House, hunting

Forget the news. Think Fruit!

Wouldn’t you know Bud Kennedy would lead a Sunday fruit page? I’m sure his many enemies enjoyed that. And his many fans (including me and my wife), who probably chuckled when they saw parallels between the ads and Bud’s topic. But I digress. And I apologize for not being able to stitch together the fruit page, but at least you get the idea.

Satr I was scrubbing skillets early this morning (had to make the 9 a.m. mass) from Saturday night’s chalupa fest when my wife, who was leafing through the paper on the breakfast counter, said: “Have you seen this?”

She held up Sunday’s gawd-awful Page 2B. “When I first started reading this page,” she said, “I kept thinking, ‘How does this art go with these stories?’ ” News readers think in such shocking ways. Then it dawned on her: This page had been savaged by invasive advertising – the kind that says: To hell with news columns. We want you, reader, to focus on these oranges, limes and that apple wth a stem in your eye. I know the eye-movement studies. You can bet that apple stem stopped more than a few readers’ eye movement as did the limes and oranges. Suggested to me that space on a page is too valuable to waste on a smart-ass columnist, another murder story and yet another environment story related to “clean-coal” power plant issues. Right? Is any of that new and compelling in its effort to open windows on life? Yawner news? Wouldn’t think so, but I’d be interested to know how readership was affected by citrus fruit rolling into Bud’s space, an apple poking into the murder story and a huge orange muscling its way into the environment story.

We’ve become accustomed to seeing ads like this that cut into news’ space. Bully for you, bully ads.

Time was when you stayed on your side of the page, and news stayed on its side. Not anymore. News (the revenue-reduction department, as I’ve heard news content ridiculed by the bean-counters) gives it up quickly for advertising. And we know why advertising can kick news’ butt these days. The for-profit model rules. Papers are struggling to find revenue wherever and however they can find it. What’s left of the news staff doesn’t care anymore, I’d guess. Let ads invade news columns. Who cares? Staff’s more likely to have a job tomorrow. Credibility may take a kidney punch, but the place is open for business tomorrow. I understand all that.

So why am I so bothered by those invasive ads? Yes, I know that 50% of readers pick up a paper for its news content and 50% of readers pick up a paper for its ad content. That’s an old but persistent and true statistic. Question is, which side is going to take it in the bum when the revenue going gets tough? And, is that even a worthwhile question to raise?

Serious readers are going to read 2B’s thought-provoking Kennedy column and those two stories even if an apple stem’s poking them in the eye. But I’d guess that less-serious readers will get mesmerized by the fruit. “Damn, Dawnie baby. Look at how this fruit kinda jumps off the page at ya. Ain't that fun?”

God bless them for subscribing or buying a single copy instead of just going online for free, but they’ll pay less attention to the news content in a space dominated by nvasive advertising. What’s so bad about that?

Readers may not learn anything. They may not form ideas and opinions based on the news content. They will be less informed, less American. They have this Florida (California?)Orange from Mars at which to gaze and contemplate. I suppose oranges and other fruits aren’t a bad thing to think about and to give thanks for, assuming they aren’t genetically engineered fruit (or, what if they are? Anyone asking?), but perhaps it would be better for less-serious readers in this environment-challenged DFW with its toxic air to be mulling environment challenges instead of the glories of oranges, limes and apples. But if one’s fixated on fruit, to heck with juicy hard news.

Another issue for me is the compromised time readers will spend with a page. It isn’t much. It’s literally seconds. Probably less than half a minute or maybe 15 seconds with Page 2B. The more time many readers spend gawking at invasive advertising because it’s so compelling visually (and we are visual creatures and can’t help that), the less time they’ll spend with news content and whatever provocative information it could impart.

Enough already. I want to see news that respects ad columns and ads that respect news columns. That’s not happening on today’s 2B. And that’s not good. Revenue can pay diminishing returns. Invasive ads send a bad signal and a troubling perception -– the S-T’s not a serious news product, it’s just a cash cow for McClatchy.

I know the S-T news staff, and I know they’re professionals, from the executive editor on down, and they reflect the respectable motivations that journalists bring to the table. But those commendable qualities are lost on much of the public these days as the anti-media forces whack and chop at the media’s credibility every chance they get. And what’s so sad is that a chunk of the public buys into what they hear. Pages like today’s 2B are no help in preserving journalism’s credibility. It’s just all about making money, right? Unfortunately, yes. But if that’s what it takes to keep excellent journalists working, then bring on papayas and mangos. And where are the bananas and bell peppers?

But I urge people who believe that the media’s only interested in profits to take a look at Pulitzer Prize-winning efforts for the past 20 or 30 years, take a look at how less-than-prize-winning coverage keeps public officials more sensitive to the need to clean up their act, take a look at how coverage inspires community forums to discuss local concerns. Case in point: debates over the City of Fort Worth’s pension issues. Journalists keep local affairs clear and honest. As much as they can. 

Of course, for newspapers, all of that happens primarily on the printed page and, yes, to some degree in cyberspace nowadays (but there you have these cursed floating ads that temporarily obscure one’s ability to read the news). My point is that anything that cripples the Fourth Estate’s ability to connect with readers needs to be addressed with mucho cajones and shown the door or laughed down Seventh Street. Ain’t gonna happen, though, I fear. The prevailing idea, it seems, is to embrace money first and First Amendment stuff maybe will follow. 

The for-profit model takes out journalists' kneecaps very proficiently.

But it bothers the hell out of me when I think that oranges, limes and apples are all it takes to inflict a crippling blow on credible sources of reliable news and information. At least we haven’t seen that sort of invasiveness yet on the sports pages and the editorial/op-ed pages where J.R. Labbe, Bob Ray Sanders, Linda Campbell and Mike Norman have been spared the fruit bullying.

Thank God. Those are some of the brightest lights in this city as are Celeste Williams, Randy Galloway, Gil Lebreton and colleagues. But that’s sort of easy to understand. Thinking people, the types who read editorial/op-ed content at least, and sports fans whose passions bulldoze ads’ attempts to stop their brawls, are not low-hanging fruit who can be distracted easily. They’re not worth ad dollars unless those ads can match the passions in whose presence they presume to plop and command attention. Could happen, but those readers set the bar high – way too high for advertising of Madmen’s ilk. And I love that. Show me an ad that can rivet attnetion on an op-ed or sports page, and I'll show you an ad that's damn genius stuff.

Make those ad/pr people work their butts off -- just like news staff does. Fight like hell over the space on news pages. Knock heads. You good enough to get in that fight? Yes? No? 

Bottom line: Make ads work harder in their space. Don’t invade news columns. They need to be strong enough not to coattail on news' muscle. After all, news organization’s credibility gives ads their value. Yes? If you don't agree, you're not much of ad/pr person. If you do agree, you need to tell the S-T to quit selling its space on the (credibility) cheap.  

What do you think? Your comments are welcome.

Spreading our wings

I’ve had pretty much a lifelong dream -- learning to fly. That notion was inspired by my dad, a policeman and parttime commercial pilot. Flying was his passion. He would sneak away from school when he was 16 (c 1935) and take flying lessons from a barnstormer in an OX-5 Swallow, an open-cockpit biplane.

 “Kinda hard to land,” I remember dad saying. “It just wanted to float along. You had to make it land.” But he learned to fly that plane and flew many others before he was grounded in the late '60s by heart problems. My dream was grounded in the ’60s, too.

I was a pitcher. Got a line drive to the forehead, resulting in a scar on my brain that gave me epilepsy, meaning I couldn’t pass a flight physical. Over time, I outgrew the epilepsy, as the doctors had said. But it was part of my history and continued to carry the stigma that has prevailed through the decades. Bypass surgery a while back probably was the final nail in my dream, but I don’t know for sure.

I’ve always rejoiced at news that someone has earned their private pilot certificate. I enjoy surfing websites devoted to airplanes and aviation. One of my all-time favorite poems is "High Flight." I follow Cessna Pilot Centers (CPC) on Facebook, and it was there earlier this week that a CPC post stunned me.

“Here's a thumbs up,” the item read, “to Michael Boland, deaf/amputee pilot who got his ratings at Marcair (one of our CPCs in the DFW area), and who just checked out at Sonoma's Skypark Aviation, our CPC in Sonoma County, CA! Yes, deaf can fly.”

I had no idea that folks with those sorts of disabilities could qualify for flight training much less for private pilot certification. My heart soared for them. Then I Googled “disabled private pilots,” and a new world of information opened up. One website, Flight-Ability, lists 91 disabled aviators around the world, including Boland.

I was amazed. I was encouraged as well. Maybe I could learn to fly after all. I’ll look into it.

I contacted Marcair, a CPC headquartered at Northwest Regional Airport in Roanoke north of here, to ask about Mike Boland and disabled aviators. Charlie Yates returned my query. He remembered Boland and was glad to hear about him getting checked out in California. And he told me about going to the Oshkosh airshow last year and meeting a woman aviator with no arms. She puts her headset on with her feet, he said, and she flies a specially designed Aircoupe, which has no rudder pedals to begin with.

Then I contacted Boland, who’s a mechanic for American Airlines and a North Texan. Very nice fellow with hopes to become a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) so he can teach other disabled folks to fly. I asked if he would let me blog about him, and he agreed, so here in the next few days, watch for a Q&A with him.

I thought I had a passion for airplanes, a love of flying and a dream of learning to fly, but all of that pales in the light of aviators like Boland, that woman at Oshkosh and the pilots on Flight-Ability’s website. I’m sure each has an incredibly inspiring story to tell. I’m looking forward to this blog sharing a little bit about Mike Boland.

Perhaps reading about his achievements against such odds will inspire anyone to reach for a dream, whether it's learning to fly or whatever. They've certainly given me enough hope to look into whether my dream's possible.

 Any thoughts? Your comments are always welcome.

One way to light up the switchboard

Interesting play art on today's Your Life cover in the Star-Telegram: a photo illustration for the lead story, "Fall books preview." The art was a collage of photos of famous people whose books will be coming out soon.

Take a long look. Is there anything about the photo illustration that bothers you? Perhaps not. But I imagine that the paper's reader advocate phone line quickly filled with furious, outspoken conservatives provoked by an illustration that, in their view, deliberately slighted icons Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

Instead (I can hear them say, because in my ombuddy days I got so many calls like this) the illustration by the liberal media glorified "arch liberals" -- Jon Stewart, Steve Martin, Barack Obama, Barbra Streisand and some brunette who's probably just as bad as they are. And I can imagine the readers' accusations:

-- Your liberal editors deliberately tried to obscure Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

-- George Bush looks like a ghost. George should've been where Jon is.

-- I'm not letting my kids see this liberal-media propaganda.

-- I'm not letting my grandkids see this liberal-media propaganda.

-- I'm cancelling my subscription to the liberal media. I've had it with your liberal bias.

-- Rush Limbaugh's right. There's a "media crisis" in America.

-- This is a sad day in America.

There's no escaping political aspects of anything anymore, it seems. Not even authors. Perhaps there never has been.

In this area, the heaviest conservative market in Texas, the most provocative aspect of this photo illustration, I think, is not just the secondary place given to Reagan and Bush but the near-transparent treatment of Bush's photo. That's asking for trouble. I imagine trouble followed.

If you had been the editor in charge of pulling together this photo illustration, how would you have handled it? Would politicization issues have crossed your mind? If so, would that have made any difference in how you would have designed the piece? What other aspects would you have considered?

Given the demographic with which papers aim to connect (younger readers in general) and given Stewart's popularity among them, I may have kept Stewart as the dominant image for a boost in relevance.

But given the demographic of subscribers (older conservatives) and readers who expect fairness, I would've strengthened Bush's picture somehow to provide as much relevance as possible for them. I'm not sure I would've replaced that brunette, whoever she is, with Bush, because there are only two women in the collage and five men, and correctness dictates that some sense of equivalent prominence be given to the women.

Whatever. I'm sure those and Lord knows how many other issues got a thorough airing today on the reader advocate's phone. Did you think about calling? 817-390-7692

   

     

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An honor for a champion

John Dycus taught me some core context for life: “I’m blessed.”

I learned that from him during my eight years at the Star-Telegram, seven of which were spent as the paper’s reader advocate.

     On most Friday afternoons, a little before 4, I’d hear the crescendo of John’s buzzing motorized   wheelchair approaching my office off the newsroom as he made his way down the hall. He would drop by before beginning the night shift on the copy desk where he worked parttime. And he would roll in with a big smile.

“John Dycus!” I’d exclaim. “How in the world are you?"

“I’m blessed,” he’d say, or some version of that. His wheelchair was a blessing. His equipment that helped him operate it was a blessing. His specially equipped van was a blessing. But, to me and his friends, his intellectual acumen, keen sense of justice and ethics and his hilarious sense of humor were and are something far more than blessings. They were exceptional gifts, and John showered us with them and the inspiration and encouragement they radiated. You see all those qualities at work in his wonderful website.

I looked forward to those brief Friday afternoon visits with John. We talked about all sorts of things –- what the readers had been saying that day, John's musings, the copy desk’s killer Friday-night copy flow laden with big Sunday stories moving late, credibility issues, plagiarism developments, and, until my wife died of breast cancer in 2005, he would always ask sincerely: “How’s your wife?”

After Dale’s death, I didn’t get to see John much. I was moved from the third-floor office to the second-floor editorial board office where editorial writing was added to my duties in response to my interest in learning that part of the craft. Friday afternoons were spent proofing weekend and Monday editorial and op-ed pages.

If someone asked how I was doing, I knew to say, as I’d learned from listening to and observing John: “I’m blessed,” and I meant it.

Later, when Andra came into my life in such a beautiful way, and we were married, John’s ovations poured forth whenever we bumped into each other.

“How are you?” he’d ask, smiling from ear to ear. “I’m blessed,” I’d say with joy. “You sure are!” he’d reply. John knows Andra and respects her skills as a communicator/writer and her integrity every bit as much as he admires her lovely charisma. And she holds him in mutual esteem.

I’m writing this because today I learned this morning that John will be honored Oct. 5 in Las Vegas with the national Society of Professional Journalists’ Howard S. Dubin Outstanding Professional Member Award. I just want to say, "Congratulations John."

The award recognizes an SPJ member who has made considerable contributions to his or her local SPJ chapter and region. Read about the award here.

There’s no more worthy honoree than John, a master freelance editor who retired in 1998 from a distinguished and honored 28-year career at the University of Texas at Arlington. Read about some of that here.

John has been a devoted member of SPJ for 36 years and has been a cornerstone for the Fort Worth chapter. Think “SPJ,” and “John Dycus” comes to mind. Organizer, fundraiser, promoter, champion -– he’s all those things for SPJ, and he’s always there when needed, which is often.

I started wondering about a couple of things as I thought about SPJ honoring John. What attracted him to journalism and what has kept him in the craft?

I was embarrassed to admit to myself that I’d never asked him. So I did. I e-mailed him with some questions for this blog. He called, and we talked for a while.

John told me he’d taken a journalism class during his senior year, 1964-65, at Paschal High School in Fort Worth. His teacher, he said, was the inimitable Margaret Caskey, a brilliant teacher who wheeled around “in a big ol’ wide-mouth green Buick.”

He remembers only one story he wrote for the school newspaper: what life was like for someone in a wheelchair during those frantic minutes in between bells when moving from one class to the next. The photographer, John said, shot pictures from John’s view.

He enjoyed that class but didn’t major in journalism when he entered UTA. He was advised that a career in accounting would be something he could do physically as well as intellectually. “That wouldn’t be too popular a view these days,” he said. But he agreed and was graduated with a degree in accounting.

After graduation, he was job-searching when he received an interesting offer from UTA’s legendary Student Publications Director Dorothy Estes. She wanted to know if John would be interested in a staff position with her operation.

He took the offer and grew into the beloved, respected Shorthorn adviser and then associate director of student publications. That’s how John got into journalism.

“It was something I could do,” he said. But he also reveled in the freedoms of professional journalism, the craft and issues, and the captivating colleagues. I can attest that when journalism gets into one’s blood, there’s no substitute or antidote, assuming burnout or some other curse doesn’t take its toll.

John and I share many colleagues’ concerns about threats to journalism -– increasing disrespect for journalists out there in our politically tormented world filled with more propaganda and less truth than ever, newsroom morale challenges in shouldering increased workloads from staff cuts while wondering whether and where the axe will fall next, the for-profit model’s impact on quality, etc., etc.

Ah, but when all of that weighs on us, when specters swarm around us, we lift up our hearts. Times may be hard, daily struggles may be tough, but we say in unison and with conviction: “I’m blessed.”

Any thoughts you'd like to share?