Is the Comical‘s Calvin Murphy coverage going to be a repeat of their embarrassing Enron coverage?
Check out sports columnist John Lopez in today’s paper:
When he was pushed out as a Rockets broadcaster by management in 1993, we rallied around this 5-9 giant and demanded he be allowed back behind the microphone. He was.
When he dared to say that marching and twirling — activities that were more foreign to us than ice fishing — could be just the ounce of prevention this city’s underprivileged youth needed, we agreed.
Then-Mayor Bob Lanier named Murphy athletic director of the Parks and Recreation Department, and Lanier spearheaded the effort for more than $450,000 worth of funds to the program.
More than 2,000 of our youth enrolled that first year, and the program continued to thrive.
We gave Murphy our trust. That’s what devastates him now.
Kind of weird to write all that BS and mention the Parks and Rec program specifically, yet not mention that Murphy was accused (but never convicted) of doctoring his timesheets and effectively taking money for work not performed in that progam. Larry brought this up yesterday:
The bastard was filling out timesheets and being paid by the Parks Department a while back desptie being out of town calling Rockets game. He only got off because Lee P. Brown quashed the investigation before it could ride him out of town on an incomplete rail system.
Murphy’s done some good things, but let’s not turn him into a saint. Or an Enron-style Mensch, for that matter. Stupid Comical.
2 comments On The Comical And Saint Calvin
Yeah, that was pretty awful. I couldn’t believe he didn’t mention the Parks thing either, even in a "he’s not perfect but…" kind of way. I’m OK with Lopez (or any Chron columnist) taking a firm position on Murphy (they do allegedly get paid for expressing opinions, after all), but hagiography is not going to help.
Memo to me: Hagiography is a term I simply must work in to the weblog more often! 🙂
I wouldn’t have even minded if Lopez had worked in some reference to the parks incident and explained it away. Like you say, opinion columnists should offer opinions. But to ignore it altogether suggests he either 1) didn’t remember it, which is possible or 2) glossed over it, which is more likely.
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