Texas Happenings 2007, No. 19
Week of September 24, 2007TEXAS 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.
COVERING TEXAS AP STYLE: LOOKING FOR THE NEXT STORY
When two Odessa police officers were killed and a third was fatally wounded answering a domestic disturbance call, Lubbock Correspondent Betsy Blaney traveled to the West Texas city to talk to neighbors and others about the day’s events.
She wasn’t done there.
Blaney talked to the brother of the wounded officer about the emotional pact he and his two brothers, all officers, had made when considering their line of work. The brothers had long ago talked about what they would do if one of them was on life support and they needed to consider pulling the plug. It was a decision two of the men were faced with before their wounded brother died without them having to make the call.
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In Houston, photographer David J. Phillip found himself with the photo and story when injured NFL player Kevin Everett of the Buffalo Bills was transferred to a Houston hospital to begin the next phase of his rehabilitation from a life-threatening spinal cord injury.
Phillip was the only one in the right place when Everett arrived. He staked out the Memorial Hermann TIRR hospital instead of the main hospital, based on past experience and local news coverage. He made the photos and then called in what he saw, earning him a byline on the story before he was joined by reporter Juan A. Lozano. For his efforts, Phillip was recognized as part of the AP’s in-house international Beat of the Week contest.
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When residents in southeast Texas turned in for the night on Sept. 13, everyone expected a little bit of rain from a weak tropical storm. What they got was Hurricane Humberto, which quickly strengthened before making landfall early Sept. 14. Lozano turned from coverage of the BP lawsuit trial to hurricane duty, providing details on the impact of the storm and talking to forecasters about Humberto’s surprise.
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Fort Worth Correspondent Angela K. Brown looked beyond the daily news on the story on a woman who police say set her three young daughters on fire after pouring gasoline on them in their closet. The youngest, who was 3 years old, died after suffering burns on 90 percent of her body.
In light of the number of cases of Texas mothers killing their children, Brown talked to experts who said they don’t believe Texas - the nation's second-largest state- has more than its share of such cases. The experts said dramatic and horrific cases make the news. Some in Texas include Andrea Yates, the Houston mother who drowned her five children in the bathtub, and Dena Schlosser, the Plano woman who severed her infant daughter's arms with a kitchen knife.
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LOOKING AHEAD
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
TRAVEL-TRIP-WURSTFEST
NEW BRAUNFELS - Any old town can have its own Oktoberfest. The beer stein-hoisting events pop up all over in late September and early October. But New Braunfels, a Central Texas town with strong ties to its German heritage, prefers to honor a specific piece of German heritage: sausage. The city has been holding "Wurstfest: The 10-day salute to sausage," for the past 46 years, drawing curious, and hungry, visitors from the world over. A large, lush park near a spring-fed river every fall transforms into the international center of Gemutlichkeit - "fun and fellowship, German style." The fest kicks off with the traditional "biting of the sausage" and always begins on the Friday before the first Monday in November. This year that's Nov. 2. By Elizabeth White. Moved Tuesday.
AP Photos.
MAMMOTH SITE
WACO - Mammoth bones may draw tourists to Waco, but just how mammoth their impact will be is anyone's guess at this point. Even so, some are betting that tourists attracted to the Waco Mammoth Site now on track to be part of the National Park Service may do more than just eye fossils. They may eat a meal or two, buy fossil fuels, even spend the night if they want to see just how life has evolved since mammoths walked the region 70,000 years ago. "I think it has tremendous national and even international appeal," said Mayborn Museum director Ellie Caston. She said she has heard visitor estimates of 50,000 a year "all the way up to 300,000." Waco's mammoth site along the Bosque River, discovered in 1978, is the largest known concentration of prehistoric mammoths perishing from a single event. By Mike Copeland And Wendy Gragg, Waco Tribune-Herald. Moved Wednesday.
MONDAY
BAPTISTS-WOMAN PRESIDENT
DALLAS - A denominational leader who got her start as a church secretary is likely to become the first woman president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Joy Fenner, longtime mission worker, is in line to be named head of the country's largest Baptist state convention when it conducts its annual meeting in late October. Less than 1 percent of the convention's pastors are female. AP Photos. By Matt Curry.
NEWSNOW NEW AP INITIATIVE
Keeping with the AP mission of providing news quickly, we’ve begun a new initiative designed to allow us to bring you more state news faster, especially for your Web sites.
They’re more conversational and follow a hybrid style that was developed to serve the pressing needs of all AP members and online readers.
It’s all a part of NewsNow and is designed to allow the AP to provide more to all of its members even more quickly.
NewsNows will often contain first word of breaking news or the latest developments in existing stories. They’ll carry an urgent designation if merited and sometimes will be preceded by NewsAlerts.
If you have any questions about NewsNow, call or e-mail Texas Assistant Bureau Chief Barry Bedlan at the Dallas bureau: 1-800-442-7189 or 972-991-2100; bbedlan(at)ap.org.
GOING THE EXTRA MILE FOR THE AP
Day in, day out members offer the AP in Texas stories that contribute to a great news report. The Bryan-College Station Eagle went above and beyond recently in helping to get one of its stories to the wire as a member exchange.
Eagle staffer Craig Kapitan had produced a 20,000-word, four-part series on a former Marine reservist’s battle with post-traumatic stress syndrome. Managing Editor Kelly Brown offered the story to the AP and, in an effort to get Kapitan’s story out, agreed to a request to give us an abridged version of 1,500 words.
Kapitan accepted the challenge to pare down his story into one take. The story ran as a weekend member exchange with a note at the bottom linking to the full four-part series on the paper’s Web site.
In other examples of recent member contributions, the Odessa American gave the AP early word on the shooting deaths of two Odessa police officers, the Victoria Advocate shared its stories on a bee attack on a Port Lavaca man and the arrest of a man with a rocket launcher, The Lufkin Daily News helped track down confirmation that former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson’s heart transplant surgery was complete and the Tyler Morning Telegraph alerted the AP to its story on the status of the jury selection for the KFC slaying trial.
If you have a story that you want to offer to the AP, please send it to dalcarbon@ap.org. If you want to give us a heads-up about a story on your Web site, call 1-800-442-7189 or 972-991-2100.
MIKE FLYNT JOURNAL
The story of 59-year-old college football player Mike Flynt has captivated fans since The Associated Press first reported on his comeback in August.
Now, Flynt is keeping a weekly journal for the AP as we continue coverage of his season at Sul Ross State.
The first installment of The Senior-Journal moved Wednesday and we’ll have journals each Wednesday through the season.
The grandpa-linebacker is expected to play his first game Wednesday against Howard Payne in Brownwood and we will have coverage of that.
MILLIONS DONATED FOR NEW MEDIA CENTER AT UT
Belo Corp. and the families of two of the company’s longtime leaders are donating a total of $15 million to help build a center for new media at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Belo Foundation has pledged $12 million for the center, which will be named the Belo Center for New Media after Alfred Horatio Belo, the original owner of The Dallas Morning News.
The estate of James M. Moroney and the Jim and Moroney Family are donating $1.5 million. Robert W. and Maureen H. Dechard are donating $500,000 for a teaching endowment for journalism and $1 million for a teaching endowment for the English department in the College of Liberal Arts.
James M. Moroney Jr. died in February. He held almost every senior management job at the company. Dechard is chairman and CEO of Belo Corp.
The new building will include state-of-the-art classrooms, advanced production labs, seminar rooms and large auditorium spaces, university officials said.
Groundbreaking is expected in January 2009.
AP EXCHANGE TRAINING EVERY THURSDAY
Now is the time to contact AP to book training on AP Exchange for your newsroom. Simply email talkback@ap.org to book a 60-minute online training session.
This session will provide editors and reporters with all they need to know to become AP Exchange experts. They'll be able to search for locally relevant news in the new AP database and build custom feeds that will deliver relevant news in less time.
As well, don't forget our regularly scheduled School of Search online training which takes place every Thursday at 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET. RSVP for these sessions at talkback@ap.org.
Questions: Dwayne Desaulniers, (212) 621-1745, ddesaulniers@ap.org
AP CHANNELS
AP Channels are a powerful new source of subject-specific news from the AP. Available only in AP Exchange, AP Channels are feeds of news on specific topics drawn from all 50 state wires, national wires and English international wires. It's content beyond what members have ever had access to. Each channel is a rich source of news for print and online on the related topic. The most popular AP Channel is Education, but other popular ones are Local Companies, Kids & Family, Environment, Health, Energy and Crime.
In the past week, two new channels have been added to the AP Exchange menu -- the Immigration and Social Affairs channels. If immigration is an important local issue to your readers, the new Immigration Channel is a great fit. It covers all issues related to immigration, visas, policy, migration, demographics and legal. This topic has been one consistently requested by papers in Texas. Currently, one week's worth of news is showing 475 stories.
The other new channel, Social Affairs, is a broad topic with a high volume of news that includes coverage of cultures, demographic trends, ethics, ideologies, philanthropy, belief systems, religious issues, gender issues, personal communications and relationships, social organizations, addiction and substance abuse, consumerism, migration, poverty and violence. Currently, one week's worth of news is showing 2,930 stories.
To learn more about accessing AP Channels in AP Exchange, contact Texas Bureau Chief Dale Leach or Texas Assistant Chief of Bureau Barry Bedland at 1-800-442-7189 or 972-991-2100.
AP, NBC UNIVERSAL TEAM UP TO DISTRIBUTE OLYMPICS MATERIAL
The Associated Press has reached an agreement with NBC Sports and NBC Olympics to be the exclusive news agency for the distribution of select, NBC-produced text content and video links related to the 2008 Olympic Games through a premium online product produced by the AP. Details available on AP.org: http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_082107a.htm
SPECIAL EDITIONS
The special edition package on parenting will move Oct. 2.
APPLAUSE PLEASE
SHELTON PRINCE JR. was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Newspaper Hall of Honor. Prince’s career as a publisher included the Brownwood (Texas) Bulletin.
DEATHS
ROBERT “BOB” WHEARLEY, a former Houston Chronicle Sunday news editor, died Aug. 30 in a Pueblo, Colo., hospital. He was 78. Whearley worked at the Chronicle from 1978 until he retired in 1989. He also worked at the Denver Post, the Rocky Mountain News, the Los Angeles Times and the Des Moines Register during his career.
JOHN TROWBRIDGE, who covered sports for the San Antonio Light for nearly 30 years, died Sept. 15 of a brain tumor. He was 82. Trowbridge worked at The Dallas Morning News before joining the Light, where he covered high school, college and pro sports. After stepping down as an assistant sports editor in 1980, he worked on the features copy desk at the Colorado Springs Gazette for 10 years.
JOHN HULEN MURPHY, who oversaw the expansion of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association during a 30-year tenure with the organization, died Sept. 22 after a brief illness. He was 94.
The TDNA grew from 31 to 98 member newspapers while he was with the association.
"The passing of John Murphy at the age of 94 is really the end of an era for the Texas newspaper industry," said TDNA President Charles Moser of the Brenham Banner Press. "He had a huge role in promoting the newspaper industry during a time of great growth when he served TDNA from 1952 to 1984."
Murphy worked as a sports writer for the Galveston Daily News and a copy editor for the Houston Post during his career. He retired as executive vice president of TDNA.
ON THE MOVE
NELSON CLYDE IV is the new publisher of the Tyler Morning Telegraph and the Tyler Courier-Times-Telegraph, its Sunday edition. Clyde is the fifth publisher of the family-owned T.B. Butler Publishing Co. He succeeds his father, Nelson Clyde III, who died last month.
GEORGE H. COGSWELL III, president and publisher of the Abilene Reporter-News since 2003, is the new president and publisher of the Ventura County (Calif.) Star. KIM NUSSBAUM, vice president of advertising and marketing, has been named interim president and publisher for the Reporter-News.
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
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