Tag Archives: Amarillo Globe-News

local news, media news

Internet proves, um, wrong!

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Back in the day — when I toiled at a daily newspaper — I actually had the following exchange with a reader of the paper who had submitted a letter to the editor and asked me to publish it.

Me: Are you sure about your facts here? This stuff looks kind of fishy to me.

Reader: Of course I’m sure. It’s the truth. I got it on the Internet.

Suffice to say we didn’t publish the individual’s letter.

The Internet is a lot of things. The purveyor of the whole truth all the time, though, is not one of them.

Breitbart.com posted a story that has Amarillo abuzz with concern. It describes the city as a haven for Middle East refugees and that the city is being “overrun” by them.

Not so, says Mayor Paul Harpole.

I’ve got to give Amarillo Globe-News reporter Kevin Welch huge props for exposing this nonsense.

Harpole said the city is working to control all immigrants, which include refugees. The issue isn’t limited to just those fleeing bloodshed and misery in the Middle East.

But according to the Welch’s story, Brietbart.com and some other conservative websites are disseminating bogus “information” about the state of affairs in little ol’ Amarillo, Texas.

It’s been a given for years that Amarillo has been a magnet of sorts for immigrants. Community faith-based and secular organizations have done a lot over the years to welcome immigrants, as Welch reported.

The city, though, isn’t being swarmed, swamped and swallowed up by hordes of refugees, as some Internet sites have said.

The fallacy of this kind of alleged “reporting” contains several lessons.

One of them ought to become required of all who consume news and commentary. It is that the Internet is a source for fiction far more frequently than it is a source for fact.

 

local news, media news

How would this guy do in the Internet Age?

Internet

My mind wanders occasionally into strange places.

I think of people I used to know and wonder things like, oh, how would they fare in today’s world?

The name of a one-time Amarillo gadfly came to mind today. His name was Michael Wyatt. He’s deceased now; he died in an automobile accident in the late 1990s at a fairly young age.

I came to Amarillo in early 1995 to become editorial page editor of the two papers published by the same owner: the Amarillo Daily News and the Amarillo Globe-Times.

One of the things I learned upon arrival was that the opinion section operated under a policy that I felt compelled to change immediately. It did not place any time restriction on the frequency of people submitting letters to the editor. Put another way: One could get letters published every day of the week if he or she were so inclined.

Michael Wyatt was a prolific letter writer. He had opinions on just about anything — and anyone — in public life. He was unafraid. He took on City Hall, the school districts, county governments, the chamber of commerce. You name it, he had something to say about it.

The frequency of Wyatt’s submissions, I would learn, had a chilling effect on others who had something to say about a public issue. Wyatt scared people off, kept them from expressing their views. “Why get into a public p*****g match with this loony bird?” they would ask themselves.

Well, we changed the policy right away, settling finally on a once-per-calendar-month rule.

He also would come engage us face to face, talk our ears off about this and/or that. He wanted to know what we thought about something and, of course, he would share his own view.

I’m wondering now how Wyatt would fare in this Internet Age.

I have to believe he’d be in hog heaven with the availability of venues, forums, platforms, websites — whatever — to express himself.

I wrote a column for the newspaper upon hearing of Wyatt’s death. I saluted him as someone who felt the calling to contribute to the public dialogue. He did so with gusto and demonstrated great courage in speaking his mind. A member of the Amarillo City Commission at the time called me to complain about the column paying tribute to Wyatt; he told me he “couldn’t stand him.” Why? “Well he was just so damn critical all the time.”

My reaction at the time, as best as I can remember, was “umm, too bad.” He sought to keep our elected officials on their toes.

To be blunt, Wyatt likely would put many of the individuals who respond to this blog to shame. I’ve got my share of “regulars” who like to comment on this or that; many of them get into arguments with each other on the social media outlets through which I channel these blog posts (and which will receive this one once I’m finished with it).

I find myself chuckling at the notion of Michael engaging in these seemingly endless exchanges. He was quite capable of devouring anyone rhetorically.

It’s too bad he didn’t live long enough to witness the dawn of this new “information/disinformation age.”

Michael Wyatt — wherever he is now — no doubt is wishing he could come back to take part. He would be right at home.

 

local news, media news

Thank you, readers, for joining this adventure

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Blog concept in word tag cloud

I entered the blogosphere on Feb. 13, 2009, with this post:

“My name is John Kanelis and I am joining the world of bloggers.

 “What will this blog feature? That will depend on my mood and what I see as I go through my day, and travel through Amarillo and the Panhandle.
 
“My discussion topics will be mostly local, I predict, but not exclusively so. They’ll focus mostly on politics and policy. They’ll have an edge. They will invite comment and community discussion.
 
“I’ve been in daily journalism for 32 years. I’ve watched the media change during that entire time, but never at the pace it is changing now. Thus, this entry into the Age of Blogging is an exciting venture for me.
 
“With that, well, let’s talk.”
I was working full time as a print journalist for the Amarillo Globe-News, and the blog was written exclusively for that publication. My association with the newspaper ended abruptly in August 2012, but the blog has continued.
I want to thank those of you who’ve stuck with me over the years and hope you’ll stick around for as long as I continue to vent, rant, cajole, coax, praise, pound and offer a word or two of my brand of wisdom on this and/or that subject.
We’re heading toward the end of an eventual year and the next one is shaping up to make this one look like a walk in the park.
I intend to be there to watch it unfold.
As always, I hope you’ll feel free to share these musings with your own social media friends, acquaintances and assorted contacts as you see fit.
Thanks so much.
Stay tuned. There’s much more to come.

 

media news

Of course the question was intended to offend

Major Garrett, CBS News’s chief White House correspondent, and I have something in common.

We both worked for the same person, although at different times.

How’s that for name-dropping?

Garrett went to work for the Amarillo Globe-News back in the old days. The then-editor of the paper, Garet von Netzer, hired him; von Netzer later would become publisher of the paper and then he hired yours truly, although long after Garrett had moved on.

Having laid down that useless predicate, let me now say that Major Garrett asked a patently offensive question of President Obama, to which the president responded appropriately.

The question involved four Americans held captive in Iran and Garrett wondered how the president could be “content” that they’re still being held on trumped-up charges while he is “celebrating” the nuclear deal worked out with the Islamic Republic.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/obama-major-garrett-shuts-down-press-conference-120156.html?hp=b2_r1

Obama took offense at the tone of the question. He scolded Garrett, saying he “should know better” than to ask a question that contained “nonsense.”

The president said he isn’t “content” over the Americans’ continued captivity and said he and his team are “working diligently” to secure freedom for the individuals.

What irks me about the question and its aftermath is how Major Garrett insisted it wasn’t intended to ruffle the president. He didn’t apologize and he said it was not asked to call attention to himself.

May I be blunt? That’s pure baloney.

That’s how it goes among the White House press corps. It’s always about getting in a question intended to call attention to the inquiry and to the person making it. Such gamesmanship has been going on for, oh, since the beginning of these televised events dating back to the days when President Kennedy introduced them to the public and turned them into some form of entertainment.

CBS’s Dan Rather famously sought to get under President Nixon’s skin during the Watergate scandal; ABC’s Sam Donaldson did the same thing to President Reagan over the course of many years; Fox’s Ed Henry does the same thing today with President Obama.

Well, now Henry and others have company in the “gotcha” hall of fame.

Major Garrett asked an appropriate question. He just inserted a certain word — “content” — that framed it in a way that got Barack Obama’s dander up.

I would bet that was his intent all along.

 

local news, media news

Sensing an odd disconnect

2 Comments

I picked up the phone this weekend to call a good friend.

We worked together at the Amarillo Globe-News. Not long after I quit my job — after being “reorganized” out of the position I had occupied for nearly 18 years — he resigned to take another journalism job back east.

As we visited, he told me about this challenge and that challenge he was facing at the paper where he’s working.

Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning: I did not feel connected in any meaningful way with what my friend was telling me.

Wow! How weird is this?

It’s been a month shy of three years since I left daily print journalism. It defined me in the many people’s eyes for more than 36 years. I toiled at four newspapers: two in Oregon and two in Texas. My career didn’t take me to too many stops along the way. Several of my friends who are still practicing the craft have made many more stops along the way than I ever did.

Still, for 36-plus years that was what I did. I had some modest success over that time and I am so very proud of what I was able to do, the places I was able to see, the people — famous, infamous and just plain interesting — I was able to meet.

Oh, but the disconnected feeling I’m getting these days is sending me a clear message.

I am glad to be gone from my last stop along the way. I was an old-school reporter and editor when my employer informed me that he planned to make “radical changes” at the newspaper and that I didn’t fit into those plans. I’ll admit that it hurt hearing such a thing. And, yes, I went through some grieving as I sought to collect my thoughts and plot the rest of the journey my wife and I would take.

Three years is a long time. Then again, it does fly by quickly, especially when you’re occupying your time doing other things. I’ve managed to do that. I’m staying quite busy writing blogs for two local broadcast TV stations. So I haven’t been sent out to pasture entirely. I’m also helping a friend produce a weekly newspaper in eastern New Mexico.

The disconnect lies with the daily grind. I no longer have to worry about answering the bell every single day. I’ll leave that to others who are young and vigorous enough to overcome the obstacles that emerge constantly to bring added pressure to an already pressure-packed job.

I’m glad my friend still relishes the challenges that confront him every day. As for me, I’ve got other things to do.

local news

MPEV or no MPEV

Oh, I really and truly dislike doing this, but I’m going to do something that goes against my grain.

I want to call out my former employer on a key political matter.

The Amarillo Globe-News today published an editorial that was spot-on. It said that a vote — if it comes — that opposes the multipurpose event venue planned for downtown Amarillo would scuttle the city’s progress for years to come.

It’s in the attached right here. Take a look.

http://m.amarillo.com/opinion/editorial/2015-07-04/editorial-vote-against-mpev-vote-against-redevelopment?v#gsc.tab=0

OK, having endorsed the paper’s editorial policy on the city’s downtown redevelopment proposals, I have a question to pose to my former employer.

Shouldn’t you to come to grips publicly with the recommendations you made in the May 9 municipal election that well might have helped elect three new members to the City Council, two of whom you’ve criticized roundly since they took office?

I ask that question with some trepidation. If the role was reversed — and I had survived a company “reorganization” scheme in the summer of 2012 — I might not care a damn bit what a former editor would have to say about the job I’m doing. Now that I’m on the outside looking in, well, I feel compelled to pose the question to my former colleagues.

The paper backed the candidacies of Mark Nair, Randy Burkett and Elisha Demerson in the race for the City Council. It offered no recommendation for mayor, even though the incumbent, Paul Harpole, was far superior to his challenger. The paper backed just one incumbent council member, Dr. Brian Eades.

Two of the three new council members — Demerson and Burkett — have taken serious shots from the paper over what the Globe-News has described as uninformed comments and votes on public policy matters. Nair, meanwhile, has been praised for asking relevant questions about the downtown projects at an informational meeting the other day. Nair also has called for the resignation of City Manager Jarrett Atkinson, who’s been a critical player in the downtown revitalization effort.

So …

The paper backed the three “candidates of change” for the City Council. All three of them made their intentions clear. They want change at City Hall and they want it now. Surely they informed the paper’s editorial board of their positions when they interviewed for the offices they were seeking. Indeed, having sat through many of those over more than three decades in daily print journalism — in Amarillo and elsewhere —  I know how that process works.

The newspaper has taken the correct position with regard to downtown revival efforts.

However, this resident of Amarillo — that would be me — is having trouble squaring the Globe-News’s backing of the three change agents with its view that the MPEV needs building and that it is essential to keep the downtown plan moving forward.

I don’t intend to diagnose anything here, but I am sensing a bit of editorial schizophrenia.

 

 

 

local news

Get rid of work sessions

Believe it or not, I am going to agree with an editorial published in the newspaper where I worked for more than 17 years.

The editorial published in the Amarillo Globe-News says the City Council needs to, in effect, get rid of its work sessions as they’re currently constituted and do all its business in the City Council Chambers meeting room.

That’s a good idea.

Here’s why. The work sessions, where city council members discuss much of the business on which they will vote in their open session, take place in a cramped meeting room. Most of the space in that room is taken up by a large conference table around which sit council members, senior city administrators and department heads.

The public is invited to attend, as the items under discussion are open to the public — until the mayor calls for an “executive session,” which is closed to the public to enable the council to discuss certain things exempted from public view under the Texas Open Meetings Law.

I’d share the editorial with you here, except that I don’t subscribe to the newspaper and, thus, I am unable to access the online edition because of its “pay wall” restricting access only to those who have paid subscriptions to the printed edition.

I left the paper unhappily in late August 2012, if you’ll recall … but enough about that.

The editorial suggests that the city shouldn’t scrap its work sessions, but merely take them into a room where more people can attend if they desire. If no one attends the work session, well, no harm-no foul. The council can convene its executive session, then open its regular session and pass the ordinances and other measures it has discussed.

I do not believe the city has kept secrets from the public regarding matters of public concern. I believe the mayor and the city administrator are honorable men who do not hide behind the Open Meetings Law to discuss things that must be kept in the open.

However, the work sessions have produced a perception among some in the community that these meetings somehow are meant to keep the public in the dark.

Let me stipulate once again: The City Council cannot keep the public away from its meetings except when it discusses certain items specified by state law Those items include pending litigation, sale or purchase of real estate and personnel matters. One major flaw in the state meeting law is that there’s little way to monitor what’s actually said behind closed doors; but that’s for the Legislature to change when it ever gets around to it.

The City Council work sessions are valuable in allowing council members an opportunity to discuss the pros and cons of issues before them. So, do it in the big room — the Council Chambers — to enable everyone who is interested a chance to hear it all with their own ears.

 

local news

Politicians cut money for schools, then knock them

Those of us who know Shanna Peeples are still a bit awestruck by the recognition that has come her way.

She teaches English at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo and has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year for 2015. A new adventure awaits her as she prepares to carry the torch for public educators across the nation.

A comment came the other day from Jon Mark Beilue, a columnist at the Amarillo Globe-News — where Peeples worked before answering her calling as a teacher — that rings so very true.

Beilue noted, while praising the work of good and great teacher everywhere, how some of the sharpest criticism of public education comes from politicians who have voted to cut money from public school systems.

Peeples, in accepting her crystal apple from the president at the White House this week, thanked him for his unwavering support of public education.

http://agntv.amarillo.com/news/president-obama-awards-shanna-peeples

But every so often, we hear politician here at home decry public education, saying things about the quality of education our students are getting even a they cast vote to slash money aimed at improving schools.

How can they say these things with a straight face?

Oh, I almost forgot: Politicians say a lot of things without understanding or comprehending the irony of their statements and actions.

It’s good to remember what a politician — a state legislator, for example — does for the record while railing about the shortcomings of a valuable beneficiary of state government.

While we’re at it, we ought to hold those politician to account for their actions.

 

State news

Railroad Commission has nothing to do with trains

Elizabeth Ames Jones used to serve on the Texas Railroad Commission.

Once, while visiting Amarillo, she paid a visit to the Globe-News, where I worked as editorial page editor.

During our conversation, the Republican former state legislator, made a fascinating and totally sensible proposal. The Railroad Commission needed to change its name. It has nothing to do with railroads or trains. It doesn’t have anything to do with trucking regulations, which it used to have. The name “Railroad Commission” is an archaic term that has zero relevance to what the agency does today, which is regulate fossil fuel production.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/20/texas-mulls-railroad-commission-name-change-again/

Why not change the name, she said, to something like the Texas Energy Regulatory Commission — or TERC, for short?

Why not, indeed?

The RRC is the state’s oldest regulatory agency, but as the Texas Tribune noted, it scrapped railroad regulation long ago.

That hasn’t persuaded the hidebound interests who still run many things in Austin to change the name of an agency devoted to energy-related issues.

It’s not an easy solution, as the Texas Tribune reports: “The change would require an amendment to the Texas Constitution, since the document mentions the agency by name. That means two-thirds of lawmakers in each chamber must approve before putting the question to Texas voters.”

Why not refer it to the voters in the form of a constitutional amendment proposal? The Legislature needs a super-majority of lawmakers to do it. My hunch is that too many of them are strangely devoted to the Railroad Commission, perhaps out of nostalgia if no other reason.

If Texas is going to continue its evolution into a modern state that recognizes that change occurs here from time to time, then it should change the long-ago obsolete name of an important regulatory agency.

Oil and natural gas are important to this state’s economy. Why not give its governing agency a name that everyone would recognize?

 

entertainment news, legal news

Great work, judge, if you can get it

This thought didn’t originate with me. It comes from my friend Jon Mark Beilue, a columnist for the Amarillo Globe-News, who took note of something he saw.

I’m passing it along here.

It is that Judy Scheindlin, aka Judge Judy, I going to rake in tens of millions of dollars annually dispensing “justice” on television.

http://www.tvguide.com/news/judge-judy-contract-2020/

Judge Judy has been given a contract extension that will pay her an undisclosed amount of money through 2020. If history is a guide, it’s going to be for lots and lots of money.

Her Honor earned $47 million in 2014.

As Jon Mark noted in his social media post, the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts, earns about $225,000 annually. All he and his eight colleagues on the highest court in the land do for a living is determine whether federal laws comport with the U.S. Constitution. They get to decide things like, oh, the fate of the Affordable Care Act, whether someone deserves to be executed for crimes they commit or whether abortion remains legal.

Judge Judy? She gets to scold people for not making good on fender-bender accident claims, or shaving their neighbor’s pet dog or cat, or absconding with a refrigerator load of food. It’s that kind of thing that Judge Judy gets to hear.

For that she earns millions.

As Jon Mark noted: Only in America …