The Internet has changed us as a media

Reporters are adrenalin junkies. I might as well admit that right up front. Big news makes us jump and run . . . and run . . . and run.

Today, not much after noon, the police scanner in the newsroom blared news of a shooting at Central High School here in Beaumont.

That turned out not to be true, but at the time it sounded like big news. So we jumped and ran.

Reporter Rose Ybarra hit the road to get to the site. A cell phone call from me also interrupted Assistant Managing Editor Pete Churton, who is also a photographer, while he was busy taking pictures. Jemimah Noonoo, another reporter, ended up talking to Ybarra via cell phone and also headed out there, as did another photographer, Dave Ryan.

On-line producer Scott Eslinger was answering both cell and land-line telephones, posting information and listening to the scanner, while Managing Editor Ron Franscell called the shots and I ran around doing several things, mostly trying to be helpful.

Reporter Emily Guevara and Photographer Mark Hancock, who were off chasing a bank robbery story out of Vidor at the time, returned to the newsroom realize that, at least at the time, it didn’t appear to be the biggest story of the day.

By the time the situation settled, the facts included:

 That it didn’t happen on the Central High School campus, but at a private residence nearby.

 That no students were involved (thank you.)

 That, though two people apparently got in some kind of squabble involving gun-play, it certainly wasn’t as big a story as we initially thought it was going to be (thank you, again.)

We had the story posted on our Website, BeaumontEnterprise.com within minutes after it happened.

We had photographs, we had video. We had the whole package and we did a great job gathering the real facts and images and getting them to our readers. And we pumped a lot of adrenaline while we did it.

But, it probably wasn’t a big news story. We, and the immediacy of the Internet, made it one, at least temporarily.

If I had been a nervous parent trying to find out what was going on at the school, having that quick and accurate news would have been important to me.

So, we did our job and I think we did it well, just differently than we would have done it a decade ago when we had the luxury of the time to wait and see what the real story might be.

What a difference a week makes

This time last week, there was a barely-named tropical storm just off the Gulf Coast and we were expecting a bit of wind and rain overnight.

Now we’ve experienced our second direct hit of a hurricane in less than two years. Mother Nature gave us a bit of a reprieve last year. I guess this is her way of reminding us who’s in charge.

Now another wave of tropical activity is off the eastern coast of Florida with a strong possibility of making it to the Gulf of Mexico.

Then it’s a matter of the speed of the system and the warmth of the water, and several other factors, combining to determine if the activity will become merely a tropical wave or a killer hurricane. It also means meteorologists will be making educated guesses as to the location where the development might make landfall. But we all know, that’s just a guess until it gets too close to matter.

Here at The Enterprise, Humberto served as a good dress rehearsal for applying the knowledge we gained in coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Rita.

Our reporters blanketed the region to provide full coverage before and after the storm, posting more than 115 hurricane-related articles Thursday and the days following the storm. Schools and other facilities used the immediacy of BeaumontEnterprise.com to help inform the public of their status.

We included a photo gallery of more than 90 images of the storm and established a reader photo gallery where you could share your pictures as well.

The day Humberto hit, we posted six videos sharing those images, as well as this frightening narrative from reporter Mike Smith.

If it doesn’t make you pay attention, nothing will.

Hopefully Humberto reinforced to area residents the need to make all those preparations that the experts continually encourage us to make. Keep your car’s gas tank full. Have plenty of available drinking water. Stock up on non-perishables.

Mother Nature gave us a dress rehearsal. We hope she doesn’t plan an encore performance, but if she does, let’s make sure all our props are in place.

Humberto: Fast and not so furious

Humberto has come and gone, halleluiah. Wednesday morning in The Enterprise newsroom, it was merely a buzz about a tropical depression, then a bit more of a flurry when it became a named tropical storm.

By late in the day, we decided we’d drag out all those tarps we had stored away with the hurricane preparedness supplies we acquired after Hurricane Rita blew our newsroom out for more than six months. We decided, though we were telling ourselves we were confident that our newly repaired roof would hold, that putting the tarps over desks and computers was a good rehearsal for what we would do if a real hurricane blew in.

Then a real hurricane blew in.

We had multiple staff members who worked through the night to keep the news updated, and one managing editor who stayed in the building, sleeping in his car in the parking garage. Read his blog posting here.

It gave new reporters, particularly those who’ve never weathered such a storm, a good chance to get their feet wet (both figuratively and literally). It helped us practice our skills in keeping all our Website readers completely up to date with virtually constant updates of the news. It gave The Enterprise the chance to prove, again, that we are the best and most complete news source in Southeast Texas.

So, in less than 24 hours, we went from watching the weather, to being finished with the storm. No time to build up a lot of anxiety about where it might go or how big it might get. And, it was big enough – big enough that many of us may be, again, cooking on outdoor grills and sweating in our bedrooms for a few nights until we have electrical power power back up. And many of the students at area schools got an extra day off.

So, while we sweat and wait, I thought I'd share a story that might make a few people smile.

Back in 1986, Beaumont took a direct hit of another Level 1 hurricane – Hurricane Bonnie. Some people were without electrical power for two or more weeks then, but it was relatively minor – as hurricanes go.

Except at The Enterprise, where our building was fine, but two employees who had an outdoor wedding planned at Tyrrell Park that weekend faced a disaster.

The hurricane’s winds tore up trees in the park and blocked roads, so the park was unavailable for the ceremony. The reception was to be at their home – which had no power.

So, two days before the wedding, staff members and pitched in and changed those plans. The wedding took place at Riverfront Park, which was lovely. Those attending still refer to it as the “salute to transportation wedding” because nobody could hear the vows for the various activities in the area: power boats zooming down the river, a plane flying overhead, and, of course, a train traveling slowly down the tracks honoring the couple with several loud whistles.

The reception followed at The Enterprise building. It wasn’t the wedding they’d planned, but the marriage survived the ordeal.

Love and newspapers, even the weather can’t stop ‘em.

Tales of trick riders and softball players

Good journalists are generally blessed (or plagued) with an eye for detail and an innate curiosity about almost everything – people, places, events – past or present.

We love the opportunity to tell a good story. But, unfortunately we can’t, or don’t tell them all.

In representing The Enterprise, I frequently have the opportunity to share my love of journalism and to tell members of my audience that every one of them has at least one story we could tell.

I was reminded of that by a couple of events this week. This is National Assisted Living Week. That’s not the story because almost every week is designated as some “week” of recognition.

But, my 86-year-old mother happens to be in an assisted living facility. In recognition of the week, family members were asked to put together brief biographies of their loved ones, as well as photos, to share with others. I think we frequently forget the lives older people have lived and that, though they might now have memory issues or be in a wheelchair, they are still people who have lived fascinating lives.

My mother’s life hasn’t been particularly extraordinary, but it has been varied and interesting.

I’ve grown up knowing my mother was an athlete who played a variety of sports in high school and went on to play softball at the national level at about the time WWII started. I, however, never chased down the facts until I started to write her brief biography. Being a journalist, I wanted to make sure I had the FACTS and that I was correct in everything in wrote.

The facts are: She traveled to California to play for a team called the “Hollywood Victoryettes.” The year was 1942, a year before the establishment of the All-American Girls Softball League, the predecessor of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the inspiration for the movie “A League of Our Own.”

I have newspaper clippings about the time and the team, but in today’s Internet world, the “Hollywood Victoryettes” are non-existent. It’s a story that, apparently, wasn’t told. Today I wish it had been, for myself, for my daughter, and for all the others who would love to have read about it.

Today, in The Enterprise, we missed at least one more of those great stories. Our obituary page carries a paid notice about the life, and death of Dorothy Jayne Cash Whitehead. She was a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. A native Beaumonter, she was a woman of faith who spent much of her life working for her church.

She also was a trick rider with Roy Rogers’ Wild West Shows and performed as such at Madison Square Garden.

Yeah, we missed that one.

Our library archives have no file on Whitehead and a cursory search on the Internet turns up nothing to confirm – or dispute – that information. I have little doubt it is true and that we simply missed the opportunity to write it. I can only imagine the stories she could have told, of traveling, of backstage antics, and of the adventure of a lifetime for a young girl from Beaumont.

Here’s hoping she told those tales to her children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and that they know we would have loved to tell it as well.

And, please, if you have a great story to share, let us know. Our reaction is not always immediate, but we love to know about them and have the chance to share them. Help us not wait too long to hear those great stories.

Send me an e-mail , please. Give us a chance to tell these stories.

Should headline have cut the cans?

The headline across the top story on the front page of The Beaumont Enterprise today (Thursday, Sept. 6) said: "Christus cans 100 workers/Hospital cites dramatic increase in number of uninsured patients since Hurricane Rita as a contributing factor to its financial losses."

The headline did what good headlines are supposed to do. It got the readers' attention and made them want to read the story. It also had some of us pondering, was it fair, or more importantly, was it accurate?

My first glimpse of it made me, quite frankly, wince. A good headline writer might argue that "cans" is a good strong verb, not to mention many journalists (including myself) seem to have affection for alliteration, as in "Christus cans."

But my first thought frankly was -- people lost their jobs, that seems a bit callous.

So, when another editor sent me an e-mail saying a reader had called to complain about the headline, calling it unfair and saying it was a "cheap shot," I had to agree. So we talked, and he agreed, though not a terrible mistake, that the word "cans" might not have been the best choice.

Cans carries a connotation of firing, as in termination from a job for cause. Webster’s, in fact, defines it as "to dismiss: fire." The hospital eliminated jobs for economic reasons. Though it was not a typical layoff in that it did not involve advance notice, those who lost jobs did so for business reasons, not because of their job performance.

My suggestion to the editor was the less colorful verb cuts, as in trims – a much more precise and accurate way of describing what the local hospital system did with 100 jobs on Wednesday.

That, and it’s also alliterative.

So, for readers who think we never admit mistakes – we certainly do. For readers who think we don’t listen, oh boy do we. And for readers who think we don’t consider the impact before we do something – well, sometimes they are right. Sometimes we don’t consider that impact until AFTER we have done something, but we do talk, and we DO always try to do the right thing.

Thanks for always keeping us on our toes, making us think and fostering some great discussions in the newsroom.