Happy Birthday, Eric. I’m four months behind you.

I read about a third of it, which I thought was engaging. I’m assuming the rest was just as good, because the comments that I skimmed seemed positive. I would recommend more pictures, though, to break things up a bit. Ads for luxury goods are also a good visual.

Happy birthday, youngster!
M

I hope toll road backers realize the reality of this and embrace the opportunity both sides now have to simply state their case and allow democracy to play itself out.

I understand how former councilman Craig Holcomb must feel at this time. Having to present your case before Dallas’ voters for a second time with a backdrop of embarrassing news reports of FBI Dallas City Hall corruption indictments would be tough enough.

Schutze (Dallas Observer) and Merten (DallasBlog) have disclosed unethical and biased campaign actions by City Hall employees and elected officials related to the upcoming Referendum vote on November 6th, some of it originating inside our city manager’s office. They have exposed toll road backers’ continually use of the word “PARKWAY” to describe what really is a TURNPIKE with 55 mile per hour traffic filled with huge cargo trucks alongside a tranquil setting of parks and open space.

Vote No!’s position is a tough job to sell twice to Dallas’ voters. I thought I’d heard it all, but I actually heard a rap song about this issue yesterday. What’s next? Mariachi Mexican street bands selling a toll-road to Dallas’ Hispanic voters?

(To understand how inside media baseball this is getting, know this: Eric and I worked together at the Observer, and my wife copy edited Bush’s story at the Morning News, where she’s worked for more than a decade. Oddly, she was way more worried about its tone as she worked on it last night than I was reading it this morning.)

I think Bush did what daily reporters are frequently told to do: Tear off a corner of a big story and find an angle to peddle. If fact claims and opinions differ, toss ‘em all in there and let the readers sort it out. It’s not the most nourishing form of reporting in the world, but that’s daily reporting in tight spaces. The story was a small slice of a bigger issue, not a bio of Jim, so Bush picked the quotes that fit with the angle.

The substance of Bush’s story: That Jim has been a huge influence in the Trinity debate and that he has suggested conspiracies among real estate development folk are driving one side–well, yeah. Of course he has. He’s a damn good columnist at an alt-weekly.

Our stories–even our news and features–tend to be argumentative. We add up the facts and give you our conclusion. Eric’s story on Jim–nice job, dude–was a good example of what D does: providing the color and detail behind scenes to understand the debate better. Morning News guys like Bush have to work in increments, every day. I think the DMN goes overboard in the he said/he said business, but that’s their choice.

The only thing those of us who practice ALL the different forms of journalism agree on is this: The guys doing it the other way are wrong.

Yeah, there’s some stuff in his piece I thought were off the mark: Letting Holcomb say Jim makes false statements without pushing Holcomb to give some solid examples was an incredibly cheap shot. Using the story as a forum to defend the Morning News’ coverage was a little tacky. Why was that in there? Oh, yeah. Daily folk are human too and get tired of being on the receiving end of the shots. At least the DMN is showing some spirit by fighting back a little. You’d think they have columnists for that sort of thing, though.

P.S. Eric, you turned 40? Welcome to the bitter end. I’m so gonna regret sending this comment to you instead of Wilonsky and our own blog. Consider the pain he inflicts on me a birthday present.