Initial reports being wrong annoys anchor Pelley

By admin on May 13, 2013

Scott Pelley isn’t my favorite news anchor. But his CBS Evening News is the one I listen to at 5:30 p.m. Pelley chastises fellow news folks in this story for what has become almost a standard operating procedure of “the initial report being wrong” during big news events. He also gives a personal mea culpa in this realm.

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Watch out Beaumont, Texas, “Cops” is coming to town

By admin on April 30, 2013

Attention all bad boys: What ya gonna do?

The Beaumont (Texas) City Council silently voted to allow the long-running “reality” TV show, “Cops” to film local police for the next eight weeks.

Yes, “Cops” will follow Beaumont police officers around while exposing a few of the more than several dregs of society the city has to offer. Perhaps the show will get a good shot of police flailing the hell out of a “perp.” In case you don’t know, at least here, a perp is a black or Latino between the age of 18 and 60. No, I’m just kidding most of the cops here don’t do that any more. You know them civil lawsuits get expensive the more times they get filed.

I had some hopes for the Beaumont PD leadership when Chief James Singletary took command in October 2011. I have been personally disappointed about a couple of things the police did to my displeasure, but I will not mention them.

A few things do appear somewhat better though. It seems less wrongful use of force has been called to our attention. At least on the outside this police administration also seems to do a good job connecting with the media and the public. They send out news releases which are the very same ones that the local TV and newspaper receive and rewrite verbatim or make the release sound dramatic, somewhat, on TV. The local media has not, at least in the last several years, made any effort to investigate stories on their own. That is unless it is something that the white, wealthy or semi-wealthy, minority are up in arms over. For instance, we have the case of the black electrician who allegedly stole $3 million — I say allegedly even though he was convicted — from the Beaumont school district. I use the form of alleged because it may be more than that amount which was stolen or he might have a successful appeal.

The asshole who shot and killed an elderly woman from Newton County in March 2012 at the Jefferson County Courthouse, Bartholomew Granger, was convicted just this afternoon in Galveston. He also wounded a couple of others including his daughter, whom he also ran over. Sweet guy. He will probably be executed.

I mention that because that was about the biggest crime story around last year, that I can remember. Of course, “Cops” don’t need a big shootout to film. They can watch the Beaumont police bust some knucklehead, with his pants halfway down his ass, for a chunk of crack — cocaine that is. Or they might film some meth heads, all without shirts, being swept up in a commando-style raid in which the meth guy’s 3-year-old daughter ends up going to Child Protective Services. Sad. Yes, we’ve seen all this before. But we have not seen it in Beaumont on national TV.

One sight you will be sure to see is some good ol’ boy with his big belly hanging out from his wife-beater and as well as hanging a ways over his jeans. This ol’ boy might have two teeth at the most and a southern drawl. But what the hell? It’s good publicity for the department and a morale booster for the police officers, says Singletary.

The city has spent a considerable sum of money to spruce up areas of town. Tourists are coveted here by the local convention and visitors bureau to take in our museums, old houses, Gator Country and the birthplace of the oil industry. “Texas With a Little Extra” is the motto du jour. Or maybe that should be “Texas With a Little Extra Crime.”

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Happy 8-0 Willie, no matter what day your birthday may be

By admin on April 29, 2013

Willie Nelson turns the big 8-0 today. Or tomorrow. There apparently is some dispute over what day The Red-Headed Stranger was born. Supposedly, he says today and the state of Texas says tomorrow (April 30, 2013.) Somehow, I think Willie might just light up a big ol’ reefer and say: “Who cares.”

There is no dispute that this extremely talented individual was born in Abbott, Texas, in Hill County. That is about five miles north of West, the small town struck with unimaginable destruction on April 17. In the wake of that devastation was left 15 dead and more than 150 injured.

Birthday Boy.

Birthday Boy.

All of this has to do with Willie in case you asked. Well, not the explosion but the man who seems to perpetually have a twinkle in his eye made his birthday party gig at the Bee Cave near Austin a benefit for the West volunteer firefighters and others who lost so heavily on that day. Some 12 of the 15 dead were first responders.

No matter that Willie Nelson is a “big old star” he is a country boy at his roots. And country people take care of their own. They might know yours and everyone else’s business and be judgmental as Roy Bean. But they take care of their own, by God.

“It’s been rough and rocky travelin’/But I’m finally standing upright on the ground/After takin’ several readings/I’m surprised to find my mind is fairly sound.” — “Me and Paul”

Willie has sang every kind of song, on every kind of stage, in cities big, small and in between. I first saw him, a clean cut replacement for Marty Robbins at a rodeo in Jasper, Texas. Then I saw him in his trademark short, cutoff blue jeans with a pony-tail and scraggly old red beard and hair. The hair was a lot less gray back in Santa Barbara in 1978.

There are so many songs of his I love: “Remember Me,” with his soulful singing, his wandering guitar and Sister Bobbie Nelson’s honky-tonk style piano. “The Red-Headed Stranger,” the concept album on which both the former and the title track may be heard. A hellacious cover version of Bob Wills’ “Stay a Little Longer.” You name it. Willie plays it.

Willie used to party a lot. Now, I understand he is a health-food nut. Yep, probably drinks only the best organic whiskey. He goes running, still I guess. Of course, he also has probably smoked enough ganja in his life to bring Bob Marley back from the dead.

He’s had highs in his life and he’s had lows. When I say “highs” I’m not talking about his well-known pot propensity. But he’s finally standing upright on the ground, just as he sung in the previously quoted tune “Me and Paul.” The “Paul” is Paul English, Willie’s long-time drummer, who is about the same age as Willie. Bobbie is two years older than her brother. Perhaps a bit of meanness is inside me but I would like to see a “Beer Rules” volleyball game between the Nelson clan and the Rolling Stones. Of course, Mick and the boys would probably get teased as “the youngsters.”

At any rate, if Willie Nelson isn’t my favorite musician, then he’s pretty damn close. Hope you have had a Happy Birthday Willie Hugh Nelson! Whenever you want to have it.

 

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The first day on the job went swell, Ma. That is until I opened my mouth.

By admin on April 23, 2013

Remember your first day on the job?

You come in bright and early. Your new boss shows you where the coffee is which you find out comes out of a machine after depositing two quarters. A bit later you go to Human Resources and the 100-year-old and still bitchy empress has you sign about 150 pages of future additions to your permanent work history. After finishing the paper work and making sure the HR gal still has a pulse, you head to what you fear will be the first of many meetings. Some of the “guys” from your section take you to lunch. You return and take a three-hour class on sexual harassment, as if you didn’t already know how to sexually harass someone. Then, everyone bids you well for the evening as you are allowed to go home an hour or so early. You head to the subway thinking: “That didn’t go so bad did it?”

Maybe not, unless you were A.J. Clemente.

A.J. probably had plenty of high hopes as he began his first job as a local TV news anchor. Then the camera went live, thus ending quite probably the shortest career in TV news.

The 5 p.m. broadcast at KFYR-TV news in Bismarck, N.D. started with its serious-sounding music. Co-anchor Van Tieu then introduced the new talking head, A.J., the latter of whom was muttering something or other. What’s that you say,  A.J.?:

“F—ing s–t!”

If you are going to go bad going live, go for the gusto.

A.J. was fired, not surprisingly. He hardly had time to find the restroom with the motion-activated hand towel dispenser sitting handily on the wall.

My boss was in from the regional office today. I told him about the dilemma of poor A.J. The boss had not heard about it. I also told him a story about what was almost an equally disastrous first day on the job.

This happened at a paper where I once worked but the event took place a few years before I arrived. It seems this woman showed up for her first day on the job at the newspaper as the new police beat reporter.

The intrepid reporter made it to the police station. She found it with no problem. Then, she smashed the hell out of a police cruiser. Was it a case of nerves? No, it was more like a case of Budweiser. It turned out the new hire was drunk as a skunk on her first day.

Both stories are good cautionary tales. If you think you might say during your initial broadcast, two of the seven words you can never say on TV; If you think you may get f—ed up as soup sandwich prior to your first assignment at work, then you might as well just go home. Or maybe, when you sober up, go to the local employment office.

 

 

 

 

 

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Excuse me, are you a reporter or just someone with an iPhone?

By admin on April 15, 2013

If you write using the media of the day — the Internet, etc. — you have no shortage of possible topics. I am talking about the two three explosions in Boston including two near the Boston Marathon finish line. Two are dead and 28 are hurt, so far. You know the drill. The first reports are always wrong.

Yes, it is horrible. Yes, yes, our thoughts are with the people there and their families. All of those are on the check list. I’m sorry. That probably sounds exceedingly cynical. That is the way it goes these days.

The media, both during such incidents and in retrospect, talk about the use of the instant means to transmit the news. Unfortunately, what we see so often isn’t necessarily news being shot out into the Internetsophere. (Yes, that is real word that I just made up!)

Checking Twitter, some possible eyewitnesses are commenting on what’s happening. On Facebook, my big city TV reporter friend is reaching out to his friends to find connections in Boston or those who are in Boston.

All that is great, seriously. I would have given my left hand — I’m right-handed — had the technology now available been handy when I worked in a newsroom. Oh, you had the people who sent nasty-grams, just not much of real help in reporting a story back then.

“There was a third explosion,” Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis just said. “There was an explosion that occurred at the JFK Library.”

Wow, that plus all the unexploded bombs supposedly found.

I am watching a news conference on CNN. They still do these “things” good.

My point is that all the technology wave has brought is great. I would just say: “Be careful.” Don’t buy into the simplicity that every person with an iPhone is a reporter. That isn’t the case. One only has to watch or read work by some of the actual working reporters already out there. Some of those people aren’t even reporters.

It’s just something I thought should be mentioned.

We now return to our breaking news coverage.

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Will Zucker save CNN from itself?

By admin on April 10, 2013

A headline from The Washington Post “Style” section online today asks the question: “Jeff Zucker is remaking CNN. Are viewers tuning in?” The outcome of that query appears to be somewhere between “no” and “someday perhaps.”

The Harvard-schooled Zucker — who was named at age 26 the youngest executive in the “Today” show history – still seems a TV industry wunderkind despite his rapid ascent taking some 25 years. He nonetheless is credited to many of the successes over the years at NBC and NBC Universal. That industry in now holding its breath to see if Zucker can deliver a bit of fresh O² to the first 24-hour news channel as he did to Oxygen and other NBC International products. Zucker seems to have a huge task ahead.

Ratings have fallen for a number of CNN time slots over the years. Some of these can be attributed to remarkable timing, such as that of Fox News rise during a Republican boom during the two terms of W. Bush. Fox also can thank distinctive right-wing propagandists like Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and, until he just went too far off the farm, Glenn Beck.

CNN can also blame itself for the turnover of the channel’s various talent and likely an absence of strong leadership like that of the visionary CNN founder Ted Turner.  The list of “new” network anchors are hardly inspiring: Ashleigh Banfield, recycled from the early 2000′s, is an example. While her news credentials look good on paper she often exhibits a grating delivery on her 10 a.m. Central newscast. Banfield comes off too combative and too opinionated for a show that one assumes is for news rather than opinion. Of course, other CNN anchors seemed to have crossed over to the commentary street long ago as well.

Banfield is just a personal dislike as is Piers Morgan and Erin Burnett even though the latter is certainly prettier that just another pretty face. Other newer CNN hires are likewise disagreeable to me. Jake Tapper and Andrew Cuomo have what appear to be solid news chops but both leave me waiting for some breaking story to happen so the anchors might come alive.

I also see a lot of Northeastern college on resumes of many top CNN personnel. Certainly nothing is wrong with that part of the country but I have seen before the damage a lack of geographic diversity can bring to regional or national news.

One new show I am anxious to see is the Sunday night preview of “Parts Unknown” hosted by chef, writer and traveler Anthony Bourdain. His Travel Channel series “No Reservations” and “The Layover” belong in the Top 10 of TV overall in recent years. Well, the latter below that even though it was excellent as well. Bourdain is a character whose taste might not please all. He brings more of a writer’s perspective and a narrator’s voice to the small screen while his shows provide excellent visuals. His frank exposure of drug usage which included heroin and cocaine may also prove a turnoff to some. But he certainly brings lifesaving measures needed by CNN.

No conclusions are here just as nothing solid comes from the Post’s headline. As always we will have to just tune in to see.

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Hold the presses! Now get those puppies underway!!!

By admin on April 8, 2013

Work looms ahead in an hour-and-a-half. This is another night to work until 8 p.m. and earn an extra two hours in “premium pay.” It’s not as good as overtime but getting paid for nine hours when in actuality working seven is not terrible.

Since I have a few tasks to accomplish before work — shaving my head among those tasks — this will be short.

A matter of little import except to perhaps English teachers and copy editors today with changes in “The Associated Press Stylebook” which includes using the word “underway” for all uses. The journalism word from upon high previously used two words except ” … when used as an adjective before a noun in a nautical sense … ” During my stint in the Navy I sometimes composed correspondence or military jurisprudence forms as well as the “Plan of the Day.” I would have the occasion during such cases to use the one-word word “underway.” This is Navy style, in no small part, because ships or units getting “underway” is a big deal. After all, ships are a big deal to the Navy for some strange reason.

During my time as a journalist I often continued the naval practice of writing “underway” as one word. Lazy? Yes, but also practical. Editors and journalism teachers always preached the doctrine of simplicity so I bought into this dogma — which is NOT a dog’s mother — by utilizing the pragmatism of writing one word for under way instead of two. That would get a story sent back by an editor, depending on pressing deadlines, in order that I might use the space bar between the two words. So, perhaps it was lazy. It was definitely force of habit that continued from the Navy although I seldom use “port and starboard” in conversation or writing these days.

I suppose a bit vindicated and perhaps a smidgen petty. But then again, I was a Navy petty officer.

So there you are.

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We know “the British are coming,” so don’t sweat what we don’t know.

By admin on April 3, 2013

A Facebook friend whom I’ve never met but would like to one day sent me one of these You Tube clips that gets zapped around the Internet to sow seeds of discontent.

This particular one showed rail flat car upon flat car of up-armored, desert-painted military trucks. The fear spread by this clip was that these were military personnel carriers FEMA was sending out for a war to disarm Americans. Or something equally as silly. My friend wasn’t making those claims. She was just merely looking for the truth which often gets lost this day and age of Internet conspiracies.

I explained to her how FEMA doesn’t have a black budget to purchase secret weapons plus conspiracy after conspiracy spread around on the emergency agency has repeatedly proven untrue. FEMA may not have done a jam-up job in the wake of the early 21st century hurricanes of the Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas coasts, or perhaps even since. But no one has ever cast one iota of evidence that the agency is building concentration camps for housing the “right-thinking.”

My friend, after my explanation, thanked me for putting her mind a little more at ease.

Why should people fear or embrace or even believe the first thing they see come across in their e-mail or Facebook or Twitter? There is real stuff to get scared about.

The U.S. is moving anti-missile weapons to Guam in case the idiot leader of North Korea decides to launch something. Not that we should particularly be worried about the power of the Peoples Republic forces. We should be concerned about the stupid logic and likely bad counsel received by the young dictator of North Korea. The worry should be that Kim does something stupid ridiculously dangerous. Let’s say he launches a missile towards an island and it hits near Seoul, perhaps even near the thousands of American troops. Even something more benign could result in the flattening of what was North Korea. We should worry for all those innocent folks in North Korea as well as our troops and the Korea they protect across the 38th Parallel.

We should be concerned for the vigilant folks who keep the peace in the homeland. Some folks have decided it is open season on officers of the law. An assistant district prosecutor in Texas, a Colorado prison warden, the assistant DA’s boss who was the district attorney in Kaufman County, Texas, along with his wife, and today a sheriff in West Virginia have all been killed within the last two months. Is there a string there? Maybe. Maybe not. The carnage shouldn’t particularly keep the normal citizen up at night. But all those folks affected by this savagery and those who are paid to prevent it all could use some good thoughts, even prayers if you are so inclined.

Plenty of worry finds us everywhere, it seems, in this Internet age. And it is a time we are more informed than ever that “The British are coming.” Sorry, my Brit friends, just a metaphor or perhaps simile. I won’t say: “Don’t worry. Be happy.” But perhaps, “Don’t sweat that which just as easily could be bullshit. Be happy as you have a right to such happiness.”

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Duct tape: Dandy bandage and more

By admin on March 29, 2013

An old high school friend who I am happy to have reconnected with through Facebook is a cattle farmer in East Texas. Now I am not here to get into a discussion on the difference between a cattle farmer and rancher. Some would say there is a difference, that people who raise cattle are ranchers. Others would say half-a-dozen of two and screw the other 10. Nevertheless, Bobby raises longhorn cattle and does so on his cattle farm.

My friend wrote that a limb snapped while he was clearing a fence row, causing some barbed wire to puncture a vein in his arm. His first aid consisted of wrapping it in a bandanna and using duct tape for a bandage. I wrote Bobby that one time I had a similar mishap. My friend Waldo and I was fencing some 200-something acres of his country land up in Cherokee County, Texas, one summer. The barbed wire snapped from the spool and poked me with one of its barbs right into my right-armed median vein. I think that’s what the vein is called. It is the one opposite your elbow. The one in might right arm is fairly prominent and has always drawn positive comments from the many nurses and phlebotomists who have poked the vein for assorted reasons over the years.

I had nothing practical that day to stop the bleeding except my shirt. We were out in the middle of the country and I was hot and sweaty. It was no big deal. I’m pretty certain some duct tape was around somewhere in Waldo’s truck. But it never occurred to me to wrap it around my shirt for a bandage. I think I was still licensed as an emergency medical technician back then, though I wasn’t a “practicing” one. Still, why I didn’t think of using duct tape to stop my oozing, red blood is beyond me.

Maybe I was not, back in the day, fully bought into the duct tape culture. That would come in time, when I first started in the newspaper business.

My beginning newspaper job was in a small East Texas town at an equally small circulation newspaper. We had not yet started using personal computers for all of our varied  tasks. I used a weird-looking box with a tiny screen, or video display terminal, as a word processor. The text was then copied onto a floppy disk. I think the disk was known as a “5 1/4-inch minifloppy.” The hell if I know.

The disk was later put into a machine which printed the “cold type” or text that would be pasted up on a dummy sheet. Eventually a camera-ready page was produced, and turned into a plate for the presses. The rest is history and more work, work, work.

This machine which printed out the text was huge and worn-looking. It appeared as if it would fall apart any minute. But my publisher wasn’t about to let that happen. He would seem to magically appear out of nowhere with his handy roll of duct tape and patch up that or any machine in need of adhesion. His prolific use of duct tape even became a thing of legend with the staff. Each year during the Christmas party he would get a nicely-adorned package in which the supposed “gift” turned out to be duct tape.

I have since learned myriad uses for perhaps the handiest man-made item in existence next to the flush toilet. I have even seen flush toilets patched up with duct tape. I have seen duct tape used for Halloween costumes. I personally use duct tape to patch my steering wheel.

If the Wikipedia entry on “duck tape” and its evolution into “Ductape” is to be believed then it is a rather interesting story. The wonderful tape is certainly an interesting item and one of many uses. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that duct tape has probably saved lives at some time or the other. But please remember, if you plan on using duct tape as a bandage some day be sure and have something non-adhesive for use as a dressing. Do this because, if duct tape can hold half the earth together, it will as likely relieve you of hair and perhaps a layer of skin.

Powerful stuff, that duct tape.

 

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Say goodbye to football. Hello to hand-shaking sock puppets!

By admin on January 14, 2013

Football season is over. The Houston Texans, my team, got drubbed by the New England Patriots. A drubbing is only slightly better than getting beaten like a rented mule, a fate that befell the Texans last month when they likewise traveled to Foxboro to take on the Pats. Perhaps the Texans should have dwelt upon their last thrashing.

Plenty has been said about last evening’s game, that both spoken and written by professional homers and haters alike. Those of us, like me, who don’t know their ass from third and long about football have their opinions as well. We all know what they say about opinions.

I was hoping a team would be left that I could root for but it didn’t happen this time. I hate both the Patriots and the Ravens equally. I liked the 49ers once upon a time, but under the West Coast Harbaugh, no more. I have nothing against the East Coast Harbaugh. I also know big media is salivating over the possibility of the Harbaugh Brothers matching up, the 49ers and Ravens, for a Super Bowl match. I wonder if the San Fran coach would shake his bro’s hand after the game?

One might suppose I should root for Hot-lanta since a couple of local kids are playing — DE Johnathan Babineaux of Port Arthur and linebacker Sean Weatherspoon from my birthplace of Jasper, Texas. Nothing personal, I just hate Atlanta teams. I went to Atlanta once when I was in the Navy. Don’t remember a whole lot about it except getting lost and hearing an AM radio band the next morning, a Sunday, full of more Holy Rollin’ preachers than you could shake a spared rod at. But Atlanta sports teams just piss me off. I think “Chipper” (Don’t Call Me ‘Larry’) Jones of the Braves baseball team is to blame. I never really liked that boy.

Oh, I probably will watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, although the ads have gone into a downward spiral lately. Maybe I will just find a good book instead or perhaps put on a sock puppet show. Yes, John and Jim Harbaugh starring in: “There are no shaking hands at the OK Corral!!”

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