Top This Angry Complaint Letter

I left KVUE last August but someone out there is still mad about a run-in that I don’t recall/can’t imagine having, at least not in the context described. My friends at KVUE found this so absurd and amusing that they had to send it to me last Friday, and my thanks for sending it because now it tops that one angry comment I received when I subtly poked fun of the band, Fastball. (It said something like, “You will never achieve the kind of fame and success as Fastball.”) Anyway, this one is even better:

From: Charles XXXXX [charleXXXXX28@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 4:34 PM
To: KVUE News
Subject: Complaint against Elise Hu

To Whom it may concern,
I seriously suggest you give that Elise Hu woman a lesson in manners. She was incredibly rude to my wife when she interviewed her last year. We were both completely shocked. I ran into Elise again last month, & was shocked by her behavior again. Honestly, the woman acts like a pistol; is she on drugs? I am serious; is this woman taking drugs?? Where exactly did the Kvue team find this woman? Does she still work for you?

I will never say whether I am on drugs.
(Kidding, Charles. Kidding.)

The Great Morgan Smith Photo Caper

A funny thing happened at work yesterday. Our intrepid young staffer Morgan decided to change her Tribune bio photo to something a little different, something a little more grown-up. A little more “adult”, if you will. Problem is, the photo looked both more adult… and too adult. (Cue all the sexy secretary, naughty librarian comments here.)

The Trib photographers started asking me about it at something like six am, and asked for copies to download it. Colleague Ben’s long-lost-friends started crawling out of the woodwork asking if she was available. We brainstormed a few ideas to put Morgan’s photo on promotional t-shirts, under the slogan “You know my URL”. Oh, the ideas kept a-comin’.

Less than 24 hours after she put up the photo, she took it down, citing “workplace harassment”. As one of her secretary photo devotees protested, “She can’t help being attractive! What! What is she going to do, change her face?”

The photo in question, and the not-so-controversial photo, melded together:

Nothing but love, Morgan.

Behind the Lens

Originally uploaded by thetexastribune

Spent birthday morning at a TribLive event. It was the third in our conversation series that features various political or policy movers and shakers in Texas. Because my job is now far more multi-faceted than before, I run the production end of TribLive instead of doing the interviewing.

After the events are over, we process them and put them up as full 40 minute videos and put them on our site, later we’ll put them on iTunes as podcasts.

It’s actually a fun change of pace, since I didn’t sit behind the camera before in TV, but love to shoot photos and video when I get the chance. Our intern, Caleb, caught a pic of me gesturing to Justin, who was on the second camera, to check with Todd, who was at the sound booth, on our levels.

Which brings me to the team. I said it yesterday at the fourth annual Hu-Moritz-Castro three-way birthday party and all say it again. Without the work of our all-around multimedia ninjas Todd and Justin, the Tribune’s multi-platform presence would be a shell of what it is. Many thanks, boys. Pleasure to haul around equipment, troubleshoot uploads and wildly gesture during TribLive events with you.

Journalism Next

Spent the last 36 hours in and around Arlington, TX, home of the JerryDome and University of Texas at Arlington, Stiles’ alma mater. We talked about journalism nonstop for hours; I’ve never considered or discussed journalism with that length or breadth since maybe college, and back then I wasn’t in class that often so maybe I’ve topped myself.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon with the staff of UTA’s student paper,  The Shorthorn, giving a short talk and then training (Stiles on computer assisted-reporting, me on multimedia/video). This morning we took part in back-to-back panels at a Society of Professional Journalists Career Conference for students and young professionals, where we talked convergence journalism (one of my fave topics, as you know). Apologies to the students who had to see us twice. Goodgod.

The Hu-Stiles traveling roadshow often starts with this piece from CBS’ Jeff Greenfield, which is a great introductory explanation of what convergence is, and what it means. (So much for CBS understanding the sea change though, they still don’t allow their videos to be embedded elsewhere so I had to link you instead of show you the story on this page.)

The bottom line is, distinctions between print reporters, TV reporters, radio reporters and others are quickly melting away. We’re all hybrid, multi-platform journalists now – or should prepare ourselves to be – and students should embrace it or be left behind. “It’s the cost of admission these days,” said our fellow panelist, CBS11 web editor Kent Chapline.

Here’s a sample slide… and the full audio from one of our panels is available thanks to a forward-thinking future journalist named Brooks, who is also a Plano Senior High grad. (Go Wildcats.)

My favorite part of Stiles’ slide is “don’t be evil”. He can better explain it, but this is something we both feel very strongly about as journalists. Being evil, to us, means hoarding information because you can. Not connecting audiences to the best resources because you only want them to be on your website. Not telling certain stories because it’s difficult or not sexy or doesn’t tie to revenue goals. That’s evil. Not allowing your video to be embedded other places is evil. Not linking out to other blogs and helpful sites is evil. Not using open source and free journalism tools like Google Docs and Flickr or Audacity because you only want to use your own stuff is silly, and if it’s keeping good info from viewers and readers, it’s evil. Using social media solely to push your own stuff and not have a conversation is not quite evil, but it’s a poor use of social networks.

We, as journalists, are information sharers. In a time when information is everywhere all the time, we oughta be information finders and sorters and filters – people who help provide greater context, explanation, digging – to help news make better sense to people or help it better connect to their worlds. We can’t do it if we believe other finders and sorters and diggers out there aren’t worthy of linking to or promoting or teaming up with. Don’t be evil.

More People Discover Andre Bauer

South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, with whom I’ve been fascinated for many years, is now making national headlines (again). If you’re unfamiliar with the guy I used to cover, this is what I wrote of him in 2006 :

“SC Lt. Guvnah Andre Bauer is a guy who uses the word “super”, but not ironically. He’s a guy who likes to drive fast and fly planes, and he gets into trouble for both. He’s a guy who barely survived physical death… and now he’s barely survived political death… more than once. I don’t know quite what to make of him. I can’t help but wonder if he’s Powder. Remember Powder? Maybe, like Powder, Bauer was struck by lightning before he was born and now he has mysterious powers. Only Bauer’s power is the ability to come back from near self destruction.”

Which is to say, he’ll likely recover from this:

South Carolina’s Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who is running for Governor of the state on the Republican ticket, said a bunch of monumentally stupid and ignorant things that would shock even the most cynical person at a luncheon the other day, like:

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”

Let’s be absolutely clear, here: Bauer’s remarks are not appalling because they’re offensive or “un-PC” or a Biden-esque “oops!” They’re reprehensible because this man who currently holds office in South Carolina and is making a bid to run the state is demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that he doesn’t possess even the very most basic understanding of the biggest problem in his state, which is poverty. Deep, ingrained, historical-legacy style poverty.

Read more: South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer Compares His State’s Poor Children to ‘Stray Animals’

Tim Laan Party Planner

Oh hey! We’re back from the trip to Amsterdam to visit Mom. While there we spent one action-packed day checking out the wedding venues. I scraped together random bits of free time to put together a chronicle of our day with Tim Laan party planner, the Dutch professional who’s taking care of nuptial preparation and making sure no one gets arrested during wedding weekend.

Some Recent Outrages

You know how much I love a good outrage. Being outraged is probably one of my favorite things besides profanity and politics. For some reason I am outraged by many things at once right now, which is kind of inconvenient because I can’t concentrate fully on one particular outrage this way. Anyway, a short list:

1.) Another Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice “crossover event”

Both programs are pretty awful, I know. IMHO, Grey’s peaked at the end of the second season with the whole Denny-LVAD wire drama. It’s been downhill ever since, and I watch for pure pop melodrama pleasure. Stiles banned it from our DVR so I usually have to watch it online.

But the Grey’s spinoff,  Private Practice,  is even worse. Last season, the creator and EP of both shows married the two for a crossover episode where you had to watch PP in order to follow the storyline of Grey’s. It’s an obvious ploy to help the ratings of the lesser program. But also a waste of my time, because if we were interested in the characters and storylines of the other show, WE WOULD WATCH THE OTHER SHOW.

Now, next week, the producers are doing it to us again. Another crossover event. That’s an outrage.

2.) Luke Wilson shilling for AT&T

Here’s the cerebral star of many of my favorite films, including-but-not-limited-to The Royal Tenenbaums. He doesn’t appear to be that interested  in  fame or money, but ended up with both.  Now he appears to be blatantly selling one for the other. AND FOR AT&T, the phone/internet provider that’s locked in a battle to keep the U.S. broadband network from getting upgraded to much faster speeds. This is perhaps more of a shame than an outrage.

3.) Subscription cards in magazines

This one’s just unacceptable. I can’t believe I haven’t written every single blog post about this particular outrage. I can’t open a new magazine without eighteen subscription cards falling out, and then a week later re-open the magazine to find another subscription  card in there. Seriously, what percentage of new subscribers to magazines mail in a little card,  in some instances where postage is required? And in many instances, where another piece of mail must be sent (like a check) in order to activate the subscription?  Since this happens to all of us, I’m sure subscription card litter winds up everywhere. OUTRAGE.

Purgatory

The more I travel, the less I expect a smooth trip or a even a mildly pleasant one. It’s almost inevitable that your flight will be delayed (if not canceled), that you get to your destination but your bags will not, or you will be flying back from Amsterdam when a dude in the rear of the plane decides to light his balls on fire in a failed Al Qaeda plot (we think).

So here we are, in Dallas (when we were supposed to be connecting in DC), headed to London (though the destination is Amsterdam), hanging out in the “DFW Comfort Lounge” (I suppose they’re trying to be ironic). Our first attempt at leaving Austin failed. We were re-routed since our aircraft was stuck somewhere in the tundra. Drove home. Drove back to airport to take off on re-routed itinerary. Made it to Dallas. Found out flight to London was delayed a few hours. Consumed some subpar tacos. Considered the “three tequila flight”. Opted for a post-meal fro yo instead. Found out our flight was delayed again. Now sitting in this so-called “lounge”, watching a retrospective on the “We Are the World” concert from a few decades ago.

Chuck Klosterman said something last year at a book signing about how airports are purgatory — an in-between place where everyone’s waiting to go somewhere but at the mercy of higher powers. Couldn’t have said it better.

UPDATE 9:17pm: Just learned both airports in Europe we must stop at (Heathrow and Schipol) are going to be quagmires… heightened security after the pants-on-fire-security-threat. Time to take that tequila flight.

2009: Hu’s Looking Back

As we prepare to celebrate a new beginning, let’s continue the newly-old tradition of looking back at the year that was. (I don’t think I’ll ever achieve the same pair of “new experiences” from 2005 — the Daytona 500 and that one KKK cross burning. Oh well). We’ll start chronologically and then lose all sense of chronology since my memory just isn’t that stout.

Skipping stones on the Danube River with brother Roger

Never made any new year’s resolutions.
Covered the election of a new Texas House Speaker.
Bought April a fat, happy puppy after scoundrels broke into her house and stole (or let escape) her Maltese, Frankie.
Met two beautiful newborns in the same week.
Got engaged.
Quit my job.
Found a new job.
Helped launched a public media brand with some of the coolest geeks around.
Embraced my love of Twitter.
Spoke at  a dozen panels, meetings and college classes, mostly about Twitter.
Won an award for using Twitter.
Took a trip to Washington, D.C.
Took a trip to Philadelphia.
Took three separate trips to Europe.
Got my home burglarized (again).
Got a photo with Kevin Nealon.
Got a photo with Cheryl Hines.
Got a photo with the dude who played Lawrence in Office Space.
Saw Pearl Jam live, finally.
Celebrated the beagle’s 11th birthday.
Hosted my friend Drew from New York three times.
Said goodbye to my friend Craven, who moved to New York.
Led my Fantasy Football league, until a five game losing streak at the worst time in the season.
Co-hosted two baby showers for my girlfriends.
Got car broken into (again).
Made a bunch of videos.
In a rare fit of motion, ran two half-marathons at the beginning of the year and a full marathon at the end of it, miraculously without getting injured. Well, besides those two times I tripped and fell on concrete – one time in my neighborhood, the other time down by the Danube River.
Finished 2009 with full resolve to not make any resolutions next year, either.

Breakfast Summits

We’re doing TT partnerships with TV stations all over the state and Wednesday is Waco liveshot day. After we’re done, photog Justin and I, plus our friend Reeve, meet for breakfast on the UT campus. It’s always a good time.