Texas Happenings 2008, No. 6
Week of March 10, 2008TEXAS HapPENINGS is a biweekly advisory to AP member editors on upcoming stories or projects of special interest and a source of news about other AP developments.
NEWSPAPER TRANSFORMATION FOCUS OF TEXAS APME
The Texas APME annual convention is just a couple of weeks away so please make your reservations if you haven’t already done so.
The convention March 28-30 in Galveston will include a presentation by an American Press Institute representative on “Newspaper Next 2.0: Making the Leap Beyond ‘Newspaper Companies’.”
We’ll follow that with a session on how to work smarter in the face of harsh newsroom cutbacks. Other topics include sharing great notions from Texas papers and looking at the changes the AP plans for its content package and its new content enrichment program.
Oh. And of course there will be awards! And great food! And the chance to get some great deals at the Buster Haas scholarship auction. And some time to walk on the beach.
For full details on the agenda and to register online, please go to www.txapme.org.
If you are still in need of a room for the convention, please contact Pam Collins at the AP as soon as possible for one of the rooms reserved by the Texas APME. She can be reached at 972-677-2262 or by e-mail at pcollins@ap.org.
LOOK AHEAD
Three weeks after Walter Rothgery arrived from Arizona to manage an RV park in the Texas Hill Country, the offer evaporated, leaving him without a job or a place to live. Then things got ugly. Rothgery was arrested for carrying a gun as a convicted felon, based on a background check that erroneously showed a felony drug conviction in California.
Broke and without a lawyer, he spent the next six months in legal limbo.
On Monday, the former West Point cadet will attempt to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that Texas should require attorneys be provided to indigent clients, even for first appearances before a magistrate. Had that happened in his case, Rothgery says, his case would have been quickly resolved. AP Writer Michael Graczyk takes a look at the case in a story slugged No Lawyer moving in advance for weekend editions.
Also moving for weekend editions March 15-16:
AP WEEKEND MEMBER EXCHANGE: ROBBED BY DEMENTIA
CORPUS CHRISTI - Something had changed with Dan Viola. The former Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi athletic director seemed to act differently. He acted distant and aloof, and sometimes came off as forgetful. His appetite seemed insatiable at times. Other times, he seemed like the old Dan Viola. Conflicting behavior is a symptom of frontotemporal dementia, known as FTD or Pick's disease. Viola, who was diagnosed last year, is one of about 250,000 people in the United States with the disease. By Lee Goddard, Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
MONDAY:
BORDER CASES
McALLEN - U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen will hear two more cases this week that could determine whether South Texas land owners can deny the Department of Homeland Security access to their land for border fence surveys. If he rules as he did in a previous case, Hanen could single-handedly slow the federal government's progress toward completing its target on fencing by the end of the year. By Christopher Sherman.
HELLO, GOOD BYE AT THE AP IN DALLAS
Linda Stewart Ball has joined The Associated Press staff and Brian Ford has retired from the AP after more than 18 years with the company in Dallas.
Ball has more than 23 years of daily newspaper experience, most recently as a reporter for The Dallas Morning News. She also has worked at the Detroit Free Press, the Orange County Register and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
For most of his 18 years with the AP, Ford was the familiar voice on the other end of the line when you called the bureau in Dallas. He helped get you reruns, churned out amazing amounts of agate – think Texas state track meet – and did loads of research for the AP staff.
MEMBERS OFFER STORIES ON-CYCLE
When a man convicted in the deaths of two Fort Worth residents took the stand and bluntly told jurors that he killed three people and didn’t care whether he lived or died, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram made sure to share the story on-cycle with the AP.
The Odessa American provided the AP its story on-cycle about the return to school of four students who were accused of beating two deer to death on a school baseball field. The newspaper also shared on-cycle its story about the deaths of three children in a house fire.
The Bryan-College Station Eagle shared its story on comments Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane made on Congress’ investigation of the steroids issue.
The Marshall News Messenger, the Eagle, the San Angelo Standard-Times and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times shared material on-cycle about Bill Clinton’s campaign stops for his wife.
The Monitor in McAllen and the Eagle shared election night stories on-cycle. The Monitor provided a story about the re-election of a constable who is a felon. The Eagle shared its story about voting problems.
If you have a story you think we would be interested in, please send it to the AP at dalcarbon@ap.org or APTexas@ap.org. If you’re not sure if we’re interested, please call the AP in Dallas and ask for the supervisor. The number is 1-800-442-7189.
TRAINING OFFERED ON CONGRESSIONAL EARMARKS
The APME is looking for newspapers who want to participate in a project to examine congressional earmarks. The national reporting project looking at the earmarks in federal spending bills and the interests behind them will involve the AP and its members.
In preparation for participating in the project, the APME has arranged with the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation to train reporters at one-day sessions around the country. There is no charge for the sessions. Two free Webinars are planned for those who cannot attend at any of the 10 sites.
Please spread the word among your reporters and encourage them to attend. Space is limited to about 15 participants at each site.
Who should attend? Local reporters who want to learn how to track congressional earmarks in their area. Workshop participants will be walked through a series of online databases and tools that will allow them to access information on earmark recipients, campaign contributions to members of Congress and lobbying records that they can use in developing stories for APME's national reporting project on earmarks.
For more information on the sites and the Webinars and to link to registration, please go to http://www.apme.com/news/2008/022908partnerships.shtml.
WORLD SPANISH DESK CREATED
The AP has consolidated and reorganized its Spanish staffing, taking the former Spanish Online desk and the former Spanish print translation desk and creating a single operation called the World Spanish Desk.
The goal in the reorganization is to help members and subscribers in the United States and Latin America whose AP news is delivered in Spanish.
SAVE TIME AND MONEY WITH AP PAGE READY BASEBALL
Opening Day is just weeks away and AP is again offering Page Ready: Baseball, a popular service that delivers AP baseball agate in a page-ready module that saves you time and money every night. AP Page-Ready: Baseball frees your sports desk from the labor-intensive task of assembling baseball agate, while also appealing to advertisers because of its organized and consistent look. Some newspapers have been able to pair the agate presentation with advertising that covers the cost of the product and also allows them to make a profit on it.
Delivered via the Web and available in Quark XPress and Adobe InDesign formats, AP Page-Ready: Baseball gives you an eye-catching presentation that meets your needs whether you feature linescores, box scores or expanded box scores. It’s easy to use; all you need is an Internet connection and software most newspapers already have. AP also offers a full lineup of other sports agate products:
• Team-by-Team Schedules
• Expanded box scores
• Weekly Averages
• Team-by-Team StatsMLB Pitching Comparisons
• MLB Mug shots
Please contact AP Texas Bureau Chief Dale Leach or Assistant Chief of Bureau Barry Bedlan at 1-800-442-7189 for more information.
MARCH MADNESS
Post-season basketball tournaments are in full swing and you can give your readers a full NCAA package as the frenzy builds. Hosted Custom News offers a College Hoops front with the latest stories, headlines, interactives, AP’s TOP 25 Poll for Men’s and Women’s Basketball, Brackets and much more.
For information, call Texas Chief of Bureau Dale Leach or Assistant Chief of Bureau Barry Bedlan at 1-800-442-7189 or check out www.ap.org/newspapers and click on Services.
ONLINE VIDEO NETWORK – SYNDICATE YOUR LOCAL VIDEO
Local news often sparks national interest. Consider making your local video work harder for you than ever before with the latest enhancement to AP’s Online Video Network. Members who upload local video to their players can now syndicate that content to the rest of the network – over 1800 Web sites. Every time your video plays on another member’s site, you’ll earn a share of the ad revenue.
In just a few weeks, you will be able to share your content with other affiliates in the network and here are some of the impressive features:
Syndication Rules – Share your content while remaining in control of it.
The local video content management tool will allow you to create rules so that you can decide where your content can be featured across the AP network of affiliates.
Tool Facelift – More useable too!
We’ve redesigned the interface so you can intuitively create rules and navigate new features.
Transcoding – Updates and additional formats.
We’ve updated our transcoding engine and enabling a few of the transcoding types we’ve blocked in the past. Here’s the new list of supporting transcoding types: .mov, .3gpp, .gxf, .lxf, .mpg, .mlv, .m2v, .m4e, .mpe, .h264, .vob, .yuv, .3g2, .3gp, .3gp2, .asf, .dv, .qt.
Inline Player – Buy one get one free!
With this release the Inline Player is included as part of the video tool. This also includes a large thumbnail feature.
Monitoring Update
We’ve instrumented the new features we’ve added, and updated some of the current features, with the same monitoring technology so that we know, before anyone else, if things go awry.
‘ASK AP,’ COLUMN TAKES ON READERS’ QUESTIONS WEEKLY
Ask AP,” a Q&A column The Associated Press began publishing seven weeks ago, has officially gone weekly.
The Q&A initiative, in which AP reporters and editors answer questions about the news sent in by the public, is being made available for use online and in newspapers every Friday morning.
Readers are invited to send news-related questions to the e-mail address newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. Several questions are answered in each weekly installment, which also includes a call for additional questions.
Over the past several weeks, AP received questions from around the United States on topics ranging from the presidential campaign and the war in Iraq to college football and gas-rationing coupons.
SPECIAL EDITIONS
The special edition package on Boomers will move April 1.
Editors can access Special Features content in AP Exchange by typing “SPE” into the search field.
AMERICAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS FIGHTING PLANO ORDINANCE
American Community Newspapers is appealing a Plano city ordinance that limits distribution of printed materials to residents’ homes. A federal judge dismissed the company’s lawsuit last month.
The city bars people from distributing printed literature door-to-door to those who display “no soliciting” signs on their property. Those who want to distribute commercial materials must first file permits with the city and residents may file complaints with the city.
American Community Newspapers argues in its lawsuit that Plano's ordinance violates freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
APPLAUSE PLEASE
DOUG TONEY, editor and publisher of the Herald-Zeitung in New Braunfels, received the Pat Taggart Award from the Texas Daily Newspaper Association. He was honored for his vision and leadership in bringing about an in-depth analysis of his community's needs. The Taggart Award is presented annually to the publisher or newspaper executive who has provided outstanding service to his or her newspaper, to the newspaper business and to the community
CHARLES MOSER, editor and publisher of The Banner-Press in Brenham, was honored by the Texas Daily Newspaper Association for his service as president of the group in 2007.
DAVE ROGERS, sports editor of The Baytown Sun, won the Fred Hartman Excellence in Sportswriting Award, from the Texas Daily Newspaper Association. The award is named for the late Fred Hartman, a former publisher and newspaper owner who began his career as a sports writer and worked as a sports editor of The Baytown Sun.
MATT DULIN of The Beaumont Enterprise won the John Murphy Award for Excellence in Copy Editing from the Texas Daily Newspaper Association. The Murphy Award is named for the late John Murphy, former executive vice president of the newspaper association and a copy editor during his long newspaper career.
KEVEN ANN WILLEY, vice president and editorial page editor of The Dallas Morning News, received the 2007 Mayborn Award for community leadership Monday from the Texas Daily Newspaper Association. Willey was recognized for a series of editorials calling for a constitutional amendment mandating recorded votes in the Texas Legislature. The award is named for the late Frank W. Mayborn, who owned newspapers in Temple and Killeen and a television station in Temple. His widow, Anyse Sue Mayborn, established the award in 1992.
DEATHS
ANN FARAGHER, former editor of the Greenville Herald-Banner, has died at the age of 87. Faragher joined the paper in 1966 as a courthouse reporter. She was editor from 1977 to 1986.
ON THE MOVE
LORRAINE BRANHAM, director of the School of Journalism at the University of Texas in Austin, has been named dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communciations at Syracuse University.
Branham has also taught at Temple, Missouri, Florida and the University of California at Berkeley.
INDUSTRY NEWS
The AP Industry News summary is now available on the new AP Exchange system, a free system offering you Web-based access to the AP report. On AP Exchange, media industry news items will be available immediately, rather than transmitted once a week. For more on AP Exchange you can visit www.ap.org/apexchange.
If you do not have AP Exchange access yet, please contact AP Texas Chief of Bureau Dale Leach.
An AP Exchange account will permit you to access and search industry news, along with all your AP text, photo and graphics services. Until an AP Exchange account is created for you, we can add you to an e-mail list for distribution of media industry news items as soon as they arrive. If you would like to be added to the distribution list, please send your request by e-mail to talkback@ap.org.
If you’ve got news to share for TEXAS HapPENINGS, please send the material to Linda Franklin at lfranklin@ap.org.
PREVIOUS ISSUES:
• April 16, 2007
• April 30, 2007
• May 14, 2007
• May 28, 2007
• June 11, 2007
• June 25, 2007
• July 13, 2007
• July 27, 2007
• August 6, 2007
• August 20, 2007
• September 3, 2007
• September 24, 2007
• October 8, 2007
• October 22, 2007
• November 5, 2007
• November 19, 2007
• December 3, 2007
• December 17, 2007
• January 1, 2008
• January 14, 2008
• January 28, 2008
• February 11, 2008
• February 25, 2008
