eChaser: July 2012 / p3

Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas update: Tarleton State University is learning an expensive lesson in crime-reporting noncompliance. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan ordered TSU to pay a record $110,000 in fines plus an amount to be determined for violating the Clery Act, the main federal law on campus-crime reporting. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that from 2003 to 2005 the university failed to disclose more than 70 assaults, drug-law violations and burglaries. The on-campus violations were made public in 2006 by journalism student Erin Cooper and others under the guidance of j-prof Dan Malone, co-chair of FOIFT’s Light of Day Project. Subsequenty, 19 (and counting) news articles were written about underreporting crime at the state’s public and private universities. Tarleton is a member of the Texas A&M System. The reporting has won numerous honors, including the national Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Award given by the nonprofit Security on Campus Inc., the SPJ Region 8 Mark of Excellence Award and, for Malone and two other faculty members in the Light of Day Project, the Freedom of Information Foundation’s highest honor, the James Madison Award. • When can a citizen or a reporter legally videotape a police action in progress without running afoul of the law? Recently, Waco Tribune Herald reporter Kristen Crow and several citizens were videotaping outside the McLennan County Courthouse as sheriff’s deputies investigated a shooting. Then a deputy saw what was happening and took Crow’s cellphone. He reportedly said, “Let me see your phone. We’re not doing this right now. Let me see your phone.” A sheriff’s spokesman later said the confiscation was “to keep potential evidence from ‘walking off.’ ” A similar incident occurred in Austin on New Year’s Eve. West Point graduate Antonio Buehler was arrested taking pictures of a DUI arrest of a woman he says he thought was being assaulted by an APD officer.

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PEOPLE & PLACES

Former two-term chapter president, most recent SPJ Region 8 Conference co-director and all-around academic journalism luminary Eddye Gallagher has been named Region 8 interim director and will preside over the Saturday business meeting at the fall national conference. She also is seeking the full two-year term that will be decided with this year’s election.

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NEW AND RETURNING MEMBERS

PRSA ... Sara Mitchell, Camp Fire USA ... Jennifer Zamora, Red Harbinger ... Theresa Davis, Galderma ... Wendy Lyons Sunshine, polishedwriting.com ... Chris Bryan ... Nancy Dana, North Central Texas Council of Governments ... Rachael Anderson ... Shannon Listorti, Freese and Nichols ... Samantha Jordan, Warren Douglas Creative Brand Marketing ... Cara West, Peterbilt Motors Co. ... Katherine Shelton, city of Arlington

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PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Allyson Cross, Greater Fort Worth PRSA

The dog days of summer are traditionally a little slower for our group, as we enjoy family vacations and try to stay cool. So PRSA will take its own vacation this month, which means no luncheon, but be ever vigilant for information about next month’s road trip to JPS Health Network.

A goal this year has been programming with more variety. We are delivering on that through programs like this and our evening mixers, which allow members who cannot regularly attend the luncheons to mingle after hours.

While we’re on hiatus, don’t forget to sign up for QuickStart. This is a great opportunity for those interested in pursuing leadership opportunities to learn more about PRSA and how you can develop your own skills guiding others. QuickStart will be Aug. 5-6 in New Orleans at the Hilton St. Charles. Register for $99, and book your hotel for $89/night by using the group code “PRSA.”

We’re fortunate to have two chapter members in Southwest District leadership positions — Laura Van Hoosier, APR, treasurer, and Margaret Ritsch, APR, chair of the professional development/speakers bureau. Next time you see Laura or Margaret, thank them for their hard work. And if you want more involvement in PRSA, ask them how they got started. You won’t be sorry!

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OVER & OUT

John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ

In a burst of regional conviviality, SPJ members from throughout the Metroplex are invited to a mixer Saturday, July 14, at Texas Land & Cattle Steak House on I-30 in Arlington. See your friends, tell your friends, bring your friends. Details on p. 1. ...

Arlington photographer Paul Knudsen’s colorful chronicling of our April 13 awards banquet has been hidden in plain sight on the internet all this time, but the eChaser forgot to tell you. All 71 photos — big smiles, laughter, young love, mom and dad, mother and son, hugs and handshakes and one salute — are here. And they’re for sale. Think of it this way: If you’d looked at them then, you wouldn’t have the pleasure of looking at them now. ...

From the Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin, Dcember 2011: Jeremy Grantham, founder and chief strategist of the Boston-based asset-management firm GMO, writes a quarterly letter to investors that has become a must-read not only for the financial community but for anyone concerned about climate change, resource depletion and the environment. Grantham, whose firm manages more than $100 billion in assets, told The New York Times that “the rather burdensome thought is that people won’t listen to environmentalists, but they will sometimes listen to people like me.” He explained that “people are naturally much more responsive to finite resources than they are to climate change. Global warming is bad news. Finite resources is investment advice.” Grantham, who has established a foundation to raise awareness about environmental issues and promote collaboration within the green movement, sees dark decades ahead and potential disaster if we don’t change our ways. “The market is sending us the mother of all price signals,” he said. “If we maintain our desperate focus on growth, we will run out of everything and crash.” Yet Grantham also held out hope, noting, “With foresight and thoughtful planning, this suffering is completely avoidable.”

Caught my eye. This U.S. summer is ‘what global warming looks like.’ ... Real-time, brain-scanning speller gives the silent a voice. ... Urbanization of Rio de Janeiro’s slums a model for sustainable development. ... A virus that creates electricity. ... Cross-laminated timber is ready for prime time. ... Tea Party organizers, think tanks coordinate plan to attack wind power nationwide. ... The inertial seawave energy generator rocks. ... Microsubmarines may help clean up oil spills. ... Mountaintop removal mining is ecological suicide. ... Algae technology cleans up fracking. ... Thawing permafrost wreaks havoc in the Arctic. ... Pollution-absorbing paint cleaning up the air in Manila. ... Melting sea ice causes spike in Arctic air pollution. ... Scientists clone elm trees to protect them from extinction. ... Rising sea levels increase risk of record floods. ... Yale students discover plastic-eating fungus in Ecuadorian rain forest. ... A partnership to rescue the oceans. ... The solar envelope: How to heat and cool cities without fossil fuels. ... Blue LED rings on famous London monuments show how far sea levels could rise. … Floating community grows its own vegetables in the heart of London.

Closing words: “There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call ‘the breaks.’ In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things — read and write, and wait.” — Harlem poet Countee Cullen ... “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, who once said to his sidekick, Dr. Watson, “You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion.” ... “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.” — Samuel Adams ... “I have this experience when I interview. If it’s going well and we’re really talking in a serious way, and they’re telling me these very personal things, I fall in love a little. They’re sharing so much of themselves. If you have half a heart, how can you not?” — NPR’s Ira Glass

Closing words II, wonder where that came from division: “There is something uncanny about these new-fangled vehicles. They are all unutterably ugly and never a one of them has been provided with a good, or even an endurable, name. The French, who are usually orthodox in their etymology if in nothing else, have evolved ‘automobile,’ which, being half Greek and half Latin, is so near to indecent that we print it with hesitation.” — New York Times editorial Jan. 3, 1899, wherein appeared the first known use in English of “automobile”