Tag Archives: NewsChannel 10

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Was that thunder, lightning and rain that kept me up?

It’s been a good while since we had a night like the one we just experienced.

We were up and down like Yo-Yos all night. The lightning would flash. The thunder would roar. The rain would pound the house.

We awoke this morning and found another half-inch of rain in the gauge.

And it was still raining!

OK. The weather forecasters are all a-flutter over the rain. Amarillo’s year-to-date rainfall — I think — is about double the normal amount. It’s about eight times more than we had a year ago at this time.

Is the drought over? Have we turned the corner? Is it time now to start running our residential irrigation systems flat-out, full bore, with not a worry in the world?

Guess again.

The TV weathermen and women aren’t saying anything of the sort. They’re careful to avoid sending the wrong message, although they do seem to get a big carried away with their joy at the rain that’s come our way. El Nino, that Pacific Ocean current phenomenon, has returned, according to Dave Oliver, KFDA-TV NewsChannel 10’s chief meteorologist, and he thinks it’s going to persist through the summer.

El Nino’s effect is to drive moisture from the coast inland, bringing all that rain we’ve been praying for our way.

Let’s not get too excited about the drought. We’ve got that underground aquifer that doesn’t recharge at nearly the rate we’re drawing it down. It’s still going to take centuries for it to fill back up.

Still, let us be thankful and grateful for what we’re getting.

Do you think those prayers we’ve all sent up have been answered?

local news, media news

Growing old is turning out OK … so far

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

The older I get the more I learn about myself.

One of things I am learning is how adaptable I have become. Actually, I’ve know about the adaptability for some time. My family and I moved from Oregon — where I grew up and spent most of my first 34 years on Earth — to Texas. I adapted just fine.

My journalism career brought tremendous change over the course of 37 years. In August 2012, when I started sensing my days were numbered at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for more than 17 years, I fell back on my last line of defense in an effort to keep my job in the face of a reorganization scheme. I told my employer: “You’re asking me to make changes in the way I do things. Well, my craft today bears next to zero resemblance to what it was when I began, so the changes you’re asking me to make amount to a tiny fraction of the change I’ve already gone through.”

That pitch didn’t work. They assigned my duties to someone else and I walked away.

Adaptability: That’s my middle name, yes?

Well, I have found a whole new world of new things to which I can adapt.

I’m still writing. This blog is one outlet. I also am writing for Panhandle PBS — the Amarillo College-based public TV station formerly known as KACV-TV. I blog about public affairs programming: PBS documentaries, news specials, Panhandle PBS’s “Live Here” public affairs program. It’s a blast, man. I’ve taken on another writing assignment, for KFDA-NewsChannel 10. I write for the station’s website — newschannel10.com — and they use those news stories as the basis for weekly on-air broadcasts. That, too, is big-time hoot.

Now I’m taking on another task. Let’s call it “managing editor in absentia” for the Quay County Sun in Tucumcari, N.M. I’ve been asked to assist in producing the paper each week — from my home, using my laptop, cell phone and e-mail communication with a reporter who’ll produce the text. I’ve implored my friend, David Stevens — who works as executive editor  for the parent company that also publishes daily papers in Clovis and Portales, N.M. — to please keep looking aggressively for a permanent managing editor. He assures me he will.

But you see, what I’ve discovered is that there really is a market out there for old guys with (lots of) gray in their hair.

I still am looking forward to retirement, although it’s looking less likely that I’m a candidate for The Pasture any time soon.

My wife and I still have plans — eventually — to relocate closer to our granddaughter and her parents, who live just a bit north of Dallas. I hope to take much of my work with me, if it’s possible. The Internet Age has made that kind of transition available, even to old guys like me.

They have that saying about hindsight’s perfect vision. Our foresight remains quite fuzzy.

Neither my wife nor I ever could have imagined this stage of our life together turning out this way.

Hey, everyone needs some surprises in life.

Adaptability makes it easier to cope with them when they show up.

local news, media news, political news

No lawn signs or bumper stickers … just yet

I had thought that when my daily print journalism came to an end in August 2012 I’d be able to wear my political preference openly.

It’s not going to happen any time soon, or at least that’s my hope.

The last lawn sign I put in my yard — I think — was in 1976. I put a sign out front for U.S. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, who was a candidate for president in the Democratic primary. That was in Oregon, before my journalism career got started.

I went to work on the copy desk of the Oregon Journal in Portland and then took a job as a sports writer for the Oregon City Enterprise-Courier, a suburban afternoon daily just south of Portland. I toiled in the business for the next 36 years, moving eventually to Texas in 1984.

I’ve had a keen interest in politics for many decades, going back to my college days and even farther back, to a time when I was just a year out of high school.

That was when I had a chance meeting late one night in May 1968 with another U.S. senator, Robert F. Kennedy. I shook his hand as he got out of his car on the eve of the Oregon primary, got his autograph, we exchanged a few words and he disappeared inside the restaurant he was visiting.

RFK was murdered a week later in Los Angeles.

My print career ended more than two years ago, but now I’m back in the journalism game once again, in a new format.

So, I’ve decided I still cannot display lawn signs or paste bumper stickers on my vehicles. Since February, I’ve been writing for NewsChannel 10’s website, newschannel10.com, as the station’s “special projects reporter.” Moreover, I’ve been blogging for Panhandle PBS for more than two years, writing about public affairs programming. Thus, I’m back in journalism.

Am I having fun? Does the bear do his business … well, you know.

Does that disqualify me from writing this blog? I don’t see that it does. I just won’t make the leap and endorse candidates for local office, as much as I want to do so, while I’m writing about local political and civic affairs for a local TV news station.

That means my lawn will be sign-free and my vehicle will be bumper-sticker-free for the foreseeable future.

legal news, local news

Constitution trumps jail security

Score one for the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

A district judge has ruled that the Roosevelt County, N.M., policy restricting jail inmates’ visitation with their attorneys is unconstitutional.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/28826840/judge-rules-restricted-attorney-access-at-area-jail-unconstitutional

The policy was enacted after some inmate escapes at the Portales lockup. Sheriff’s department officials restricted the days and times attorneys could visit their clients. State District Judge Donna Mowrer said the restrictions violated constitutional guarantees that inmates were entitled to meet with their attorneys whenever they wished.

The county said the restrictions were enacted out of security and staffing concerns.

I’m with the judge on this one.

Inmates mustn’t be denied access to their lawyers, who in some cases are the only people in their lives.

A lawyer, Eric Dixon, protested the restrictions, citing an occasional inability to visit clients incarcerated because his weekday work schedule prevented him from getting to the jail until after hours.

Constitutional protections should be honored whenever possible. It seems to be the Roosevelt County jail administration is in a position to follow the tenets set forth in our nation’s founding document.

 

local news

Will there be enough time for retirement?

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

My sister and brother-in-law are visiting us for a few days.

They are retired. As in fully retired and they keep telling us how busy they’ve been doing this and that — on their own time and at their own pace.

I remain anxious for the day when my wife and I, too, can join the Corps of Retired Citizens. I’m not there yet.

You see, I’ve got these three part-time jobs that keep me busy enough as it is. Two of them are writing gigs: one is for Panhandle PBS and the other is for Amarillo’s CBS affiliate, NewsChannel 10. The third one takes me out of the house for a few hours weekly at Street Toyota.

We went to church this morning and sis I introduced sis to a friend of mine. She asked him what he did for a living. He said he’s retired and then noted how much fun it has been. Why? He’s so busy these days. Sis and my friend, Stan, traded quips about wondering how they had time to work back when they were drawing regular paychecks.

My wife and I are biding our time. We remain in quite a good place at the moment. I learned quickly more than two years ago, when my career came to an end, that life really does produce new beginnings. I’ve found them and my wife and I are reaping their reward. It comes in the form of a life relieved of much of the stress associated with full time employment obligations.

The prospect of full-time retirement keeps inching closer. I don’t know yet when it will arrive.

I understand completely that I’ll recognize the moment when it arrives.

local news, media news

Blog streak looks like it's about to end

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This blog post is going to be — and I’ll be fairly brief — about my blog.

High Plains Blogger has been on a roll of late.

It has set seven consecutive records for monthly page views and unique visitors. I’m quite proud of that streak, and I’ve been none too bashful about sharing the good news with my social media friends.

April isn’t looking so good. Just six days into the month and I’m sensing a trend that suggests my streak is going to stop at seven. That’s all right. I’ve enjoyed a good run and I’m hopeful it will resume soon.

This blogging adventure has pretty much consumed my life for the past, oh, couple of years.

I don’t have a full-time job. I’ve three part-time jobs — and I enjoy them all immensely. Two of them involve writing: One of them is for Panhandle PBS, based at Amarillo College; the other one, which I just started in early February, is for KFDA-NewsChannel 10, the CBS-TV affiliate in Amarillo. They’re both blogs. The PBS blog discusses public affairs programming; the NewsChannel 10 blog looks at on-going news stories in our region and the station is good enough to broadcast an on-air report based on the blog I’ve posted on the station’s website.

The third job is as a customer service concierge with a Toyota dealership here in Amarillo.

But writing is what I love to do. I was blessed to pursue a fulfilling career in print journalism. It was a 37-year run that ended in late August 2012. My work with public and commercial TV stations allows me to continue to working on my craft.

My first post-newspaper-career passion, though, is my own blog. I truly enjoy venting, ranting, raving, commenting, critiquing public affairs on my blog. Occasionally I veer into what my wife and I call “life experience.”

I guess the purpose here is to ask you to keep reading High Plains Blogger. If you think you want to share it with your friends, well, have at it. I’m anxious to reach more people and to have them comment on my musings.

Do not worry about hurting my feelings if you disagree with my particular political slant. Most of my neighbors and most of the people I encounter daily disagree with me. That’s the nature of living in this part of the world.

Let me know what you think.

 

local news, media news

Getting yet another new lease

Chance meetings with friends can — and do — produce opportunities one never expects to receive.

So I was a few months ago when my wife and I stumbled into a meeting with a friend of mine who happens to run a television station here in Amarillo. That meeting has evolved into a marvelous opportunity for me to get back into the journalism game I “played” for 37 years.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing a blog for NewsChannel10.com, the website for Amarillo’s CBS-TV affiliate.

News Channel 10 calls the feature “Whatever Happened To …” and it involves news stories I get to sniff out and write for the website. The stories are of an unfinished nature, the kinds of stories that gained traction, but might have dropped off the public grid. They involve promises and pledges. They seek to answer whether those pledges have been met. A recent story involved a cold case at the police department involving the disappearance of a 9-year-old boy in 1998; the boy, Dorien Thomas, would be 26 years of age and the police have found nothing, not a trace of him, since he vanished.

The chance meeting occurred in the summer of 2014. My wife and I were garage-sale shopping. We walked into the garage of Brent McClure, the general manager at News Channel 10. “Hey, what are you doing these days?” McClure asked. I said I was working a couple of part-time jobs, including a blogging gig at Panhandle PBS, the public TV station affiliated with Amarillo College.

“Why don’t you write for us?” McClure asked. Huh? Are you kidding? “No, I’m serious,” he said.

We chatted for a few more minutes, then we left. I told him I’d call him later.

Well, I did … later that day. My question went like this: “Hey, Brent, was that request for real or were you just making conversation?” He assured me he was sincere. With that, I made an appointment to visit him at his office, where we chatted in general about what he might want to create at the station. We agreed to take it forward, but not until McClure finished a couple of huge projects at News Channel 10.

Near the end of the year, we got back in touch. I drove back out to the TV station and we chatted more specifically. Then he made his pitch: Why not write a blog for our website? We then can take that text and we can develop an on-air news report and we can reference the “Whatever Happened To …” feature on NewsChannel10.com; how does that sound?

http://www.newschannel10.com/

The proverbial light bulb flashed on. I can do this. We shook on it.

I’ve been writing the blog since early February.

I’m still writing for Panhandle PBS, which I’ve been doing since October 2012, about two months after my daily print journalism career came to a crashing halt. That gig remains a huge kick for me and I enjoy the relationships built at Panhandle PBS. The beauty of writing for two TV stations — one commercial, one public — is that they aren’t competitors. The PBS work involves writing about public affairs TV programming; the News Channel 10 work involves more straight reporting, which I believe is a skill journalists never lose once they learn how to do it.

McClure’s hope, as I understand it, that we’ll be able to blend print and broadcast journalism into a new creature that hasn’t yet been defined.

I’m still trying to grasp the impact of all this. I tell people I see all over Amarillo how good it feels to get back into the game.

I am having a serious blast.

Uncategorized

‘Routine traffic stop’ is never routine

Critiquing local media isn’t among my favorite things to do — Lord knows I made my share of mistakes over 37 years in daily print journalism — but a local news anchor committed an error I cannot let pass.

The 10 p.m. newscast led with a story about a drug bust on Interstate 40. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers pulled a vehicle over and — lo and behold — found a load of dope. Who knew, right?

The news anchor then uttered that time-honored phrase that a lot of young journalists use unwittingly. He referred to the incident as a “routine traffic stop.”

I now will make three points.

First, the news anchor isn’t a fresh-faced youngster looking to make his mark here before moving to a “larger market.” NewsChannel 10’s Walt Howard has been doing his job for at least as long as I’ve been in Amarillo, which has passed the 19-year mark.

Second, I’d bet the farm that the traffic stop in question wasn’t a real traffic stop at all. DPS troopers had a pretty idea what they had found when they pulled the vehicle over. It ain’t a coincidence, kids, that they found the drugs in the car. They either were profiling the occupants of the vehicle or they had a tip that the vehicle was coming through the area.

Third, and this is the most critical point of all, every police officer who’s ever worn a badge will tell you, “There is no such thing as a routine traffic stop.” I made that mistake once while writing a news story for a small paper where I worked in Oregon City, Ore. I referred to a traffic stop as “routine.” I got a call the next day from the late Bill Brooks, who at the time was chief deputy for the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. He scolded me about the use of the term “routine” and reminded me of this fact: Any traffic stop has the potential for erupting into something far more serious and potentially tragic.

He implored me never to use that description again when reporting incidents involving police stopping motorists.

Lesson learned, Bill.