WFAA Uses a Hammer to Smash a Fly
Yesterday afternoon I got a call at work from Jolee Healey, the principal of my son’s elementary school. She sounded shaken. “Oh, no,” I thought. “What has the boy gone and done now? He better not have brought a trebuchet to school or something.” But no. Turns out Healey was worried about a news report that was about to air.
Jump to learn about the shockingly startling news at Hexter Elementary and how Channel 8 bravely brought the story to light.
First, you need to know this: Jolee Healey is a great principal. I’m guessing she puts in about 65 hours a week at Hexter, which last year earned exemplary status (see the scores for yourself). The school is one of those bright spots in the Dallas ISD. So to recap: beloved principal. Great neighborhood school.
But the office manager made a mistake. She tossed some personnel files in the recycling bin behind the school without first shredding the records. Now, in this day and age, we all know better. You just have to be more careful. And it serves the public’s interest to know about this mistake — and that none of the records fell into the wrong hands. We get the White Rocker at my house. If that li’l paper had run with the story, I’d understand.
Instead, Channel 8 got the story. And Brad Hawkins did a bunch of pushups and slammed a couple Red Bulls and headed out to Hexter filled with outrage to break some freakin’ news, man! He hung out by the dumpster, the scene of the heinous crime, and interviewed people from the neighborhood as they came by to drop off their recyclables.
Hawkins: “Hey, look at all the stuff I’ve got in this box. Personal records! And they’re covered in blood! Did you know they’re practicing human sacrifice at Hexter Elementary?”
Neighborhood recycler: “Oh, sweet Jesus! Tell me this didn’t happen, Brad Hawkins. This confirms everything I’ve been told by Belo about the Dallas ISD. It’s a disaster. I don’t have children, but if I did, I’d send them to Gitmo before I’d send them to a Dallas ISD school.”
Hawkins’ reportorial efforts for the early newscast so drained him that he had to tag the square-jawed Craig Civale, who came flying off the turnbuckle to do a live shot from the Hexter dumpster for the 10 o’clock broadcast.
Look, I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of what happened at Hexter. No, hang on. I got confused there for a second, after watching Brad Hawkins’ report. I do want to downplay what happened. Because it was a simple mistake made at an exemplary school. None of the records wound up in the wrong hands. No one got hurt.
This weekend, Hexter will hold its biggest fundraiser of the year, the White Rock Home Tour and Art Festival. It’s a major effort undertaken by what has to be one of the most active PTAs in the city. Scores of volunteers will work to raise money to buy musical instruments for the school and to pay for part of the art teacher’s salary. More than a thousand people will turn out. It’s a great story about how a neighborhood can pull together to create a successful urban public school.
Again: it’s a great story.
13 Comments to “WFAA Uses a Hammer to Smash a Fly”
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If Brett Shipp had done this story, he would have camped out in front of the principal’s home with a camera crew and conducted an ambush interview as she went out for her morning paper. Then, he would have found a way to tie this story to the high cost of season tickets at the Cowboys new stadium. Then, to show how he cares so much more than the average person in the Metroplex, he would have doused himself in gasoline and burned himself in protest — so once again he could have made himself the center of the story.
Of course, WFAA never does any stories on the high price of season tickets at the AAC because — well, you know.
I heard that channel 8 is headed downtown right now to show live coverage of people blatantly jaywalking in downtown Dallas and the authorities are doing absolutely nothing about it. Once more, “you can read more about it in tomorrows DMN.”
So the fact that all of this information was carelessly dumped behind a GOOD school is supposed to be of some consolation to whoever ends up getting their identities stolen? C’mon, Tim, if it were YOUR personal information, you’d be mad as hell.
Didn’t this happen around the corner at Hill MS not too long ago? Shred the documents already!
Meanwhile, over on the Beloblog, Belorod is recounting both the many anonymous emails he’s getting both underscoring one or more of the things he tried to suture together like Frankenstein’s monster in his recent disordered clusterf*ck of a Woodrow column and those congratulating him on starting the conversation with those same invisible friends.
Meanwhile, meanwhile…yes…Pope Benedict is emailing me right now to congratulate me for making this post.
Clearly, the high tech future of journalism is not in just reporting the news after the fact oldschool but in getting right out there in front of it.
DA, in fact, the info very well might be mine. Some of the docs had personal info of volunteers. That’d be yrs trly.
I’m not mad as hell. And I’m thinking none of the people involved are mad, either. You’ll notice that the only person Hawkins could get to express outrage was a random passerby. The woman’s sole credential as a source in this story was that she wandered in front of the camera. Hawkins had all this personal info that belongs to the teachers at Hexter. He says in his report that he called them. Apparently not a single teacher was mad enough to comment.
Hey, a mistake was made. But it didn’t merit the 10 o’clock news.
Actually, Tim, I believe Craig’s 6 p.m. version of the story included an interview with a teacher at the school who was not particularly happy with the incident. And, given how school administrators tend to frown on employees who openly comment to the media about negative incidents, I’m not at all surprised by the lack of response from other teachers. For you to interpret their silence as an indication that this is no big deal to them seems awfully naive.
I’m with DA.
Hammering on Dallas while Plano gets kid gloves:
Ask Brad to go to Plano’s Jasper H.S. and investigate standardized testing procedures. Ask why the principal still has his job. He was to secure the schools PSAT test booklets through December yet gave one to a test prep business in the preceding October:
Regarding securing the booklets until December, see page 5 of the Supervisor’s Manual: http://www.collegeboard.com/pr.....Manual.pdf
The teacher that was interviewed for the ten o’clock news is no longer an employee of the district. Seems to me that she was just seeking her 15 minutes of fame!!!
There was a suicide across the street from Woodrow a couple of weeks ago. This guy was paranoid and often accused Woodrow students of laughing at him. One of Woodrow’s fabulous teachers would talk with him and assure him no students would bother him. The day he took his own life there was police all around. Did you see that on the news???? But you do read about nimRod Dreher “indepth” research about how racist Woodrow’s white parents can be.
Hammer to squash a fly….the drama continues….does anyone care about the wasted money at DISD? Does anyone know that one of Hinojosa’s secretaries stole $92,000.00?
This is in response to the DMN’s article today, Sunday, April 20, 2008 regarding Jack Lowe.
Jack Lowe needs to go.
1. Who moves into Dallas from Highland Park to run for the DISD School Board? Jack Lowe did. Why - to line his pockets. Who else in their right mind would do this. He is not doing it for his children or grandchildren. You think he would let them attend the DISD?
2. Who runs for school board and then gets a brand new school named for his pappy. I have never heard of such a thing. If it would have happened at another time, who cares, but not while he is serving on the school board.
3. Lowe has appointed Craig Reynolds not once, but now twice to lead this who ha. This is a shame as Mr. Reynolds is benefiting off it also. Why else are these men involved and why are they pushing the bond package that does not benefit the entire district. They don’t give a dam. They just want a bond package and a way to line their pockets and all they see is $$$, they don’t see the students and they sure don’t give a dam about the teachers and their thoughts or concerns. Why does Reynolds get the job twice. Is there no other person in Dallas that would not have a conflict of interest to run the DISD Bond Program.
4. Why is no one running against Jack Lowe - it is not because people respect the job he had done or is doing. It is because of one thing $$$. That is no one had the money out there to beat Jack Lowe and his political machine for a job that does not pay the average citizen a cent — but for Jack Lowe that is not the case - he will walk away with millions.
Something to think about when voting for the next bond election. VOTE NO and by the way if you live in Jack Lowe’s district - just don’t vote for the Trustee because even though you can’t vote against him, you don’t have to give him a vote.