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10 October 2004
Robison gives himself away
Clay Robison, the Chronicle's Austin news bureau chief, moonlights as a hyperpartisan editorialist on weekends.
It's an arrangement that doesn't seem to give Jeff Cohen pause, although Texas Media Watch's Sherry Sylvester has frequently pointed out that it should.
Today, Robison is throwing flames in his typical fashion. This sentence is probably more revealing than he intended, however:
The most obvious is the war in Iraq, which is producing divisions in America that are beginning to remind us of the Vietnam era.
Us?
You're not speaking for me, Mr. Robison.
Maybe you intended to refer to coworkers at the Chronicle? Or perhaps you were referring to liberals who oppose any projection of American power abroad? Or maybe you were referring to supporters of Senator Kerry?
But please, be specific about the groups YOU are affiliated with. And please don't include me in that "us." Thanks!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Robison gives himself away"> 10/10/04 08:29 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
15 May 2006
Chron Austin bureau chief reads Governor Perry's mind
The Chronicle's six-days-per-week Austin bureau chief and Sunday lefty editorialist Clay Robison had an odd conclusion to yesterday's editorial on third-party gubernatorial candidates Carol Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman:
Next year, if Perry has his way, [Strayhorn] will be retired, with lots of time for her grandkids. That's the gentle version of the governor's vision. Another version would be less charitable ... and probably illegal.
Does Robison really mean to charge Governor Perry with sinister thoughts about a mere political opponent?
Or is Robison simply trying (and failing) to be funny?
Either way, it once again illustrates the peril of having the bureau chief offering up scattershot opinions one day per week about the people he's supposed to cover "objectively" the other six days of the week.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/15/06 10:44 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
05 April 2005
Why is this guy in charge of the Austin news bureau?
Matt Bramanti fairly well exposed Robison's ignorance of American constitutionalism by pointing out to Robison that he might actually read the text of our venerable Constitution before ranting incorrectly about Congressional authority to alter jurisdiction of courts.
A quality newspaper surely wouldn't run editorials of this quality every Sunday.
Alas, we don't have a quality newspaper in this city. Yet.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/05/05 07:32 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (1)
30 March 2009
Clay Robison has left the building
Clay Robison, the longtime Chronicle Austin bureau newsman (six days per week) and editorialist (one day per week), pens his farewell column for today's newspaper.
Much of the column is the customary reflection on a long career on a beat, although Robison couldn't resist dispensing this bit of advice:
I offer an observation to bloggers, whose presence in the political arena is expanding as the ranks of traditional news reporters thin. There is a difference between reporting and spinning. I have done both for a long time, and reporting is a lot harder.
With regard to the bolded portion -- yes, you have, and the combination of heading up the news bureau six days per week and producing a reliably lefty opinion column one day per week was one that many of us found odd (and, frankly, part of the problem).
So ... kudos to Clay Robison for a long run in a career he obviously enjoyed. Maybe we'll even see his writing surface somewhere; surely there's a publication that could make good use of his institutional knowledge. But looking to the future (instead of back), let's hope the Chronicle Austin bureau moving forward takes Robison's parting advice to heart, and focuses only on reporting. There are plenty of sources of opinion these days, but those (we?) editorialists are, in most cases, no substitute for hard-news reporting done by pros.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Robison has left the building"> 03/30/09 07:37 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (6)
23 February 2009
Why would anyone miss this when it's gone?
The Chronicle's six-days-per-week Austin bureau chief and one-day-per-week lefty editorialist offered this snippet in his latest opinion column:
Although a lifelong Republican of the traditional, country club genre (as opposed to the more-rabid social conservatives who now control the Texas GOP), Straus has in the past voted for Democrats for selected offices and presumably will do so in the future.
Nice, objective treatment from the Austin bureau chief.
I'm sure that's how (other) people who dislike social conservatives feel, anyway.
And I'm sure that Clay Robison's attitude would never come through while he is playing bureau chief the other six days of the week, when he's objective and evenhanded. *wink*
The Chronicle's erratic features editor keeps telling us we're going to miss them (them being newspapers) when they're gone. But this regular business from Robison, a deceitful editorial board, unethical impersonation of hurricane refugees, a featured columnist who's a plagiarist, or even the typical MeMo fare aren't really going to be missed.
We are hopeful some metro/state reporters will still be around if that dead weight is ever cast aside, though, because what they do is important and should be valued.
BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/23/09 09:00 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
19 October 2004
Demagogue on Sunday, "objective" journalist the rest of the week?
Clay Robison penned a typically shrill column for the Chronicle's editorial page this past weekend, and one that is highly reflective of his worldview.
Here is an excerpt:
While controversy continued to swirl last week over Texas' poor record in protecting abused children, Gov. Rick Perry was in Dallas bragging about a major cause of the problem.
In a speech to the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank, Perry touted "limited" government and his role in perpetuating it in Texas.
"I believe there is not only a limited role for government, but also a legitimate role for government," he said, patting himself and the Legislature on the back for bridging a $10 billion revenue gap last year by squeezing needed services rather than raising state taxes.
Excuse me, governor, but abused children have had about all the limited government that they can stand. So have frail, elderly Texans with no one to look after them.
This is the sort of demagoguery one hears from the minority party in Texas all of the time, especially on blogs. As we've noted time and again, if the Chronicle is determined that staff editorials shall be childish and simplistic, that's entirely the prerogative of the editors (although one wonders why even have an editorial page at all if the newspaper's resources and vaunted trained journalists cannot produce higher quality than the better left-of-center blogs in the state).
In any case, the problem with Robison is not so much the substance of these columns, but that as he's serving as hyperpartisan weekend editorialist, he also serves as the head of the Chronicle's Austin news bureau.
It boggles the mind that the newspaper expects readers to believe that Robison can engage in such partisan flamethrowing on weekends, yet cover the majority party and politicians in the state capital fairly during the week.
A quality newspaper would make him a full-time editorialist and find a more credible newsman to run the Austin operation.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/19/04 09:24 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
26 March 2007
But what about his moonlighting as an opinion columnist?
Bob Richter, the public editor for Hearst's San Antonio newspaper (the Express-News), wrote about the merger of the Austin bureaus of the Chronicle and Express-News this weekend. Richter's (good corporate) take is that even though competition has been reduced, the advantages of the larger bureau outweigh the drawbacks:
"The large size of the bureau and our combined experience give us opportunities for coverage that we may not otherwise have had," bureau chief Clay Robison says, noting he's put two reporters, R.G. Ratcliffe and Lisa Sandberg, on the Texas Youth Commission story, which "wouldn't have been possible with a smaller bureau."
"Things are going smoothly," says Peggy Fikac, his deputy and chief of the Express-News bureau until the merger. "We're all rowing in the same direction, so that's pretty cool."
Richter does not address why Robison continues to act both as bureau chief (in charge of hard news coverage) and opinion columnist (delivering lefty fare reliably). The bureau merger seemingly would have been a good opportunity to make Robison choose one or the other, or simply to designate him as a columnist and reward Fikac with the bureau chief position for her good work running the Express-News Austin bureau previously.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 03/26/07 09:53 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (8)
02 October 2005
In the aftermath of Rita...
Readers may recall that a while ago, I highlighted a new Chron approach to editorializing: Simply write, "in the aftermath of Katrina," followed by whatever opinion previously held on unrelated issues.
[Governor Perry] should rescind the recent executive order — of dubious legality — that tries to restrict how school districts spend their money. Issued to give the governor political cover from the summer's education reform failures, it could block the ability of local officials to rebuild schools destroyed or damaged by Rita.
Translation: In the aftermath of Rita, Governor Perry should rescind an executive order I oppose politically on Sundays (but cover fairly *wink* *wink* six days a week when I'm wearing my "Bureau Chief" hat).
That editorial page is just a riot.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/02/05 10:11 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
31 October 2004
Robison's world - cont'd
Clay Robison, the Chronicle's Austin news bureau chief who moonlights as hyperpartisan editorialist every Sunday, penned another column blasting Governor Rick Perry (R) and conservatives today.
This excerpt from the column is all too typical of Robison:
Perry's political "sensitivities," if you can call them that, are more limited and defined by what must be an overwhelming urge not to be blindsided from the right.In a concrete sense, that urge has led to such things as cuts in health care for children and other important state services, an unwillingness to raise state taxes to adequately and equitably fund the public schools, and a hard-line stance in favor of the death penalty. You may recall that a few months ago Perry even allowed a severely mentally ill man to be executed after the governor's own appointees on the Board of Pardons and Paroles had recommended commutation of the sentence to life imprisonment.
In Robison's worldview, mean conservatives are all out to hurt children, execute the innocent, and keep taxes low for rich people.
As we frequently point out, if the Chronicle's editors want to feature such childish, simplistic columns on their editorial pages, that's certainly their prerogative. However, it continues to boggle the mind that Jeff Cohen lets someone who writes columns like this on Sundays direct the newspaper's coverage of state politics the rest of the week.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Robison's world - cont'd"> 10/31/04 09:23 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
26 January 2009
Chron Austin bureau chief can't remember facts, opines regardless
Poor Clay Robison must be one tired guy.
He oversees the combined Chronicle/Express-News Austin Bureau.
He moonlights as a (lefty) editorialist once a week.
And a legislative session just got underway.
So, perhaps that explains this snippet from his latest opinion column:
Let’s see, now. Most of the Republican judges in Harris County who were on the ballot in November were ousted in heavy, straight-ticket Democratic voting. A few years ago, Dallas voters booted a bunch of Republican judges in similar fashion.So, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, files a bill to prohibit — guess what — straight ticket voting in judicial races.
It won’t pass.
But it reminds me that Republicans took over the courts in Harris County in 1994 in a similar straight ticket sweep that unseated many Democratic judges.
I don’t remember if any Democrat filed a similar bill then. If so, it obviously didn’t pass either.
That's about the laziest bit of journalism to appear in the Chronicle since... well, since somebody sat down over Froot Loops and (mis)reported a KHOU story a few mornings ago.
Over at Lose an Eye, It's a Sport, Cory Crow gives the matter a more comprehensive treatment. We're betting he's not going to hear from the newspaper's invisible reader rep.
In any case, we'll suggest once again that Robison shouldn't be writing opinion columns and running the news bureau. Maybe if he stepped away from one of the jobs, he could actually do the other one well.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/26/09 10:00 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
06 March 2005
News and opinion all the same to Robison
It included a line that explains quite a bit about Robison's worldview, even though I'm ripping it out of context (in this case, his celebration of the Robin Hood school finance "system") and truncating it:
But the Legislature needs to do more....
That's Robison's honest view, not just on school finance, but on any number of issues. And to "do more," government usually needs more money.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Robison"> 03/06/05 05:42 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
08 May 2006
Chron Austin bureau chief's biases revealed
Every Sunday, the Chronicle's Austin bureau chief takes off his "objective" newsman hat and puts on his lefty editorialist beret.
Every once in a while, it's useful simply to point out some of the lefty editorialist's Sunday biases and assumptions (assumptions we're assured he puts aside the rest of the week, when he's covering the news). His most recent column is useful in that respect. Some telling excerpts follow:
Their so-called "Gas Tax Holiday" would temporarily suspend the state gasoline tax for 90 days, in time for the summer driving season.
Why is it a "so-called" holiday, if it gives motorists a break from the tax for a set period? Does the notion of any tax rollback, however temporary, simply produce reactionary sneering from the lefty Sunday editorialist?
You may like the sound of their idea, particularly if you and your spouse drive his-and-her barns that gulp a gallon of gasoline every time you drive one around the block.
And you may like the sound of the idea if you are a lower-income person driving a Toyota Camry that gets good gas mileage. But why let that possibility intrude on sneering at SUV drivers?
But don't get too excited because (a) the break is not going to happen, and (b) even if it did, it wouldn't make a very big dent in your gasoline bill.
It would save you some money, 20 cents every gallon, or $4 for a 20-gallon tank, and every little bit may help. But with gasoline prices in the $3 a gallon neighborhood, that is only about 7 percent of your total fuel bill, enough for a couple of coffees with every fillup, maybe, hardly the kind of "relief" to make you want to jump and shout.
For lower-income people who don't enjoy the salary and benefits of a Hearst bureau chief/editorialist, every little bit may indeed be important.
I am not promoting higher prices, but if more people start carpooling or, just as radical, making do with one SUV per family, we all may eventually be better off.
Since he's opposed to temporarily lowering the state gas tax, Robison is promoting higher prices, comparatively speaking. And I get the sense the Sunday lefty editorialist really dislikes SUVs!
The Democrats say the lost money could be recouped from the $8.2 billion budgetary surplus or through federal transportation dollars.
But it is pointless to transfer funds around if, as the Democrats say and I believe, public education already is underfunded in Texas.
Some people take issue with Robison's characterization of the potential "loss" of education funding. For my purposes, that's simply an aside. I'm more interested in Robison's admission that he thinks the state should spend more money on public education.
Just to recap: In this column, we have the Chronicle's Sunday lefty editorialist sneering at the very possibility of a temporary tax break, sneering at the possibility that it might truly represent a break for some motorists, sneering repeatedly at SUV owners, and lamenting that the state should spend more money on public education.
However, the Chronicle wants you to believe he can put those biases aside six days of the week, when he's covering lawmakers (objectively!) in Austin on these very same sorts of issues.
Right.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/08/06 10:40 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
14 August 2005
Robison: Lege should get out the money catapult
Sedosi Alhambra has previously noted Clay Robison's preferred approach to Texas education reform (get out the money catapult and fling tax dollars).
Today, the Chronicle's six-days-per-week Austin bureau chief and Sunday partisan lefty editorialist tries a sneakier version of the money catapult argument:
There is the real world, where there would be no judges without lots of teachers, helping future jurists navigate everything from nap time and the three Rs to contracts and torts.And there is the Texas statehouse, where lawmakers, meeting in a so-called "education" session, recently sent Gov. Rick Perry a bill giving judges a pay raise while continuing to reward teachers with compliments and promises.
[snip]
Most judges nevertheless deserve the higher pay, which will be financed with higher court fees. Stemming the turnover of experienced judges taking higher-paying jobs elsewhere in the legal profession frequently was cited by the governor and others as the main reason a raise was needed.
Judicial turnover, however, may be no greater a problem than the turnover of classroom teachers. According to a cursory statewide check, members of both professions are leaving their jobs at comparable rates, but time is rapidly running out for higher teacher pay.
[snip]
Meanwhile, 11 percent of the teachers in classrooms at the beginning of the 2004-05 school year didn't return last fall, said Ed Fuller, an adjunct professor in educational administration at the University of Texas at Austin and former director of research for the State Board of Educator Certification.
Some retired after long careers, but many younger teachers quit for other reasons, unhappiness with their pay being a significant factor. Fuller said a 1999 study, the most recent done on the issue, determined that low pay was the No. 1 reason for teacher turnover.
Even if one accepts Robison's turnover statistics, it's arguably far easier to replace teachers than judges, simply because the talent pool from which to draw is MUCH larger and the required education is much less difficult to obtain. Robison tries to present his turnover statistics as a self-evident reason that the money catapult should be brought to bear on teacher salaries. However, as a matter of public policy, that view is not self-evident at all.
Furthermore, Robison's citation of a 1999 study tells us hardly anything about current conditions and attitudes, and Robison doesn't provide enough information about that study for interested parties to doublecheck his presentation of the facts.
Because the Chronicle inexplicably has its Austin bureau chief double as a partisan lefty editorialist on weekends, such sloppy editorial work of course calls into question the credibility of the news reporting from Austin the other six days of the week.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Robison: Lege should get out the money catapult"> 08/14/05 09:07 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
29 January 2006
Robison: Where's the Christian social-welfare money catapult?
Clay Robison, the Chronicle's lefty weekend editorialist, is trying out a weeks-old argument in favor of increased spending on social welfare:
He is the same Bill Ratliff, the unassuming engineer from Mount Pleasant who, in a radical departure from prevailing attitudes, tried to govern with a conscience.
And he is promoting what he attempted to practice as a lawmaker, a Christianity not intended simply to comfort the comfortable and lock their religious views into the law of the land — high priorities of the controlling GOP faction — but a Christianity that also attempts to comfort the afflicted and help the sick and the down-and-out.
The latter goal has been mostly skirted by the hand-washing Republican leadership in Austin."Up to now, the application of religious principles in political debate has been mainly applied to social mores, such as abortion rights, same-sex marriage, intelligent design vs. Darwinism and other similar social issues," Ratliff pointed out in a speech several weeks ago to the Austin Project, a group dedicated to helping at-risk youth.
His remarks later were reprinted in the Longview News-Journal and have received attention elsewhere.
"But all too often," he added, "those Christians who take strong stands on such issues based on moral or biblical teachings do not then continue the application of such teachings to other issues."
What about, Ratliff asked, Christ's admonishment to "suffer the little children to come unto me"?
He didn't name names, but it was obvious that state leaders conveniently forgot that verse of Scripture when they attacked the budget a few years ago, cutting thousands of low-income children from public health care so they could brag — as Gov. Rick Perry is doing in his reelection campaign — about holding the line against higher state taxes.
Joseph Knippenberg addressed arguments that Christianity requires expansion of the social welfare state effectively a few weeks ago:
Let me repeat what I’ve said before on the subject of poverty and religion. There are reasonable disagreements about how best to assist the poor. That we have a duty to do so doesn’t mean that we have [a] duty to support large government programs.
That's as far as I care to go substantively on that topic.
From time to time, though, it is useful to note Robison's political views and characterizations of those with whom he disagrees, as expressed on the editorial page every Sunday. Six other days of the week, he serves as the Chronicle's Austin bureau chief, putting aside his lefty political views to ensure that the Chronicle delivers Houstonians objective, balanced coverage of the goings on in the capital.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ Robison: Where's the Christian social-welfare money catapult?"> 01/29/06 01:33 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
18 November 2005
Nothing like that division between news and opinion/gossip
Chronicle metro/state editorialist and gossip columnist Rick Casey is up to his usual antics today:
NOBODY is saying state Rep. Joe Nixon improperly pressured Farmers Insurance Group two years ago to pay him more than he had coming in a settlement over severe mold damage to his home.
Nobody is saying it, but the Chronicle's gossip columnist is just throwing it out for fun.
On the metro/state news pages.
Even though the Chronicle previously reported that prosecutors found "no evidence of criminal conduct."
Because that's the sort of journalism that serious newspapers place on their hard news pages.
Casey blasted Nixon similarly two years ago. So did Austin Bureau Chief Clay Robison, albeit in his "I'm not the Bureau Chief on Sunday" editorial column (and in another Sunday editorial, in passing).
If the Chronicle executive editorial leadership wants to mix news and opinion as Casey and Robison frequently do, that's certainly their prerogative. But other editors really shouldn't expect us to take seriously their comments on "the division between the opinion pages and the news pages."
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/18/05 10:55 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (3)
02 July 2006
Just because the Chron missed the story...
On Friday, the Chronicle's featured metro/state editorialist and gossip columnist moved on from the topic of former Rep. Tom DeLay on to redistricting. Specifically, Casey addressed State Sen. Jeff Wentworth's longtime efforts to pass legislation that would reform redistricting. Casey had this curious observation:
But in a development that drew no media notice that I could find, the Texas state Senate last year passed a bill that would remove the drawing of congressional lines from the Legislature and give the task to an eight-member citizens' commission.
No media notice? Has Jeff Cohen taken away Casey's research assistant?
The Dallas Morning News covered the Senate passage of Wentworth's bill in 2005, and so did the Austin American Statesman (which also blogged about it just before it passed).
It's true that a search of the Chronicle archives turned up nothing. Austin bureau chief Clay Robison must have been too busy working on a Sunday editorial to get that bit of news in the newspaper.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/02/06 12:33 AM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (0)
21 August 2006
Get your name on a downtown park poopie station!
KHOU-11 reports that Mayor White is asking for help raising money for the new downtown park and giving it a name:
on the open land in front of the GRB, civic leaders picture a dozen acres developed into a unique urban park. A place with everything from restaurants to water fountains, underground parking and special programs designed to draw visitors, day and night.
“We really want this to be a place that captures the spirit of the city and is a place that kind of reveals the city to visitors and to Houstonians, a place we can all really be proud of,” said park director, Guy Hagsette.
Sort of like New York city’s Bryant Park.
But a park like this costs a lot of money.
So, Houston’s Downtown Park Conservancy plans to raise funds by naming attractions after donors.
“Everything in the park is for sale,” said Nancy G. Kinder with the Conservancy. “The fountain, the promenade, the dog runs, even the dog benches and the poopie stations. So we have something for everyone at all different levels.”
But one name that’s not for sale here is the name of the park itself.
“We want the people of Houston to participate in the naming of this park. So beginning today, for the next several weeks, we’re going to invite Houstonians to give us their names for the downtown park,” said Mayor White.
Oh heavens. What an opportunity! How expensive do you think it would be to "buy" a poopie station? And who could we name it after? This could be fun!
As for the name of the park, I nominate Kevin Whited's suggestion. =)
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Further to Anne's bolded excerpt above -- can we expect the Chronicle's lefty Sunday editorialist and six-days-per-week objective Austin bureau chief to condemn the plans of Mayor White (a Democrat) to commercialize this park, since Clay Robison recently blasted state government (largely in Republican control) for daring to consider such ideas?
BLOGVERSATION: TBIFOC, Isolated Desolation, Lone Star Times.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 08/21/06 06:22 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (21)
03 September 2007
Is she a reporter, editorialist, or unfunny blogger?
We've long suggested that the Chronicle shutter its D.C. news bureau, and either rely on pooled Hearst coverage of Washington or go with wire copy. We've suggested as much because we can't really see why the local newspaper expends the resources required to maintain a bureau that rarely publishes news that isn't covered adequately by many other outlets, especially when those resources could be put to good use boosting the newspaper's local coverage or its woeful editing and headline writing.
The more we read Julie Mason's blog, the more we wonder what in the world the Chronicle is trying to accomplish with its D.C. bureau.
Mason is allegedly the newspaper's White House correspondent, which we think makes her not an opinion columnist, but a reporter. So we've long tried to understand why a reporter for a major newspaper is allowed to refer to the major newsmakers she covers on her blog with derogatory nicknames like "Bushie" (for the President of the United States) or Ciaoberto Gone-Zales (for the now-departed U.S. Attorney General). Whatever political opinion one may hold of those two men, surely most reasonable people don't think those nicknames are appropriate references by a White House beat reporter writing on her newspaper's website.
Some time ago, I emailed Chronicle reader rep James Campbell about Mason's editorializing, asking him if the Chronicle considered her a beat writer or opinion columnist (in light of her flippant and disrespectful blog references to the people she covers). Here is the response Campbell received from Alan Bernstein, then listed as National Editor for the Chronicle:
The Chronicle considers Julie Mason a beat reporter, whose reporting is usually online rather than in print as way of offering online readers a special resource and to allow her work to be read more widely. She does perform pool duty like any other White House reporter. Her column, like Clay Robison’s from Austin, appears on the news pages rather than the opinion page because she is chartered to offer insights and insider news from Washington, as opposed to, say, her personal opinion about who deserves to win the next election. Her weekly column is somewhat akin to the type of articles we run labeled “analysis.”
Her blog is a "special" resource, all right -- with the sort of fare we expect to find on Wonkette or Firedoglake, rather than the blog of a beat reporter who covers the White House professionally (if only for a second-tier newspaper). The Chronicle's Austin bureau runs a very good blog that supplements the bureau's news coverage, and Matt Stiles (with occasional co-bloggers) does the same for the City Hall beat -- without flippant and disrespectful references to the newsmakers they cover. It's not clear why their approach (with a cleaner break between reporting and editorializing) does not apply to Ms. Mason and her blog.
ANNE LINEHAN ADDS: We are often told that journalism is best handled by the professionals. If that's the case, where did Julie Mason's professionalism go? And why would we depend upon her for White House news and analysis, when we know from her blog that she's a liberal journalist harboring deep animosity toward the Bush Adminstration?
It colors everything she writes.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ editorialist, or unfunny blogger?"> 09/03/07 05:53 PM | Houston Chronicle | Technorati | Comments (18)
31 May 2005
Pithy thoughts on "olds"
I rolled back into town last night from nearly a week of camping, and am pleased to see that Anne's held down the fort wonderfully.
Indeed, her radio appearance was so good I might well be out of a regular gig! If you missed it, scroll down the right sidebar and click on the two segments. (Warning: the mp3 files are several megabytes each).
Following are some quick thoughts on stories I missed and am just now catching up on (some of which Anne has already posted about). I'll stick it under the [Read More] button for those who aren't interested in my random thoughts on what is now "olds."
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/31/05 11:12 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Comments (0)
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