Talk:Houston Chronicle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Houston Chronicle article.
Article policies
Archives: 1
Archive
Archives


Contents

[edit] Richard Johnson

While combing through the January, 2006, obituaries without a Wikipedia article, I came across Richard Johnson (publisher), publisher of the Houston Chronicle for some time. I haven't sourced it but wanted to tag it as an article stub. Deatonjr 10:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pulitzer Prize

I like the idea of referring to the Pulitzer Prize. However, it would be great if we can find a more specific reference for the statement that the paper is the only one in its size class not to have won a ? The footnote goes to the Pullitzer main page. It would be a tedious exercise to go through all winners in all categories to verify that (1) the Chronicle is not there and (2) every other paper in its "size class" is there. Also, what do we consider its "size class"? My suggestion would be the top 20 papers by circulation. Johntex 23:49, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Honestly, I couldn't point to an easy reference... I just remember it being a topic of discussion around the newspaper. Generally it's considered among the top 10 newspapers by circulation I think. Let me see if I can find something... here's a little blurb that's easily accessible: [1]. Might be easier to just change the text to "HC has never won a PP." · Katefan0(scribble) 23:55, May 26, 2005 (UTC)
    • Well I doubt seriously that your colleagues at the paper would be wrong about this. I think we should leave it as is except to just say "only one of the top 10 largest" instead of the less specific "size class". Johntex 00:01, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes indeed we need the emphasis on "its own parent" unless you wanna extensive debate on this issue. The "Award" section implies awards the Chronicle recieved, not its "award winning" employees. The "Hearst Distinguished Journalism Award" was awarded to an employee, not the Chronicle, for services he rendered to his employer for which he had been already compensated. The piece, When Will the U.S. Liberate Texas? is the property of the Hearst Corporation, not the employee, for which the Hearst Corporation marketed to the public, and presumably made a profit. Now the Chronicle is free to boast of the "award winning journalists" on its staff. Wikipedia should not be used to corroborate this deception. Should I make the reversion or will you? Thanks. Nobs01 17:30, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • It says the award was given by its parent company. "Own" is POV, as if you were speaking indignantly, at the worst; at the best it's just not necessary from the standpoint of good writing. Nothing in what I changed altered stating that it was given to the employee rather than the paper. · Katefan0(scribble) 17:35, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

The problem is with the Hearst's Corporation using the word, "Distinguished", because this implies, out of many, this one is "Distuingished". If the name were "Hearst Journalism Award" then there wouldn't be a problem with an employer recognizing the service of an employee. However, this distinction implies the "Distinguished Award" is open to the entire profession, not just those on the payroll. The fact that the Hearst Corporation decided to "distinguish" one of its own, for whatever reason, gives the appropriate NPOV necessary, seeing Wikipedia is already part of the decdeption with Houston_Chronicle#Awards link implying the Chronicle received the Award, when in fact it did not.Nobs01 17:53, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

    • While I respect your opinions about whether Hearst or its awards are distinguished or not, or whether they should give internal awards or not, they are simply that -- your opinions. If you have a source criticizing the name of the awards because they feel Hearst is not distinguished, or critical of them giving internal awards, add the citation. Otherwise your argument here does not hold water in terms of NPOV; our own opinions are irrelevant. · Katefan0(scribble) 17:59, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)
      • I added some context about the contest being internal among Hearst's papers -- does that help with your objections? Happy Friday · Katefan0(scribble) 18:07, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)
    • Thank you. I'll take on good faith that it's internal without doing the reseach. TGIF. Nobs01 18:17, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Yellow journalism

To talk about the Hearst Corporation's role in yellow journalism within the confines of the Hearst article is desirable and proper. To mention it offhand here as a way of casting aspersions on the Houston Chronicle's practices is not. The Chronicle did not become part of the Hearst Corporation until long after the era of yellow journalism was over. · Katefan0(scribble) 20:25, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I dont know if it ever ended. This source says the Chronicle is Hearst's largest [2]. Perhaps that should go in the intro. Nobs01 21:08, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I concur - to state that the "era of yellow journalism" is over is an opinion in itself, passing judgment on what constitutes yellow journalism. A reasonable argument could be made, for example, that the light rail memo scandal was a revival or continuation of yellow journalism at its worst. Rangerdude 14:39, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Nation

I looked at this link and didn't see a reference to the Houston Chronicle or the Hearst Corporation. Is this the correct link? -Willmcw 23:43, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jensen

The decision to publish Jensen's articles so soon after the attacks produced allegations of insensitivity against the newspaper, which was said to be giving an unduly large audience to a position characterized as being extremist. Source, please. · Katefan0(scribble) 19:17, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Sources: virtually every talk radio show in the city of Houston that week plus the flood of angry letters to the viewpoints section in the subsequent days, e.g. "The Chronicle should have used editorial license to delay printing Robert Jensen's Sept. 14 Outlook article, "U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts." Such extreme views should not be printed while the nation is in mourning. It is not decent to argue at a funeral." [3] The Chronicle got slammed up and down the board for running those silly Jensen articles. Don't play stupid and pretend it didn't happen. Rangerdude 01:11, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Don't make personal attacks. If you can't produce a source, please remove it or I'll do it myself. · Katefan0(scribble) 02:56, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
    • I just gave you two sources, Katefan, including one on the Chronicle's very own website. If you're going to respond in your typical fashion of pretending that they aren't there in spite of what's been referenced[4] and supplant the obvious with shrill apologism for the Chronicle, don't act surprised when others express reasonable frustration with your antics. Rangerdude 04:13, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Controversy"

A recent editor added the word "controversy" with the comment:

revert stalker edit re: "controversy" - def. n. " A dispute, especially a public one, between sides holding opposing views." - not a POV term

Does this mean that every issue covered in an opinion piece that generates an opposing letter to the editor is a "controversy" and must be so labelled by us? And that calling something a controversy doesn't imply a certain view of the situation? Whew, this article is gonna get long! How about we just say what happened and let readers decide if it's a controversy or not? Cheers, -Willmcw 08:52, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Not necessarily if the opposition is minor, but an opinion piece that generates several hundred opposing letters and some 4,000 opposing criticisms of the author certainly does...and Jensen did just that. Rangerdude 08:57, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation?

Back in June, the mediator said he needed another week but he hasn't said anything since then. Has this dispute been solved? I want to edit this article but also don't want to disrupt the mediation. Let me know. Savidan 02:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The mediation never started, and the disputes remain. Nevertheless, since mediation never started I suppose it's also not really in effect. I'd say go ahead and edit. I plan to revisit many of the issues I had with the article after the holidays, anyway. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 04:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Does being/having been formally associated with the subject one is writing an article on constitute a conflict of interest? Because I seem to remember something about one of the people involved in this POV debate doing his internship at the Houston Chronicle. But then again, I also seem to remember the closing of the Houston Post (about which my uncle who was a trucker in east Texas in the late 70's still says "The Chronicle had nothing on the Post,") as being reported something like this: The Chronicle flashed a message on the screens of the computers at the Post informing all the employees that the Chronicle had bought the Post and they were all fired. So just shoot me if my memory's just way off. —User:ACupOfCoffee@ @ 07:05, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
"Conflict of interest" is not an operative concept at Wikipedia. We edit articles about our towns, our alma maters, our religions, our political heroes (and villains), our favorite TV shows, etc. Editors are even allowed (though discouraged) from editing their own biographies. What matters is the content, not the contributor. -Will Beback 07:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I partially agree with ACupOfCoffee. I think it's a problem if somebody who worked at the Houston Chronicle is trying to add opinions that bias it toward his old employer. If he can edit it without making it biased that would be okay. If the editor who interned there is writing from a perspective in favor of his boss it is inappropriate though. - Antimetro

For the record, the ex-intern is me. I've never tried to "add biased opinions" to the article, so careful about what you toss around. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 16:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Nobody should insert biased material into the article. That includes former employees, former subscribers, residents of Houston, U.S. citizens, and any other class of Wikipedia editors that one would like to characterize. Let's focus on the content, not the contributors. -Will Beback 19:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

As long as you don't add biased opinions to the article that's fine. I'm just saying that it looks like other people think that you have been biased towards the Houston Chronicle in the past. Since you worked there you may want to be especially careful in being unbiased so you don't get accused of supporting them again. - Antimetro

The only person that's accused me of bias is User:Rangerdude, who's been placed on probation by Wikipedia's arbitration committee in part due to his activities related to this article (you can see the case here. I appreciate the sentiment and of course I agree with it (nobody should insert biased statements), but just want to caution you to be careful not to tar an innocent with a dirty brush; it's easy to do when tossing out casual "I think I saw this somewhere" type statements. That's MY only point. I am always careful with my edits and have been dedicated to upholding all of Wikipedia's policies, especially those dictating articles must be written from a neutral point of view, for more than a year now. No hard feelings and look forward to seeing you around. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 20:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

But my point is I don't care who accused you of bias or how. I just don't want to see it. I think ACupOfCoffee raised a good point about it too. Now how do we go about fixing this artice? - Antimetro

Does anybody have anything else to say on why there are sections still disputed here? Or can the dispute be concluded? - Antimetro

I've outlined my reasons above, exhaustively. They all still stand. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 21:13, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
There are gazillions of lines of bickering above over the whole article. Instead of pointing to it and saying its everything it will help to start anew and take it line by line or section. - Antimetro
I can appreciate that, even _I_ don't want to go back through it. ;) I won't have much time this weekend to do anything significant on this article, but what I'll do on Monday is start running down the remaining portions I have issues with. How's that? Thanks. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 03:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sections with disputed headings

I'll start us off. The first paragraph with a disputed header is

On the political right, the paper's main critics are conservative talk radio stations including KSEV radio and an affiliated weblog entitled Chronically Biased. The paper's editorial page is often a target for satire and derision in Houston's political circles for what critics perceive as an overbearing habit of promoting light rail transit. Chronically Biased features a cartoon character named "Captain Chronicle" who espouses light rail transit as the solution to all of Houston's problems including those unrelated to traffic.
In May of 2005 the Harris County Republican Party joined a boycott of the newspaper, [11] which had previously been espoused by KSEV hosts. The Republican Party accused the paper of having a liberal political slant, of biased coverage of the light rail project, of supporting Planned Parenthood and of waging a "personal smear campaign" against Houston area congressman Tom DeLay.
The newspaper also has critics on the political left. The Houston Press, an alternative weekly paper that often takes a liberal perspective, used to run a a column entitled "News Hostage", which often critiqued the Chronicle. Now that paper only occaisionally picks on the "Chronicle" in its Hairballs column.

Is everything in this correct? I don't see much bias because it represents critics on the left and on the right. The sources links all seem to work fine too. Does anybody have any changes they want to make? - Antimetro

I forgot to mention I'm also okay with this paragraph the way it is and if nobody else oposes i'll ask for comments on the next one. - Antimetro

Okay, I made a fair few changes. I'm open to suggestions; see what you think. I tried to limit discrete edits to significant concepts or significant sections to make version comparison easier. · Katefan0(scribble)/mrp 17:07, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello and thank you for the changes. I'll disclose up front that I listen to KSEV and voted against light rail, but I'll try to be as unbiased as possible and perhaps we can be foils of each other since your connections are with the newspaper. I'm going to go through and add things that I think need to be included based on what was there already. For example I want to make sure the facts that were there and positions of all the groups are represented, though if they are biased now the language can be made more neutral. Thank you again. - Antimetro

Regarding blogs, "Chronically Biased" and "Lone Star Times" are separate blogs with different staffs. "CB" was not simply renamed to become "LST". LST is currently owned and operated by David Benzion [5]. -Will Beback 22:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
No - I remember when this happened about a year ago on the radio. They said they were ending Chronically Biased and moving to Lone Star Times - the new site. Right now on the CHronically Biased archives it even has a letter saying that Lone Star Times is the "follow on project" of Chronically Biased and its writers post there now. Thanks. - Antimetro
Actually, it says that LST is the follow on project of Dan Sullivan, not of Whited who actually started "CB". Further, the current LST is owned and operated by someone who had no involvement with "CB". In any case, are they really one of the leading critics of the Chronicle? If they're not then we needn't mention them. -Will Beback 22:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Katefan - I read through your changes and most of them look good. I did some minor changes such as moving things to parenthesis to make the sentences easier to read. I added back one criticism of the Houston Chronicle that was there in the article, but I changed the text around it to make it more neutral. I also cleaned up some of the repetitive sentences in the discription of the Texans for True Mobility thing to make it clearer where each party stood. I hope it helps! - Antimetro

[edit] picture

how about a newer pic? Savidan 04:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] criticism

The criticism section of this article is awful. It makes it appear as though the Chronicle is a left-leaning paper that receives criticism only from the right. However, the Chronicle endorsed Bush both in 2000 and 2004, and receives criticism from pretty much everybody who's ever read it. I won't link to examples because there are far too many, but it's by no means a movement from the right only. The section's NPOV is really out of whack. Mysticfeline 05:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

No, please DO link to examples. Be Bold. Try to pick the most notable ones you can find, source them, but don't put any undue weight on minor criticisms. If there is notable criticism from the left as you say, your additions could help improve the article. Thanks. Ufwuct 15:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Why do we need this whole massive section about criticism anyway? There's more stuffy blustering about light rail, other radio stations, and Bill O'Reilly than there is relevant information about the paper itself. I'm all for keeping an eye on the media, but this looks to me like pseudo-academic trolling, and this article isn't the proper forum for venting complaints one way or another about the paper's politics. Thornrag 17:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Perhaps we should move all of this to a "Criticisms of the Houston Chronicle" article, and retain a condensed summary in the main article. Postoak 21:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Can we delete this part of the article? It is nothing more than a diatribe about what someone doesn't like about the Chroncile, with little use for a page describing the newspaper. I feel it should be taken out as it has no objectivity or apparent authority to make such claims.