Texas Happenings, No. 24
Week of December 3, 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.
TELLING THE REST OF THE STORY: TEXAS AP STYLE
When the editors of the British version of Esquire Magazine were looking for a location for their spring fashion layout they settled on a most unlikely spot: College Station. Houston-based Texas at-large writer Michael Graczyk and photographer Pat Sullivan tagged along with the magazine's photo crew for a story on the magazine's visit to the Brayton Fire Training Field, a renowned firefighter training site run by the Texas Engineering Extension Service at the far edge of the Texas A&M campus. There, with the photo team orchestrating his antics, a model in $2,000 suits perched on wreckage and struck poses as a rail tanker blazed away behind him. Catherine Hayward, Esquire's fashion director, said the site fit the magazine’s desire for something "quite odd and quirky."
Graczyk also wrote about another oddity with Aggie connections - the deliberate sinking of a ship. The 473-foot Texas Clipper, which was a classroom at sea for about 200 Texas A&M-Galveston students each summer for almost 30 years, was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico off South Padre Island to become an artificial reef and serve as a habitat for sea life and a destination for divers. The sinking culminated almost 10 years of planning and $4 million in preparations by the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
As El Paso Correspondent Alicia Caldwell worked on the story of a bankruptcy case involving a multimillion-dollar resort, former U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla's name appeared in a list of people with a financial or legal interest in the defunct property. An exhaustive search of property and tax records in a remote West Texas county showed he had no property at the resort or in the county.
But records from the resort and his campaign finance forms showed multiple donations from resort owner Steven R. Smith to Bonilla and large campaign expenditures at the resort. A resort newsletter also showed that Bonilla, who lost a special election last year, was a member of the swanky desert outpost.
In the end, Caldwell was able to show that while a member of this exclusive resort, Bonilla steered an earmark of more than $1 million to the Texas Department of Transportation on behalf of the resort to fund a road project to move a stretch of highway that cut through the property. But the road never got built, Bonilla left office and TxDOT is left with the money, unable to spend it on any other project and so far, unwilling to just give it back.
San Antonio newswoman Elizabeth White and photographer Eric Gay visited a farm at Texas A&M University's Uvalde campus to report on the state's efforts to break into the artichoke market, which has been long dominated by California.
Researchers and commercial growers are having some early success, even selling their yearly harvest to a local grocer. Gay then put together an audio and photo slideshow to go along with the story.
LOOKING AHEAD
DAIRIES-WEST TEXAS
LUBBOCK - Mike Schouten has seen firsthand the growth of the dairy industry in the Panhandle. Schouten moved his dairy operation from Central Texas to near Hereford about five years ago because the climate is more conducive to strong milk production.
He's part of a plethora of new dairies that have moved to the region since 2001 when there were about 20,000 cows. Six years later, there are seven times as many and the number of dairies has more than tripled. "You don't have the heat stress in the summertime and the winter times are similar to Central Texas with the exception of more wind," Schouten said.
Betsy Blaney’s story on Dairies-West Texas is moving in advance for weekend editions, Dec. 8-9.
Also in the Texas Weekend Report:
AP MEMBER EXCHANGE: GREATER IDEAL
MIDLAND - On a recent Monday, the interior of Southern Velle, an upscale restaurant and one of Midland's newest, was just filling up with well-heeled clientele - men in business suits sipping iced tea; a pastor's wife from wealthy Grasslands West, a mother and daughter taking a break from jobs downtown. The restaurant has become one of the most visible barometers of change in the city's South Side, an area long sunk into economic privation, crime and drug abuse. And, perhaps more surprisingly, the restaurant is there because of one South-Side church. By Jennifer Edwards, Midland Reporter-Telegram.
AP Photos.
MONDAY
WIFE ENLISTS
SAN ANTONIO - More than a year after Spc. Alejandro Albarran, an infantry man, lost part of his right leg to a blast in Iraq, he still hasn't decided whether he'll stay in the Army. "Right now, I'm leaning against it," he says. But even if he hangs up his combat boots, he won't be leaving Army life altogether. His wife has enlisted to take his place. Janay Albarran is set to graduate from boot camp. By Michelle Roberts.
SHARING YOUR INNOVATIVE IDEAS
The challenges are familiar: Circulation decline, revenue decline, migration to online, shrinking staff and rising demands.
That’s the headline, but dig a little farther and some innovative ideas emerge. At the Texas APME Convention in Galveston March 28-30, you’ll have the chance to hear some of those ideas and meet some of the innovators.
We’d like to hear your success stories, your creative solutions, your innovations. How are the state’s editors coping? What’s working? Who’s innovating?
If that’s you, Larry Lutz, managing editor development & copy desk at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, would like to hear from you. He’s especially interested in best practices, innovations and solutions. If you’ve got one you can share, please let him know at llutz@star-telegram or 817-390-7121.
TIME TO WRAP UP THOSE CONTEST ENTRIES
While you’re working on those year-end stories, take a moment to think about the stories that you want to enter in the Texas APME Headliners Excellence in Journalism Awards.
Contest rules have been mailed to your newsrooms and are moving daily on the Texas AP wire. The key date to remember is that your entries must be in the hands of the contest coordinators by 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18, 2008.
Besides the awards in the four circulation classifications, we will once again have a second round of competition pitting the winners in the four circulation classifications against one another for the Charles E. Green awards bestowed by the Headliners Foundation.
The Charles E. Green awards include Star Reporter of the Year, Star Photojournalist of the Year, Star Designer of the Year, Star Investigative Report of the Year and Star Breaking News Report of the Year.
There also will be the competition for Newspaper of the Year, which replaces the Sweepstakes Award.
The contest period covers work done from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2007, with exceptions as noted in the rules.
The four divisions are for newspapers that circulate in Texas, college and university papers, AP staff and Spanish language newspapers that circulate in Texas.
Please read the rules carefully and note the changes, including entries on double bylines, freelance work and entrants who work for more than one newspaper.
If you have questions about the rules, please contact the contest coordinators.
Shane Fitzgerald, managing editor of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, is the coordinator for Class AA and AAAA. Class AA covers papers with a circulation of 10,000 to 29,999. Class AAAA covers papers with a circulation of 125,000 or more.
Sharon Roberts, assistant managing editor of the Austin American-Statesman, is the coordinator for Class A and AAA. Class A covers newspapers with a circulation of up to 9,999. Class AAA covers papers with a circulation of 30,000 to 124,999.
Spanish-language entries should be sent to Dino Chiecchi, director of Hispanic publications for the San Antonio Express-News.
ALL-STATE VOTING SET TO BEGIN
Please tell your sports editors to watch for an advisory next week letting them know that online voting for the Texas All-State football teams is set to begin.
If you have any questions about the All-State balloting, please contact Paul J. Weber at pweber@ap.org.
MEMBERS OFFER STORIES ON-CYCLE
When Sen. John Cornyn and former White House strategist Karl Rove participated in an immigration summit in East Texas, the Tyler Morning Telegraph shared its story on-cycle with the AP.
The San Angelo Standard-Times made sure to keep the AP in mind on-cycle about the explosion of a tanker carrying liquefied propane that killed the truck’s driver.
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal shared its story on-cycle about child endangerment charges against a couple whose children, police say, were living in a home filled with rat feces, cockroaches and trash.
The Brownsville Herald shared its story on the discovery of a headless body near train tracks.
The Odessa American shared material on-cycle on a snowstorm that moved through the region.
These are just a few of the many examples of on-cycle contributions from Texas members in recent weeks.
If you’ve got a story you think we will be interested in, please send them to dalcarbon@ap.org or APTexas@ap.org.
SPECIAL EDITIONS
The final special edition package of the year moved Dec. 4 and will be about weddings.
Editors can access Special Features content in AP Exchange by typing “SPE” into the search field.
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES
An attorney for The Post Dispatch is examining whether First Amendment press protections were violated when law enforcement officials kept a newspaper photographer and photographers for two Lubbock television stations out of the Garza County courthouse during a murder trial.
District Judge Carter Schildknecht cited security concerns in prohibiting cameras inside the courthouse on the final day of the trial. She says she told officers the cameras would be allowed outside the courthouse, but publisher Wesley Burnett said the order extended to the grounds.
It is not unusual in Texas for cameras to be banned from criminal courtrooms.
Don Richards, the newspaper's attorney, said hallways and other areas in the courthouse are "removed from the integrity of the trial and security." He said the restriction could be "an outright" violation of First Amendment.
But whether that proves to be the case is "probably going to depend on the circumstances," said Richards, who is continuing to investigate the incident.
He said the rules need to be clarified for the future.
A libel lawsuit that a Louisiana company filed against the San Antonio Express-News has been dismissed by a Bexar County judge.
Premier Management Enterprises had sued the paper, reporter Elizabeth Allen and Hearst Newspaper Partnership, alleging that the newspaper's stories and an editorial about alleged misconduct in the commissary contracts was "false and misleading."
The newspaper, as part of an agreement with Premier, acknowledged there were three errors in the stories and editorial that ran in December 2005.
Former Sheriff Ralph Lopez and his long-time friend, John Reynolds, reached plea agreements related to their dealings with the company. Prosecutors took Lopez on a golf trip to Costa Rica and Reynolds told company officials to Lopez's campaign.
The company has insisted there was no wrongdoing on its part.
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
