Channel 8 stung at Sunset Channel 8 got stung during an undercover investigation at a Dallas high school last week–and the embarrassing result raises serious questions about the use of hidden cameras and undercover cameramen by the city’s leading TV news station. It all began last Monday morning, when security…
The unsuspecting members of the Greater Dallas Planning Council had no idea what they were in for. As far as they were concerned, economist Mark Rosentraub was just another distinguished speaker, addressing just another monthly breakfast meeting of the 49-year-old group–one made up of architects, planners, builders, and concerned citizens…
Sometimes I think I made Warren Chisum up for my own amusement. Brother Chisum, the Bible-thumper from Pampa and chairman of the Legislature’s conservative caucus, is opposing a bill to require that caucuses report who gives them money and how the money is spent, even though last session, he headed…
Trying to understand Texas, New York style The esteemed New York Times Magazine on January 22 spotlighted a trend revealed by the letters-to-the-editor pages of the Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. It seems nearly a dozen readers’ letters over the past year–on subjects ranging from women’s rights to…
A bigger Belo The top brass at A.H. Belo Corp. cut a low personal profile. In early 1994, the management of WWL-TV in New Orleans brought some visitors through the station’s offices. “They were nice looking, well-dressed, pleasant,” reported the New Orleans Times-Picayune. In fact, according to a station executive…
I’ve been trying to recall if, in the distant days of my journalistic training, I ever received any guidance on what to do when the speaker of the U.S. House calls the first lady “a bitch.” I know it wasn’t covered in Reporting 101, and I don’t think we addressed…
Judgment day at UTA As an alumnus of UTA (graduated December ’93), it made me angry to read how Ryan Amacher is spending the university’s money so carelessly [“Fast Times at UTA,” January 12]. If Amacher’s goal really is to recruit more students, he is going about it the wrong…
This past Saturday morning, Roland Blumer changed into baggy corduroy pants, a white T-shirt, and an old blue sweater that his wife had bought him at a garage sale a few years back. Then he grabbed an ax and headed out the door to work. Not his work, mind you–the…
The Music Hall in Fair Park was half empty, the writer for Time noted, but it was understandable. After all, “two of the city’s most popular debutantes were giving dances that night.” Still, the opera went quite wonderfully, despite “a Texas chorus that had a lot of trouble learning to…
Each year, the Texas branch of the American Cancer Society receives $21 million and change in donations from the state’s good citizens–individual and corporate–to fund the fight against one of the nation’s leading killers. Who, after all, can turn their back on cancer victims? But after the society’s expenses are…
University of Texas System Chancellor Bill Cunningham announced last week that system officials will audit University of Texas at Arlington’s finances and management policies. The audit began this week, after publication of an Observer cover story (see “Fast Times at UTA,” January 12) containing allegations against UTA President Ryan Amacher…
Jack Yardley has been waiting a year for the phone to ring. Three weeks ago, it finally happened. “Bob Stimson called me one day,” says Yardley, referring to the Dallas city councilman from Oak Cliff. “He said, ‘I don’t know how much you know about Reunion Arena, but why can’t…
Briggs blew it, not Barry In her article “Barry Blew it” [January 19], Jennifer Briggs took every opportunity to take pot-shots at Barry Switzer. C’mon, Jennifer, are you going to blame only the coach because, in your words, “The Amazing Cowboy Reign is Over?” Were we watching the same game?…
The work is painstaking, but Bettie Beets says she likes it. Certainly it beats doing nothing. Every morning at 7, she and three other women settle down in a big room cozily decorated with craft projects they have completed–doilies, afghans, lap quilts. For years, Bettie made toddler-sized dolls, with painted…
A match made in paste-up It gives us a warm feeling when someone actually takes our advice. Two years ago in the Observer’s “Best Of Dallas” issue, we begged Dallas Morning News columnist John Anders to cease using his column to share his mid-life crisis with the world. “John,” we…
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Speaker Jim Wright have more in common than the office and a couple of embarrassing book deals. They’ve got a taxpayer-funded, solid-gold retirement plan that could prove to be a public-relations time bomb for the Georgia budget chopper. Democrats lambasted House Speaker…
Double Exclusive Saturday, January 7, gave birth to a journalistic miracle: two newspapers were granted the “first” interview with the Rev. Barry Bailey, ousted in a stunning sex scandal at Fort Worth’s giant First United Methodist Church. Bailey, 68, whose 10,500 parishioners at First Methodist included members of the billionaire…
UTA’s glorious future Dallas Observer includes an impressive example of “How to Write Prejudiced ‘News’ Articles” [“Fast Times at UTA,” January 12]. I have never seen, even in the Observer, a more one-sided view of any issue. But the clues are there, even between the lines. A man comes to…
Paul Fielding remembers the moment his antenna rose on this racetrack business. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the end of a long holiday weekend. The Dallas city councilman was at home in North Dallas, dredging leaves out of his swimming pool. He had taken his cordless phone outside and,…
A mere three years ago, optimism reigned at the Dallas headquarters of Greyhound Lines, Inc. The venerable bus company, thread of the American fabric for nearly eight decades, had cheated death–surviving a fractious drivers’ strike and ensuing plunge into bankruptcy. With the government’s blessing, Greyhound had swallowed its only direct…
Dirty old high-tech men A survey conducted by the Dallas-Fort Worth edition of Computer Currents magazine finds that the local byways of the information superhighway are dominated by men (89 percent). No surprise here. But one of the reasons women aren’t out there, writes associate publisher Cade Herzog in the…
On a rainy evening a few days after Christmas, Linda Koop and her friend Rip Parker were handing out food to homeless people near Dallas City Hall. Koop, a 31-year-old single woman who sells multi-million homes in the Park Cities for Ebby Halliday, was tugged by an urge to help…
