Still at UTA, The Shorthorn's Mark Roberts won first place in feature photo, and Renegade, current editor Clay Swartz, was named one of the nation's top three college magazines in SPJ Mark of Excellence judging announced at the convention last month in Las Vegas. This is the second time in its three-year history that Renegade has been an MOE finalist. Also, Brandon Wade was a finalist in news photo. ...
Former SPJ chapter president Roy Eaton, one of the country's best-known community newspaper publishers, has received the TCU Schieffer School of Journalism Ethics Award. Eaton, who graduated from TCU in 1959, is president and publisher of the Wise County Messenger, a twice-weekly newspaper in Decatur. The Messenger has won more than 150 awards since Eaton became publisher. ...
TCU's Doug Newsom, the first woman to receive the PRSA Educator of the Year Award and an advertising/PR prof in the Schieffer School of Journalism, has receiveed the Institute of Public Relations Pathfinder Award for her contributions to scholarly research and PR knowledge. She will receive the award Nov. 10 at the Yale Club in New York City. She is the co-author of three textbooks, co-editor of a woman's studies book and the author of 12 book chapters. Twice a Fulbright lecturer in India and Singapore, she has conducted workshops in South Africa, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Vanuatu and India.
Baby daze! Former Arlington Star-Telegram reporter Mary McKee is expecting a boy, Keston, around Dec. 6, and she and husband Ralph are adopting a 10-month-old girl from China, Leonise, who is due to come to the United States by the end of the year.
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GET A JOB
Crescent Real Estate Equities seeks a part-time communications specialist for its downtown Fort Worth office, 20 hours a week (half day on Wednesdays and full days Thursdays and Fridays). A bachelor's degree in English/communications is required, along with at least three years experience in corporate work environment and understanding of the internet and web-based research. Helpful to have desktop publishing experience, including graphic layout and design. Knowledge of some HTML code preferred. E-mail résumé to employment@crescent.com and reference PT Communications Specialist in the subject line.
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NEW MEMBERS
IABC ... Kathleen Pai, Lockheed Martin ... Victoria Capik, City of Fort Worth ... Lindsey Kubes, Carter & Burgess ... Jeff Posey, Carter & Burgess
PRSA ... Sheri Pape, Weatherford ISD ... Laura Hanna, Texas Wesleyan University ... Roxanne Martinez-Rosas, Allied Electronics
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COMINGS & GOINGS
Additions ... at the S-T: Erik Rodriguez, assistant metro editor; he was formerly a city hall reporter and then bureau chief at the Austin American-Statesman ... Knight Ridder intern Clanci Cochran, a May graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta with a degree in English
Exits ... at the S-T: underrated tech wizard Sherry Fisher, to an IT position with a paper in Medford, Ore.
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PRESIDENT'S COLUMN
Richard Maxwell, IABC/Fort Worth
IABC/Fort Worth past-president Robin McCasland was among several past-presidents on hand when she spoke Oct. 25 on "Strategic Planning for Dummies." Robin is a communication consultant for PartnerComm, an Arlington-based human resources communications firm, and her presentation was as informative as it was humorous. Check out despair.com for amusing "demotivators" she shared with us.
On Nov. 22 be sure to join us when Krista Simmons, news editor for the Fort Worth Business Press, tells us how to get publicity for our company or event. Please join us at the Petroleum Club at 11:30 a.m. for networking and an informative professional development program.
Ken Roberts, Pam Fry and I attended the IABC (new) Southern Regional Conference in College Station last month. The Southern Region combines the old District 5 and District 2 and reaches from Arizona to the East Coast. The theme was "005: Communications Shaken, Not Stirred," and we learned that, like James Bond, communicators must be globally minded citizens who use technology and innovative strategies to shake things up and not simply stir things around. We also visited the George Bush Presidential Library and met Rudy Ruettiger from the movie "Rudy" who gave a motivational speech on never giving up on your dreams. Next year's conference will be in Kansas City.
To help IABC members affected by Hurricane Katrina, IABC international set up a relief fund. If you donate, the Fort Worth chapter will match your contribution dollar for dollar. Send checks to IABC/Fort Worth, P.O. Box 17033, Fort Worth 76102.
Welcome, new members Victoria Capik, Lindsey Kubes, Kathleen Pai and Jeff Posey. Hope to see them -- and all of you -- Nov. 22.
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OVER & OUT
John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ
Patrick Fitzgerald for Supreme Court justice. Did you see the special prosecutor's post-indictments press conference? The last honest man in D.C. Like there's a large pool to choose from. ...
Bad enough that SPJ national gives its Sunshine Award to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, considering her efforts to limit student press freedom in the Hosty v. Carter case, but there was a beaming Judith Miller, New York Times administration spin scribe, receiving the First Amendment Award at the SPJ National Convention last month and getting a standing ovation from more than half the crowd of about 350. Maybe the other half were journalists. The preponderance of evidence depicts Miller as one of the numerous high-profile journalists-in-name-only who, during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, looked the other way, hyperventilated at the thought of asking a follow-up question or promoted the war with inaccurate reporting, incomplete reporting or cheerleading disguised as reporting. Last year the Times issued a public apology for its Iraq coverage; three of the five articles it highlighted, Miller wrote. "The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong," she says. But Joe Lauria, who has covered the United Nations since 1990 for a variety of papers, including the London Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and The Boston Globe, got it right. So did Joby Warrick and Colum Lynch and Bob Simon and Ian Williams and Walter Pincus and John MacArthur. Angry Times colleagues mistrust Miller, her editor says she misled him about her involvement in the CIA leak story, the Times wants her gone and reportedly is negotiating a buyout -- and SPJ national trumpets her principles and professionalism. How embarrassing. Give me Frank Rich or Seymour Hersh or Helen Thomas, instead. This award to this recipient mocks the bedrock tenet of a watchdog press. No wonder the public doesn't trust us. If Miller is our hero, I don't trust us, either. ...
Thanks, Mike Cochran, for promoting the Dallas Sixth Floor Museum bus trip in your powerhouse fashion; Gary Mack for coming downtown to greet us on his day off; Tom Thompson and Wade Sessions for the p. 2 pictures; and Jim Wright for the prayer. The boyish Weatherford congressman was outside Parkland Hospital on that horrific day in November 1963, awaiting word of his president's condition, when a broadcast newsman sought his reaction. Wright leaned into the microphone and without hesitation began to pray, asking God to "rebuild in faith, not in fear; in love, not in hate." Such poise and grace, preserved on grainy black-and-white film. I cannot watch the JFK archive footage without thinking that this time the outcome will be different. But it never changes. A real leader, full of flaws; a real president, full of hope. Gone. And still we feel the effects.
Closing words, overarching hypocrisy bracket: "I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars." Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, on "Meet the Press," Oct. 23 ... "The reason that I voted to remove him [Bill Clinton] from office is because I think the overridding issue here is that truth will remain the standard for perjury and obstruction of justice in our criminal justice system and it must not be gray. It must not be muddy." -- Sen. Hutchison, Feb. 12, 1999
