The Chron covers itself. Sometimes.
Newspapers are sometimes criticized for being obsessed with themselves, and we've seen some recent evidence to that effect from the local Hearst daily.
There was this story by Clifford Pugh that ran last week week on Chron.com's Houston/State section:
Houston writer Frenchy Falik, who for more than 20 years covered the city's party circuit with the tenacity of a police reporter at a crime scene, died Tuesday following an 8 1/2 -year battle with cancer.
She was 56.
"She was so incredibly passionate about what she did," said Holly Moore, editor in chief of PaperCity, where Falik worked since 1997. "It was like breaking news to her. She'd do almost anything to get her story."
UPDATE: Falik worked at the Post, but never the Chron so far as I know, which brings to mind this amusing excerpt in the story:
The Post ran the article and hired her to report on charity galas. She covered the party scene for the newspaper until it closed in 1995.
It's as if the newspaper just disappeared one day -- except that we know that the Chron reached a deal with Dean Singleton to shut down the Post months before it happened, courtesy of current Chron editorialist Tim Fleck, ironically enough! So in a way, Falik did work for the Chron. Sort of. END UPDATE.
More recently, Chron.com posted the following story by Allan Turner to its Houston/State section:
Marcia Lamberth Stanfield, granddaughter of Houston Chronicle founder Marcellus E. Foster, died Thursday at a Houston hospice of colon cancer. She was 75.
Stanfield, a third-generation Houstonian, lived most of her life in Houston, where she was known for her widespread charitable volunteer work. In her youth, she worked with her grandfather at the Houston Press, which closed in 1964, and she later enjoyed enlivening family gatherings with tales about one of the pioneers of Texas journalism.
"She loved life to the fullest, and she loved to talk about her life in Houston and the history behind the city," recalled her cousin Jon Aills.
Stanfield often recalled her childhood trips to the Chronicle building to see the newspaper's twin presses, which Foster had named after his daughters, Lee and Medora. By that time, Foster had left the Chronicle to assume the editorship of the rival Press.
Foster often treated Stanfield and his other grandchildren — Clare and Neil Masterson— to visits to what Stanfield remembered as "the pony place," a pony-powered merry-go-round in downtown Houston.
While we certainly offer our condolences to the grieving families, it's not clear that these stories merited coverage by staff reporters on the metro/state pages (as opposed to the obituary page) -- aside from the fact that they were somehow connected to the Chronicle (or at least local print journalism).
On the other hand, the Chronicle chose to run AP coverage of open-records litigation involving Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle and ... the Chronicle. Apparently, covering some stories on internal matters isn't as important as covering others.
RELATED: Shelby Hodge invites herself to Ken Lay's funeral (but maybe not "with the tenacy of a police reporter at a crime scene"), Chron press release poses as news story on circulation.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/17/06 09:36 PM | Print |
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