"This ain't no seed catalog" ...
ERNIE MAKOVY, 1949-2004
Ernie Makovy was the rewrite man you wanted at Armageddon. A phone in each ear, a pound of notes strewn about, reporters racing past shouting updates, half a dozen TVs blaring -- Ernie could synthesize it all, all this jumbled, cacophonous data, and give you a story on deadline. Layered summaries, every fact in place, no word wasted, no quote before its time and no quote lame.
He will be remembered for that, and for his skillful tutelage of young reporters, and for his small-town-Texas mannerisms. At the Times Herald, often he would gather everyone for the afternoon budget session with the proclamation, "Meeting time!," which sounded more like "Meet'n tam!" When he wanted to get people moving, he would say, "Hey, mama, let's a-rodeooo!" He will be remembered for that, too.
Mr. Makovy collapsed and died March 6 while working in the yard at his Arlington home. He worked at the Dallas Times Herald for 18 years and had been at the Star-Telegram since 1989. He was 55. Way too young, his colleagues thought, way too young.
"His enthusiasm, positive energy and ability to punch up a police story with colorful, descriptive language made him an irreplaceable asset." -- Star-Telegram executive editor Jim Witt ... "When the fur was flying, he was calm." -- Gary Hardee, publisher of the Arlington Star-Telegram and a colleague of Mr. Makovy's at the Times Herald
And: "He would literally run out of the newsroom on a breaking story, he was so eager. He was the last great rewrite man in Dallas-Fort Worth." -- David McHam, a University of Houston journalism professor who taught Mr. Makovy at Baylor and worked with him at the Waco and Dallas papers ... "Political correctness and pretension were not among his shortcomings." -- Mike Cochran, former Associated Press and Star-Telegram reporter
And: "There are fewer and fewer people like Ernie." -- Roy Bode, editor of the Dallas Times Herald when it folded in 1991
Mr. Makovy grew up in West and worked as a reporter at the old Waco News-Tribune while attending Baylor University. After graduating in 1971, he worked as a reporter and later editor and rewrite man at the Times Herald. At the Star-Telegram his skills were instrumental in behind-the-scenes coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Tarrant County Courthouse shootings and the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
He was crazy about his family, loved the Texas Rangers and the Baylor Bears, outdoor cookin' and Czech sausage. He reveled in the cultural excesses of West Fest, where he sometimes performed in a polka band.
And, man, he could write hard news.
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MEETINGS
Is Your Media Relations Web Page on the List? No? Good
Forbes magazine has a "Top Corporate Hate Web Sites" where it ranks the web's "best" nine sites, all created by disgruntled former customers, "devoted exclusively to complaining about their least favorite companies." KB Home, PayPal, Allstate, Microsoft, American Express, Wal-Mart, Verizon, United Airlines and UPS made the list. You don't want to.
Former IABC board chairman Charles Pizzo knows how to keep you off the list -- "25 ways to draw reporters to your Web site" -- and the tips are yours for the asking at the April IABC luncheon.
Time & date: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, April 5
Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
Parking: $2.50 in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets
Cost: $20 members, $25 nonmembers
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The Secrets of Storytelling
Dave Lieber, the Star-Telegram's 2003 Editorial Employee of the Year and its new Watchdog columnist, has a distinctive vision about how to get articles onto newspaper front pages and on the air through storytelling techniques often overlooked by publicists and PR pros.
His methods work, often with startling results, and he'll share those methods at the April meeting. Lieber promises to present an approach unlike anything you've heard. He's also bringing a how-to guide.
Note that after two months of meeting on a Friday, this month's meeting returns to its regular day.
Time & date: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday, April 13; lunch at noon
Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
Parking: free valet in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets
Cost: $20 members, $23 nonmembers, $18 students
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A Night to Honor the First Amendment
Decorated investigative reporter Dan Christensen of the Miami Daily Business Review will keynote Fort Worth SPJ's annual scholarships and awards dinner Saturday, April 9, at Ridglea Country Club. Winners of the chapter's 2nd annual First Amendment Awards competition will be announced, and 18 scholarships will be presented.
Christensen's topic, "America's Underground Legal System," reflects his findings on secret court cases in the U.S. District Court in Miami, for which he received the 2004 Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award. He also has been recognized by IRE and as a winner or finalist in the 2003 Sunshine State Awards, the 2002 James Batten Award for Outstanding Public Service and the 2004 National Headliner Award.
He broke the story in March 2003 of an Algerian-born U.S. resident who was detained secretly for five months after Sept. 11, 2001. Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that to her knowledge, "no other case filed with the Supreme Court has been handled with such excessive secrecy."
Christensen also was the first to report on secretive practices in another case in Miami federal court, U.S. vs. Fabio Ochoa-Vasquez, a reputed Columbian drug trafficker. Christensen found that at least one defendant had been prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned in total secrecy. The RCFP, the ACLU of Florida and the Florida Association of Trial Lawyers all filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the U.S. Court of Appeals in Miami to declare unconstitutional the practices that Christensen documented. That appeal is pending.
Time & date: cash bar opens 6 p.m., dinner 6:30 Saturday, April 9
Place: Ridglea Country Club, 3700 Bernie Anderson Ave.
Cost: $50; early reservations are encouraged, as seating is limited
Menu: Tuscan chicken (breast of chicken stuffed with prosciutto ham and provolone cheese, served with a basil cream sauce and toasted pine nuts), chef's choice vegetables; garden-fresh salad; for dessert, back by overwhelming demand, the Texas pecan ball (vanilla ice cream rolled in pecans and slathered in hot fudge); bread, tea, coffee; dietary modifications are available upon request by April 6
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