New story at the Times

October 7, 2014

Things might be getting better over at the Times.  It seems that they have a new reporter that knows how to write a newspaper article.

She had this article in the Sunday, October 5, 2014 edition.

The article was informative, well written, fair and thorough.  Unlike much of what we read in the Times it was not a publicity piece for some organization.  The reporter actually investigated the situation and told the story.  Even more surprising is that the article was about one of our local governments, EPISD.

Hurrah!

On the other hand this article appeared in the same edition.  The reporter spoke of a fund raiser for a “pay as you can” restaurant that opened in El Paso eleven months ago.  Patrons pay a “suggested price” if they can afford it.  Otherwise they can eat for free.  Some patrons volunteer their time in exchange for the meal.

Wanting to help support the restaurant I read the article twice looking for mention of the restaurant’s location.  Evidently the press release the reporter was given did not mention the location.

Who, what, when, why, and how are essential elements to reporting a story.

Hope

We should hope that this new reporter can help raise the bar at the Times.

This was better

Brutus

 

5 Comments | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Height of incompetence?

October 2, 2014

Shortly after yesterday’s post about BRIO (our new rapid transit system)  was published I overheard a conversation between a Sun Metro bus driver and a passenger.

I don’t know if what I heard is true, so I may be guilty of spreading an unfounded rumor.

The passenger asked the driver when the BRIO system would be going into operation.

The driver responded that there may be some more delays since some of the BRIO stations have platforms that are too far above the surface of the street.  In other words they don’t fit the new buses.

We should all hope that this is not true.  If it is we will have yet another example of incompetence at the city.

Then later in the day I saw two articles on the same page of the Times.  One was talking about the tuberculosis scare at a local hospital and the other told us about  our public health department’s spokesman wanting us not to worry about Ebola since “Public health officials already have a system in place with local hospitals to detect, report and track contagious diseases”.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Progressive regression

September 22, 2014

While doing research for the post about El Paso Country Club’s original location I ran across the Sunday, August 30, 1914 edition of The El Paso Morning Times.

The newspaper was applauding El Paso’s growth.  According to the article the population of El Paso 30 years prior (1884) was 500 people.  By 1914 it was over 60,000 people.  Yikes!

The newspaper printed “a brief list of some of the things that El Paso has”.  One item on the list caught my eye:

“Thirty-seven miles of finely paved streets”

Oh for the good old days!

It seems that our progressives have taken us backward.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

12 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Wrong date and time at the Times

September 20, 2014

Our El Paso Times continues to misinform its readers.

The Monday, September 15, 2014 edition has a front page article that claimed:

“The city will consider making a zoning change today that would restrict where payday and car loan companies can set up shop.

The zoning amendment is up for discussion and action at today’s 8 a.m. City Council meeting.”

Not true

City council meets on Tuesday.  This Monday a “Legislative Review Meeting of the Whole” was scheduled.

The meeting was to start at 9 a.m.

No action can be taken during the Monday meeting.  They must wait for a city council meeting to take action.

The issue is scheduled for a public hearing before council Tuesday, September 16.  Members of the public should express their thoughts about the issue at the Tuesday meeting.  I wonder if anyone attended the Monday meeting intending to speak.

The online edition of the Times contained the same mistakes earlier in the morning of the 15th.  In reviewing the online edition while writing this post I see that the Times has corrected its errors online.  This was done without telling us that they changed their article.

At least with the printed edition of the Times we have proof of what they publish.  With the online edition they evidently feel it is okay to change their story without telling us that they have made a change.

It’s hard to believe that the reporter does not know the difference between a city council meeting and a legislative review meeting.  Does that mean that the article was published too early?  With that being a possibility, why wouldn’t the reporter refrain from using the word “today” and instead write the actual date being referred to?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

4 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
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Supporting our charities

September 19, 2014

It will probably take a while to count up the money but I am eager to hear what local charities will be the recipients of the profits from the first season of baseball.  El Pasoans supported the team with over 8,000 attendees per game.

The team ownership went on record telling us that their profits would be donated to local charities back when the whole ball park issue was being sold to us.  This article in El Paso, Inc. told us “During the controversy over the plan to demolish City Hall to make way for the stadium, MountainStar Sports agreed to raise the city’s return on the stadium and to donate any profits it receives to local charities.”

We might reasonably expect that their first year expenses were higher than what will be normal.  There is no provision in their contract with the city to allow us to audit their books.  That’s the city’s fault.  I’m not saying that the owners will lie to us.  Quite to the contrary I expect that they will be honorable.

Let’s hope to see great benefit to our local charities.

We should not expect however what our former city representative and candidate for mayor told us to expect.  The El Paso Times  wrote this in an article:

“Both families understand that quality of life is part of the equation to making El Paso more competitive for jobs,” Ortega said, adding that the group has pledged the first 10 years of revenues to local charities.

Of course he was in office at the time so we should expect that he would not distinguish between profit and revenue.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

3 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
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