November 2001
Look Out, Houston, You're About to Get Organized
Long-time chapter secretary Lou Brooks has moved to the Bayou City to run a before- and after-school outreach at St. Francis Episcopal Day School, which daughter Susan Lair directs. She can still be spotted in the Fort Worth Cultural District on weekends (she retained her condo), but blink and you'll miss her as she races off to the next civic task.
Lou knows everybody in Fort Worth and has kept books for half of them, so SPJ is not the only organization missing her. She has raised money for the YMCA, raised awareness for the Kiwanis Club and raised a few Circle K students at TCU. No one was ever better at keeping you straight or taking your money at the door.
Best wishes, dear friend.
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KEITH HUFF, counseling psychologist
Keith Huff, 70, the husband of former IABC/Fort Worth president Pam Huff, died Oct. 29. Memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 2, at the United Presbyterian Church in Cleburne. Memorials are suggested to The WARM Place, 1510 Cooper St., Fort Worth 76104.
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MEETINGS
Next at IABC ...
A Witty Look at Life
It's tough to read -- all that tiny white type on a black page -- but The Door ("the world's pretty much only religious satire magazine") is equally difficult to dismiss, what with its links to news of the weird ("Jailed Homosexual Loses Condom Plea in Court") and ads for beach sandals with "Jesus" on the bottom (He's in your soul, He's on your sole), balancing the articles on liveprayer.com. Think Alfred E. Neuman with his collar on backward. The Onion minus the raunch. It's all true, too. Or none of it, or some of it.
Next time senior editor Robert Darden is in town, ask him. And that will be Nov. 13, when he addresses the IABC membership drive luncheon.
A former Billboard gospel music editor and music critic for the Boy Scouts of America magazine, he also teaches technical and professional writing at Baylor University, where he is an assistant professor of English. He writes on gospel music, travel, history, business and Texana for a spectrum of magazines and has authored two dozen books on subjecs ranging from Colonel Sanders to David Koresh, but at press time he wasn't sure of the topic of his talk at IABC/Fort Worth. Whatever it is, bet it's funny.
* Time & date: 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 13
* Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
* Cost: $17 members, $22 nonmembers, $12 students
* RSVP by noon Nov. 9: Dan Frost at (817) 735-6157 or frostdg@c-b.com
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Next at PRSA ...
Market Research: It Starts with the Right Tools
Market research, especially as it benefits the sole practitioner, will be explored in-depth at the November PRSA luncheon meeting and professional development seminar. Robin Lasher, a counselor and instructor with the Tarrant County College Small Business Development Center and an instructor for FastTrac, the nation's leading business training program for entrepreneurs, will offer the shortcuts to market research that she has learned in more than 18 years as a small-business owner and consultant.
Lasher, who also co-owns On Time Business Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in business plan development, will lead a tour through a Web site she has created that details online research methods and other resources for growing a small business. The seminar, hosted by the Sole Practitioners Special Interest Group, is aimed at independent designers, writers, special events coordinators and PR pros. IABC, SPJ and Ad Club members are welcome. The schedule:
Session I -- 1:30-2:45 p.m.
Track 1: The Bottom Line: Making a Profit. Pricing, billing and subcontracting.
Track 2: Nuts, Bolts, Death, Taxes. Insurance and tax tips.
Session II -- 3-4:15 p.m.
Track 1: Positioning Yourself. From compiling a capabilities packet to new business development.
Track 2: The Agency Connection. How agencies and sole practitioners can work together.
An exhibit area will let sole practitioners display their work. For table space, contact Andra Bennett at (817) 336-2491, ext. 265, or abennett@fortworthchamber.com.
* Time & date: 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14
* Place: Ridglea Country Club, 3700 Bernie Anderson Blvd., just off Camp Bowie Boulevard near Bryant Irvin
* Cost: for lunch, $20 members, $23 nonmembers, $18 students; for the seminar, $45; parking free
* RSVP by noon Nov. 12: Elizabeth Eslick at elizabeth@stuartbacon.com
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Next at SPJ ...
Every Face Tells a Story
And this month you'll learn how to read between the facial lines. Author and lecturer Mac Fulfer, an expert on face reading, will teach the basics of interpreting the real message behind the spoken word at the November SPJ meeting. He will explain how the subtle differences between the right and left halves of a face can reveal how a person thinks and makes decisions, and whether she is likely to be swayed by emotion or fact.
Fulfer, a former trial lawyer, began studying faces for jury selection. He has since made a career out of reading what people think. More at amazingfacereading.com.
* Date: Monday, Nov. 19
* Time: mingling 5:30 p.m., dinner 6:15, program at 7
* Place: Water Street Seafood, 1540 S. University Drive
* Cost: $13 members, $17 nonmembers, $5 students
* Menu: choice of seafood enchilada, Southern fried catfish, mesquite-grilled chicken or shrimp harpoon, all served with a salad, vegetables and seasoned rice, fresh-baked bread and tea, soft drink or coffee; cash bar
* RSVP: Kay Pirtle at mkpirtle@yahoo.com
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STRAIGHT STUFF
H. Ross Perot Jr. will present "An Optimistic Outlook for North Central Texas" at the M.J. Neeley School of Business Executive Speaker Series breakfast at 7 a.m. Nov. 7 at the Dee J. Kelly Alumni and Visitors Center on the TCU campus. Tickets are $15 or free to the first seven people who plop themselves at Gay Wakefield's table sponsored by the TCU Center for Professional Communication. Reservations at neeleyrsvp@tcu.edu, enlightenment at no charge at g.wakefield@tcu.edu. ... SPJ, PRSA and IABC members may take 20 percent off ticket prices for "The Front Page" through Nov. 11 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. in Dallas. "A bawdy slice of hilarity," Star-T living-legend theater critic Perry Stewart calls Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's classic on politics, cops and journalism in Roaring '20s Chicago. Another 15 percent off will be offered for "A Christmas Carol" at Dallas' Arts District Theater, Nov. 23-Dec. 24. The special pricing happens not through the box office but only through the discount lady -- M'Layne Murphy, (214) 252-3924. ...
The National Association of Hispanic Communicators meets next at 11 a.m. Nov. 10 at UTA. Members will receive room information and directions. Meanwhile, raffle prizes are needed for the Super Bowl fiesta/pep rally in January. To donate items, e-mail Gary Pina at gpina@star-telegram.com. ... The Houston-based Attention Deficit Disorders Association, Southern Region, wants to buy a 2001 Fort Worth-Dallas media guide. Write Arlene Brunn at addaoffice@pdq.net. ...
SPJ update: 2 local wins, 2 FOI losses. Fort Worth was named the best large professional chapter in Region 8 and was honored for having the best chapter newsletter in all of SPJ at the national convention Oct. 4-6 in Seattle. Max Faulkner, Larry Lutz, Kay Pirtle, Dorothy Estes and Robert Bohler represented the chapter, Bohler serving as an adviser for the student-produced Working Press and the others working the crowd as advance scouts for the 2002 convention at the Renaissance Worthington in downtown Cowtown. "From the first meetings to the closing video inviting everyone to Texas, our presence was felt," Lutz observed. "The Seattle pro chapter also did a great job preparing for the convention, and the thing it did best was respond to the news. Reworked sessions on the Sept. 11 attacks were by far the best attended." Delegates adopted three resolutions focusing on media coverage of America's war on terrorism, addressing public information on the attacks, ethical coverage and accurately telling the story of diversity in the war. Among other highlights: the Freedom Forum's breezy and informative quiz on the First Amendment, and the Legal Defense Fund luncheon featuring attorney Mike DeGeurin on why Houston writer Vanessa Leggett's incarceration means so much to all working journalists. And a lowlight: too much chicken. ... Stock market losses totaling 30 percent of its $1 billion endowment have caused the Freedom Forum to close offices in London, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong and Johannesburg and cut programs; the foundation's First Amendment Center in New York will close, too, but operations will move to the Washington headquarters. ... A coalition of 11 journalism organizations and free-speech advocates led by SPJ and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press urged the Bush administration and Congress to help maintain a free and autonomous press, even in light of tightened national security. Attorney General John Ashcroft has directed government agencies to be cautious in releasing records. He said agencies that legitimately turn down requests made under the Freedom of Information Act will have Justice Department backing.
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Telling Your Story in the New World of Media Diversity
What motivates a newspaper to cover an event? Which medium suits your target market? How do you make a pitch "newsworthy"? Five news professionals will discuss what stories or promotions make the cut and why at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce's "Meet the Press" breakfast Tuesday, Nov. 13, at the Fort Worth Club, 777 Taylor St. (Trinity Room, 12th floor).
Karen Blumenthal of The Wall Street Journal; Paul Harral, Star-Telegram; Robert Shiflet, WBAP 820; Angela Brown, The Associated Press; and Clint Bond, NBC5, will tackle how the Internet and the merging of media giants have affected coverage locally and regionally, with an emphasis on making your case to the op-ed page, the Web and to other publications.
Registration starts at 7:45 a.m., with the buffet at 8 and the program from 8:30 to 11:30. Cost is $55 for chamber members, $90 otherwise. Go to fortworthchamber.com and click on Calendar of Events, or call Sharon Parker at (817) 336-2491, ext. 275.
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Covering a Disaster Like No Other: They Came,
They Saw, and How Can They Forget?
by Frank Perkins
First there was the 26-hour, 1,500-mile nonstop drive from Fort Worth to New York City, followed by the sight of the New York skyline with lights shining on the huge dust cloud over a smoldering black hole where the World Trade Center had stood.
Then there was the smell. "Like a mix of dust and a generic house fire," Star-Telegram photographer Tom Pennington explained. Hearing him tell it, one sensed it was much worse.
Pennington was one of a dozen Star-Telegram staffers who reported, firsthand, on the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack on the 107-story WTC twin towers. He, Ron T. Ennis and Jack Douglas Jr. told of their professional and personal struggles to cover the overwhelming disaster at the October meeting of the Fort Worth SPJ chapter.
Their first impression was of parachuting into combat. "I wasn't afraid for my own well-being," Ennis said, "but frightened about what would happen next." Pennington: "It was like driving to cover a hurricane, with a string of cars heading away from the storm and an empty highway ahead of you. It was a sense of something not being right. ... Lower Manhattan was a war zone."
The Star-Telegram team joined other writers and photographers from parent company Knight Ridder and hit the ground running. Every hour that passed made it harder to reach the scene. Ennis accessed ground zero with little trouble the first day, but 24 hours later police barricades were up and Pennington couldn't get close. "That was my day to get down there and get the images, but I was turned away," Pennington said. Police confusion sometimes worked in the reporters' favor. Ennis once got past a barricade by telling a harassed cop that his backpack was filled with supplies for a Knight Ridder shooter already on the scene.
What a scene it was. "It looked like the monster Godzilla had strode up out of the harbor and stomped the World Trade Center flat," Douglas said. Pennington talked his way to the roof of a nearby 39-story apartment house, and what he saw from that vantage point shook him deeply. "You couldn't believe the extent of that rubble. It filled the area, and it was so massive that the giant cranes they had working to clear it away looked like children's toys in comparison." Ennis had been told the area was as large as the Houston Astrodome, but when he saw it, "it was as large as six Astrodomes."
Pennington and Ennis were dumbfounded to see two large structures corkscrewed by the blasts. "You could look up the edges of these buildings and instead of seeing a sharp 90-degree angle, they were twisted out of alignment," Pennington said.
Overriding everything was the mind-numbing destruction, and the haunting experience of entire city blocks filled with grieving people holding up pictures of missing relatives. Yet somehow there was humor, too. "I had caught a cab at the hotel," Douglas recalled. "At a stoplight, some young punks began shouting insults at the driver, who looked vaguely Arabic. He jumped out of the cab and ran at the guys, yelling, 'I'm a Puerto Rican and a Korean War veteran!' " They ran off, the cabbie climbed back in, and Douglas made it to his destination.
Finally, there was the realization of how much death and loss to the nation the rubble represented, the memories of scenes best forgotten. "The images always will be there," Douglas said. For Ennis, "once I filed my pictures and could relax with a beer, what I had seen would really hit home and I would think about all those families."
Would they do it again? Douglas, who covered the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, thought a moment, then said: "Absolutely. It's our job. No matter how bad it is, you still do your job."
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PEOPLE & PLACES
Word wonder Paula LaRocque, for 20 years keeper of the lexicon on a short leash at The Dallas Morning News, is retiring, although she will continue to do staff seminars and write for the paper. Executive managing editor Stu Wilk, writing to the troops inside the fortress: "Paula has had a huge impact on the DMN. Many of the things we take for granted were her ideas. Some of Paula's greatest hits: FYI, the quarterly in-house contest, the mentor program, the brown-bag sessions, the headline initiative, the book club. ... No one cares more about the DMN and its people." May her index never be fogged. ...
Chicago computer consultant Bernard Shifman is in the market for contract work. "If you or any of your business associates are in need of a computer consultant," he writes, "please keep my number as a possible starting point." For a resume or just to ask if a July afternoon in the Wrigley Field bleachers is as absolutely grand as it looks, reach him at 2828 N. Burling St. #402, Chicago, Ill. 60657, phone (773) 391-0595.
Kudos & Contracts ... The American Red Cross gave its Humanitarian of the Year award to the Star-Telegram on Aug. 23 for the paper's support during the 2000 tornadoes, for printing the agency's quarterly newsletter and for sponsoring its annual fund-raiser.
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GET A JOB
Univision KUVN Channel 23 seeks a news producer, 3+ years experience, bachelor's degree, fluent in Spanish and English. Apply at Univision Center, 2323 Bryan St., Suite 1900, in Dallas. No phone calls. ... A content Web portal targeting mobile developers worldwide is looking for a managing editor. Newsroom experience a plus, a technology background and ability to work across multiple organizations in a large corporation required. Contact Camille Krug, (972) 497-4226 or camille@rsn.hp.com.
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A NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Mary Dulle, GFW PRSA
Congratulations to the 2002 officers and directors elected in October: Kristie Aylett, APR, president; Roger Partridge, president-elect; Hope Caldwell, VP programs; Elizabeth Eslick, secretary; Pamela Smith, treasurer; and Ann Genett-Schrader, APR, treasurer-elect. Beth Park, APR, and Kim Speairs, APR, will be delegates to the National Assembly. Marc Flake, Carolyn Hodge, APR, and Carolyn Bobo, APR, are new directors. This is a great group of people who should take our chapter to the next level.
Don't miss the November program. We'll have a couple of special guests to whom we owe our thanks. Jim Haynes and Steve Lee of QuickSilver have been helping the chapter develop an electronic directory. It will be ready to go live soon (perhaps even by the time you read this). Each month with the meeting notice we'll send a new password to dues-paying members enabling access to the directory. Updates will thus be reported much quicker than they are now (presuming our membership chair learns about them) and the chapter won't have to print a new directory each year -- a time-consuming and expensive project.
Things are gearing up for the Holiday Party, jointly produced by PRSA, IABC and SPJ. We have some great raffle prizes but need more to make everything more interesting. Be sure your calendars are marked for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12, at the Miller Brew Kettle Museum. Special thanks to Cliff Amos at Miller Brewing for again hosting and picking up the beer-and-BBQ tab.
Don't forget the PRSA Southwest District Conference, coming your way Feb. 21-22. We're working with the Dallas chapter to develop some dynamite programming.
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PRESIDENT'S COLUMN
Cecilia Jacobs, IABC/Fort Worth
In an old Peanuts comic strip, Lucy shouts at Linus, "You blockhead!" And Linus replies, "What did you call me? A dumbbell?" Lucy says, "No, I didn't say dumbbell. I said blockhead." Linus smiles and, walking away, says to nobody in particular, "Oh, I thought you said dumbbell."
At this, Lucy props her chin in her hands, elbows on the table, and says, "That's what causes so much trouble between people today. There's no real communication!"
No doubt every professional communicator has agreed with Lucy at one time or another. No matter how clear we try to be, someone invariably misunderstands. That's life -- and material for a good comic strip.
One purpose of IABC/Fort Worth is to help communicators do real communication. That means workshops and programs to improve skills and spotlight the latest tricks of the trade. Last month, Rex McGee presented a snapshot of his six-week class designed to reignite creativity. It worked for me. I've turned out more good stuff this past month than I have in a long time.
IABC/Fort Worth members also support one another on those too-often no-real-communication days. As a member of a group with more than 14,000 members worldwide, I have a variety of professional communicators to call in times of crisis or celebration. Fact is, IABC affords me friendships on the other side of the world and just across the street.
Find out for yourself. Join us at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 13 at the Petroleum Club for our monthly luncheon. I promise a room full of real communicators sharing the delights and dangers of doing real communication. Dangers? Yeah, there's always that chance someone won't understand.
"Hey, did you call me a blockhead?"
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OVER & OUT
John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ
Either you laugh, or you cry: Another scary-world conversation on a recent Friday noted the fleet of police and fire vehicles seen that morning at the Federal Building in Fort Worth. Star-T cartoonist emeritus Etta Hulme overheard the discussion outside reader advocate David House's office, said, "Aw it was probably somebody fainted, standing in line to register for Social Security," and just kept strolling down the hall. ... Little victories, the truth shall set you free division: More and more Iranians have turned to Pars TV and NITV, beamed from Los Angeles by secular opposition groups intent on reforming or even toppling the strict Islamic government. At least three times within a two-week period, thousands took to the streets, heeding the broadcasts' call. The Iranian government's response? Stricter enforcement of its satellite-dish ban. ... O what a tangled Web. The just-opened world's largest Internet library, dubbed the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org), showcases more than 10 billion Internet pages dating to 1996, including many believed to be long gone, plus some amateurish numbers that people probably wish they could erase. San Francisco entrepreneur Brewster Kahle has stored not just documents like old newspapers, but a sampling of everything ever posted on the Web. It's free. ... Well, it should be a title, cartoonist emeritus. ...
From grief, a glimmer: Five weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks and two weeks into the anthrax scare, newspaper circulation appeared to be up strongly. Of 40 dailies surveyed by Editor & Publisher, 34 reported higher circulation. If sustained, the gains could put the industry on a growth track for the first time in 40 years. While most of the increases are in single-copy sales, evidence suggests that street buyers are becoming subscribers. John Murray with the Newspaper Association of America said an industrywide circulation gain for the six months ending next March 31 is "very possible."