Tag Archives: journalism

local news, media news

Can’t have too many issues

I have been blessed beyond measure to be able to do what I did professionally for nearly 37 years.

Damn near every day I went to work, I entered my place of employment with a smile on my face. There is, however, a paradox, given that the source of my smile was one of this nation’s most horrific episode. I refer to the 9/11 terror attacks on New York, on Washington and aboard the United Airlines jetliner that crashed into the Shanksville, Pa., field.

I can relate the paradox to 9/11 because since that fateful day, I became faced with an opinion page editor’s dream: having to decide which issue I can set aside for another day. In other words, I generally had more to comment on than otherwise.

Writer’s bloc? Didn’t happen since Sept. 11, 2001.

Where am I going with this post? I want to reiterate how much fun I had writing editorials and signed columns for two newspapers in Texas and in my home state of Oregon. I once thought that you couldn’t have “fun” while working for a paycheck. What in the name of serious discussion is wrong with that? Not a thing, I’ll tell you.

I always took my task each day with absolute seriousness. But not myself.

I guess that’s where the fun comes together. I wish the dwindling number of daily newspaper reporters and editors can grasp that work and fun can mean the same thing.

media news

Trump has ‘murdered’ ’60 Minutes’

At this very moment I am thinking of some of the titans of American broadcast journalism, men and women who sought the truth and told it to us without fear of recrimination.

You know who they are: Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley, Leslie Stahl, Bob Simon, Harry Reasoner, Morley Safer, Diane Sawyer, Dan Rather and now … Scott Pelley.

They all worked for “60 Minutes,” the premier TV news show that exposed everything — good and bad — about the government for which we pay. Pelley, a West Texas native, recently spoke aloud about the dangers of censorship and government overreach being inflicted by the Donald J. Trump administration, which seeks to control the news that’s being reported.

Pelley has lost his job at “60 Minutes,” along with reporters Cecelia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. This is a dark time for American journalism.

Pelley’s ouster hits me in a vaguely visceral way. I don’t know him, but I am good friends with a fellow West Texan who attended Texas Tech University with Pelley. My friend is now retired from journalism and he has told me a story or two about Pelley’s journey into the spotlight.

The First Amendment is supposed to guarantee a free and unfettered press. Congress “shall make no law” that seeks to control the media, the amendment declares. Trump has engineered the takeover of CBS News by MAGA-friendly execs. They have executed the removal of journalists they deem as threats to the POTUS. We are witnessing a disgraceful flouting of the very rights the First Amendment guarantees to maintin our representative democracy.

I just might join that movement to boycott CBS News.

media news

Found: a title for memoir

Some of you know already that I am working on a memoir that I intend to give to my immediate family.

I have some good news. First, I am making good progress on it. Most of it is drafted. I still have some more entries to include in the finished product.

Second, I have come up with a working title for it. I am calling it “My Life in Print.” Snappy, eh?

This memoir intends to chronicle all the people I met and some of the occasionally harrowing, but always zany, experiences I had during my nearly 37 years as a print journalist.

It started in Oregon, the state of my birth and where I lived for the first 34 years of my life. I took a couple of years away from home to serve my country in the Army, went to war for a time, came home and re-enrolled in college. Dad asked me what I wanted to study. I told him I didn’t know. He suggested journalism. Why? Because he said the letters I wrote from Vietnam were so “descriptive” that he thought I had a talent I needed to develop in college.

OK, so I enrolled in some journalism courses … and fell in love with the study and the craft.

My beloved late wife, Kathy Anne, proposed the idea of a memoir shortly after I left my craft behind in August 2012. So, I am writing it for her and for my sons, my daughter-in-law, my granddaughter, my sisters and anyone else who might want to know how I spent my days — and many nights too! — for more than three decades.

It is “My Life in Print.”

Now, I have to get busy.

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Retirement allows for mind expansion

As I ponder the direction my life is taking since retirement arrived nearly a dozen years ago, I am left to consider one of the benefits of all this free time.

It allows me to expand my mind.

My noggin had been cluttered and filled with daily responsibilities associated with putting out a newspaper every day. I spent nearly 37 years in various capacities as a print journalist. I was on deadline every one of those years. I started out as a sportswriter; I gravitated to a general assignment reporter; then I became an editorial writer; then I became the editor of an editorial page.

I held that last job description for more than 25 years before I was (more or less) shown the door on Aug. 31, 2012. I have enjoyed a grand time ever since. The final years of my journalism career became decidedly less “fun” than they were for the entire time preceding the final laps I took.

That was then. I have been liberated from the daily grind and have walked with my head held high into a new world that allows me to expand my noggin just a bit beyond where I thought it was possible.

Blogging has been a marvelous avocation for me to pursue. I am allowed to speak my mind without “bosses” setting boundaries for me to avoid crossing. I do follow the rules of good taste and I have avoided libeling anyone with my blathering about this and that.

All told, my new career as a blogger has been a mind-expanding experience. How much more expansion is in store for me? Hey, I’ll just presume the sky is the limit.

local news, media news

Memoir work ramps up

Because I have been making command decisions left and right, here’s another one for you to ponder.

I have decided to recommit to finishing a piece of work I’ve been toiling over for many years, a memoir I am writing for my family.

The memoir was my beloved bride’s idea. Kathy Anne told me I needed to memorialize the people and events in my career and give the finished product to our sons and their families. I began work on it some time back.

This week I added two more entries noting two individuals I whose paths I crossed while working as a print journalist for nearly 37 years. Then this morning, I took another step toward organizing my work.

I looked at the list of people and events I had penciled in and noted all those I had entered into my draft memoir. I counted those entries and learned that, by golly, I am about two-thirds of the way through my list.

Then again, more names pop into my noggin, usually without warning. So, I will add them, too, to the lengthy list of famous and infamous individuals I have been blessed or cursed to meet along the way.

Some of my friends have asked me if I intend to publish it. Hmm. I have thought about it and to be honest, I haven’t yet decided. There well could be enough text to fill a small paperback if I choose to go that route.

I had a joyous ride pursuing my craft. When Kathy Anne made the pitch to write it all down, I didn’t need persuading. I thought, “You know, I have met some fascinating individuals and the circumstances of those encounters themselves are worth remembering.”

I’m not entirely sure why I am sharing this with you. Maybe it’s my way of revealing how I plan to spend my time re-crafting my life into something entirely brand new.

I do want to share the ups and maybe even some of the downs I encountered while doing something I truly loved doing.

Wish me well …. please.

media news

Cynicism takes over

Far too many of my former journalism colleagues have conflated two terms in describing their reasons for becoming reporters.

They have told me they are “cynical” by nature and their “cynicism” makes them fit for the craft they pursued. I prefer another term in describing why we pursue that line of work.

That term is “skeptic,” or “skeptical,” or “skepticism.”

It’s easy to become cynical, particularly these days, when covering politics or reporting on policy decisions. I want to point y’all to the words and actions of the immediate past POTUS.

Skeptical reporters no doubt have grown cynical over the way the e-POTUS lies and is able to get away with it. Their task when covering this guy is to prevent their cynicism from infecting the tone of their coverage of his coming and going.

I offer the notion that it’s OK to look at what he says and the actions he takes with a huge dose of skepticism. It’s what good journalists always should do. Take it from me also that the world of journalism contains a many solid reporters who take seriously their pledge to cover their subjects fairly.

Even as they look with intense — but healthy — skepticism at what these pols are saying.

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Any regrets on this choice?

This question has come to me more than once over the many years of my life in Texas.

It goes something like this: Do you regret moving from Oregon to Texas, given the strange political climate that has overtaken the Texas political leadership?

My answer: Not one bit. Not for a single moment.

My wife and I forged a fabulous life in Texas, living in three distinct communities. We moved to the Golden Triangle in 1984 with our two young sons. We then relocated in 1995 across this vast state to the Texas Panhandle after our boys had left home to attend college. Then came the final move to the Metroplex to be near our granddaughter, who came along in March 2013.

We came to Texas to move my career forward. We succeeded. It was a bit of a leap of faith, given that I had lived virtually my entire life in Portland, except for two years I spent in the Army. Kathy Anne had spent the bulk of her life there, too.

My career enabled me to have a ringside seat to watch the Texas political climate change. My craft as an opinion writer and editor for two mid-sized — but solid — daily newspapers gave me an up-close look.

Now, to be sure I need to state that politics hasn’t swallowed me whole. I worked hard at my job at the Beaumont Enterprise and the Amarillo-Globe News. When I went home to my bride, I left the travails of the day behind.

I don’t object to the questions about the decision my wife and I made together to uproot ourselves from what we knew in Oregon to what we would discover in Texas. It’s understandable that some might wonder if I question the wisdom of that decision.

All told, our life in Texas has given us a great ride. Yes, I am still struggling to find my way along the rest of the journey alone, as my bride is now gone. I learned long ago that I am an adaptable creature who isn’t hidebound by old habits.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, once said “There’s more to life than politics.” He was speaking to me at the time … and I nodded in agreement.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Blog passes milestone

Boasting is not my forte, but I do feel the tug to brag … but only just a little.

High Plains Blogger just passed a significant milestone. My most recent post was the 601st consecutive day I have been able to post a commentary.

Don’t stand and applaud, please.

Just understand that writing this blog is important to me. I wrote opinions on all manner of issues for many years during my full-time career as a newspaper journalist. My career ended more than a decade ago, but my desire to keep writing has remained intact.

Therefore, I want to share this bit of good news … at least it’s good news to me.

I am asked on occasion: How do you write so often? The best answer I can find is: It’s what I do.

There is no special talent. I can’t identify any truly great work in all the items I have posted since I began writing this blog in 2009.

I simply take great joy in posting these musings. It keeps me alert. I intend to keep High Plains Blogger active for as long as I can string sentences together.

More good news? I am still willing and able.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

Reflections of good times

As I watch the media landscape buckle and change in real time before my aging eyes, I am thrown into wistful thoughts of how it used to be when I was a whole lot younger, full of piss and vinegar and wanting to make a difference in my world.

I don’t wake up a single day ever regretting the decision I made to pursue a career in print journalism.

The journey began with a conversation I had with my father at dinner shortly after I returned home from a tour in the Army. I was re-enrolling in school and Dad asked me about my major. He said I should pursue journalism because the letters I wrote home from overseas were so “descriptive” that he shared them with friends and family.

So … I marched down that road. I never looked back.

My career took me to four newspapers: two in Oregon and two in Texas. It enabled me to do things that not every human being can say they did. I met important people along the way. I sought to help bring policy changes in communities where I lived and worked. I had some modest success along the way.

These days, as politicians — particularly on the far right — declare the media to be the people’s enemy, I continue to look back with great pride at what I did, at who I angered (and the reasons for their anger) and whether I made a difference.

I made mistakes. No one’s perfect, as they say. I learned from each of them. I also learned about the communities I called home during my nearly 37 years pursuing a craft I loved with all the professional passion I could muster.

Two of the papers where I worked no longer exist; the Oregon Journal and the Oregon City Enterprise-Courier closed up in 1982 and 1988, respectively. The other two, the Beaumont Enterprise and the Amarillo Globe-News in Texas are mere ghosts of what they once were. I fear their presence in their respective communities might be ticking down rapidly.

It is not fun at all to watch this change chip away at formerly grand community institutions. It is inevitable nonetheless.

They took me on one hell of a great ride … and I will never, ever surrender the joy I had throughout that entire journey.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

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Battles waged over time

I fought many battles with readers of publications where I worked during my nearly 37 years as a full-time print journalist.

One kind of fight is what I want to highlight with this blog post.

Occasionally I would get caught between two extremists — one on the far right and the other on the far left. They would accuse me of being in cahoots with those on the “Other Side.”

It was a fight I was destined to lose every … single … time.

There was a physician in Beaumont who was an avid anti-abortionist. He thought — incorrectly, I must add — that because I was pro-choice on the issue that I was “pro-abortion.” Indeed, I have that squabble these days with some readers of this blog.

But back to my point … which is that the physician, who happened to be a pretty good writer, would submit articles for my consideration to appear on our opinion pages. I would submit them and would draw fire from pro-choice readers asking, “Why do you let that crackpot have any space on your page?” 

I would answer that his opinions are his alone and he is entitled to express them, as long as he doesn’t tell outright falsehoods. The doctor didn’t do that. Therefore, I would consider each piece on its merits and would determine whether they saw print.

I moved from Beaumont to Amarillo in January 1995 and found myself caught in the middle of a spat between two men, one of whom was a staunch Democratic Party activist, the other was an equally staunch religious leader who adhered to, um, a more conservative world view.

They both considered me to be the Spawn of Satan, for vastly different reasons. I was destined to be vilified by both of them. Get this, though: I actually was more dialed in to the lefty’s world view than the other gentleman. It’s just that my giving the righty any space in the paper was tantamount, in the lefty’s mind, to knuckling under to the other side.

I don’t really miss that kind of fight, now that I have stepped away from the daily grind. These days I am content to be a semi-retired blogger who dabbles now and then with covering community news for a group of weekly newspapers and for a public radio station.

I like it this way.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com