

I am not going to take such a break this year.

I decided to stay in the game, but with one important caveat: I am going to refrain from some of the occasionally harsh rhetoric I use to describe certain politicians with whom I disagree.

You know about whom I refer, in particular.

There are others, to be sure. But my intention for the next few days will be to keep a civil tongue in my mouth — so to speak — and offer criticism without referencing the president in ways that I have been prone to do on occasion.

It’s my way of adhering to some semblance of civility and decency during this holy time.

It’s a joyful season for my family and me. Indeed, I intend to avoid discussing politics with friends and family members on Christmas day. Those who read this blog, thus, are forewarned. No discussion of the president, his administration, his policies, his pronouncements … nothin’, man!

I might, time permitting on Christmas, take a moment to salute a pol or two who does something that merits praise.

That would enable me to maintain the Christmas spirit … wouldn’t it?

For now, I’ll try my level best to keep the dagger sheathed, the arrows in the quiver … whatever!

The coming year promises to provide plenty of ample targets of opportunity. Hey, it’s an election year!

Enjoy yourselves.

media news, national news

POTUS is a ‘wannabe autocrat’?

Walter Shaub isn’t going quietly into the night now that he has left an important public service job.

Oh, no. The former head of the Office of Government Ethics has kept his voice and is using it to criticize the man who made his job impossible to navigate.

Donald J. Trump posted a tweet showing “CNN”s blood on the sole of his shoe,” according to Shaub.

Shaub then fired off a tweet in which he called the president a “wannabe autocrat” who sends out “colicky tweets (that) reveal he is hurting this weekend. They make him (and our country) look weak.”

Trump keeps tweeting his message

The president has made clear his intention to use this social media device as his preferred method of communication. He tweets incessantly, spouting public policy pronouncements alongside petulant insults and even the occasional disrespectful utterance about this or that cherished institution or individual.

He won’t stop using this method. I am accepting this now as Trump’s modus operandi. 

However, he exposes himself to critics — such as government ethicists such as Shaub — to call it how they see it.

I happen to agree with the ex-government ethics watchdog.

Trump is weakening the presidency — and the country — with these idiotic Twitter tirades. This isn’t how you “make America great again,” Mr. President.

media news, national news

Free press: enemy of dictators, not the ‘people’

John McCain speaks with authority when he discusses freedom, the media, authoritarian regimes and liberty.

He lost more than five years of freedom at the hands of captors who held him in bondage during the Vietnam War.

He came home and stayed in service to his country, entering politics. He now serves in the U.S. Senate; he ran twice unsuccessfully for president of the United States. He now is held in high regard for his wartime heroism, his principled public service and his brave battle against cancer.

Comments he made earlier this year were rebroadcast today. He told “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd that Donald Trump’s assaults on the media are destructive to our democratic system and they undermine one of the principles on which this country was founded.

Sen. McCain noted that the president’s bullying of the media and his habit of calling out individual journalists is counterproductive in the extreme.

He joked with Todd that he might “hate you,” but the country needs the media to be free of intimidation and it must be allowed to do its job without the kind of bullying that’s coming repeatedly from the president and his White House team.

Yet, the president insists on attacking the media. He continues to curry favor with the Fox News Channel while condemning the work being done by other media. Why? It’s obvious that Fox tilts toward the president and declines to ascribe much critical analysis of his policies. The network appears to many eyes — mine included — to be fulfilling Trump’s insatiable desire to be complimented, to be admired.

That’s not the role the media are supposed to play. The nation’s founders said a “free press” must not be controlled by the government in any fashion. They wrote it down, codifying it in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This independence enables the media to do their job. It allows them to hold public officials at all levels accountable. If they speak untruths, the media are compelled to call them on it.

Finally, they cannot be coerced into shying away from their responsibility because politicians — even the president — like to label them as “fake news.”

John McCain is far from the only contemporary politician who understands this tenet. The problem is that the country’s most powerful politician — the president — is poisoning the political process by trying to intimidate the media, which must remain free of such pressure.

As Sen. McCain told Todd: Trump’s bullying of the media is the conduct of a dictator.

media news

Happy Trails, Part 64

A friend of mine writes that he is fearful of watching the film “The Post.” He doesn’t want to sob out loud over what he describes as the demise of a noble craft and the state of play in the nation today.

“The Post” tells the story of the Washington Post’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, which documented the deceit and deception that guided U.S. policy in fighting the Vietnam War. It stars Meryl Streep as Post publisher Katherine Graham and Tom Hanks as the paper’s editor, Ben Bradlee.

I admire my friend greatly and he knows of my great personal affection and professional respect for him.

I want to differ just a bit with his analysis of the film and what it might to do to his state of mind. I want to see the film, because I want to remember the excitement I felt reporting on communities where I lived and worked; I want to remember how much satisfaction I received while chronicling the communities’ progress.

Yes, there were times when I was working as a reporter and later, as an editor, when I sweated telling the tough stories about officials’ conduct. I never felt comfortable doing it, but I usually found a way to suck it up, take a deep breath and plod ahead in pursuit of the mission.

One story stands out. It involved a young businessman in Amarillo who, shortly after leaving the City Commission, secured a grant from the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which offered taxpayer funds for start-up businesses. We perceived that the former city commissioner might have used his influence improperly to secure the grant. We decided to call him on it with an editorial that called for a change in the way the EDC vetted those grant applications.

I told the ex-commissioner that we would comment on the grant and that he might not like what we had to say. “When am I going to become just a private citizen?” he asked with more than a touch of anger in his voice. I responded, “When you stop taking public money.”

Oh, and the EDC did rework its grant application and approval process. Mission accomplished!

Yes, the media have taken a vastly different turn since those days. Newspapers, as many old-school journalists knew them, are fading faster than yesterday’s news.

However, I wouldn’t surrender a single day for the career I chose to pursue after I returned home in 1970 from my stint in the U.S. Army. It was a hell of a great ride. It was full of adventure, a bit of chaos. It exposed me to the most interesting people imaginable. It allowed me to travel to exotic places. I made many lasting friendships and I learned from many mentors along the way.

Will watching “The Post” sadden me? Not for an instant. It will make me proud to have been a small part of a grand craft.

media news

One is African-American; the other isn’t?

This blog post features two prominent Americans who have something in common. It’s actually, though, about the media and the way they have covered these two individuals.

One of them is the young woman pictured above: Meghan Markle, the fiancée to Great Britain’s Prince Harry. They’re getting married in May at Windsor Castle.

The other person is the fellow you all know: Barack H. Obama, the 44th president of the United States of America. He’s now a private citizen.

Their commonality? They both are African-American. Markle’s mother is black; her father is white. Obama’s mother was white; his father was black.

Here’s the head-scratcher that gives me cause to post this brief blog item: Why do the media decline to refer to Markle as an African-American woman who’s marrying into British royalty? The media made a lot out of President Obama’s standing as the first African-American ever elected to the presidency. And, yes, Obama’s election in 2008 was a big deal partly for that reason.

To be fair, I am not consumed by the Meghan-Harry romance. I don’t follow it as closely as millions of other Americans. So perhaps the media have made the African-American reference many times beyond my earshot.

Still, someone might have to explain to me why the media are treating these two celebrities so differently. Is it because Markle’s racial heritage is not part of the larger story, while it was a part of Obama’s story?

I am all eyes and ears.

media news, national news

State-run media, in the United States?

Steve Schmidt is a dedicated Republican Party political operative. He is no friend or fan of Donald Trump.

The comments attributed to Schmidt here speak to what I believe is a frightening potential trend in U.S. political-media relations.

You ought to read these comments and ponder the gravity of what this man is positing. He believes that the president and the White House are seeking to control information flow the way it is done in authoritarian countries.

The president spends a lot of time tweeting and commenting verbally about his mistrust and loathing of what he calls “fake news” outlets. Trump relies exclusively, or so it seems, on Fox News, whose team of commentators, pundits, contributors and talk show hosts seems so very pleased with the job he is doing as president.

Which suits Donald Trump just fine, thank you very much.

Schmidt, who served on Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, sees an inherent danger lurking here. He believes the president’s penchant for relying exclusively on favorable reporting produces an information flow that is akin to propaganda.

He believes it weakens our democratic institutions and produces rampant “misinformation.”

Presidents traditionally have gnashed their teeth at the media’s coverage of their activities. Every one of them has had serious issues with what they deemed to be negative coverage.

Have they disparaged the media as an institution? Have they trashed major media outlets — and individual journalists — to the degree we are witnessing in this Age of Trump? No. They all recognize a fundamental tenet of our democratic system: Government needs the media to hold them accountable.

To do what Steve Schmidt suggests is occurring, indeed, is “appalling.” It’s also dangerous to the well-being of the nation we all say we love.

media news

Good question: Who cares about Omarosa?

Who on earth actually cares whether Omarosa quit or was fired it’s the dumbest story eve

This tweet came from CNBC correspondent and New York Times contributor John Harwood.

Oh, I have to agree wholeheartedly with this fellow. Yet the media are all agog over the departure of Omarosa Manigault Newman from Donald John Trump Sr.’s White House staff.

The White House announced that she quit. Then sources reported she and chief of staff John Kelly had an argument; Kelly canned her. Then she was shown the door by unnamed White House personnel.

So, why the big deal, indeed over this individual’s departure? As near as I can tell, she didn’t even have a real job in the White House. Her title was a convoluted string of words: director of the Office of Public Liaison for the White House.

Someone needs to explain to me: What in the world did she do?

She drew a $180,000 annual salary for doing … what?

Omarosa was a three-time “Apprentice” contestant who was fired three times by the show’s host, Donald John Trump Sr.

OK. She’s now off the public payroll. May she now disappear, never to be heard from again. I know. It won’t happen that way. I am just hoping she does just go … away.

local news, media news

Boone Pickens: a complicated man

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T. Boone Pickens is one of the most complicated human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Let me be clear about something. To say I “know” Boone can be construed as a bit of an overstatement. I do not know him well. I’ve had precisely three meetings with the legendary Texas Panhandle oil and natural gas wildcatter: two of them in Amarillo and one at his magnificent ranch in Roberts County, which he calls Mesa Vista.

Take my word for it, the view at Mesa Vista is a sight to behold.

Pickens announced recently that he is putting his ranch on the market. He’s asking a cool $250 million for the place that sprawls across 80,000 acres — give or take.

Pickens is having some health problems relating to a series of strokes he reportedly has suffered. Thus, I am sad to hear the news of his effort to sell Mesa Vista. I want nothing but the best for this individual, who has had — and this is a charitable description — something of a checkered history with Amarillo.

***

It was around 1987 when I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal and began reading this front-page story about a flamboyant billionaire oilman launching a boycott against the Amarillo Globe-News. I was living and working in Beaumont. My first reaction when I saw the article: Who in the hell does this guy Pickens think he is? 

Pickens didn’t like the way the Globe-News covered the news, namely as it related to him. He sought to get advertisers to quit buying ad space in the paper; he urged subscribers to quit buying and reading the paper. He became enmeshed in a serious feud with the newspaper’s publisher at the time.

The feud with the publisher escalated. Finally, Morris Communications, which owned the Globe-News at the time, reassigned the publisher, Jerry Huff, and sent him packing.

That’s when Pickens did something that remains stuck in the craw of many folks in Amarillo. He hung a banner on the side of the building he once owned in the downtown district. The banner screamed “Goodbye, Jerry.”

Pickens himself would depart Amarillo not long after that. He relocated to Dallas.

That was the Bad Boone I had heard about. He was prone to vengefulness. He could be mean. He held grudges.

When I arrived in Amarillo in January 1995, the Pickens era in Amarillo had long since passed. But not long after my arrival in the Panhandle, I made an effort to meet this man I knew only by what I had read about him.

The effort took years. I talked many times with his press aide, trying to figure out a way to sit down with Pickens, to pick his substantial brain about energy policy, about his plans to sell Panhandle water downstate, or his efforts to build massive wind farms throughout the High Plains.

Pickens’s press suggested I could go to Dallas. I would have liked to do that, but my employer — the Globe-News — wouldn’t pay my way. I then offered to meet with Pickens at a diner in Pampa. I’d even buy his lunch! No go on that offer.

Then came the opportunity to meet. I had heard that Pickens was coming to Amarillo. I called his press guy. I asked if there was a chance to meet. Two days later, I got the go ahead. Pickens would come to the Globe-News.

He came and we met for a couple of hours.

What kind of man did I encounter? He was charming, talkative, and so very friendly. He admitted it was hard for him to darken the Globe-News door, given the history he had with the paper. But we had a wonderful and quite productive first meeting.

I would meet with him a second time not long after that at the Amarillo Civic Center. That meeting was much shorter, but he was no less charming.

The third meeting would be at Mesa Vista. I had left the Globe-News in August 2012 and was working as a part-time stringer for KFDA NewsChannel 10, writing news features for the station’s website. An on-air reporter, a cameraman and I drove to the ranch and had a fantastic view of this magnificent spread.

Pickens shared with me how he was slowing down because of his age; he was in his mid-80s when we met the final time.

I wanted to share this here because of the news of his effort to sell Mesa Vista. I don’t know who is going to come up with the kind of dough Pickens is asking for his spread.

Yes, news of his selling Mesa Vista seems to signal the end of an era in the Texas Panhandle, where Pickens earned the first part of his vast fortune. He has been through many peaks and valleys with this part of the world.

I am glad — and proud — to have been able to meet and visit with  the Good Boone.