Our Chron
On Thursday of this week, the Houston Press published a piece ("Beyond the Womb") by one of my favorite writers in Houston, Richard Connelly, on the Valentine Foundation, a non-profit group in Houston that appears to be somewhat dubious. There's not enough information to form a complete judgment of the Valentine Foundation one way or the other, but certainly the local Better Business Bureau has some doubts about it. The web version of this story posted on Wednesday.
On Friday, the Chron's local news columnist, Thom Marshall, posted this fawning piece ("Cars put homeless on a road to jobs") on the Valentine Foundation. It was a cheerleading piece, pure and simple, with no reference to the problems with the Better Business Bureau or the past history of the foundation's director.
It was really a pretty startling omission. I saw it Friday morning, and sent the link over to Connelly at the Press, as well as sending Thom Marshall a short, polite email asking him if he was aware of the Connelly piece, and if his column was an effort to discredit the piece. Local blogger Ginger Stampley also found the omission strange, and posted to her blog early Friday morning about it.
As of today, still no word from Marshall. I decided this morning since he apparently wanted to ignore me, that I would email the metro/state, news, and managing editors of the paper and ask them about the omission. I've still not heard a peep back from anyone at the Chron, although since it's the weekend I didn't really expect to hear from any editors.
But I'm still a little surprised at Marshall. I would bet money (strike that -- I would bet beer) the local writers at the Chron read the Houston Press (for story ideas! One Dallas Observer columnist admitted once to me that HE used to steal story ideas from that publication when he was at the Dallas Morning News, so it's fairly common). That would almost make Marshall's column an effort to discredit Connelly's piece, indirectly. It would be dishonest, of course, but that's the sort of "Rah-Rah Houston" coverage the Chron is famous for.
If he wasn't aware of Connelly's piece, he should have been. Humans make mistakes, and journalists are human (most of them, anyway). But the columnist should have at least done a quick search of Chron and Houston Press archives, and maybe even the Houston Business Journal (which I have not done), and then checked out any leads generated (i.e. Connelly's Better Business Bureau finding).
At best, Marshall's effort seems like lazy journalism. At worst, dishonest.
And that's our Chron.
[Posted at 20:54 CST on 06/08/02] [Link]
