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25 June 2009
Chron adopts reader representative by committee, neglects to inform readers
Over the years, we've had some useful interaction with the Chronicle reader representative, the individual who received reader (customer) complaints and queries about the newspaper and at least tried to provide a response (if not resolution -- unlike their San Antonio Hearst sister paper, for example, the Chronicle never has liked to admit cases of staff plagiarism). We've at least appreciated someone who would answer questions about the newspaper (James Campbell was generally good about this; Steve Jetton and subsequent replacements, not so much).
For quite a while now, the reader representative has seemingly gone missing. Emails to the reader representative email address are not answered, and the reader representative blog has not been updated in some time. We were wondering if it was time to put the reader representative back on one of those "Missing" notices on milk cartons. Lone Star Timesman Matt Bramanti got to the bottom of the problem on twitter yesterday, when the Chronicle's Dwight Silverman admitted to him that the newspaper doesn't really have a reader representative any more:
@mattbramanti We don't have one reader rep. Senior editors are now responding directly to reader concerns.
Note the clever wording. He didn't say "directly to readers." And if you've emailed the Chronicle reader representative lately, you probably haven't gotten an email response. People we know generally don't (nor do we, but we are an un-blog to the Chronicle). We are told that support staff simply compile emails/phone messages to the reader representative daily and distribute the report to senior editors for perusal (we can't verify that because, well, our emails to the reader representative tend not to get a reply).
The Chronicle continues to act as if it has a single reader representative however, as Jim Newkirk's name is still listed in the e-edition (and presumably print editions) of the newspaper:
We're not sure we would have minimized what has effectively been a customer-service position at a time when so many customers are dropping the newspaper, but it seems especially strange for a newspaper to tell customers there is a reader representative when there isn't one.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader representative by committee, neglects to inform readers"> 06/25/09 08:15 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (6)
23 March 2006
Chron reader rep cracks on TMi page (again)
For the second time, the Houston Chronicle reader representative has publicly called out the newspaper's inane TMi page (in the STAR section) for questionable editorial judgment.
Here is what James Campbell wrote today, in the conclusion to his post about the decision to run a photo of full rear nudity on the TMi page yesterday:
On Wednesdays I dread turning to the page. Last Wednesday's page shows why.
In his earlier column, Campbell wrote that the newspaper gets "very little feedback on the page."
Today, Campbell wrote:
Readers of the print edition often complain about the page....
Frequent complaints would seem to be feedback of the sort that the newspaper doesn't want. Perhaps it's time for the Chronicle to do some market research to determine if that inane TMi page is at all attractive to subscribers (as opposed to the people who put it together and obviously intend it to be shocking, or self-fulfilling, or something). If somebody has done that research, perhaps it should be shared with the reader representative. Or perhaps *gasp* the Chronicle ought to consider listening to the complaints of its readers (and its reader representative).
We realize that last one might be tough for STAR journalists whose inclination is sometimes to lash out irrationally at readers, but it's just a friendly suggestion. Diversity is beauty, after all (even diversity of thought).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader rep cracks on TMi page (again)"> 03/23/06 01:19 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (12)
31 October 2005
Chron's Cohen breaks promise with readers
Way back on August 28, Chronicle reader representative James Campbell tried a gimmick on his struggling blog: Readers could submit questions for editor Jeff Cohen, and he'd post the replies "during the week of September 5."
Matt Bramanti at the Lone Star Times has been trying to get those questions answered ever since.
September slipped by. Now October is gone. We head into November tomorrow.
So Bramanti followed up with Campbell, who responded:
Well, since agreeing to do it, we’ve had two hurricanes and a World Series. I know he was close to finishing the questions I submitted to him but he got sidetracked by work.
Unlike the high-profile position of public editor at the New York Times, the Chronicle's reader representative position seems designed more as a PR position. One doesn't really envy the position of James Campbell, who frequently draws the task of defending the obnoxious (and sometimes indefensible). Still, this is pretty lame even by Chronicle reader representative standards.
Newspapers cover news. If the editor is too busy to answer questions about his newspaper because news has broken out, then he should never have promised to do so way back in August. Because the Chronicle's reader representative is oriented institutionally to putting positive PR spin on executive editorial decisions, Campbell can't really be expected to call his boss a phony over the matter.
But really, the only conclusions that can be drawn are that Jeff Cohen is a phony, and that following through on a promise to readers just isn't that big a priority to him.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ readers"> 10/31/05 08:45 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
16 March 2008
Chron reader rep: Online party pics much more important than actual news!
Here's a telling exchange between a Chronicle reader and the newspaper's little-seen reader representative:
READER: Do Chron editors read this column for suggestions/input? I would just like to mention that I do not enjoy the "party reports" that are featured on the front page. It seems that every day, or several times a day, the headlining online news is a picture of people in bars. I would like to see more news stories features, with articles written by your writers, rather than photo albums of barflies.
READER REP: Sorry, that's not going to happen. Whenever chron.com features one of those party reports, the traffic spikes like crazy. You appear to be one of the few readers that doesn't care for that coverage.
The second-rate newspaper frequently provides intelligent people with all sorts of reasons to mock it, but that crystal-clear statement of the local Hearst daily's online journalistic priorities ranks among the best.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader rep: Online party pics much more important than actual news!"> 03/16/08 09:27 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
30 September 2007
James Campbell is leaving the Chronicle
In his column today, the Chronicle's reader representative informs that he's moving on:
Next week will be my last at the Chronicle and as Readers' Representative (so, fire away or forever hold your abuse). I always wondered what this day would be like. In a week or so, I'll be stepping outside of the comfort zone I've known for more than 25 years as a journalist to begin a new career. It has not been easy grasping that.
Best wishes, James. You'll be missed.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 09/30/07 05:40 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
23 February 2007
Chron reader rep: STAR section "storytelling" not journalism
Some days, we can feel the pain of Chronicle reader representative James Campbell. It's particularly acute when the reader representative seemingly discovers that grownups are in short supply at his newspaper, like today:
For two weeks running, I riffed about Anna Nicole Smith in my Sunday About Chron column politely urging our editors and staff to resist the urge to overplay stories about this famous, but unimportant-in-the-big scheme miscreant.
[snip]
Apparently, no one heeded the RR's words because we invited incredulity with today's story about ANS. Not only was it old news and tawdry, it had no news value. Moreover, Smith's lesbian lover Sandi Powledge divulged the details of their love affair in a December 1999 story published in the Houston Press. It also appeared in other New Times publications.
A simple Google search easily would have unearthed the seven-year-old story, but apparently we did not bother to run Powledge's name through Google or Nexis/Lexis before deciding to devote almost an entire Star section page to old gossip.
So, let's do the accounting: Essentially, we overplayed an old story that is based on the word of one woman -- a self-admitted recovering drug addict who is homeless and jobless. On top of that, we did not credit the Press for breaking the "news" seven years ago.
Publishing this story today, created a new low for sloppy and embarrassing storytelling in our paper. (I purposely did not call it journalism because there is nothing in the story deserving of that characterization.)
That's the Chronicle's STAR section in action.
Interestingly, the reader representative had pledged just over a month ago that he was taking a break from the STAR section:
I'm also declaring a six-month moratorium on commenting about anything in the STAR section or its related associates, like the TMi page.
We had a feeling that was going to be a tough promise to keep for the reader representative.
BLOGVERSATION: Lone Star Times.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader rep: STAR section "storytelling" not journalism"> 02/23/07 09:17 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
15 January 2007
The reader rep returns!
We had been wondering what happened to the Sunday Chronicle's "About: Chron" column by reader representative James Campbell when, lo and behold, it returned this weekend. We were afraid that the big newspaper execs had discontinued the column, since the reader rep sometimes criticizes the newspaper.
Substantively, the column treated the newspaper's recent coverage of two shootings by HPD officers. Some astute reader sent Campbell the following email, which he posted to his blog today:
You've got guts to criticize de facto the Chron's editorial re: police shootings. My hat's off to you, James Campbell.
I bet the reader representative would deny that he was criticizing the editorial since he was quoting another reader in his Sunday column, but it did sort of read that way.
In today's blog post, Campbell also responded to justified criticism from readers about the decision to run a feature on older women who appear in "adult films."
Now the RR is hardly prudish but seeing the story, along with a photo of a suggestively-clad, 50-year-old wannabe woman porn actress did have me questioning our rationale and judgment for publishing the story. So per the reader's request, I asked the Features Department hierarchy who made the call to publish the story?
Deputy managing editor for features Kyrie O'Connor responded:
I think it was consensus.
Perhaps the better question should have been: "Why" did we publish it, particularly on a Sunday and did we think the story may have been not suitable for a "family newspaper".
You'd think some grownups at the newspaper might ask questions like that, yes. But maybe there are no grownups in the Features Department.
In any case, it's good to see Campbell churning out the columns and blog posts again!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader rep returns!"> 01/15/07 11:15 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
04 October 2004
Chronicle reader rep takes on trash
Houston Chronicle reader representative James T. Campbell gets rare column space today for an article on... a proposed Fondren Southwest trash transfer station?
No doubt, the trash transfer station is an important issue to folks who live in the area.
But at a time when the Chronicle is poised for layoffs and overall trust in the media is at historic lows, it seems an odd topic to assign the Chronicle's reader representative (as opposed to, say, a staff writer), whether it's in his back yard or not.
Other newspapers offer Campbell's equivalent a regular column to talk about editorial issues and to enlighten readers on editorial practices. I can't recall ever seeing Daniel Okrent or Michael Getler or David House getting space on the editorial page to complain about a trash facility in their respective neighborhoods.
It's a strange editorial decision even for the Chronicle.
Maybe it explains why I never got a followup to a question Campbell promised to answer for me but never did. Apparently, he was too busy researching trash to help me (and our readers) understand an editorial policy at his newspaper.
I know the Chronicle is a little shorthanded these days, but making the ombudsman moonlight on the trash beat seems a bit much.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader rep takes on trash"> 10/04/04 09:17 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
28 September 2004
James Campbell talks to a Virginia newspaper
Houston Chronicle reader representative James T. Campbell is quoted by Marvin Lake in a Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot commentary on the Dan Rather controversy:
Aside from damaged credibility, James T. Campbell, reader representative at the Houston Chronicle, sees another fallout from the CBS debacle.
“I think what will result is mainstream media, unfortunately, taking a more cautious approach to doing stories that may be remotely damaging to Bush or his administration.”
Interestingly, Campbell sees a “paradox at play here. People who consider themselves liberal may have some skepticism about the media in general, but had no problems with this particular story because they probably saw it as helping their candidate.
“Ultimately, any time you have a story like this blow up because of shoddy journalism or protectionism it hurts all of us. It means we must go the extra step to vet bias and safeguard our credibility.”
One way of safeguarding credibility is to be more responsive to readers and critics, via email and in print. Indeed, the writer of the column excerpted above is his newspaper's public editor, the equivalent of James T. Campbell's position at the Chronicle. Unlike Campbell, Lake actually has a column to communicate with readers about perceived problems at his newspaper, and in journalism more broadly. That's a good idea, one that even the New York Times adopted after years of holding out (the Blair scandal, of course, helped push them to that decision).
Campbell, in contrast, seemingly cannot be bothered to answer emails about his newspaper's editorial policies, even emails phrased in a polite and sympathetic manner. Nor does he have a regular column. Apparently, his function is to transmit complaints to the editorial board. One wonders if the Chronicle wouldn't be better served if their reader representative had a higher profile and greater authority to scrutinize editorial practices.
A tip of the hat to Rob Booth for catching this reference to Campbell in an unexpected place.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/28/04 05:57 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
03 October 2006
Stinking up the editorial page
On his Chron.com blog, reader representative James T. Campbell recounts the serious discussions that have taken place down at 801 Texas Avenue relative to the newspaper's use of the term "fart" in a headline on the editorial pages.
The Chief Editorial LiveJournalist James Howard Gibbons was apparently away, which may have contributed to the breakdown. Veronica Bucio, who once embarrassed herself and the newspaper by calling the U.S. Attorney General a liar, seems to have made the call to go with the stinky term, although she seems also to have consulted Leftover Specialist Andrea Georgsson and David Langworthy.
The reader representative does not indicate whether he was consulted before the headline was chosen, although he does express displeasure with it. More importantly, Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen didn't like it.
That begs the question -- why didn't someone think to ask Cohen his opinion before the headline was chosen. He is the editor after all.
But the weather has been really nice. It's entirely possible he was out on the links, with cell phone turned off. That's one of the perks of being the top dog at a newspaper with a spot on the fifth row in the White House press briefing room, we suppose.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/03/06 10:40 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
15 June 2008
Plagiarism at Hearst: A tale of two Texas newspapers
A few days ago, Bob Richter, the (not-invisible) public editor/ombudsman/reader representative of Hearst's San Antonio newspaper reported that one of the newspaper's columnists had resigned (no doubt under pressure):
“Ramiro [Burr] caused the Express-News to unknowingly publish work under his name that was not, in fact, his own work,” said Robert Rivard, editor of the Express-News.
“It was the work of at least one other writer who did not receive credit and who we did not know about. Ramiro decided on his own to resign just as our investigation was concluding and we were preparing to take appropriate action. We have a zero-tolerance policy whenever someone on our staff presents work as their own that is not their own.”
Richter has previously described the Express-News' zero-tolerance policy for plagiarism:
Express-News writers who plagiarize other writers' work typically are summarily fired. In an era when nearly anyone can publish nearly anything — on blogs, personal Web sites and the traditional ways — newspapers and media Web sites must be ever vigilant against plagiarism.
In contrast, at the Hearst daily in Houston, writers who have "borrowed" other writers' work with no consequences include a featured columnist and editorial writers, the editor doesn't seem to care, and the reader representative is an invisible man.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/15/08 09:08 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
24 June 2005
Chron's reader rep is blogging!
What a wonderful Friday afternooon surprise:
When I recently mentioned to a Chronicle colleague that I soon would be writing a blog titled About:Chron, he joked: "It's about time."
Yes, it is.
But more precisely, it's about the Houston Chronicle.
I've been the Chronicle's readers' representative for three years. During that time, I have received tons of interesting and fascinating questions and ideas from readers. Common questions relate to the weather page, redesign of the newspaper, bias, comics, sports coverage, politics and photos.
We appreciate it, even the complaints. The feedback helps us to understand and better serve you.
About:Chron will be an extension of that communication.
Also there's a new nightlife blog, called "bar tab."
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: At the start of the year, we threw out some suggestions for improving the Chronicle. Here's #2:
The reader rep should have more authority and more impact
One can't help but suspect that the job of reader rep/ombudsman at most newspapers -- and certainly the Chronicle -- is a thankless task, for the person must take all sorts of grief from readers, without possessing any real power to fix any but the most egregious problems/errors.
That's unacceptable. We think Jeff Cohen should boost James T. Campbell's authority considerably at the newspaper, and give him a regular column (or even better, a blog) to address reader concerns and criticisms.
I've had a fair number of email conversations with Campbell about problems this blog has found at the newspaper, and he's been professional and responsive. That said, the newspaper would probably benefit if that process were much more transparent. To that end, Campbell should have a column and blog where he regularly addresses reader complaints, and the Chronicle's responses (because sometimes, reader complaints are not legitimate).
The Chronicle deserves credit for this smart move.
Welcome to the blogosphere, Mr. Campbell!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ reader rep is blogging!"> 06/24/05 07:07 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (4)
25 June 2006
Chron reader rep defends Spanish sports section, rips critics' motives
James Campbell, the Chronicle's reader representative, has an odd column today in which he basically attributes racist/nativist motives to those who question why the city's only English-language daily insists on taking up valuable sports-page real estate by duplicating stories in Spanish:
The phone calls and e-mails are predictable. They come in bunches every time we publish a story in Spanish. In recent weeks, I've received dozens of calls and e-mails decrying in vitriolic terms the Chronicle's publishing a daily World Cup page in Spanish.
One doesn't have to scratch far beyond the surface to know that the complaints are more about the contentious illegal immigration debate in this country than about Spanish in the Chronicle. The page of Spanish is but a convenient reason to complain, like voicemail that instructs the caller to "press one for English" and "two for Spanish."
"Why do you print sport pages in Spanish?" an e-mailer wrote. "If you are in this country legally you understand English. By printing anything in Spanish you are pandering to the illegals who refuse to learn English. ENGLISH ONLY, PLEASE. ... "
We consider and take seriously all complaints, comments and observations about the editorial content of the newspaper. Protest about stories published in Spanish, however, is a particularly sensitive matter because it goes to where people are politically and culturally.
I'm sure that some of the people who wrote to Mr. Campbell are racist/nativist types, but it's also not that hard to figure out that Spanish-language content in the only English-language metro daily displaces English-language content, thereby making the paper of less value to English-language readers. Maybe that's a smart business decision for Hearst (which already puts out a Spanish-language weekly product). Maybe it's not. But for the newspaper's reader representative to paint people who might criticize the decision as racists/nativists seems like a stretch. Not to mention intolerant.
BLOGVERSATION: Greg's Opinion, Blue Bayou.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader rep defends Spanish sports section, rips critics' motives"> 06/25/06 04:09 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (13)
06 April 2005
Catching up on a non-correction
As we point out from time to time, the Chronicle correction policy is a regular source of confusion (and amusement).
On 26 March, we called attention to a glaring error in a column by R.G. Ratcliffe, and I also forwarded the error to the Chronicle reader representative so he could present it to whoever decides corrections at the newspaper.
Apparently, whoever decides such matters didn't agree with our assessment of error, as here is the response that the reader representative sent me last week (my internet was down during my move, hence the delay posting):
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/06/05 08:48 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
29 October 2007
Chron reader rep addresses election coverage
Steve Jetton, the Chronicle's interim reader representative, posts a reader's criticism of the newspaper's election coverage thus far (specifically, coverage of the constitutional amendments), and then responds as follows:
The Chronicle has written numerous articles about the amendments, including this round-up by Austin Bureau Chief Clay Robison that appeared on Oct. 21 and which I e-mailed to this reader.
Dean Betz, Online Content Director, said the Chronicle is partnering with E The People to produce an online voters guide that should be up and running by early next week. It will be available on chron.com's Politics page.
Tony Freemantle, Metro Editor, said a package of advance election stories will run in print in the City/State section on the Sunday before election day. And of course the paper will have continuing coverage of ongoing developments in political races right up until Nov. 6.
The Chronicle's election coverage has been better this time around, which is a positive development. However, as noted in the comments of Jetton's blog, both Betz and Freemantle seemed to miss the reader's point. Early voting started last week. An online voter's guide or package of stories that appears just before next Tuesday isn't much help to people who vote early. The newspaper understandably needs to fill print space with election-related stories right up until the traditional election day, but an online voter's guide that doesn't precede early voting isn't much of an online voter's guide.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader rep addresses election coverage"> 10/29/07 08:11 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
07 October 2008
Chron editorialist gets early start on endorsements
The Harris County Clerk's website has new campaign finance filings posted (which we like!).
David Mincberg's latest report (PDF download) is interesting. If a person clicks onto page 18, the name Andrea Georgsson turns up. Georgsson gave Mr. Mincberg $250.
Georgsson lists her occupation as "writer" for none other than the Houston Chronicle.
That's not untrue, but more specifically, she is on the editorial board for the newspaper (readers may recall she is a passionate advocate for abortion and leftover adoption).
Presumably, she will participate in the editorial board's interviews of both candidates for Harris County Judge, and will help determine the editorial board's endorsement. It is thought that she writes many of the editorials on county affairs for the board, although it is impossible to know with certainty since they are unsigned.
Do you think Georgsson will recuse herself from the process, since she already is openly supporting a candidate? Do you think she'll let the candidates and her fellow editorial board members know of her donation (err, we guess we pre-empted her)? Do you think the Chronicle should allow its editorial board members to support candidates in partisan elections, even though editorial board members are charged with screening those candidates for the public?
It doesn't seem like a very good idea to me, and many news organizations have rules against such behavior. This afternoon, I emailed old reader rep Steve Jetton and new reader rep Jim Newkirk about this discovery, and asked about the Chronicle policy and how it intended to proceed with the screening/endorsement process for Harris County Judge. This evening, Jetton emailed that "We're looking into the situation."
One should hope so. The question is, what will the newspaper DO about the situation.
Incidentally, Georgsson also gave $250 to Barack Obama's campaign a few months ago.
UPDATE (10/12/08): Rorschach notes another possible ethical lapse by Georgsson. The Chronicle editorial board's credibility is really suffering. Perhaps one day soon the reader rep(s) will be done "looking into the situation" and the newspaper will announce some plan to deal with the problem.
UPDATE (10/13/08): The Chronicle reader representative(s) continue to ignore repeated email followups from me asking what steps are being taken to restore integrity to their candidate endorsement process. It is a bizarre thing for a newspaper to have a reader representative charged with interacting with readers and for said reader representative to refuse to answer substantive questions about the newspaper.
UPDATE (10/14/08): The Chronicle's Steve Jetton finally answered repeated email queries with this non-substantive response:
A Chronicle editorial writer made political campaign contributions that she regrets. We’ve dealt with it internally and appreciate your concern.
I KNOW she made contributions, as we pointed out. Apparently, the Chronicle has gone into the bunker, and doesn't intend to tell readers what it has done to try to restore its credibility.
Therefore, we can only conclude that readers should ignore the Chronicle's unethical and deceptive editorial board on any musings it might offer on candidates or county politics, since it is impossible to regard the board as a fair, uninvolved commentator on such matters.
BLOGVERSATION: Unca Darrell (and more), Brazosport News, Red Ink: Texas, Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Lone Star Times (and more), Hair Balls.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/07/08 09:50 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (24)
26 October 2004
The Tulsa World likes James T. Campbell
My good friend and current Tulsa resident David Hamby emails the following news:
Your Houston Chronicle reader representative had a column reprinted in Sunday's World. It was about the feud between Eminem and Michael Jackson. Hard-hitting stuff. Glad to see that he's branched out from covering waste management issues.
I'm pleased to hear he's a hit with the editors of the Tulsa World, but I wish the editors here in town would give him a bit more authority as ombudsman to correct some of that newspaper's problems.
Readers may be surprised to hear that I'm actually starting to warm to Mr. Campbell. We hope to interview him in the near future, if Jeff Cohen will let him talk to us on the record.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/26/04 07:07 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
25 July 2005
Chronicle's "final solution" a stunningly bad choice
Matt Bramanti properly condemns the Chronicle editorial board's use of the term "final solution" in today's editorial about Israel and the Gaza Strip.
Bramanti's post further informs that reader representative James T. Campbell is looking into it.
What is there to look into?
There's really no good explanation for such a truly unfortunate choice of words in an editorial about Israel.
Maybe it will prompt another blog entry from Mr. Campbell, like the one on "gypped" a couple of weeks ago.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/25/05 08:53 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
09 May 2005
Campbell on Cosby's conversation
Chronicle reader representative James T. Campbell pens a column on Bill Cosby, who will be visiting Houston next week:
Cosby is attempting to fundamentally change the approach that lower income and poor minorities use to overcome their circumstances. No one of his status has endeavored to take on this very critical paradigm shift. But whether you live in River Oaks or the Fifth Ward, helping the city's underclass to overcome its condition ultimately will benefit us all. The conversation with Bill Cosby is but a starting place. Where it will end is anyone's guess.
Cosby will be speaking at Texas Southern University on Monday, May 16. More information is available here.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/09/05 09:56 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
01 April 2008
Dangerous time/place/behavior update (04/01/2008)
Courtesy of KTRK-13 comes this dangerous time/place/behavior update from yesterday:
DeChaumes Elementary School parents are on alert tonight after the school principal telephoned to warn them about the attempted abduction of a student on a city street Monday.
An 11-year-old boy reported he was walking to DeChaumes Elementary Monday at about 7:45am when a man grabbed him, threw him to the ground and ripped his shirt. The student was not harmed, and he ran away a short distance back to a home on Rittenhouse street where he notified family members. After receiving the report, HISD Police immediately increased patrols in the area of the school.
Principal Sandy Gaw contacted 349 homes before DeChaumes students were dismissed this afternoon to warn parents about the attempted abduction. HISD Police are searching for the suspect.
The suspect is described as an African American male wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans. The student said the man who attacked him is 5'11" to 6' feet tall, between 35 and 40 years old, weighs 160 to 175 pounds and has black hair. The student said he saw the man driving a black four-door Cadillac from the model years 1991 to 1995.
You should add "walking to school, about 7:45 in the morning, near DeChaumes Elementary School" to the list of dangerous time/place/behavior situations to avoid, if you don't want to become a crime victim in Houston.
Incidentally, anyone notice anything interesting about this coverage in the Chronicle?
The alleged abductor is described as 5 feet 11 inches to about 6 feet tall. He is between 35 and 40 years old and weights 160 to 175 pounds. He has black hair. The student told police he saw the man driving a black four-door Cadillac from the model years 1991 to 1995.
Leaving aside the typo ("weights" instead of "weighs"), the Chronicle appears to go out of its way to remove any mention of race, even though it is part of a physical description (credit to Polimom for the catch). Recall that the Chronicle's former reader representative James Campbell previously downplayed criticism of such Chronicle shenanigans, contending that including racial information in such descriptions might lead to "racial scorekeeping."
Unfortunately, with Campbell's departure from the newspaper and the ongoing downsizing, the current Chronicle reader representative has not continued the reader representative column, rarely posts to the About:Chron blog, and rarely responds to blog comments/emails, so we don't expect him to have anything useful to say about this silly practice of the newspaper. In fact, we're not quite sure why the newspaper even bothers with the pretense of having an ombudsman (because Jeff Cohen could just as easily avoid critical phone calls with a good secretary and/or voicemail system).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/01/08 11:59 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (1)
13 October 2004
A forthcoming correction
Yesterday, I emailed Chronicle reader representative James Campbell and letters editor Judy Minshew regarding that letter containing an inaccurate assertion about Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal that ran earlier in the week.
Today, both Campbell and Minshew emailed separately to indicate that the assertion in the letter was wrong, and that a correction would be issued.
I'll update this post with the correction when it appears.
(10-14-2004 Update) Here is the correction:
Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal now supports an independent investigation of the Houston Police Department's crime lab. His position was incorrectly stated in a letter to the editor on Page B6 of Monday's City & State section.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/13/04 10:38 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
15 September 2005
Notable changes at the Chronicle
A couple of changes at the Chronicle merit an announcement.
First, the newspaper is going to run a regular Sunday column from reader representative James T. Campbell. The first column ran this past Sunday. In this recent post, Campbell also promises to give more attention to his blog, which he admits has suffered from periods of neglect. Campbell encourages readers to interact with him, and I encourage folks to take advantage of the fact that the Chronicle has made its reader rep more prominent (which we encouraged in this old post) and available. I'd further encourage folks to be polite, and to remember that he's not the editor of the newspaper, but the guy who can carry your criticism to reporters/editors if he thinks it's warranted.
Second, Dwight Silverman has been bumped from his position as online news editor to interactive journalism editor. Silverman has been instrumental in the development of Chron.com's blogs, not to mention the online edition's significant development as a news entity. The Houston Chronicle is much more than the traditional fishwrap these days in no small part because of Silverman's work with Chron.com. Here's hoping his new position leads to even bigger things.
CLARIFICATION (09-16-2005): When I used the term "bumped," I meant to convey a bump up, and certainly didn't mean to connote or denote anything negative. As the linked post from Silverman makes abundantly clear, he views the new title and responsibilities highly positively, as do I. My apologies if my language was at all unclear on that.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/15/05 10:47 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
02 October 2005
It's not a Pulitzer, but it's something
The Chron's Religion section has won an award:
The Houston Chronicle has won the Religion Newswriters Association's Schachern Award for the best religion section among newspapers with circulations over 100,000.
The Chronicle was among five national finalists for the award.
"In a fresh way this section consistently offers its readers a wide variety of religious and ethics stories," the contest judges said. "Every section was compelling. Clear, inviting writing was a hallmark. ... Nothing is ho-hum. Readers shouldn't let Saturdays go by in Houston without visiting this section."
Actually, I started letting my Saturdays go by without reading the section soon after I started taking the Chronicle. But that's just me; I'm sure many loyal readers -- literally dozens of them* -- enjoy the fresh and compelling writing found in the Chron's Religion section.
* borrowed from the irrepressible Matt Bramanti.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/02/05 11:23 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
22 October 2008
Chron editorial board fritters away last vestiges of credibility
Over at Lone Star Times, Matt Bramanti documents the latest embarrassment for the unethical Houston Chronicle editorial board: presenting large chunks of a press release as their own work.
Bramanti concludes:
It’s a shame that the Chron’s editors celebrate education by taking another’s words and passing them off as their own. There’s a word for that.
Yes there is. In addition, it's lazy and unprofessional.
In recent weeks, the Chron editorial board has been caught donating money to political candidates, has refused to answer questions about the ethical transgressions, and just when you think their credibility really can't decline any further, they prove that it can by plagiarizing from a press release.
This is not the sort of behavior one would expect from professionals at a major daily newspaper (although since columnist Rick Casey once plagiarized with no repercussions, one can understand why some writers at the newspaper wouldn't worry that much about it, especially Jeff Cohen's pets).
We can't help but wonder -- if these "professionals" can't even manage to craft original words for two editorials* per daily edition, why shouldn't the editorial page simply be terminated and the resources redistributed through the newsroom?
Bramanti has an email out to the Chron's reader representative(s) about this, and so do I. Since said reader representatives refuse to answer my emails or approve my comments to their blog, I'm not holding my breath waiting for a response. But I'll post it if they surprise me.
* On occasion, the editorial page still runs those insipid "Another Voice" reprints from other newspapers in place of a house editorial. Maybe they could just start posting press releases too?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/22/08 11:48 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
16 December 2005
Chron reader rep: We blew Iraqi election story
Chronicle reader representative James Campbell is unusually, bluntly critical of his newspaper today:
We blew it on the story about the elections in Iraq. Instead of playing the story about how many Iraqis voted on Page One, where it should have been, we placed it on page A23.
We opted to put on Page One above the fold stories about President Bush's agreement to support a proposal by Sen. John McCain to ban the torture of foreign prisoners in U.S custody and a story about the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' reconsideration of its opinion to overturn the conviction of a woman in connection with the 1999 death of her infant son.
We completed Page One with stories about the body of a missing Fort Bend County girl found in the Brazos River, one about Hispanic literacy and another about President Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States suspected of ties to terrorists.
We earned charges of bias today. We didn't even refer Page One readers to the inside story about the elections in Iraq, which for many readers was the biggest news of the day.
The Chronicle earned charges of bias, yes, but even worse, the Chronicle definitely earned charges of being a horrible NEWS source. That last is far more damning.
We frequently suggest that the Chronicle editors (executive and line) are a major weakness, and simply don't seem like an intellectually curious or ideologically diverse bunch. Dropping the Iraq election story on Page 23 in favor of a page-one story about Hispanic literacy and a page-one story designed to make the President look bad while selling a new book by the author only drives the points home.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ reader rep: We blew Iraqi election story"> 12/16/05 10:20 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
26 June 2007
A conservative columnist for the Chronicle?
Chronicle reader representative James Campbell follows up on the news of Cragg Hines' retirement with this interesting blog tidbit today:
I spoke with Chronicle editorial page editor James Howard Gibbons who said he wants to hire a local conservative columnist to put in the mix of staff columnists. Stay tuned for more details.
That would be quite a development, if Gibbons actually follows through.
Still, we'd settle for a web-savvy columnist who might be willing to shake things up a little -- say, this guy or this guy. They both have journalism backgrounds, after all, and newspapers like that. Plus they're wicked writers (and I like that).
If you have any suggestions for the Chronicle, feel free to leave a comment on Campbell's blog.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/26/07 09:25 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (8)
19 July 2006
Chronicle, Express-News to merge Austin bureaus
The San Antonio Express-News announces a merger of sorts between its Austin bureau and the Chronicle's:
The Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News are combining their state government bureaus in Austin, effective immediately, in an effort to dramatically expand original reporting and investigative efforts -- in print and online.
The move combines the Chronicle's four statehouse reporters with the three reporters from the Express-News to create a seven-person bureau that will illuminate issues in state government, provide insight into how decisions are made in Austin and investigate the use of public money in Texas.
Chronicle Bureau Chief Clay Robison will serve as chief of the combined operation; Express-News Bureau Chief Peggy Fikac will become deputy bureau chief. Chronicle reporters R.G. Ratcliffe, Janet Elliott and Polly Hughes will also be part of the new bureau, as will Express-News reporters Lisa Sandberg and Gary Scharrer.
“We welcome the opportunity to align more closely with our sister newspaper,” said Jeff Cohen, editor of the Houston Chronicle. “This merger will allow us to effectively double the resources we use to report on state government.”
This is potentially a good move for both Hearst dailies, which should be able to deliver more comprehensive, focused coverage of Austin and Texas politics as a result. It would also have been a good opportunity for the Chronicle to move Clay Robison to the editorial page exclusively and let Fikac run the news operation in Austin. Now, both newspapers are in the awkward position of their Austin bureau chief serving as a lefty Sunday editorial commentator on the people he allegedly covers objectively during the week, a situation that the Chronicle's own reader representative has criticized.
Next, Hearst might consider consolidating its Washington, D.C. operations. The Chronicle's D.C. bureau manufactures news from Washington seemingly as often as it breaks news, but perhaps a merged, comprehensive Hearst operation in D.C. could produce better work. Who knows, the merged operation might even rank a more prominent position than the Chronicle's fifth-row seat in the White House briefing room (with other major regional papers, as Julie Mason put it).
UPDATE: KHOU-11 posts AP coverage of the move. The Chronicle still has no coverage that I can find.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/19/06 08:01 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
23 September 2006
The mayor's press shop won't like this
A Chronicle story related to Houston's illegal-immigrant cop killer contains a strong condemnation of HPD's sanctuary directive from U.S. Rep. Ted Poe (R):
U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, said the shooting highlighted the need to tighten the borders and beef up enforcement of immigration laws.
"We know that 25 homicides a day are committed by people who are illegally in the country and this is one more," he said.Poe said police officers should have the authority to arrest people in the country illegally. He said Houston is viewed as a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.
"The city of Houston has created an atmosphere that it's a sanctuary for illegals," Poe said. "They knew that, and that's why they go to Houston."
If KTRK-13's experience is any indicator, we're guessing Chronicle reader representative James Campbell has already been on the receiving end of complaints by the mayor's communications staff that HPD's sanctuary directive isn't really a sanctuary directive.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/23/06 01:51 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
07 January 2009
Are you going to miss Whitney Casey when she's gone?
The Chronicle's reader representative has resurfaced in 2009, and offers this look into the inner workings of the newspaper's Star section, courtesy of a reader email and the reader rep's followup:
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 7:22 PM
Subject: Whitney Casey's PhotosThe assortment of come-hither poses that accompany "columnist" Whitney Casey's offerings weaken the credibility of her articles. I believe she has the incorrect job if what she wanted, instead, was to be a "pin up" girl.
In addition, it makes it appear she is using her position to find a relationship of her own. I don't believe the Chronicle has the duty to assist her. Indeed, other columnists' photos rarely change, even if they need to be updated.
Jim's Response: I went straight to Kyrie O'Conner, Chronicle deputy managing editor/features, on this. This is what she had to say: "It was our choice, not Whitney's to run a larger (and changing) photo with her column. She happened to have some new photos and given the nature of her column, we thought they went with it."
If it's dumbed down and trashed up, one might guess Kyrie O'Connor was involved.
The Houston Press blog Hairballs was documenting the rotating glamor photos way back in October 2008, though, so that's not entirely new.
What is new is the Star section's efforts in promoting Casey's new book. Here's a sampling:
Whitney Casey hit a snag in her plan for finding a man.
It seems that interviewing 250 men and writing an advice book, The Man Plan: Drive Men Wild – Not Away, on how catch a fellow’s attention, left her a little too much in the know for one potential date, who was scared off by Casey’s mastery of the tricks of the trade.
“The Man Plan is ruining my man plan,” Casey said.
Not that the blond, 6-foot former TV journalist — she hosted Great Day Houston and now writes a relationship column in the Houston Chronicle — has trouble catching eyes.
But after a year of finagling a book deal, then researching and writing it, Casey finds herself touting The Man Plan nationally, with a heart on the mend. She recently broke up with her doctor boyfriend.
A while back, O'Connor posted "You're going to miss us when we're gone" in reference to continuing problems in the print newspaper industry.
The metro and state desks? Absolutely.
Rotating glamor shots and related columnists/articles? Not so much.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/07/09 10:09 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
18 January 2006
Flawed Chron/Murray/Stein survey continues to draw attention (updated)
David Benzion posts that Dr. David Hill of Hill Research Consultants was interviewed yesterday by Fox News (national) about the flaws in that poll on Tom DeLay that the Chronicle rushed to the field following a spate of bad press for DeLay.
Benzion shares some of the points made by Dr. Hill in his blog post, and suggests that the interview may get some play on Special Report with Brit Hume today. Hill is a nationally respected pollster from The Woodlands.
Hill's critique comes after Chris Wilson of Wilson Research Strategies criticized elements of the survey and the Chronicle's characterization of the results on Edd Hendee's morning program on KSEV-700 yesterday.
As Chris Elam notes, some of the most useful, detailed criticism in print so far has come from Evan at DeLay vs World (with some further discussion here). Unfortunately, that's off the radar of some bigshot national bloggers. That's okay. We're more than happy to help with your hyperlocal blogging needs.
UPDATE: Benzion posts a sneering response by the Chronicle's main Editorial LiveJournalist, James Howard Gibbons, to a Jack Rains email to the Chronicle editorial page. As we've seen lately, emotions seem to be getting the best of some editors at the Chronicle lately.
UPDATE 2: Dr. Hill was not on the Brit Hume show. I don't know what happened.
Evan at DeLay vs World posts more thoughts on the flaws in the Chron/Murray/Stein survey. And make no mistake -- the combination of the poll's methodology and the subsequent interpretation is deeply flawed.
And the Chronicle reader representative completely ignores legitimate criticism of the survey that has been raised by two pollsters who actually make a living at doing political polling (instead of doing it as a hobby while teaching), as well as several blogs. Instead, the Chronicle reader representative posts DeLay campaign emails as indicative of the criticism of the flawed Chronicle/Murray/Stein survey, and posts a "rebuttal" from a Chronicle political editor that isn't a rebuttal at all (and actually makes the Chronicle look more clueless). That's deceptive.
Murray and Stein need either to admit their survey is flawed, or answer their critics. We're not their undergraduates. They can't just tell us to go away because they are (self-)important people with tenure. Both the Chronicle and these academics owe the critics of this flawed survey an explanation of why they think the critics are wrong, or an admission that the critics have a point.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/18/06 01:50 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (5)
20 February 2005
Chron letters: Revisiting an old problem
Normally, we don't have much to say about the letters that appear in the Chronicle. However, it does occasionally raise an eyebrow when the newspaper decides to publish letters with inaccurate facts or dubious assertions, as we've pointed out before.
On Wednesday, a blogHOUSTON reader called my attention to one such letter that appeared in the newspaper. Here is the text:
Why Dems left party
Phil Beeson's Feb. 14 letter, "It won't be Dean's personality," pointed out that in the 1960s many Democrats abandoned the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party did some repositioning of itself. But this shift had nothing to do with socialism or overtaxation.I have found that those who shifted parties agree with Democratic programs such as Social Security and Medicare. They also agree with the Democratic Party's environmental policies.
However, they also find the Democratic Party to be associated with and supportive of racial and ethnic minorities. This sole issue drove them out of the party. The Republican Party has used these prejudices to dominate politics in the South.
RICHARD MANNING
Houston
As I read that letter, Mr. Manning is asserting that the SOLE ISSUE that explains Republican ascendance in the South is that the party is racist and has exploited racial prejudice in the South. Of course, I was curious as to why a responsible newspaper would choose to print such a dubious assertion, so I emailed the reader representative and Judy Minshew, the letters editor, the following on Wednesday afternoon (I attached the letter in question, which I am omitting here):
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/20/05 06:07 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
28 December 2005
Did Rep. Vo have too much Moonbat Juice with the egg nog?
Laurence Simon calls attention to recent remarks and writings by state rep. Hubert Vo (D), as reported by the Houston Chronicle:
A Houston lawmaker is urging University of Texas officials to reconsider last week's decision to ban an Asian American-interest fraternity whose members were involved in hazing the night freshman member Phanta "Jack" Phoummarath drank himself to death.
Rep. Hubert Vo wrote UT President Larry Faulkner last week that the university should consider alternative punishments such as probation, community service or alcohol abuse training for the members of Lambda Phi Epsilon, rather than canceling the registration of the entire group.Group punishment, Vo said, is unfair and could send the wrong message to the Asian community by destroying an important social and support network for Asian students, many of whom are children of immigrants and first-generation college students.
Vo said Tuesday his concern has nothing to do with race and that he doesn't expect Asians to get special treatment at UT.
It's not about race, it's just about Asians. Sure, Rep. Vo. Way to be consistent.
Most universities have adopted strict policies against hazing by affiliated student organizations, especially hazing involving alcohol. A student organization that breaks those policies AND winds up with a dead student certainly isn't an organization that deserves to keep any affiliation with the university. And it's CERTAINLY not an organization that parents should entrust with providing "an important social and support network" for Asian or any other students.
I would suspect Vo was misquoted, except for the fact that the reporter apparently paraphrased from a letter he wrote. Thus, I have to agree with Laurence Simon that it simply appears our fine local state representative has been drinking the Moonbat Juice.
As an aside, it seems as if this story obsesses an awful lot over race in a newspaper whose reader representative says race really doesn't matter all that much. Whatever.
RELATED: Hubert Vo, frat man (Isolated Desolation).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/28/05 10:12 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (1)
03 December 2006
While they're at it...
Chronicle reader representative James Campbell comments today on Chron editors who apparently decided to play marketers with the newspaper's front page:
The photo of model Alexandra Kelly that nearly covered Page One of last Sunday's early edition Chronicle was strikingly elegant and aptly symbolic of the story it announced about defying age.
The problem was, Kelly was nude, her privates covered only by the positioning of her arms and legs and an artistic back shadow. The stylishly tasteful photo was more befitting the cover of an upscale women's magazine than Page One of the Chronicle, some readers protested.
Eh, we think it's brilliant marketing actually.
When your content is of questionable value, go for more graphics!
In fact, we'd suggest replacing at least half of the content on the editorial page with "stylishly tasteful" skin shots. That should attract some readers. And it would be at least as interesting as James Howard Gibbons' personal diaries or Andrea Georgsson's leftover adventures!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/03/06 09:52 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (8)
10 September 2006
While the Chron librarian is fixing some spelling errors...
The Chronicle reader representative today describes the Chronicle's efforts to make sure a name is spelled right in the newspaper archives:
We've misspelled the name of Beyoncé's dad a lot. We did it again recently, prompting this missive from Melissa Aguilar, assistant managing editor of the Features Department: "Mathew Knowles spells his name with one t ... It's wrong in today's Star section. It's a name that we see all the time, so let's all memorize it."
Curious about just how many times we've misspelled it, I asked the ever reliable Chronicle librarian Sherry Adams. She found that, "we've spelled it Matthew about 26 times, or almost a quarter of the time when we've used his name. I've corrected 26 stories dated from Nov. 11, 1990 (a pre-Destiny's Child feature about the Knowles' Christmas celebration) to July 31, 2006. We've run 77 stories with it spelled correctly, dated from Aug. 24, 1997 to Sept. 5, 2006."
The newspaper still hasn't corrected this editorial that misspelled Warren Buffett's name repeatedly. Erroneous editorial page items seem to take much longer to correct than other errors.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/10/06 08:36 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (4)
23 June 2007
Chron D.C. columnist Hines to retire next month
Yesterday, MediaBistro's Fishbowl DC reported that Chronicle columnist Cragg Hines is retiring:
FishbowlDC has learned that Houston Chronicle Washington columnist (and former Houston Chronicle D.C. Bureau Chief) Cragg Hines is retiring after 35 years with the paper. A Gridiron fixture, Hines has become one of the great Washington monuments in the journalism community. He is leaving at the end of July.
Chronicle reader representative James Campbell confirmed the news in response to my email query last night.
In light of this news, maybe the Houston-area Coven will have a retirement party for Mr. Hines next Saturday (we can also celebrate Vernon Guy and the rest of our 300-comment club). Details to follow shortly.
So, will Hines be replaced, and will the Chronicle finally hire a moderate-to-conservative columnist to balance its stable of lefties? Or will Jeff Cohen consider shuttering that irrelevant D.C. Bureau altogether?
ANNE LINEHAN ADDS: Awwww, we're going to miss Cragg. Will his famous fur coat end up in the Smithsonian, seeing as how he's a "Washington monument"?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/23/07 12:54 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (12)
27 September 2005
(HISD) school employees drove evacuees home from shelters
We told you the other day about HISD providing the city with last minute shelters and then HISD driving over 400 of those evacuees back to where they came from. Yesterday Matt Stiles wrote a story about the mayor's last-minute shelter plan and, well, read on:
But at least 400 remained later Saturday at Delmar Stadium Fieldhouse, a domed structure on Mangum road, as school district officials and the American Red Cross decided what to do with them.
They expressed mixed emotions as they waited in the dim, hot high school gymnasium.
A few, interviewed before HISD officials ordered a Chronicle reporter and photographer out of the facility, were grateful they were spared weathering the storm outdoors.
Others felt abandoned at the crowded site, saying they didn't know when they would leave or where they would go.
"These aren't affluent people, and they were treated with less respect than they should have," said Beaumont evacuee Dennis Daniels.
He pointed to people wearing bandages or sitting in wheelchairs, waiting outside the building in the early afternoon as the weather altered between sunshine and drizzle.
He and others at the site said those people had been brought to the shelter on Metropolitan Transit Authority buses from Ben Taub General, the city's largest charity hospital.
Hospital officials said they just couldn't take them all in.
"We were inundated with people who came to Ben Taub thinking it was a shelter," said Carol Oddo, Harris County Hospital District spokeswoman. "No one was discharged from the hospital who wasn't ready to go."
Others at the shelters, officials said, had been stranded on freeways in disabled cars or found wandering the streets in the hours before the storm came ashore.
[snip]
So school employees drove people around the city, dropping them off at their desired locations after clearing out the facility.
School employees? Which school employees? Oh! It must've been HISD school employees!
So let me see if I have this straight: the city's last-resort shelter plan was HISD, and then after directing people to those facilities, the city didn't make sure the last several hundred evacuees had a way back to where they came from. So HISD employees played taxi drivers. That was nice of HISD. Again.
As for the Chronicle reporter and photographer who were shooed away, if I was in a shelter as a hurricane was bearing down, I don't think I'd be too eager to chit-chat with the media. Matt Stiles is probably a great guy, but still...
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: A reporter and photographer were ordered out? My goodness, why didn't Kyrie O'Connor, Kristin Finan, and other Features STAR editors spring into action with a plan to impersonate a refugee? They could surely have smuggled in a small camera, and O'Connor could have praised the whole effort as compassionate and responsible first-person journalism!
Finan and O'Connor, by the way, continue to ignore our emails about that first-person journalism, and the reader representative, who promised to address the matter on his blog, has been missing for some time. Their treatment of the matter has not been what one would expect of professional journalists.
In any case, that stupid stunt of theirs might well have been on the minds of HISD officials, and may well hurt the Chronicle's news gathering efforts in the future. Stupid stunts sometimes have ramifications.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 09/27/05 08:37 PM | Hurricane Stuff | Technorati | Comments (0)
09 October 2005
Chron: The letters editor works really hard
Byron Calame, the public editor of the New York Times, has been on the warpath over some pretty shoddy practices at his newspaper of late. In a September column, Calame wrote:
I find it disturbing that any Times editor would come so close to implying -- almost in a tit-for-tat sense -- that Mr. Rivera's bad behavior essentially entitles the paper to rely on assumptions and refuse to correct an unsupported fact.
Mr. Keller's final reason for rejecting a correction was that Ms. Stanley, ''who is writing as a critic, with the license that title brings -- was within bounds in her judgment.'' He elaborated: ''Ms. Stanley's point was that Mr. Rivera was show-boating -- that he was being pushy, if not literally pushing -- and I think an impartial viewer of the footage will see it that way.''
Based on the videotape and outtakes I saw, Ms. Stanley certainly would have been entitled to opine that Mr. Rivera's actions were showboating or pushy. But a ''nudge'' is a fact, not an opinion. And even critics need to keep facts distinct from opinions.
Meanwhile, in the opinion section of The Times, the corrections policy of Gail Collins, the editor of the editorial page, is not being fully enforced. As I have written on my Web journal, Paul Krugman has not been required to correct, in the paper, recent acknowledged factual errors in his column about the 2000 election in Florida.
The Times has long been a trailblazer in its commitment to correcting errors. This is no time to let those standards slip -- even when well-known critics and columnists are involved.
The withering criticism from Calame finally shamed the executive editorial leadership of the New York Times into acting to rectify the problems he identified.
Locally, the Chronicle's equivalent to Mr. Calame has also been given a column and a web presence. We are very fortunate in Houston that, unlike the New York Times, we have a world-class paper that has no problems that need to be addressed.* Thus, the Chronicle's reader representative in recent weeks has addressed the HARD WORK of covering a big news event (twice!), and the HARD WORK of Judy Minshew, the Chronicle's letters editor.
Back in January, we suggested the Chronicle reader representative should be given a blog and a column. The executive editorial leadership of the Chronicle has elected to do both. Unfortunately, both outlets seem simply to be vehicles for the reader representative to portray the newspaper positively. It's mostly an outlet for PR, not media (self) criticism. Furthermore, columns do not remain in a free archive, suggesting that even the Chronicle editors do not view them as being of lasting importance.
From the issues addressed in the About: Chron columns and blog, one can draw conclusions about the Chronicle executive editorial leadership's view of its operation, especially when contrasted with the prominence and charge of the New York Times' public editor. Houstonians should be reassured that our local newspaper has fewer problems than the New York Times.*
* Yes, that was sarcasm for anybody who didn't pick it up. Here's one problem that still hasn't been addressed, for example.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/09/05 05:42 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
01 October 2005
Chron editorial board: Tom DeLay? Who's that?
Thursday, the editorial page of every major newspaper in the state (along with "national" newspapers) weighed in on the DeLay indictment.
The Chronicle was silent, instead running another "In the aftermath of Katrina" editorial.
The Chronicle editorial page offered nothing on the topic yesterday, instead choosing to run a laughable "In the aftermath of Katrina" editorial that contended the wild tales from New Orleans circulated by major media were not the fault of major media (when in fact, the vaunted "fact checking" and editors and extensive resources devoted to New Orleans quite clearly failed at basic journalism -- vetting and reporting FACTS).
The Chronicle editorial page offered nothing on the topic today, instead choosing to run another "aftermath of Katrina" editorial. The editorial idealists must be tired of bloggers laughing at them, though, because they busted out a thesaurus and came up with "In the wake of..." as a substitute. That's even funnier, actually.
Maybe the editorial idealists will be all rested up by tomorrow (it's HARD to put out a newspaper in the midst of a big news event, as the reader representative reminded us, and apparently takes quite a bit of time to recover), and can offer some opinion about the DeLay indictment.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/01/05 10:39 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
16 December 2006
Serial rapist targets young men in east Harris County
The Chronicle's Cindy Horswell reports that area law-enforcement officials are looking for a serial rapist who has been targeting young men in east Harris County since April:
The serial rapist-robber began his attacks in east Harris County in April and his assaults have occurred every 30 to 60 days.
But what makes this case so unusual is that women are not the target. So far the five victims have all been young, white males in their late teens or early 20s, mostly students still living at their parents' homes.
The attacker is described as a light-skinned black male, clean-cut and nicely dressed, in his late 20s. He stands 5-foot-6 to 6 feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds.
Investigators have released a composite sketch, based on victims' recollections, and are working with the FBI to develop a profile to determine whether the crimes are racially motivated or what other forces might be driving them.
In some crime reporting, the Chronicle declines to publish potentially relevant information about at-large criminals in order to avoid what the reader representative has called "racial scorekeeping." Apparently, this is not like those instances.
The Chronicle reproduces a Baytown Police Department sketch of the perpetrator here. The report indicates that the FBI will be assisting with a profile.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/16/06 02:28 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
05 December 2006
The Butterfly and the Knife (updated)
Have you all seen the Chron's special series titled The Butterfly and the Knife (the title alone is enough to make one cringe)? It's an in-depth look at the gang melee and murder at Ervan Chew Park last June, and the Chron folks have decided to turn it into a tragic opera:
The Butterfly and the Knife Interactive: The story of Ashley Paige Benton and Gabriel Granillo told through narrated slideshows, video and more.
Narrated slideshows, video, and more! What more? How about a blog? Yessiree, there's a Butterfly and Knife blog, written by four HISD students who "react to the series as it plays out."
But it's not a play and we know how it ends.
The truth is there are lessons to be learned from the events of that day; unfortunately, the Chronicle isn't up to the task of discovering what they are.
UPDATE: Here's an example of taking away the wrong lesson:
The schools are the ones who need to learn from this the most, if they can swallow their pride that is. Maybe then, will troubled students the ones that are in, Gabriel and Ashley's position, can be given the proper attention, before anything significant occurs.
No. A big part of the problem we face today is that too much has already been handed off to schools! Parents have the most influence and the most responsibility -- that's where the focus needs to be. Parents need to get back to active parenting, instead of expecting schools to do the job.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS (12-10-2006): We wondered among ourselves if this particular Chron Eye was the brainchild of the Chronicle's erratic features editor Kyrie O'Connor. Reader Representative James Campbell seems to answer that question today:
As the reader surmised, our intention with the series was to provide perspective to a story that might have faded into the archives.
"We asked (Feldman and Peralta) to try to reconstruct the lives and events that propelled two young people into a moment in time," said deputy managing editor Kyrie O'Connor. "It was a chance to take one compelling news story and get at the more complex story behind it and tell a tale of life in Houston as it is lived by people who aren't normally the subject of in-depth writing ... "
BLOGVERSATION: Slampo's Place.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/05/06 09:18 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (6)
04 September 2006
AP profiles Dan Patrick
KHOU-11's website picks up an AP story on local talker and likely Texas Senator Dan Patrick.
Here's an excerpt:
Patrick’s laser focus on conservative issues and the ensuing bedlam his broadcasts can ignite have since become known around the Capitol as the “Dan Patrick Effect.”
Now Patrick hopes to set up shop in the Capitol himself—not only to continue beating up on politicians in his radio broadcasts, but as a state senator himself, representing northwest Houston. Patrick coasted to victory in the GOP primary and is heavily favored in the Nov. 7 general election.He plans to continue broadcasting as often as possible from a studio near the Capitol.
State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said the new job, if Patrick wins, might be an adjustment for him.
“He might have to get used to letting people talk so that all points of view are heard. That usually isn’t the case on the radio show,” Coleman said. “He may run the phone lines and board there, but he will not run the state government. His ideas will be looked at with everyone else’s.”
He’s already annoying his own party with stinging rebukes of fellow Republicans and on-air promises to bring budget cuts and fiscal restraint to Austin. He’s stirring up the Houston editorial pages with promises to curb illegal immigration and pass a “trigger law,” which would preemptively outlaw abortion in Texas if the Supreme Court overturns the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision.
Incidentally, the Chronicle has yet to correct its mischaracterization of South Dakota's trigger law in its editorial, and multiple emails to the Chronicle's reader representative on the topic have gone unanswered. It shouldn't require a reader forum for the newspaper's executive editorial leadership to figure out that correcting errors is a way to boost credibility and transparency.
Interesting tidbits from the AP story: 1) Patrick's "Democratic" opponent in his Senate race, Michael Kubosh, is one of twelve investors in Patrick's new Dallas-area radio station; 2) Richard Murray is referred to as a Democratic pollster; he and Houston bicyclist Bob Stein are rarely identified by local media as Democrats.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/04/06 12:05 PM | Houston People | Technorati | Comments (1)
21 December 2006
Breaking coverage you CAN get elsewhere
The local Hearst daily reports on a morning fire near downtown:
A two-alarm blaze destroyed a strip mall just south of downtown early this morning, according to televised reports.
Firefighters had a difficult time finding the source of the inferno, but with help from additional fire crews, the blaze at Blodgett and Crawford was extinguished.
Most of the units in the building were vacant. No one was injured, but crews remain at the scene as they clean up the area and investigate the cause.
It's good that the local newspaper really covers its own back yard!
Or at least deploys people to watch the television news and write about what they see on the tube that is related to their own back yard.
In possibly related news, the Chronicle reader representative notes that as of yesterday, the city desk has a new acting editor who will shortly have the "acting" removed from his title. In only his second day with that new title, he already seems to be pushing the journalistic envelope with cutting-edge coverage of the city via television news. Maybe tomorrow, we'll get coverage of what they're talking about on the city's radio stations! After all, Jeff Cohen promises they're going to "rethink the City & State section from front to back."
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/21/06 10:14 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
11 May 2009
Chron wants Congressional hand (not handout or bailout)
One of the Chronicle's two editorial writers* weighed in today on the matter of "saving" newspapers.
Cory Crow was as unimpressed as we were, and much more motivated to explain why, so go read him here.
"Newsosaur" Alan Mutter did a nice job last month debunking the notion that somehow Google is to blame for the decline of newspapers, and suggested that editors and publishers need to get to work trying to figure out how to remake their enterprise.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has recently taken some steps in that direction, and seems to be trying hard to re-engage potential readers. The Chronicle, on the other hand, has exorcised a blog from its blogrolls, rolled out this website, cut its delivery area, and shrunk the size of the newspaper. It's hard to see how those moves (or punishing Google, or changing antitrust provisions, or continuing to lay off quality journalists, or having an invisible, unresponsive "reader representative") are going to fix the problems locally.
BLOGVERSATION: Unca Darrell.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/11/09 10:20 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (5)
20 January 2006
Help for parents, courtesy of a Chron editor
The Chronicle's Kyrie O'Connor makes an appearance in the Houston Press to defend her beloved "star" section:
The Houston Chronicle's Yo! section is a valiant attempt to get kids aged 12 to 18 or so to put down the PSPs and pick up some dead-tree media. It usually features a story on a pop or movie star and columns by teen writers.
A recent edition featured the top ten films of the year, as picked by Yo!'s teen critic Jake Hamilton, a Clear Lake High student.
If you're a young Yo! reader, you better like your movies with plenty of gore and sex -- eight of the ten are rated R. Including such over-the-top films as Sin City (tabbed best film of the year), A History of Violence, Domino and Wedding Crashers ("this film was not afraid to take an R rating and provides the kind of risqué humor that audiences have been deprived of for so long," Hamilton writes).
What, no Inside Deep Throat?
[snip]
"I understand why some people wouldn't like his list, but he's our teen reviewer and it's his list," says Chronicle deputy managing editor Kyrie O'Connor, who heads the features section. "You have to admit that 'Ten Best PG-13-or-Under Movies' would be pretty thin gruel. No teen would take it seriously, either."
O'Connor says parents need to talk to their kids about "all forms of culture."
"There's R and there's R," she adds. "I'm sure I'm in a minority, but I'd rather have had one of my kids see a movie that depicted love in its many forms than some hideous slasher flick."
That's nice of Ms. O'Connor to tell parents what they should talk to their kids about, but I'll stick with my own parenting style...which includes a, um, more conservative approach to movies.
You know the planets are out of alignment when even the Press' eyebrows are raised!
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Wow, in the last week, O'Connor's section has gotten attention (and not the good kind) from the Chronicle's own reader representative AND the Houston Press. I hope that doesn't mean we'll be treated to another erratic blog post lashing out at Anne.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS MORE (01-21-2006): Well, that was entirely predictable. One day after the post above, the Chronicle's erratic features editor took a little shot at Anne and her children in a blog post. Apparently, this is what passes for humor in a gloomy world where everyone is a hypocrite. Well, unlike the erratic features editor, I've met Anne's children and they're delightful. Anne obviously does a great job parenting, and any "humor" from a professional journalist that suggests otherwise is just... bizarre.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 01/20/06 07:46 AM | Houston Media | Technorati | Comments (15)
25 January 2006
Rep. Wong puts pressure on Metro to stick with Westpark line
Thanks to a blogHOUSTON reader for emailing a West U Examiner story about state Rep. Martha Wong and the (kinda, sorta) proposed Westpark light rail line:
State Rep. Martha Wong’s office sent a confidential final position paper endorsing a Westpark light rail route to 25 e-mail addresses on the evening of Jan.18, seeking the recepients’ final approval by noon the following day.
The communication, addressed to the steering committee of Richmond Area Residents and Businesses for Rail, said Wong hoped to confirm a meeting with Frank Wilson, Metropolitan Transit Authority chairman, this week.
That meeting has been confirmed by Metro spokeswoman Racquel Roberts.
“We are in the final stages of getting three representatives from the business group and three representatives from the neighborhood group to speak with Martha (Wong) at the meeting with Frank Wilson,” the e-mail from Wong representative Karen K. Newell said.
It went on to say, “Please remember to keep the position paper confidential at this time.”
[snip]
The position paper, dated Jan. 17, endorses a Westpark route in part because a right of way was bought for that purpose and tree removal and traffic problems would be less significant than along Richmond Avenue.
The document also took issue with Metro claims that the new line would serve West University Place and Bellaire, adding “voters were clearly mislead” by language of the November 2003 ballot.
That's an understatement.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 01/25/06 09:26 PM | Houston Transit | Technorati | Comments (5)
02 July 2005
Where are the Houston Post archives?
Chronicle reader representative and blogger James Campbell answers a question that he probably gets from quite a few readers (including us) today: Why aren't the Houston Post archives available online?
The decision not to place the Post archives online largely is due to difficulty complying with the requirements of the Tasini vs. The New York Times decision, explained online editor Mike Read.
Initially, Read said, the Post archives were taken down with the thought that the disallowed content could be identified and blocked, much like what is being done with the Chronicle archives.
Confusion resulted "when we placed notices in a couple of places on the archives pages to let customers know about this temporary removal of the Post content from the online archives," Read said. "When it was determined that identifying and blocking disallowed content was not going to be possible with the resources available for the task, we updated the notice in the "About Archives" resource box on the page to indicate this.
It looks as if those of you interested in old Bob Claypool music reviews or other good stuff from the defunct newspaper are going to have to hit local libraries:
The Houston Public Library's Bibliographic Information Center has the Houston Post microfilm from 1880-1995, and the Houston Post Index from 1976-1994. They keep the 1880-1900 microfilm in the Texas and Local History Department, and the 1901-1995 microfilm is in the main library. University of Houston's main library has the Houston Post microfilm from 1880-1995. They have the Houston Post Index from 1976-1979, and from 1987-1994.
As a complete aside -- do today's students even know how to use microfilm/fiche machines?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/02/05 08:52 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
21 September 2004
Can anyone explain the editorial policy?
A few posts ago, Anne Linehan credited Chronicle Outlook editor David Langworthy for a "frank column" acknowledging public concerns about shortcomings of the mainstream media.
Recognizing the problem surely is a start, but my most recent experience of being ignored by the Chronicle's reader representative James T. Campbell and Langworthy himself suggests that the newspaper still has a ways to go in being responsive to readers who have questions about editorial policy and decisions.
To back up a bit -- I actually wondered about the Chronicle's official policy on bylines for op-eds when I ran across a complaint on Charles Kuffner's blog that the newspaper had run an op-ed with a "ridiculously uninformative byline...." Apparently, Kuffner thinks that the newspaper needs to edit supplied bylines. I got to thinking about it, and realized that even though I don't really have his problem with the Chronicle's practices (seemingly, the policy is to run supplied bylines unless they are somehow inaccurate), it might be nice to know the official policy.
I sent James T. Campbell a polite email inquiry about the policy, beginning with a discussion of the criticism (and an admission that I didn't agree with the criticism). He responded fairly quickly that mine was a recurring question, and that he would visit with David Langworthy and get me an answer "tomorrow."
I didn't hear from Campbell the next day, so I emailed again and asked if he had been able to get a statement of policy from Langworthy.
No response.
A day later, I forwarded the correspondence to Langworthy, along with a repeat of the question.
Still no response, a week after the initial email.
I understand that editors probably have more important things to do than answer questions from bloggers, but it seems strange to promise an answer to a legitimate question about editorial policy and then not to deliver, and to ignore subsequent emails on the topic.
Given Langworthy's "frank" column, it's stranger still.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/21/04 11:35 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (2)
30 July 2005
Why won't professional journalists embrace transparency?
The crew at PowerLine have noted that quite a few professional journalists have been asking to interview conservative talker Hugh Hewitt, because he worked with Supreme Court nominee John Roberts in the White House.
Interestingly, though, the journalists refuse truly to go on the record by conducting their interviews on Hewitt's radio program, so that normal folks can actually compare what the journalists write versus what Hewitt says in its full context.
Locally, we'd like the Houston Chronicle to take advantage of its partnership with KHOU-11 and put up full audio/video of editorial board meetings with politicians and others -- instead of acting as gatekeepers who selectively report those meetings in order to boost an agenda.
We think transparency would force the editorial board to be more professional and become more informed.
Perhaps when reader representative James T. Campbell is done contemplating his newspaper's coverage of women's professional basketball and defending his newspaper's not wholly accurate use of the term "insurgents" rather than "terrorists" (or was that post simply a chance to take potshots at Fox News and conservative ideologues?) to describe militants who increasingly target civilians, he can address our proposal.
Indeed, since Mr. Campbell laments in his latest post having to debate ideology rather than journalism (never mind that many choices at the newspaper seem to reflect an ideology that isn't at all neutral), we would think he'd welcome the opportunity to address our non-ideological proposal for more transparency for the editorial board.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/30/05 01:13 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
09 January 2006
Chron: erroneous miner story was a "pardonable sin"
Yesterday Chronicle Reader Representative James Campbell explained how the paper's goofed-up miner story was most certainly a forgivable error:
But if there is such a thing as a pardonable news media sin, this story offers the example. Granting a pardon, however, requires readers to appreciate the circumstances surrounding this story.
Ideally, if news about the trapped miners being rescued alive had begun circulating Tuesday morning, we likely would not be engaging in this discussion.
The reporter at the scene would have remained optimistically skeptical about initial reports of their rescue, but more importantly, would have gone through the logical progressions of verifying the information and its source.
But reality bites. Word about the miners' rescue began circulating about 11 p.m. our time, perilously close to when the last Chronicle editor leaves around 1 a.m. each morning. The early edition of the Chronicle reported that one miner had been found dead. Then the story changed.
"When the initial, erroneous, news broke that 12 miners were alive, we changed the front page between editions," said Chronicle managing editor John Wilburn. "Three hours later, around 2 a.m. (CDT) when the correction info moved, the press run was almost complete and the newsroom had all gone home. It was too late to change the story." Chron.com was one of the first Web sites in the country to post a corrected, updated version of the story.
Which, of course, is a perfect, PERFECT example of why the paper Chronicle is outdated and in a continuous state of declining circulation: The story never changed. The story always was that 12 miners died. The reporting was erroneous and IT changed, but not the story. Twelve miners didn't suddenly die between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.
And yet the Chronicle wants us to know that while this kind of reporting is never acceptable, it is pardonable. Maybe the folks at the Chronicle think it's pardonable, but many readers probably won't agree and this example of the media getting it very wrong will stick with us for a long time.
Instead of explaining why this is a pardonable screw-up, the Chronicle should have followed the lead of some other newspapers and issued a flat-out apology for getting the story wrong and letting down its readers. Period.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: That "the story changed" meme must be making the rounds down at 801 Texas Avenue. That's the same erroneous notion that one Chronicle features editor (incidentally, the same one who ducks legitimate questions about features reporters impersonating Katrina evacuees) floated with a question on our message board last week.
I don't know why it is so hard for some journalists to admit mistakes. Admirably, some editors have stood up and said they blew it. Locally, we get "the story changed." I understand that the Chronicle reader rep position institutionally is more of a PR position than anything else, but I still can't believe any self-respecting newsman (or newswoman) would commit "the story changed" excuse to print (or pixels). Campbell could have apologized for the mistake, explained the circumstances that led to the mistake, and vowed to do better in the future, and that would have been a fine column. Instead, the PR line at the Chronicle is that it was wrong, but not really. Laughable.
RELATED: Spokesman in Miner Tragedy Says He Never Confirmed Miracle Rescue (Editor & Publisher)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 01/09/06 08:19 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
30 July 2006
Campbell: Acrimony between Chief, officers nothing new
Chronicle reader representative James Campbell expands on an earlier blog post in his weekly column for the Chronicle today:
LONGTIME residents of Houston have seen this dance before: Mayor hires a new police chief — Harold Hurtt — from out of town. On arrival, the new chief and the police union join hands for a brief chorus of Kumbaya and pledge cooperation in the interest of maintaining law and order and keeping the citizenry safe from the bad guys.
Then the honeymoon ends. Katrina happens and brings New Orleans' bad to mix with our bad. Crime seems out-of-control — or at least, in some areas. Manpower is lacking. The already sagging officer morale sours more when the chief issues a decree that has more to do with professionalism than fighting crooks. The backbiting starts. The union claims the troops have no confidence in the chief. The chief claims the union's charges are unfounded, and so on and so on ... To borrow a Yogi-ism, "It's déjà vu all over again."
The rest of the article recaps past tension between police chiefs and officers in Houston, with the implication that the current acrimony is nothing new.
The one thing missing from the column is any assessment of the past performance of the Chronicle editorial board, which has been strongly supportive of the current bumbling police chief and runs an editorial today that parrots Chief Hurtt's comments from a few days ago (it doesn't take into account the Chief's new babysitter, since that happened on Friday afternoon and "today's" editorial was surely written by then). Has the editorial board been as supportive of other police chiefs under fire? That would have been a handy addition to Campbell's column.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/30/06 04:36 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (2)
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