This is something that probably doesn’t need to be said, but all the same, I feel like I have to say something:
There’s a political mailer from “Citizens for Honest Government” showing up in mailboxes around Hesperia that, in addition to attacking one group of city council candidates (it’d be a lot easier if this wasn’t a non-partisan race, so I could refer to them by name as Group X or Group Y), accuses us of taking sides in the race because we are beholden to real estate developers:
We have attempted to inform Hesperia voters about many issues using the Daily Press and HESPERIA STAR, by using letters to the editors and regular articles. These newspapers (part of Freedom Newspapers) will not print our letters and viewpoints. Their intention, we believe, is to silence us so that their major advertisers (DEVELOPERS) will continue, perhaps with $100,000’s (sic) worth of newspaper ads.
Well, yes, we do, in fact, have real estate ads from developers, who see the newspaper as a vital way to sell houses. (Thank you, developers.)
This doesn’t translate into us taking editorial direction from anyone. I cannot speak for other journalists, but in my 14 years in journalism, I have never, ever been told to write a story or to not write a story because it would be good for an advertiser or because it’s the political ideology of our paper. And, frankly, if I had been told that, the answer would have been “no.”
Oh, and if someone doesn’t get their letter to the editor printed in the Star, it’s because we goofed up and it got lost in the shuffle.
If you’re angry at a story in the Star, you’re angry at us, not any developers or politicians or other shadowy puppet masters. Write us an angry letter to the editor calling us bozos, and we’ll run it.
CJRDaily has taken a break from its seeming obsession with blogs to talk with the Wired reporter who caught a convicted sex offender trawling for young boys on MySpace. (Hmmm, I suppose MySpace is bloggish enough to explain why the formerly great CJRDaily would talk about this …)
(If you don’t remember, this is what I’m talking about.)
After 22 years, the Hesperia High School Scorpions will play their first home football game ever tomorrow night and it’s hard to overstate how excited many residents are.
But the Scorpions aren’t the only team getting their own stadium this year:
Building a high school football stadium is a little more involved than just planting grass, constructing seats and establishing light towers.
Both Chino Hills and Rialto high schools know the trials and tribulations of building a football stadium. But the similarities stop with the end result. Chino Hills debuted its field this season, while the Knights figure to wait until 2007.
Add Hesperia High School to the list of schools that waited for a field of its own. Decades of frustration will come to an end for the High Desert school when Hesperia charges onto the Bermuda grass of its new Scorpions Stadium.
It is a case study of how one school endured so long without a stadium and how one community pushed through red tape to achieve its goal.
For years, Hesperia teams climbed on buses each week during the football season for games. The 1992 edition traveled for all 11 of its games, the result of not having an on-campus field.
“It’s going to be an awesome thing for the school,” said Silverado athletic director Kevin Watson, the former Scorpions football coach.
The article doesn’t talk about Hesperia as much as the lede suggests it well, but I think that means we’ll see another Sun article about the stadium this weekend.
Well, I just got back from moderating the Parent Coordinating Council debate between the six candidates for the Hesperia Unified School District school board.
The practice that many of them got at last week’s Hesperia Chamber of Commerce forum definitely paid off for those that were able to make that event: Everyone gave stronger answers this time around and faked being calm better. It was also a very civil affair, despite a relatively heated campaign this time around.
It was a little nerve-wracking for me, which some of my friends might find amusing, since it’s not like I don’t normally enjoy the sound of my own voice.
Fifteen days left until Election Day.
I’m not going to Iraq (or even Afghanistan). You can release that breath you’ve been holding, Mom.
It’s not for a lack of interest. As bank robber Willie Sutton apparently never actually said, he robbed banks because “that’s where they keep the money.” In 30 years, assuming someone doesn’t run me over with a truck in response to some story along the way, when I look back on the first decade of the 21st century, the story that will stick out over the years will be the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And despite my protestations that I’m still a features reporter at heart, I have a desire to go where they keep the stories.
Obviously, Iraq is a lot more dangerous than Bosnia was when I went there in 1997, but I kid myself that I’m a bit more savvy and aware as well.
But my inquiries with the Pentagon have gone nowhere, and the 703 area code telephone number I was given was not, in fact, a number for an office in Arlington, but rather it transfers to Baghdad. (That alone seems pretty bizarre to me — surely people in Arlington have fewer people trying to kill them and don’t need to send a robot to prod at a piece of trash on the side of the road for an hour.)
It turns out that I’m not the only one in the media unable to get into Iraq:
The number of embedded journalists reporting alongside U.S. troops in Iraq has dropped to its lowest level of the war even as the conflict heats up on the streets of Baghdad and in the U.S. political campaign.
In the past few weeks, the number of journalists reporting assigned to U.S. military units in Iraq has settled to below two dozen. Late last month, it fell to 11, its lowest, and has rebounded only slightly since.
During the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, more than 600 reporters, TV crews and photographers linked up with U.S. and British units. A year ago, when Iraqis went to the polls to ratify a new constitution, there were 114 embedded journalists.
Christenson, who has embedded with U.S. units four times since the 2003 invasion, describes the embed program as “broken” and says both the military and editors are to blame. Danger and cost are the major factors.
“You can start with the fact that editors are damned nervous about sending their reporters into Baghdad,” Christenson wrote in his blog. “But getting to Baghdad is the main problem. Almost four years after the Pentagon unveiled the embedding program, there’s no clear-cut way to cover the troops in Iraq.”
The embedding process begins with multiple e-mails to the U.S. press office and to individual military commands asking for permission to embed. If a commander agrees, more correspondence is needed to get aboard a U.S. military flight.
An alternative is to fly commercially to Baghdad. But roundtrip airfare from the United States begins at about US$2,000 (€1,600). Once at the Baghdad airport, journalists often need costly security teams with armored cars to bring them into the city.
I think I did a reasonably good job in Bosnia and would love the chance to take a crack at one of the most (if not the most) important stories of our time. But it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting my chance any time soon.
- Update: This week’s On the Media discusses the subject in detail. It turns out half the embedded reporters left are with Stars & Stripes.
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