College Pals Win Pulitzer Prizes for Katrina Coverage

While attending the University of Texas at Arlington from 1987-88, my wife and I wrote for The Shorthorn, a student newspaper filled with gifted, headstrong and completely insufferable journalists who were already clearing space on the mantle for Pulitzer Prizes.

We'd get into such gigantic battles at press time you'd have thought that students at the commuter school actually read the paper.

Two of my Shorthorn colleagues just won Pulitzers for breaking news photography: Michael Ainsworth and Tom Fox of the Dallas Morning News, part of an eight-member team that covered Hurricane Katrina.

Ainsworth and Fox were great photogs in college, so I'm not surprised they've developed the kind of talent you can lord over others.

Now that they've won something this huge, I wish I had dirt on them. But they were good guys who were easy to work alongside, with the exception of one time I butchered Fox's photo with poor cropping and he was disconsolate in grief for days.

The scanned photo that accompanies this entry didn't win the Pulitzer. It's a picture of Jaques Castro diving into a UT-Arlington pool in December 1987, taken by Rex Curry. Take a look at the enlarged version and you might notice something disturbing about the young swimmer.

This picture caused a huge fight among the photographers when I worked with Ainsworth and Fox.

The swimmer's silhouette originally contained a protuberance that dispelled the belief that pools cause shrinkage. While Photo Editor Leslie White was preparing it for publication, someone at the paper became concerned about the mindful of the delicate sensibilities of school administrators.

In an argument that hinged on the public's right to know, some photographers were not happy about Castro's transformation from convex to concave. I think the argument broke down along gender lines, with male Shorthorners troubled at the manner in which Castro had been denuded and White defending the crop.

White's the Morning News photo editor who assigned Ainsworth to cover Katrina, so they must have worked things out.

Journalism · Hurricane Katrina · 2006/04/19 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

RSS Board Expands to 15 Members

This opens seven spots that can be filled by developers, publishers and educators who'd like to help us work on matters related to RSS and syndication. If you're interested in joining, contact me and I'll pass it along to the board.

Rss · 2006/04/17 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Art Bell Remarries, Will Leave U.S.

Paranormal radio host Art Bell told listeners on Coast to Coast AM last night that he has remarried, given his pet cats away and will be leaving the country, according to the show's web site:

During the first hour, Art shared the story of how he met, fell in love with, and married a very special Filipino woman, Airyn Ruiz. Art also announced that he will be moving to the Philippines on April 29 to be with Airyn, but will continue doing weekend Coast programs from that location.

Art Bell's wife Ramona died in January at age 47 of circulatory failure resulting from an asthma attack.

Last night, Bell announced his new marriage on the air and shared photos of the wedding to Ruiz, 21, who met him over e-mail after Ramona's death.

Bell broadcasts his late-night talk show and an FM oldies station from his home in Pahrump, Nevada, a desert town 50 miles from Las Vegas near Area 51. He left regular hosting duties behind on Coast to Coast in 2002 and now appears on weekends.

Some fans on an Art Bell online forum took the news personally:

What is even more shocking to me, is that he's leaving EVERYTHING behind ... the desert area, his home, his cats, the list is endless. ... I never would have thought a time would come when Art would go a day without his cats, no matter what. On his first show after Ramona died, he said that at one point, his cats were what kept him from suicide.

Update: I've posted the audio of Bell's announcement of the news on Coast to Coast.

Radio · 2006/04/16 · 1451 COMMENTS · Link

Sports · 2006/04/15 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Remembering Brian Buck

A comment spam showed up today in a year-old Workbench entry marking the death of Brian Buck, a blogger who told the story of his five-year fight with cancer to its end last April.

The entry about Buck was the last before I created an international incident by popesquatting Benedict XVI. So in a nice bit of serendipity, thousands of people drawn here by international press coverage read about Buck, a remarkable person whose blog stands testament to the power of personal journalism. In a seven-day period, his picture was requested on this server one million times.

Buck was passionate about the inequality of health care in this country:

If you don't have good private health insurance, you are not going to be seen by anyone but the complete bottom of the barrel MDs. And this won't be at a nice facility, it will be at the ------ hospital in town, you know, the one on the 5 o'clock news where people die all the time of simple, treatable diseases like bronchitis.

Politics · Domains · 2006/04/14 · Comment · Link

Web Publishers Take Gamble with Casino Ads

One of the biggest losers is Sporting News, the media company owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. In January, the company surrendered $4.2 million in revenue to avoid prosecution for advertising gambling sites between 2000 and 2003 in its magazine, as well as on its website and syndicated radio network.

Tune in Sporting News Radio today and you'll hear the other half of the settlement -- a $3 million, three-year barrage of anti-gambling public service ads.

I've listened to Sporting News Radio since it was One on One Sports in the early '90s. The network began in Las Vegas and had frequent gambling coverage -- hosts Arnie Spanier and Papa Joe Chevalier regularly discussed betting lines with callers -- but the practice seemed to occur less frequently after the network moved to Chicago.

In recent years, the network ran Internet casino and sportsbook ads so frequently I wondered if Congress had legalized the activity.

The announcers on the network's anti-gambling ads have an eat-your-vegetables delivery that's not quite as enthusiastic as the old gambling commercials.

Wired News · Sports · Politics · Podcasts · 2006/04/14 · 1 COMMENT · Link

Denise Lavoie, Associated Press:

Five-year-old Kai Leigh Harriott sat in the front of the courtroom in her wheelchair and looked directly at the man who had just pleaded guilty to firing the shot that paralyzed her.

At first, she broke down, crying harder than she ever had since the night nearly three years ago when Anthony Warren fired three rounds at the house where she was sitting on a porch.

After a sip of water and some consoling from her mother, Kai spoke.

"What you done to me was wrong," she said to the man seated just 10 feet away. "But I still forgive him."

2006/04/14 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

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