Tag Archives: Hurricane Harvey

media news

No good news in media? Whoa! Hold on here!

Every now and then I feel the need to rise the defense of my former media colleagues who get pilloried unfairly for the way they report the news.

Today provided me that opportunity. It was in a fascinating venue, to say the least.

Our Sunday school class broke into small-group discussions this morning. We had watched a video that talked about extending blessings and expressing gratitude.

Then one of our table mates asserted that “you never hear” good news in the media. Our friend indicated that the media are concerned only about bad news, about negativity, about tragedy and sadness.

“I have to respectfully disagree with you,” I said.

The context of the gentleman’s assertion was the Hurricane Harvey recovery effort and he sought to make a point that the media don’t report on all the effort being made to help the victims fight back from the misery brought to them by the killer storm.

I couldn’t restrain myself. I noted that the media have reported time and time again about the positive aspects of the storm recovery. How did the public know, for example, about the hundreds of relief volunteers lining up at storm shelters in Houston and along the Gulf Coast? The media reported it!

That’s just one example.

My wife noted correctly media consumers aren’t likely to be drawn to be positive news, but they certainly are drawn to negative coverage. It’s the nature of the proverbial beast.

I spent nearly four decades working in the media. I have challenged readers of the newspapers where I worked who have complained to me about “all the negative news” in the paper to look through any edition of the paper and count the stories that have positive spins and those with negative spins. I’ve always believed they would be surprised to learn that the paper contained many more positive stories than negative ones.

In this Internet Age, one can find links to news organizations’ home pages that guide readers to “positive news.” My wife wondered this morning, “I wonder how many readers actually open those links and read those stories.”

On a whole array of issues covering the complete landscape of reportage, the media continue to do their job with professionalism, compassion and dedication. Do all media representatives live up to that standard? No, but you can find bad actors in every single profession or craft in this country or around the world!

I would argue that the media’s focus on negative vs. positive news isn’t necessarily the issue. The question ought to be asked of the public that consumes this information.

religious news, State news

Houses of worship deserve FEMA assistance

I can almost hear the grumbling now: The U.S. Constitution prohibits any relationship between government and religious organization, which means churches shouldn’t be eligible for federal emergency relief assistance.

I’ll respond this way: As Col. Sherman T. Potter would say: Mule muffins!

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have asked for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help houses of worship ravaged by the wrath of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey.

Abbott and Paxton wrote in their letter to FEMA: “When Hurricane Harvey slammed into Texas, wreaking devastation over a huge swath of the Texas Gulf Coast, scores of churches and houses of worship jumped into action to serve thousands of Americans in their time of need.”

Indeed, those houses of worship also suffered grievously from Harvey’s savagery, just as every other inhabitant along the Texas Gulf Coast.

I get what the U.S. Constitution says about the prohibition against making laws that establish a state religion. This is different. FEMA stands as an agency committed to helping all Americans.

Harvey delivered a killer punch to Texas. It brought substantial misery all along the coast from Corpus Christi to the Golden Triangle — and many miles inland.

Everyone affected by the horrific storm — including houses of worship — deserve assistance from the federal government that aims to serve them.

national news, State news

Trump makes good on Harvey pledge; thank you, Mr. President

Donald Trump’s pledge of $1 million to help the victims of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Harvey had been met with some skepticism.

Critics actually doubted the president would deliver the goods, that he would make the donation he promised to make.

The president has delivered.

He has sent $300,000 each to the Salvation Army and the Red Cross; Samaritans Purse and Reach Out America each got $100,000; the president sent $25,000 each to a number of other charities, including ASPCA, the Humane Society and Habitat for Humanity.

They’re all doing great work to help people — and their pets — recover from the devastation brought by the monster storm that tore across the Texas and Louisiana coasts in late August.

I want to applaud the president for making good on his pledge. Some of that money is going to help my peeps — friends and former colleagues — who live along the Texas Coast and who have been coping with the misery brought by the storm.

We hear on occasion that the best way to help so many people affected by these tragedies is simply to send money. Donald Trump, a man of considerable means, has done the right thing.

Well done, sir.

State news

J.J. Watt now can concentrate fully on his day job

J.J. Watt is a tremendous football player.

He also is a young man with a huge heart. You see, this Houston Texans defensive lineman took it upon himself to help raise money for the stricken residents of his adopted hometown, Houston.

He started out with a goal of raising $200,000 for those who were suffering from the wrath of Hurricane Harvey, which pummeled Houston in late August.

Watt has called a halt to his fundraising effort. He’s raised a cool $37 million.

Watt shows his true stuff.

The National Football League honors one of its players annually with the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. It’s named after the late, great Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton, who routinely devoted much of his off-the-field activity to helping those who needed help.

J.J. Watt has gone not just above and beyond the call to help his fellow Houstonian and other Texas Gulf Coast residents. He has orbited Earth and at least a couple of other planets in providing assistance to those who remain in serious trouble as a result of Harvey’s savagery.

As Sports Illustrated reports: “Watt recently closed the fundraiser after raising an astonishing $37,097,298, which is more than 185 times his initial goal. More than 200,000 people donated, meaning Watt got as many donors as he expected dollars.”

Astonishing, yes?

I believe young J.J. has earned the Payton Man of the Year Award.

media news

Events give media chance to shine brightly

I never got the chance to serve on a Pulitzer Prize jury, to select winners in print journalism’s top prizes.

This year is going to produce a Pulitzer juror’s “nightmare,” if you want to call it such. The media, namely the folks who work in the print end of it, have distinguished themselves grandly while covering compelling issues of the day.

Were it not for the media, we wouldn’t know about the various crises threatening to swallow the Donald J. Trump administration whole. Many of print journalism’s top guns — at the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Washington Post — have been distinguishing themselves with top-drawer reporting that would give Pulitzer jurors fits. It’s interesting in the extreme to me that so many of the cable news outlets keep referencing stories that have been broken first by print organizations.

Then something else happened this summer.

Two killer hurricanes boiled up out of the warm water offshore and delivered death and destruction, first to the Texas Gulf Coast and then to the Caribbean and to all of Florida.

Reporters, photographers and their editors all have worked very long days and nights trying to cover the story of human misery. Newspapers from the Coastal Bend, Houston and then to the Golden Triangle have answered the call. Indeed, one of my former employers — the Beaumont Enterprise — has called at least one of its veteran former reporters out of retirement to assist in telling the community’s story as it seeks to recover from Hurricane Harvey’s savage wrath.

The story of media intrepidity is being repeated now in Florida as that state struggles to regain its footing in the wake of Hurricane Irma’s own brand of immense savagery.

There you have it: severe political tumult and potential constitutional crises and Mother Nature’s unimaginable power have combined to create circumstances that make the media answer the call to duty.

To think, as well, that the president of the United States refers to these dedicated men and women as “the enemy of the American people.” Donald Trump knows nothing about the dedication to their craft — and in many instances the heroism — they exhibit in trying to report important issues to a public that wants to know what’s happening in their world.

Good luck, Pulitzer jury, as you seek to find winners in this most eventual period in history.

To my former colleagues, I am immensely proud of you.

State news

Let’s banish partisan stereotypes

There’s a common stereotype kicked around about Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans are hard-hearted; Democrats are squishy do-gooders.

I want to take on the GOP stereotype briefly here by calling attention to something U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas said about four of his Republican colleagues who voted recently against a package that include $15 billion in aid to victims of Hurricane Harvey.

You’ve heard of Harvey, yes? It blew in twice over the Texas coast, ravaging communities from the Coastal Bend to the Golden Triangle. Four of McCaul’s GOP colleagues voted “no” on the aid package because it sought to raise the debt limit ceiling.

One of the four happens to be my congressman, Mac Thornberry of Clarendon.

Oh, Mac. I mean, really?

Here’s what McCaul said, according to Texas Monthly: “I don’t want to judge them,” McCaul said Monday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, according to the Austin American-Statesman. “I judge myself and my conscience, and when I have people dying and hurting in my home state, it was my duty and my moral obligation to help them, and I felt that that vote was a vote of conscience to help people in my state and also now in Florida. I think that’s what Americans do, and I think it’s unconscionable to vote against something like that.” 

Actually, he did “judge them.” But that’s all right with me. Judge away, Rep. McCaul.

More from Texas Monthly: “I think having to raise the debt ceiling was the issue, and the fact is that Mick Mulvaney is the director of [the Office of Management and Budget], and he was a Freedom Caucus guy when he served with us, and he told us point blank that you could not appropriate disaster relief if you didn’t raise the debt ceiling, so we were stuck with that choice,” McCaul said. “What do you with that choice? Just stand on principle and vote ‘no’? And I question that principle. Or do you vote to help people back in your home state who are hurting really badly?”

Well said, Rep. McCaul.

So, let’s end the stereotyping.

national news

A word of praise is due two beleaguered governors

I believe it’s time to offer a good word — or three — to two men who’ve been literally and figuratively in the eyes of two monstrous storms.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, both Republicans, have done the jobs they were elected to do, which is to lead their states as they cope with Mother Nature’s unfathomable wrath.

First up was Abbott, who watched along with the rest of us as Hurricane Harvey battered the Coastal Bend region in late August. Harvey wasn’t done with just ripping Corpus Christi and Rockport to shreds; the storm backed out over the Gulf of Mexico and made a second landfall in the Golden Triangle and Houston, flooding that region with a continental U.S. record amount of rain: 50 inches of it, man!

Abbott was seemingly everywhere at once. He called for calm. He received words of encouragement from Donald J. Trump as the president made two trips to Texas to assess the damage, hug some storm victims and pledge the federal government’s full assistance and support.

I also should point out that Houston is Abbott’s hometown, so he’s got some serious skin in the game of restoring the huge city’s infrastructure.

The governor then appointed a “Harvey Czar,” Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp, to coordinate the rebuilding of the state. Sharp, a former Democratic state senator from Victoria — one of the cities hammered during Harvey’s first landfall — has taken on a huge task. I happen to believe he is up to the job.

Next up was Gov. Scott.

Hurricane Irma brought its own form of misery, mayhem and madness to Florida. It struck the southwest coast of that state and them essentially covered the entire state under its storm bands.

Just as Abbott did in Texas, Scott was the voice of calm assurance. He told Floridians to flee the storm, warning them they won’t survive the wind and the storm surge.

From Key West to Jacksonville, south to north, the state was pummeled. Imagine trying to escape Key West, at the westernmost point along the Florida Keys island chain, along the single highway toward the mainland. Where, then, does one go from there, given the mammoth swath of destruction brought by Irma?

Irma has now headed north. It is dissipating, much as Harvey has done. The worst of it remains for the stricken victims. My guess is that Gov. Scott will follow Gov. Abbott’s lead and find an “Irma Czar” to lead the Florida cleanup effort.

This is where political executives earn their pay. This form of leadership isn’t written down anywhere, although they do take oaths that bind them to pledges to protect the constituents they serve.

These men are fulfilling that pledge at this very moment.

media news

‘Enemy of the people’ are here to serve

“There are three kinds of people who run toward disaster, not away: cops, firemen and reporters.”

The above quotation comes from the Newseum, an exhibit in Washington, D.C., put together years ago by the Poynter Institute, a first-rate umbrella media organization. A young friend of mine — who happens to be a former colleague who’s still in the print journalism business — posted this today on Facebook.

Interesting, don’t you think? I do. Now I shall explain briefly why.

Donald J. Trump spares no opportunity to denigrate those who report the news to the public. The president of the United States came to Texas recently to tour damage done by Hurricane Harvey and decided to say that the “first responders” go places the media won’t go, “unless there’s a good story.”

The idiot in chief misses the point. He whiffs. He fans, man.

The media answer the call to serve the public. No, they don’t necessarily put themselves in harm’s way to the extent that firefighters, police officers and emergency medical personnel do. They are there, however, to report to the public what is happening to our communities and to our fellow Americans.

I said that media reps don’t “necessarily” endanger themselves. That’s not entirely true, of course. Reporters — broadcast, print and photojournalists — do step in to offer aid. They lend comfort to stricken victims. They perform rescues. They act, shall we say, quite heroically.

For the president to continually denigrate these individuals and the organizations they represent is disgraceful on its face. For him to refer to the media as “the enemy of the American people,” furthermore, defames the vast array of professionals who do what they are trained to do: report the news and deliver it to an audience that is thirsting for information.

I am proud to have been a member of a noble craft. What’s more, I continue to swell with pride in the job many of my friends and former colleagues continue to do.

national news, State news

Nature’s wrath eclipses political controversy

I created this blog some years ago as a forum for “politics, policy and life experience.”

To be candid, events of the past few days have ripped my mind away from the worldly political concerns that have dominated High Plains Blogger since its inception.

Hurricane Harvey stormed ashore on the Texas Coastal Bend. Then it backed out over the Gulf of Mexico and returned to the Golden Triangle as a tropical storm and inundated Houston and the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange areas under 50 inches of rain.

Meanwhile, way out west, my hometown of Portland, Ore., had been choking in the midst of a cloud of smoke and ash blown in by that forest fire along Eagle Creek. The Columbia River Gorge has been scorched. The fire jumped the mighty Columbia River and has burned many more acres of tall timber in Washington.

Now it’s Hurricane Irma that’s devastating Florida after tearing through the Caribbean Islands region.

My wife and I worry greatly about our friends along the Texas coast from the Coastal Bend to the Golden Triangle; we worry more about family and friends affected by the Eagle Creek fire; now we worry about the handful of friends who live in Florida.

And, of course, we are praying for the safety of all those millions of Americans who have been stricken by all the savagery that has attacked them.

Somehow, in this context, Donald J. Trump’s ongoing troubles — ranging from his big mouth, his Twitter tirades, un-presidential conduct and “The Russia Thing” seem strangely inconsequential.

Hey, this moment will pass in due course. I know that. I am ready for it. For now, though, I intend to concentrate on the human suffering we’re all witnessing, along with a touch of “life experience” commentary thrown in for good measure.

Meanwhile, more prayers are on the way.

Sports news

J.J. Watt: early favorite for NFL Man of the Year

They played a professional football game in Houston today. The Houston Texans took the field against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

But this blog post isn’t about the game. It’s about the entrance of a single player.

The Texans’ defensive end J.J. Watt  entered the field carrying a Texas flag and he was greeted by a thunderous ovation. You see, Watt has been raising millions of dollars to aid in the recovery of his adopted hometown, Houston, which was inundated by floodwaters brought ashore by Hurricane Harvey.

I am not sure how much Watt has helped raise so far, but I believe it’s somewhere a good bit north of $15 million. He started the fundraising effort hoping to raise about $250,000.

There’s no stopping this young man. The Houston fans showed their appreciation the best way they could today. They offered full-throated cheers to a young man with a heart as big as the city and state that are saluting his effort to help Houston.

It remains my fond hope that as the Texans hit the road to other NFL cities that fans loyal to their home teams salute this young man appropriately, too.

I have a strong hunch that when the NFL hands out its post-season awards, J.J. Watt stands a good chance of being named the league’s Walter Payton Man of the Year.

He’s earned it.