Texas Happenings 2007, No. 20
Week of October 8, 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
Austin Supervisory Correspondent Kelley Shannon reported that Gov. Rick Perry's job creation fund has awarded grants to multiple companies that have laid off workers before meeting their employment targets.
Countrywide Financial Corp., which is laying off up to 12,000 employees nationally, and at least five other major companies that received money from the Texas Enterprise Fund laid off Texas workers after entering agreements with state fund, the AP reported.
Those firms haven't been required to pay money back to the state. Most companies have a multiyear deal allowing them to add jobs gradually as they aim for a target number of jobs by a specified date, regardless of whether they lay off employees along the way.
The governor's office defended the enterprise fund, saying companies job creation numbers are verified. But opponents of the accountability of the program.
In Dallas, AP Business Writer David Koenig examined the impending labor battle involving American Airlines and the unions representing pilots, flight attendants and ground workers for another story.
San Antonio Correspondent Michelle Roberts visited Canyon Lake Gorge, a canyon that formed in just three days in 2002 and exposed dinosaur prints and fossils. Her story moved just before the gorge was to open to the public.
Lubbock Correspondent Betsy Blaney revisited the issue of feral hogs after a wet summer that has wildlife officials worried that the population will raise significantly.
Meanwhile, Anabelle Garay found herself dictating a story in Spanish for a NewsAlert on the Spanish language wire after speaking with a Colombian senator who visited a rebel leader imprisoned in Fort Worth.
She then wrote the story in English. A top Colombian daily, Cali-based El Pais ran the AP story in its homepage.
LOOKING AHEAD
GOD BEHIND BARS
RICHMOND - Convicted murderer Manny Hernandez says of his prison: "It's a blessing to be here." A fellow inmate likens it to heaven. They're praising the Carol Vance Unit, founded in 1997 - the oldest of a growing number of faith-based prison facilities across the nation. Even as they proliferate, these programs are often criticized. Evidence that they reduce recidivism is inconclusive, and skeptics suggest the prevailing Protestant evangelical tone discriminates against inmates who don't share that faith. However, evidence is strong that trouble-making drops sharply in these programs, and they often are the only vibrant rehabilitation option available. Inmates at Vance offer another compelling argument. Unlike many of America's 2 million prisoners, they feel they are treated with respect. They have hope. By National Writer David Crary.
With AP Photos NY311-318. An audio slideshow on a faith-based prison unit will be available in the _national/god_behind_bars folder
Moving for use Oct. 13-14.
Also moving for Saturday-Sunday:
KFC SLAYINGS
NEW BOSTON - Jurors in a northeast Texas courtroom this week begin hearing about an infamous mass murder case that left investigators baffled for nearly a quarter-century and will test witnesses and lawyers trying to sort out fact from legend. Opening arguments were set for Monday in the capital murder case of Romeo Pinkerton, 49, the first of two men to face trial for fatally shooting of five people in what became known as the "Kentucky Fried Chicken Murders." Their deaths outside Kilgore in September 1983 became one of Texas' longest unsolved mass murder cases. By Michael Graczyk.
AP Photos
AP WEEKEND MEMBER EXCHANGE: BELLE FIX
TEMPLE - Their photo album seems like it could belong to anybody, full with pictures of friends on vacation - rafting, hiking, sightseeing, chatting and laughing. But then come the bathing suit pictures. There's picture after picture of six women in bathing suits, sometimes posing in places where there's no place to swim - like in the middle of Times Square It's tradition for the album's owners: six 70-something former high school classmates, who get together each year to reminisce and find new adventures. By Tomie Lunsford, Temple Daily Telegram.
AP Photos
MONDAY:
LITTLE GIRL LOST
HOUSTON - The girl was small, about 5-foot-3 and weighing just about 100 pounds. Her hair was long, dark and lustrous. Her eyes were dark and almond-shaped. Aside from her clothes, there was little to identify the girl on the steel examining table of the Harris County morgue. She had been found in the courtyard of an apartment complex, bullets in her head, torso and leg. No ID was found on her body. Yet there was one clue, described by the medical examiner's office in cool, clinical language that could not strip the phrase of its underlying pathos: "The decedent has braces." The girl with no name mattered to someone. Of that much, they were sure. By Monica Rhor.
AP Photos.
KUDOS FOR MEMBER ASSISTANCE
The Victoria Advocate, The (McAllen) Monitor, The Brownsville Herald and the Texarkana Gazette are among the members recently sharing stories with the AP on cycle.
Victoria provided the AP with its stories on a commissioner resigning after pleading guilty in a voter fraud case and an overturned tanker.
The Monitor shared its story on a teen standing trial as an adult in the death of a prostitute.
The Brownsville Herald shared its story on former Sheriff Conrado Cantu asking a court to overturn his prison sentence.
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.
JIM LEHRER AWARDS FOR JOURNALISM
The deadline is Dec. 21 for entries in the annual Jim Lehrer Awards for Journalism presented by the Victoria Advocate and The Victoria College.
Journalists working for daily or weekly newspapers in Texas are eligible for the award, which is offered in two categories - dailies and weeklies of up to 25,000 circulation and dailies and weeklies of more than 25,000.
The awards are presented to honor print journalists whose writing and reporting reflects the qualities of honesty, fairness and depth Lehrer is known for.
Lehrer is the news anchor for The NewHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. He graduated from The Victoria College and the University of Missouri.
The awards were established in 1999 in cooperation with Lehrer, The Victoria College and the Victoria Advocate.
Entries must be published between Jan. 1, 2007, and Dec. 1, 2007.
Stories are not limited by subject matter. Entries must be postmarked no later than Friday, Dec. 21, and mailed to Sandra Drozd, Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, The Victoria College, 2200 East Red River, Victoria, TX, 77901.
The awards will be presented Feb. 8, 2008, and the single award winner in each category will receive a plaque and a $1,000 check.
Entries should include a nomination letter from an editor explaining the piece and any special challenges overcome to produce the article. Specify the circulation category and publication name of the entry in the upper right hand corner of the letter. There is no entry fee.
BELO NEWSPAPERS SPUN OFF TO NEW COMPANY
Belo Corp. is spinning off its newspapers, including The Dallas Morning News and the Denton Record-Chronicle, into a new company called A.H. Belo Corp.
Belo Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Decherd will lead the new company.
In addition to the two Texas papers, A.H. Belo Corp. will include The Providence (R.I.) Journal and The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif. It also will own the newspapers' Web sites, direct mail and commercial printing businesses.
Those operations have about 3,800 workers and annual revenue of about $750 million.
Belo President and Chief Operating Officer Dunia Shive will become president and CEO of Belo’s TV business, and Decherd plans to serve as non-executive chairman.
AP AND STATS LLC TO PROVIDE NEW ONLINE OLYMPIC PRODUCTS
AP and STATS LLC, one of the world’s leading sports information companies, are launching new products – Summer Games and Summer Games Plus – to help newspapers, broadcasters and Web sites cover the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Included in their core service, AP members can receive top stories and photos from Beijing via Summer Games on AP’s text wires and on AP’s Hosted Web platform, which currently services 750 news organizations worldwide.
Summer Games Plus, a premium service which will be available for print, broadcast and/or online use, allows customers to create their own online presentation from feeds or to take advantage of an online hosted platform built and operated by STATS.
NEW IMMIGRATION CHANNEL IN AP EXCHANGE
One of the great features of our new AP Exchange service is the ability for members to receive a much richer AP report tailored to the interests of the communities they serve. Satellite limits how much news we can send, but with AP Exchange, we can ensure that members see the complete AP report including all state wires and English international wires.
To help members make sense of this we've gone a step further and organized all content into 25 topics and our latest topic is Immigration. With the Immigration channel, members will see all immigration stories from the full AP report, offering the most comprehensive coverage of this issue to members and their readers.
For a trial of the new Immigration Channel or to learn more about our other topics, contact Texas Bureau Chief Dale Leach or Texas Assistant Chief of Bureau Barry Bedlan at 1-800-442-7189 or 972-991-2100.
IMPROVED COVERAGE OF LOCAL COMPANIES IN AP EXCHANGE
Monitoring the activities of local employers is an important part of members’ news coverage and the AP can help with this. AP's new My Local Companies feature in AP Exchange offers members the ability to track news from up to 50 public companies.
This premium service may be available to members at no charge, depending on their service level. Members simply type in the tickers of interest and we take care of the rest, offering 24/7 coverage of the companies that matter most to members’ communities. The news made available via My Local Companies comes from a specialized team of AP business reporters.
AP EXCHANGE TRAINING
Many editors have started working with AP Exchange in the past few weeks. As with any new system, a learning curve is necessary and we'd like to help with this as much as possible.
Searching for news is one thing, but putting AP Exchange to work for members is what we really hope to be able to do. AP offers online AP Exchange training for your newsroom to teach some of these enhanced features.
Contact Texas Chief of Bureau Dale Leach or Assistant Chief of Bureau Barry Bedlan to book a session or simply sign up for the open sessions every Thursday at 11 and 4:30 ET.
ONLINE VIDEO NETWORK LOCAL ADVERTISING COMPONENT
AP’s Online Video Network is adding a local advertising component to its growing list of functionality. The local advertising component allows an OVN subscriber who creates and uploads local videos into its player to run pre-roll advertisements enabling them to monetize their local video.
If you have any questions, please contact the OVN Support Department at 866-427-6861 or via email at ovnsupport@ap.org.
AP MONEY & MARKETS
AP Money & Markets has even more to offer since its launch a year ago. We’ve added even more online modules, including analytic news modules such as daily centerpiece and Industry Spotlight. In print, we’ve added Money & Markets Extra with 30 modules geared for weekend use. Check it out at www.ap.org/markets.
To join a conference call and Webex to hear about the latest developments, contact Texas AP Chief of Bureau Dale Leach or Assistant Chief of Bureau Barry Bedlan at 1-800-442-7189 or 972-991-2100.
HOSTED CUSTOM NEWS
With fall sports in full swing, use Hosted Custom News to create football, college hoops and NASCAR special sections with minimal setup work on your part. Hosted Custom News does the work for you, delivering photos, audio, interactives, video and more so your site visitors get complete coverage of the latest breaking news. It is the easiest way to add AP’s news in all formats, present online advertising and eliminate the hassle and expense of hosting dynamic news pages.
Contact Texas AP Chief of Bureau Dale Leach or Assistant Chief of Bureau Barry Bedlan at 1-800-442-7189 or 972-991-2100 for details.
NHL VIDEO
AP member newspapers have the opportunity to show rights-cleared, professional sports video highlights on their websites through NHL Video Highlights. The video highlights are available through STATS LLC and allow members to include as many or as few highlights as they wish on their Web sites.
Members can subscribe for the full season to receive highlights from every game from the beginning of the season to the end, including the Stanley Cup Finals. They can also subscribe to receive highlights for a single team throughout season. A weekly package of highlights from around the league also is available.
Pricing and marketing material is available on Sharepoint.
SPECIAL EDITIONS
The special edition package on holidays will move Nov. 6. Weddings will move Dec. 4.
And, for your planning purposes, here’s a look at the lineup for 2008:
January – Taxes
February – Home/Garden
March – Pets
April – Mothers’/Father’s Day
May – Outdoors
June – Weddings
July – Back to School
August – Home/Garden
September – Cars
October – Crafts/Hobbies
November – Holidays
December – Weddings
ON THE MOVE
KIM NUSSBAUM is the new president and publisher of the Abilene Reporter-News. Nussbaum, 42, previously was vice president of sales and marketing and had been in charge of the paper’s advertising sales since 2004. She previously worked for the Wichita Falls Times Record News.
CARROLL WILSON is the new managing editor of the Temple Daily Telegram, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in November. Wilson worked for the Wichita Falls Times Record News for 24 years, including the past 12 as editor, before leaving in June.
A LITTLE HELP PLEASE
Here’s something for your “To Do” list when you’re getting ready to change your e-mail address: e-mail Linda Franklin at lfranklin@ap.org with your new address so you’ll not miss any of the wonderful news to be had.
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
