Making a difference, every day, any way

At The Enterprise, one of our community roles is to encourage young writers discovering and developing their talents.

Part of the reasoning for that is self-serving: We would love to develop talented young writers who, one day, might work for The Enterprise. We also think encouraging writing (and reading) among young people is a positive thing, both for our future as a newspaper and for the world in general.

Writers are usually readers. Readers are generally seeking knowledge of some type and therefore are more likely to pay attention to the world around them, vote and become involved in community (or state, national or world) issues.

That’s the long way of explaining why I’ve spent part of the past week judging a literature contest for a local high school. It IS worth the investment of my time to encourage and help mold young writers – the young voices who might well be speaking up for all of us in decades to come.

The theme of the competition was, "I can make a difference by . . ."

The theme of this blog should be, "What I learned from young people this week."

I learned they are deeply concerned about our environment. They get as irritated as the rest of us when someone throws trash out of a car window or fails to stash their trash in a garbage container rather than just dropping it wherever they might be.

But they’re also concerned about the ozone layer, dependency on petroleum products, the cost of gasoline, increasing sun exposure contributing to increased skin cancer and a whole host of other environmental issues.

They care about the homeless, the needy, the disabled and the elderly.

They care about other countries and know that our neighbors in Mexico could use some help and that Africa isn’t a great place to live right now.

And they also recognize the power of the individual. They know their smile, their time, can make a difference in another person’s day – maybe even that person’s life. They know what a strong influence they are on younger siblings and recognize their need to set good examples.

Southeast Texas has some promising writers attending high school right now and some thoughtful and sharing young people who want to make a difference in their world. They deserve our praise, and our gratitude.

Get ready for growth, and growing pains

A story in The Enterprise this past Sunday included information from people who must drive U.S. 69 through the Lumberton area and what a headache that has become.

I certainly agree. If I have to drive through that bottleneck, I at least try to do it during non-peak traffic times.

And then there’s the southern part of U.S. 69, where a pipeline leak and fire and subsequent repair, blocked traffic there for several days. Weather even closed a portion of the highway for a time this week.

Add to those issues, the amount of construction and repair being done to area roads, as reflected by frequent Texas Department of Transportation bulletins, and the region seems to have become one big traffic jam.

I got stuck in one the other evening that turned by 15-minute commute into an hour and a half of torture. I didn’t like it, but I DO understand its necessity.

By all accounts, the region is about to explode with industrial expansion and economic development, so we all need to get used to what that growth will mean.

Apartment construction is surging, work is underway to prepare basic infrastructure such as highways for this growth, area school districts are planning and seeking funding for expansion and improvement.

We’re going to have a boom one expert has likened to Spindletop, the 1901 oil strike that brought petroleum as an industry to the area.

The expected economic benefits will mean growth, new businesses, and an environment more conducive to providing high-paying professional jobs that will help keep our young people in this area.

So, as those traffic jams test your patience, remember what this growth means – a brighter future for the next generation. And, watch our Web site for traffic updates, allow extra time, plan alternate routes and wait, patiently, in line until it is your turn.

Please don’t be one of those impatient drivers cutting in and out of traffic and/or driving on the shoulder of the highway. We want you, and the other drivers, to live to see the bright future that is coming our way.

News allows no time for conspiracies

In the process of gathering and publishing news, occasionally people give us too much credit. Though they might smile when they say it, they sometimes share the opinion that we manipulate facts to serve whatever they theorize our purpose to be.

They’re wrong. We just make mistakes.

It takes all our efforts to get the facts and put them in the newspaper. We have neither the time, energy, nor inclination to add manipulation of facts to our schedules.

Sometimes we’re not the only ones who make mistakes.

Such was the case in a front page story in The Enterprise on Oct. 8. The story said Beaumont residents in an average house with a valuation of $102,000 could expect an almost $200 bump in property taxes this year.

In actuality, as we said in a rare but necessary front-page correction on Oct. 9, taxes on such a house are expected to drop about $12.

A caller to The Enterprise, very nicely, raised the concern that the story could have in impact on passage of the proposed Beaumont ISD bond issue. That was a cause of great concern among editors. If we have anything to say for or against the bond issue it would be on our opinions pages, not on our front page and not in a news story.

In fact, a printed sheet of paper from the office of Miriam Johnson, Jefferson County Tax Assessor/Collector, was the basis of our figures. The sheet noted a tax increase of $132.47. Those figures were included in a graphic with the continued portion of the story on page 4A Oct. 8.

The figures compiled by Johnson’s office, and supplied to The Enterprise, were based on the appraised market value of $102,000, not the capped value of $95,700. It wasn’t a conspiracy, it was a mistake.

The remainder of the difference in the story and the graphic were based on an editor’s request of the reporter to include costs for water, sewer and trash collection services, which brought that $132 up to a bit more than $178. An editor then rounded the number up further to almost $200 and rewrote the sentence, incorrectly making it sound as though the entire amount was a tax increase.

None of the mistakes in the story were made by the reporter and none were the result of a conspiracy . . . real or imagined.

Making a statement, but losing a nose

Most everyone’s heard the old saying, “cutting off your to spite your face.” The point is, of course, that sometimes, in trying to make a stand, you actually end up hurting yourself.

Such is the case of a letter writer who voiced his vehement opposition to information in a story in Wednesday’s Enterprise. The Associated Press story was about an award presented by Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to Jeanne Phillips, a.k.a. Abigail van Buren of “Dear Abby.”

Phillips’ mother, Pauline, the original “Dear Abby,” helped put PFLAG on the map in 1984 by referring a distraught mother to the organization.

The story quotes Phillips as saying she supports same-sex marriage, something she’s never actually come out and said in her column. Instead she’s only offered suggestions for emotional support for those struggling with their sexual orientation and their families.

The reader’s letter included an obviously hastily clipped copy of the Wednesday “Dear Abby” column with a note saying he didn’t read it and didn’t intend to read any more of them.

OK.

That’s the great thing about America. You can do that. Anyone can choose to speak out on any topic. The press can choose to (or not to) print or air any of those opinions and you can decide not to watch, listen or read about them.

Will Abby still be in The Enterprise? Yes. But that’s another great thing about America, we always can change our minds, though we certainly don’t expect to do that.

Publishing her column doesn’t mean The Enterprise supports same-sex marriage – or opposes it. It means we think the column has value that isn’t limited to that one topic. We think our readers will agree.

Sharing the joys of journalism

I got to get excited about journalism today. It was invigorating, in the midst of what sometimes can become an almost routine job, to remember who we are and why we do what we do.

A small group of high school students, potential young journalists, from Zavalla, came to tour The Enterprise. A fair number of groups visit for tours of the newspaper. I generally lead tours for those with any serious journalistic interest. I still do a few church groups, Scout groups, and elementary school classes, but if they want to talk journalism – I’m usually the guide.

This group of inquisitive young people showed up, not only with a positive attitude and a generous dose of enthusiasm, but with a news tip as well.

On their way to our building, they passed the scene of a man apparently attempting suicide on bridge along Eastex Freeway. They were anxious to share that information with me and excited when I used my cell phone to call the third-floor newsroom, from the first floor conference room of our building.

We already had the story, in fact reporter Emily Guevara was already back from the scene with a video. But it gave them a sense of participation and the opportunity to see how quickly news that’s happening becomes news on our Web page.

Jeremy Parker of our on-line department even showed them the unedited video before he posted it on BeaumontEnterprise.com

I had the chance to share with these students, the journey from film, photo chemistry and printed pictures to digital photography and computerized images; from the typewriter and scanner-ready copy to complete pagination and direct-to-negative production; and from newspaper clippings in file folders to an on-line archive of all our stories.

I got to tell them about journalistic principles and ethics – like the fact that we don’t generally cover suicide attempts, unless they are very public like the one Friday morning.

And I shared a bit about what it’s like to observe and participate in the documentation of today’s events that, tomorrow will become part of history.

Along the way I got to feel good about what we, at The Enterprise, do every day.

It was a good feeling and a good day.

We didn’t make THIS mistake today

The Beaumont Enterprise is fortunate to have a great number of faithful and attentive readers. Some of them regularly call the Reader Representative phone line (409-880-0748) to report errors in our paper.

That’s a good thing. Not that we like making errors, but if we make them, we want to know about them as quickly as possible so we can get them corrected. It’s not only part of our responsibility as journalists, but it affects our credibility, and the accuracy of our archives. So, we correct virtually every mistake we are aware of (though we do, occasionally, let an obvious typographical error go uncorrected.)

So, when a reader called to point out an error in the Today in History column on page 2A Wednesday, I listened and took notes attentively. The Highlight in History said: "On Oct. 3, 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November Thanksgiving Day."

The woman caller pointed out that Thanksgiving is NOT the last Thursday in November, which would make it Nov. 29 this year. Thanksgiving is, in fact, celebrated on the FOURTH Thursday in November, which this year is Nov. 22.

By golly, she was right, or at least it appeared that she was right. But we, as journalists, generally don’t take such apparently correct statements as truth without checking our facts.

Turns out we were right and SHE was wrong. President Abraham Lincoln in fact, did proclaim the last Thursday in November to be the national holiday Thanksgiving Day.

That worked perfectly well for 75 years until 1939, when retailers complained to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the Nov. 30 Thanksgiving holiday that year was going to make the lucrative Christmas shopping season too short, so he moved the date, that year, back to Nov. 23. The change created confusion with everything from school holidays to football games with some states choosing to mark the day on the traditional date and others choosing FDR’s new option. Interestingly, Texas honored both dates.

Confusion followed with a similar situation in 1940 and 1941 (when Thanksgiving was on Nov. 20) until Congress passed a joint resolution in December of 1941, (when it seems as though they might have had more important business) officially making the national holiday the fourth Thursday in November.

It’s a story that provides a great illustration of political power plays and outside influences that some might have thought were only a by-product of our modern political system when, in fact, politics has always been . . . politics.