Looking for News in the Refrigerator

Cold Cuts News

Looking inside other people’s refrigerators to learn about them? No, I don’t do that. Who does? Apparently is done by a significant number of people because it merited coverage in our local newspaper. No, that wasn’t the A-Section Page One story in the Austin American Statesman Wednesday, August 12, 2009, but it was Page One of “Food and Life”. You must be kidding, I thought. Yeah, I read, and I guess the goal was accomplished. The newspaper grabbed me and made me read the Addie Broyles story “What does your fridge say about you? Everything.”

Actually, it told me very little. Ms. Broyles did cite a chapter in a book entitled “Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You” by University of Texas at Austin psychology professor Sam Gosling who apparently studies the contents of other people’s refrigerators.

In the spirit of openness, I’m posting our open refrigerator. Hmmm. There is milk, tortillas, leftovers, a plastic container of cantaloupe and other stuff. I’m not showing the “beverage/overflow” fridge in the garage. Suffice it to say it is stocked with 12 ounce cans and bottles including Coke Zero.

Then, I looked below the fold of the “Food and Life” section, just above the ad for Spec’s is another article, “A six-pack of Austin stores that make convenience a good thing” by Dina Guibudaldi. I actually agreed with a little of the list. I had to ask the question, however, is this news?

Have you read the little paperback book It’s Not News, It’s FARK/How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News, by Drew Curtis? Hardly a journalistic treatise, the book is an outgrowth of his web site

www.fark.com, used by disc jockeys and who-knows-else daily. One of the favorite things media does when there is little else going on or there is little creativity in the room is to make lists. “Texas Monthly” seems to have a list for each month from the best barbeque, best burgers, to the best and worst legislators. Yes, we may get some information from these lists, but what are the criteria for these categories? Who sets the rules? Who judges?

Television listings, classified ads, and comic strips filled out the 12-pages of the American-Statesman D-Section. The back page was split between an ad and a story about a beer tour of San Antonio. Yes, San Antonio.
When in doubt, I apply my definitions of news to articles as sort of a test. The definition: Issues, events, and developments that interest or affect the greatest number of people in your audience on that day? Or, another test is the answer to the question, “Who cares?” If few people care, it’s probably not news. Further, I don’t care what’s in other people’s refrigerators. It’s none of my business. These definitions, I believe, apply to features as well as other news stories.

Anyway, while we have open refrigerators inside in the D section, it has always bothered me that many of the truly important stories of the day are on Pages 2 and 3 or deeper. Often these national and international stories merit only one paragraph. Wednesday’s A-Section was only ten pages with much of the space given to ads. Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad that the newspaper is selling ads. I hope they sell lots, and lots, and lots of ads so that they can also provide readers with lots, and lots, and lots of news. Not just summaries.

Judging from the other media that I have seen and read, much has happened during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s historic African trip. A misunderstanding in translation resulted in an unfortunate snap response from Ms. Clinton, and that’s what got coverage while other important aspects of the trip are glossed over.

News organizations pay good money to find out what the audience wants. It is then the job of news managers to help create the stories that fit that image. Sometimes, however, news organizations must answer this grave question: Do we always give the people what they want, or do we give the citizens what they need. Granted, the Austin American-Statesman may not view itself as the daily record, leaving that to other national newspapers and media, but when I see more pages of newsprint given to open refrigerators, a list of the best convenience stores in town, TV listings, classified ads, and a beer tour of San Antonio than the important and even threatening hard news stories of the day from Iran, Afghanistan, Africa and elsewhere, questions of “news judgment” and priorities come to mind.

© Jim McNabb, 2009

Post Script: This week I’ve been assessing the topics and emphases of this medium, this blog newsmcnabb. I even considered whether I should continue writing. That question is answered with this post. I asked for comments and got them, scores of them. Most were quite gracious. A few weren’t. I’m digesting these thoughts, and I’ll share some later.

No News Is Good News?

An Open Letter

These past few months have caused some introspection on my part with regard to this medium I call “newsmcnabb”.


When I started writing this journalism/media criticism blog, I was convinced that it was filling a void. No one was keeping a day-to-day eye on news in all media in Central Texas. No one wrote critically about the Austin American-Statesman. Few were writing about so-called “new media”, the traditional media’s web sites and the blogosphere. For the most part I still think this is still a valid pursuit after some 115 posts during the past ten months.


Feedback regarding the newsmcnabb site has been most favorable. I’m gratified and humbled. It was fun reading this past week for example that one of my readers is a ninth-grade journalism teacher. That’s fun. Thank you.


I also seem to have alienated some friends still in “the business” who have been moved to anger or some other emotion after reading a post focusing on their newsroom or medium. Emails that were once friendly in tone have become icy with formality, calling me “Mr. McNabb”, which I have always thought was reserved for my 93-year-old father. Other emails use terms like, “…with all due respect…” which can be interpreted as veiled disdain. Another said, “I will respectfully decline this and future offers to provide source material” citing the competitive nature of the business. This friend has not replied to my follow-up email.


It is my perception that people in this market nowadays are taking things way too seriously. Don’t get me wrong. I was and still am more into competition than many. Witness my campaign to make the top three on Austin360.com’s “A-List” not long ago. There was a time when people had fun while competing and practicing journalism here in Austin and Central Texas. Some shops may still be having fun, but they don’t outwardly show it. I am convinced that newsrooms where you hear laughter are also the newsrooms producing quality reporting. Show me a white-knuckled newsroom, and I’ll show you a newsroom that makes mistakes out of fear of making mistakes, if nothing else.


When one is in the news business, one may grow an extra layer of thick skin. I never did. No one enjoys rejection. When I was in the business, and I would have to handle a mean-spirited soul on the telephone, I would not roll over. Many of my former colleagues have heard me engage in righteous debate with people who wished to take me on. When the smoke cleared, however, I would debrief myself and even beat myself up, thinking that I might have handled that call or that email better. One can never retrieve words, you know.


So, during the past few months, I’ve been asking myself if continuing writing this medium is worth losing friends. I may rightfully wonder if they were really friends in the first place, and if they were not, then there is no loss. If real friends are muzzled by management, is it fair putting these true friends in the middle of possible controversy or in jeopardy of losing their jobs if they talk to me about anything, even if it has nothing to do with journalism or media?


Believe it or not, this blog consumes chunks of my time. I don’t just sit down and start writing, shooting from the hip. Many topics require a fair amount of research. I do pay attention to the truth. Part of truth telling is fact finding, asking questions. If I cannot get facts or answers, it is difficult to tell the whole truth. Some stories are left untold. A reporter cannot write about something if they don’t know about it, even if it is “good news”.


I congratulate Michael Vivio, publisher of the Austin American-Statesman, for his good news this past week. Cox will retain ownership of the newspaper. I also thank him for calling me after I emailed, even though he was not wishing to comment further. I respected that, and I didn’t use anything that he told me during the ensuing conversation. In a similar vein, I am appreciative of the spokesperson for Fox TV who returned my call within minutes about their bad news that Fox 7 was laying-off seven employees. These are two people whom I have never met, yet they helped confirm information, if nothing else.


Those whom I have counted as friends, however, either will not or cannot have these conversations. For going on 40 years I have been forming friendships and building relationships in Central Texas and Austin media in particular. Those relationships were built on trust and respect. It saddens me when some apparently no longer see me as a friend because of the newsmcnabb blog.


So, in this “Open Letter” I’m asking you, should I continue? Does this serve a worth-while purpose? I’d like to know your thoughts. Write me at newsmcnabb@gmail.com use the “comments” button at the bottom.


Thank you.


© Jim McNabb, 2009

AISD's Secret Superintendent Candidates-Update

Freedom of Info

Instead of giving Austin Independent School district attorneys the go-ahead to fight an attorney general's open records rulling, the AISD Board of Trustees backed off a legal fight over releasing the names of the other applicants for superintendent for now.


Greg Abbott, Texas Attorney General, had agreed with attorneys for the Austin American-Statesman that the names should be made public in accordance with the Texas Open Records Act. The School Board was posted to decide whether to proceed with a legal defense of its secrecy in its meeting in two weeks.


The school district has already spent in excess of $21,000 to attorneys hired by the school district to support its position. AISD attorneys challenged the open records request from the American-Statesman and others saying that revealing the names of the applicants could hurt them and future searches for top talent. To proceed with the lawsuit would lead more legal expense.



Keith Elkins, executive director of the non-profit Freedom of Information Foundation in Texas spoke to the School Board meeting Monday night in oppostion to continuing the lawsuit. No others spoke. It was clear, however, that this question of whether it is legally and ethically correct to release the names of applicants for Superintendent is an issue that reaches beyond AISD to other jurisdictions in the state.


"School is about to start for the fall and Austin taxpayers should attend Monday night's meeting en masse to teach the AISD School Board Public Economics 101: $21,000 spent to repeatedly be told you are not above the law is totally unacceptable," says Keith Elkins, executive director of the non-profit Freedom of Information Foundation in Texas. "I do intend to go to the School Board meeting tonight to testify - depending on what action they do or do not take the FOIFT may take additional action later," Elkins said Monday afternoon.


“Two of the biggest threats to freedom of information in the future, in my opinion, are an apathetic citizenry and trying to balance the ‘public’s’ interest versus an ‘individual’s’ interest as it involves personal privacy,” says Elkins. Elkins was an Austin television investigative and legislative reporter for more than two decades.


“How many times do we hear that a news organization, or public watchdog group, is having to retain legal counsel to fight for governmental information that in many cases has already been ordered released by the Texas Attorney General. And yet, for whatever reason, some bureaucrat or newly elected official decides the law doesn’t apply to them. Eventually, the information is often finally released. But at what expense to the taxpayer?” Elkins continues.


Some of Mr. Elkins’ comments for this post were not a direct response to the legal issues confronting the board Monday night, but they are germane. He was talking about the ongoing threats to freedom of information in general.

“It may involve tens of thousands of dollars or possibly millions, at the federal level,” Elkins continued. “And while it makes for a sizzling investigative news story or provides ample fodder for critics of big government rarely, if ever, do taxpaying citizens rise up and say, ‘Enough is enough’ demanding to know how the bureaucrat or elected official could justify wasting THEIR tax money. Remember, Government is supposed to work for us – not the other way around.”


Elkins says this type of open records resistance is an example of just one of the threats to freedom of information in Texas.


“During this most recent legislative session multiple new laws were introduced which were designed to ‘seal-off’ previous public records and information readily available to the public – theoretically because it left state employees ‘vulnerable’ to potential identity theft, even though no hard evidence was presented to prove that theory,” Elkins says.


The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas holds its 2009 Bernard and Audre Raporport State Conference Friday, August 21 at the Renaissance Hotel in Austin. State Senator Rodney Ellis, (D) Houston, is the conference Luncheon keynote speaker. State Senator Rodney Ellis, (D) Houston, is the conference's Luncheon Keynote Speaker. Ellis and State Representative Bob Hunter, (R) Corpus Christi, will receive the James Madison Award from the foundation. Ellis and Hunter were sponsors of the Texas Free Flow of Information Act, signed into law earlier this year by Governor Rick Perry. This award is given annually to honor those who have demonstrated outstanding commitment and service in upholding the principles of the First Amendment.


Conference agenda also includes panel discussions on social media and government, the recent legislative session, and shaping tomorrow’s open government by examining recent Freedom of Information rulings.


The Freedom of Information Foundation conference and/or luncheon is open to the public. The cost of the total conference, including the Keynote John Henry Faulk Awards Luncheon, and all sessions, is $100. The awards luncheon only is $75 per person. For more information or to register, visit www.foift.org or call the FOIFT office at (512) 377-1575.


© Jim McNabb, 2009

Grammar Police

At A Loss For Words ...








It’s 4:33 p.m. in the fall of 1983. I’m working on a newsroom piece for the 5 O’clock, before crashing on my main story in the 6 O’clock, called “24 Action News” (KVUE TV, ABC), back then. No computer then. We were typing stories on six-part carbon script packs. I finish and walk briskly to the front of the 4X4 double-wide that housed the newsroom to get the producer’s OK.

The producer was good, especially with breaking news. He read. Then, he crossed through something and changed some words. “Hmmmmm,” I thought and leaned forward, reading upside-down. (Reporters have this talent.) “Why did you change that,” I asked. He muttered something. “I won’t read it that way,” I said. “It’s poor grammar.”

“I don’t care. That’s the way people talk,” he answered still reading.

I could feel my face getting red. “I won’t read it that way,” I repeated. “Those words won’t come out of my mouth on camera. If you want to go on camera and say them, fine. I won’t do that.” His face reddened.

Soon, someone else was involved—the executive producer or the news director, I don’t remember. Time was growing short. I was on deadline, but I made my case. “The reason,” I said, “that people talk that way is partially our fault in the media. If they or their kids hear it on TV, it only validates incorrect usage. If we use good grammar, those who know, notice. Those who don’t know don’t care. Those who know better and hear poor grammar will think less of us; it diminishes our credibility.” I recall saying something like that. There was a pause. Everyone looked at the producer. Everyone then looked at each other. It was time to go on the air.

I read the story the way that I had written it. Nothing else was ever said, and from that time on from job to job, I became the unofficial “grammar police”. Oh, sometimes I’d have to look things up, more often than not, someone would shout a grammatical question, and I would shout back “Yes” or “No” or the correct usage or word. Don't trust "Spell Check" to bail you out. It's best to know the correct spelling and usage in the first place.

I can remember one time diagramming a sentence on the KXAN TV (NBC) white board, AKA assignments wall, before computers made them anachronisms. (I understand that some stations still use the assignments boards. I don’t know why.) Anyway, I diagrammed this sentence in a vain attempt to explain a predicate nominative. The case of the subject and the predicate nominative should agree. Most, if not all, present stood there glassy-eyed and dumbfounded. Most had never seen a sentence diagrammed before. It’s really a useful tool to understanding syntax.

I used to tell first-year journalism students that they must love words, and they must respect what those words can do when used well. Words are like tools. When working on a project, one needs the “right tool”, just as a journalist or any writer should reach for just the right word. The word selected can create or diminish credibility.

I realize that language evolves and “new words” are added to the dictionaries every year, but I wonder like former newsman Edwin Newman (NBC and author of “Strictly Speaking” and other books), “Will America be the death of English?” I maintain that media must continue using correct grammar. Media should model what is correct, not what is wrong. Twenty-five years after asserting myself and standing up for my script as written, I still believe it.

It is just as true for interpersonal communication as it is for mass communication. If an individual wants people to hear a message, not the words, one should choose the right words and use them well.

What brought all of this on? This week, I heard on TV someone say something like, “The attacks centered around this area.” Hint: Something cannot center around. Something can center on, but something cannot center around. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

© Jim McNabb, 2009

Austin American-Statesman Off the Market

Not For Sale

Cox Enterprises and the Austin American-Statesman announced today (Thursday, August 6, 2009) that the Austin newspaper is no longer for sale. The announcement comes on a day that a new Rassmussen nationwide survey says newspapers are “on their own.”


“Just 25% of American adults favor the creation of a White House commission to help save journalism jobs and find ways for struggling news organizations to survive,” a Rassmussen newsletter says. Such a commission was proposed last week by former CBS anchor/reporter Dan Rather.


So, Cox says, fine, we’ll charge “Onward Thru the Fog”, borrowing the phrase coined in the last century by Austin’s unique shop Oat Willie’s.
For a business that operates on facts not rumor, rumors had been flying about the Statesman’s headquarters all day yesterday day. It was in the air. All knew that something was afoot. Today’s announcement came as a big relief.


“We were really scared of Platinum Equity,” on staff member says. And then there was that trio of buyers that had teamed up and they were pretty scary too. As of last night, gossip was running rampant that we had been sold to those three buyers. But then we got an email announcing a meeting would be held by the publisher.”


Michael Vivio, American-Statesman publisher, and a representative from Cox Enterprises called the staff into the lobby to make the announcement that the paper was being taken off the market. Vivio said he would get straight to the “punch line.” With the announcement the crowd erupted into prolonged cheers and applause. You can sense the room exhale.


“People started yelling and cheering and clapping,” one source said. Another source tells me, “There is great joy and relief in the newsroom. It's been a very trying year with great uncertainty and tension.” “I kind of thought this is the way it would go,” Vivio said. Video of the announcement is on statesman.com. The cheers were so loud that it distorted the audio on the recording for a few seconds. If you look for the video (It’s under “Multimedia”.), look at the faces. You might even pause the recording for a moment and go from face to face.


One tends to forget that many news media stories or posts are really about the people who have chosen this profession. They invest years in what is sometimes belittled by the public. I have always said that people are all called to a job or profession, often termed by their gifts, their talents. So, the newspaper is a plastic bag that falls in your driveway is not the whole story. It is the reporters and photographers bylines past, present, and hopefully future that makes journalism a higher calling. It is in our constitution. The sobering irony is found under today’s announcement in the comments section where readers/users/consumers of the newspaper (They wouldn’t be posting comments if they were not.) have all manner of snide and even crude things to say about Austin’s only surviving daily newspapers.


The news traveled fast through Facebook and texts to others outside of the newspaper industry.


"It's really good news--for the newsroom and for the community," said Elizabeth Christian, public relations executive and a former newspaper reporter and owner herself. “Can you imagine NOT reading a newspaper?” she said. “I read both the Statesman and the NY Times every single day and feel naked if I have to run to an early meeting without getting through the papers. I also notice that people who rely on on-line news sources, even the papers' web sites, miss many, many stories. They just don't seem as educated or up on the news."


After Cox announced that it was putting the American-Statesman up for sale, I began to wonder if was really going to happen as the weeks grew into months. As I noted in previous posts, the newspaper is a successful, big business—the largest print shop in Austin, located on a prime piece of real estate. Its audience growth continues .


“’Cox Enterprises said from the beginning that it would not preside over a fire sale,’ Statesman publisher Michael Vivio said Thursday. ‘This is a profitable company, and it just did not make sense to sell it for the prices offered.’” (AA-S “Breaking News Alert).


OK. Now that the Statesman is not for sale, what’s next? It is a new source of some anxiety for staff members. “I admit to being skeptical about the future. We all are. But we're all very happy to still be with (as I've heard it phrased many time today) ‘the devil we know’."


© Jim McNabb, 2009

KTBC TV Cuts "7 On Your Side" Reporter and Producer

Investigative

Journalism

in Austin

KTBC TV (Fox 7) is eliminating seven employees, including its high-profile “7 On Your Side” unit reporter Chris Coffey. Coffey’s contract had expired and was not renewed. A “7 On Your Side” producer was among the other six laid off, according to a Fox spokes person. KTBC is a Fox Network owned and operated TV station.

The remaining five Fox 7 workers included two graphic artists and three studio camera operators who worked in at the KTBC studio in downtown Austin at 10th and Brazos and were not part of “7 On Your Side”.

The layoffs were very hard decisions and a reflection of hard economic times. “The ‘7 on Your Side’ franchise is not going away,” the spokes person said. The station remains committed to investigative journalism. Future stories will be handled by general assignments reporters on the Fox 7 staff. I, myself, used to say that every reporter is an investigative reporter, but media must give them the freedom, time and resources to develop well-told stories.

Coffey had been the face of “7 on Your Side” since 2004. The Texas Associated Press Broadcasters awarded Coffey first place in “Beat Reporting” in 2008. Now, Mr. Coffey joins a long list of specialty reporters who must retool in a tight economy.

The KTBC layoffs come on the heels of a renewed commitment to investigative journalism by rival KXAN (NBC) with the hiring of Nanci Wilson from KEYE-TV’s (CBS) investigative unit. That team once consisted of Ms. Wilson, Keith Elkins and a producer/photographer. Mr. Elkins is now executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, and the producer/photographer, John Salazar, is now chief photographer at KEYE. As promised, KEYE has continued investigative reports, but not with the intensity and frequency they once had.

In a post written to coincide with Nanci Wilson’s official arrival at KXAN, having completed the requirements of the standard “no compete clause”, I said, “That sort of focused reporting comes with commitment and cost.” Fewer and few media are willing to embrace these challenges.

Marisa Guthrie wrote in the June 22, 2008 issue of Broadcasting and Cable magazine:

“Producers have felt the sting of contracting budgets and swelling corporate concern over the bottom line. Such conditions have been most inhospitable to reporters working on investigations requiring time and resources; these stories are often magnets for legal action.

“I think there's a huge need for that kind of investigative work, and it's clear there's less of it,” says Bill Buzenberg, executive director at the Center for Public Integrity, which specializes in investigations. “It's risky, it's expensive, it takes huge
resources and talent, and with much of the press owned by large corporations, I think there's a certain reluctance to do that.”

“There is a belief—and I don't know if it's because a consultant said so or what—that real investigations do not appeal to viewers,” says Walt Bogdanich, who produced the Day One piece
and is now at The New York Times, where he recently won his third Pulitzer Prize. “I think if you put faux investigative pieces on and package them as investigative, whether it's 'To Catch a Predator' or whatever, it ceases to be journalism and becomes voyeurism.”

Indeed, media research here indicates that perhaps the only people who care about so-called “watchdog” reports are the people who are directly affected. Stories that result in broad change, such as Ms. Wilson’s stories about “ghost voting” in the Texas House of Representatives while she was with KEYE, rise beyond “watchdog” to the level of investigative journalism.

Now, only the Austin American-Statesman has a marquee franchise that will take on individual problems. “Statesman Watch” is written by reporter Mark Lisheron.

“Rich Oppel, [former American-Statesman editor] is a vocal proponent of watchdog reporting focused on city hall, and when features similar to “Statesman Watch” started popping up in newspapers around the country, he insisted we start one, too. Lisheron has developed it into a worthwhile franchise,” says Fred Zipp, American-Statesman editor. “My impression is that it has developed decent name I.D. and a following among readers.”

News 8 (Time-Warner) is making an investigative unit a goal. “I am working to get one started perhaps next year,” said Kevin Benz, news director and acting station manager. “I believe it’s a key component of our community mission. We’re 10 years old now and I think we’ve got the chops to handle it.”

Viewers/readers/consumers/users of media always ask for more, not less, real investigative reporting instead of superficial, short sound-bite stories. “Big J” journalists in traditional media still strive for it despite economic odds. Alternative media such as blogs and efforts

www.austinpost.org and the promise of the Texas Tribune may be the places they will find it in the future.

© Jim McNabb, 2009

Nanci Wilson's New Station is KXAN TV

Changing




Channels


“I believe there will always be a market for well told, well researched investigative reporting,” says Nanci Wilson, investigative reporter wooed to KXAN TV (NBC) from KEYE TV (CBS) last winter. “These are the stories that hold our government and the powerful accountable. These are the stories that reveal wrongdoing and provoke change. These are the stories that let the bad guys know someone is paying attention.”

It sounds like Ms. Wilson is burning with the same fire she always had after six-months away from the air because of the rather standard, “no compete” clause in her contract. “Yes. I’ve got a long list of potential stories. Curiosity is part of my DNA, so I’m always digging for information on things that I see or hear about. I came away from our annual conference of investigative reporters with lots of ideas, too.” She became free to return to the air Saturday, August 1, 2009.


Wilson says she looks forward to working with Michael Fabac, KXAN TV news director. “We both served on the committee that helped get the journalist shield bill passed. He’s passionate about the public’s right to know and understands the importance of investigative journalism. It’s really fun to work for someone who shares that excitement and commitment.”


“We work hard to provide Austin viewers with depth and clarity on issues that affect their lives,” said Fabac. “Nanci has a proven record of solid, in-depth investigative journalism. She’s committed to bringing the truth to light. We’re excited to have her on our team.”


That sort of focused reporting comes with commitment and cost.


“The state of investigative journalism is in a bit of flux. Many reporters around the country have been laid off or reassigned to anchoring or general assignments positions. It’s no secret that investigative reporting comes with a higher cost to stations and newspapers. With news outlets being owned by corporations, there is more pressure to make a profit, rather than serve the public,” Wilson says. KXAN TV is owned by LIN Television (TVL) based in Providence, Rhode Island. “The good news is that there are still some stations and papers that see the benefit, and I believe in the long run, those will be the ones who will see the payoff in viewers and subscribers.” LIN TV has a long-standing commitment to local, multi-platform news.


Obviously, KXAN has been aware of Wilson’s work. “Austin viewers are very familiar with Nanci and her award-winning journalism,” KXAN says a prepared release. “She has spent the last 13 years reporting in Central Texas, winning several awards, including two Associated Press Awards and the coveted Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative journalism [while she was with KEYE TV].


“More importantly, her reports have helped bring about important changes in local and state government. This includes proposed legislation mandating regular criminal background checks of Child Protective Services workers and an in-depth report exposing the over-medication of foster children and conflicts of interest within the Texas Mental Health & Retardation Department,” the release said.


“There are a number of new nonprofit organizations that are focusing on investigative reporting. Many of my friends have gone to work for them, and they are doing some exciting and important work,” Wilson says. Several high profile journalists recently resigned jobs in traditional media to work for a new start-up, the Texas Tribune (www.texastribune.org), a yet-to-be-launched nonprofit, online source of Texas news and politics. The Texas Tribune Launch is expected in November. “It is my core belief that investigative reporting is an essential element of maintaining democracy. And as such, I'll always support those who are committed to it,” Wilson says.


© Jim McNabb, 2009