Posted on 02/19/2006 10:13:50 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
While the White House press corps seemed stunned that the Caller-Times broke the story on Dick Cheney's hunting accident, our local readers expected it.
And we were glad to meet their expectations. Frankly, the newsroom had some difficulty understanding what all the hubbub was about last week. As national newscasters asked repeatedly why a local newspaper first reported the story instead of the White House press, we kept asking, "Why not?"
George Gongora/Caller-Times
Reporters and photographers from all over the world
converged in city to cover the startling story that
began on the Armstrong Ranch.
We all heard our newspaper and this community falsely described as "Podunk" and "small town," clearly proving that some of the national press had failed to do their homework.
Nueces County has more than 316,000 residents, and it's just one of 12 counties we cover.
We're a consistently recognized, award-winning paper, named by the Press Club of Dallas as the best mid-sized paper in six states 13 out of the past 17 years. Our paper reaches 190,218 readers, and our Web site, Caller.com, has more than 197,319 registered users.
Out of the 1,456 daily newspapers in the United States, we rank 167th in circulation.
Our journalism is top-notch, and our work ethic is strong, as we devote resources exclusively to investigative stories and to features about your friends and neighbors.
We're a newsroom full of professional journalists who could work in larger markets, but choose to stay here. We like this community, our co-workers and the team we've built here.
We take seriously our jobs, our readers and the privilege of being journalists.
Our readers, such as Hugh Smith, know there is nothing "Podunk" about the Caller-Times.
"The National Press Corps is sitting around with egg on its face, trying to blame anyone they can think of for not 'giving' them the news," Smith wrote. "Someone needs to tell them to get off their collective rear ends and go to work and quit waiting for someone to tell them what is happening. If they don't know how to do this, have them come on down to Corpus Christi. I am sure the good folks at the Caller-Times would be happy to give them some training."
Added reader Tom Sussman: "As a long-standing and ardent critic of the current state of journalism, I found your article to be a breath of fresh air. Maybe real journalism isn't dead."
We're a newsroom committed to changing with the times, building a multi-media operation that delivers information any way you want it, through print, Web stories, Web video and e-mail alerts.
Caller.com video taken by online content creator John Metz of photographer George Gongora demonstrating a shotgun drew 10,000 viewers on the Web in just five hours. The quality was so good that both CNN and MSNBC aired it nationally.
The national press doesn't corner the market on great journalism. It can happen in any community, and as our readers here know, it frequently does.
My staff here knows that I expect them to be first in breaking news in our area, and we would have been deeply embarrassed had we not been first with the Cheney story.
Cheney told Fox News' Brit Hume Wednesday: "It strikes me that the Corpus Christi Caller-Times is just as valid a news outlet as The New York Times is, especially for covering a major story in South Texas."
Breaking what was national news last week was not a fluke for us.
As Managing Editor Shane Fitzgerald told me: "We were just doing our jobs."
Libby Averyt is editor of the Caller-Times. Phone: 886-3681. E-mail: averytl@ caller.com
This approach is not a strategy for victory, it is a pattern for certain defeat. And this is something the Democrats are failing to recognize as they continue to over react to anything they consider as an opportunity to hurt Bush.
The problem is that they come off as the rabid leftists they are and no amount of gentle spin can hide this fact. Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton have made it clear that they align themselves with our enemies in this significant struggle we have undertaken. The problem I see with Hillary is that she will side with our enemies as she hides behind the Constitutional rights she feels is mandatory for Islamic terrorists who have infiltrated our borders
She's a whole lot more credible than old pinch.
Yea but, she looks nice at closing time from a distance, setting on her bar stool, wearing her sexy dress and red high heels.
A couple of quick impressions. First, don't ever p*ss Mary Matalin off. Second, contrary to my first impression Gregory seems like a halfway decent guy who knows he was over the line and is hanging in there swinging for his side (not that he should have a side, but he does). Third, Dowd really does live in a parallel universe. If she really did go on all those "Republican" hunting trips and only now has discovered that the shooter bears the responsibility I'm awfully glad I wasn't downrange from her at the time.
I also get the sense that it's dawning on the media that a good part of their country thinks that they're insufferable asses. That's a healthy thing.
Now, as to the real point of the article posted - yes, outside of a certain self-congratulatory irritation, it's pretty accurate that the locals knew what was going on and instead of listening to them the White House pressies went ballistic over things the locals could have told them if they hadn't been so arrogant. It isn't just us flyover folks the talking heads hold in contempt, it's their own colleagues who happen to work in small cities. That's bad, because it stems the flow of information and the cause isn't that it isn't being offered, it's that it isn't being listened to. That's not only bad manners, it's poor journalism.
LOL! Not even...
But she works better in opposition than in a vacuum (when she's just spouting). When Gregory and Mo started their BS, WHAM! Matalin really blew them away.
My God, what is WITH MoDo? She always has this little "Ain't I just TOO clever?" smirk on that makes you want to shout "Stop that!" She looked really lame today, no energy, like she couldn't be less interested in these foul Bushes and Cheneys and oh, won't it be wonderful to get Sir Edmund's namesake (cough) in charge of things?
Anyone notice how the dems haven't brought up the economy in ages, when it used to be their only subject of interest? Now we're entering week two of Cheneygate: He talked to some...some REPORTER instead of to David Gregory.
LOL! That's rich.
I still think Dowd is kind of hot, just as long as I never hear her speak her venom. I admittedly have never seen her on TV or really read her articles in the NYTimes.
Nice to see the White House pressies getting it socked to them by others in their own profession. If it can be dignified with such a grand title.
bttt
Here's all one needs to know about the validity of the WHPC histrionics:
"But let me ask you a more logical question—you think the Secret Service would let the vice president out, tanked up, with a loaded gun, or let him be around anybody who’s drunk with a loaded gun? It just defies common sense that the press would even go there."
And here's the best exchange IMO:
MR. GREGORY: OK, but Mary, if that’s the case, first of all, you know, the vice president of the United States accidentally shot a man for the first time since Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton. Much different circumstance, admittedly. And the vice president’s office doesn’t feel an obligation to disclose that to the American people directly. You do it through a ranch owner in Texas? It just—it just strikes me as odd.
MS. MATALIN: It strikes you as odd because you live in a parallel universe. It did not strike Americans as odd. Press were calling me saying, “The president—the vice president needs to apologize.” He did profusely and repeatedly to the victim of his accident, who was Harry Whittington.
MR. GREGORY: If you thought he did everything right, why is it that you ultimately—if the vice president said, “I did everything right,” by disclosing it the way he did, why did you do a big national interview this week?
MS. MATALIN: Because you went on a jihad, David. For four days you went on a Jihad.
In all fairness to Mr. Gigot, the tape was edited with the focus on MM kicking the lib's butts.:-)
Mr. Gigot just started hosting a show on Fox.
"MR. GREGORY: If you thought he did everything right, why is it that you ultimately—if the vice president said, “I did everything right,” by disclosing it the way he did, why did you do a big national interview this week?"
But Mary seriously wounded him with:
"MS. MATALIN: Because you went on a jihad, David. For four days you went on a Jihad."
I loved how Gregory whined like a whupped puppy over Mary's use of the world "jihad". But wasn't it just too perfect? Mary got a twofer today. She was right on target, lethal, in exposing Hillary's hypocrisy. Direct hit, Mary! way to go.
Cheney mentioned that it was a private event and he didn't have any WH press people with him. I wonder if he has long dreamed of breaking a big story only to the local press, to pee off the MSM, and had the presence of mind to seize this opportunity.
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