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Waiting for Rain By Jack D. McNamara Brewsterland is very dry this April. The nights are still chilly but we are already flirting with 100-degree days. KVLF reported that Monday’s humidity here was 5 percent. Such a temperature shift is the glory of our climate if we receive some spring rain in late April or May. But if we don’t get some cooling rains that shift will narrow. The earth will return the day’s heat and the succeeding nights will be hotter. We will be busting 100 degrees every day in June and still waiting for rain. Very few of us in the Big Bend are in any sense agriculturists. These days the only thing we farm is tourists. Or federal detainees. We watch the legislative struggles in faraway Washington, D.C. trying to estimate how much boodle will be sent our way for the law enforcement subsidy along the border. Last week brought good news to those who follow these issues. Bob Dillard, editor ad publisher of Fort Davis’s Jeff Davis County Mountain Dispatch, returned to the job after several weeks of illness. Dillard has been on the job here in the Big Bend since 1977, as a former Alpine Avalanche owner, former partner in the Big Bend Sentinel, and now with weekly newspapers in Fort Davis, Greenwood and Stanton. Had we just returned to the Big Bend from a trip to the Congo we would know that Dillard was back by our first perusal of the Dispatch’s front page. A long story, “Sheriff gets an earful from citizens, commissioners in tense court meeting,” detailing the week’s Jeff Davis County Commissioners’ Court session, began at the top of page 1, jumped to page 2 and continued for more than 40 column inches. Long, literate narratives with plenty of local detail are a hallmark of Dillard’s 30 years of journalism around here. This story centered on the efforts of Jeff Davis County Sheriff Tom Roberts’ efforts with new border security issues. Dillard described American citizens in the middle of a heated discussion of an issue—no one won or lost. In the same April 13 issue, Dillard published a letter from Alpine City Councilman Bob Brewer. Brewer’s letter complained that the Alpine Avalanche had editorialized against Brewer (April 6 issue) at the same time the Avalanche inaccurately and incompletely reported the matter at hand (“Too many questions,” Harry T. Darby, April 6). Brewer sent the same letter to the Sentinel and Avalanche, and both papers failed to publish his rebuttal. Whether it is Ft. Davis or Big City, USA, Dillard’s is good American journalism. It is in our frontier history. This is the way journalism was practiced during America’s westward expansion. In hundreds of frontier communities a small number of men and women reported weekly of the issues and events at whatever length suited them. Because those doing the reporting were usually the same as those doing the typesetting and the printing, little argument and fewer bureaucratic machinations ensued. Strong opinions were expressed. American journalism retains that tradition everywhere (and you see it in the Big Bend Sentinel, of course). Further, I will argue that the electronic revolution of the Internet expands these possibilities of communication. It is now possible for anyone to become his or her own independent reporter, editor and publisher — all at the same time. Naturally within a community some reporter-editor-publishers have advantages over others. It is still necessary to publish periodically on paper that can be sold and touched. It is necessary in order that I might go down to the convenience store early Thursday morning and pay 75 cents each for the local weeklies — where I noticed that indeed Bob Dillard is back. That 75 cents transaction, during which I purchase several advertisements, is at the core of newspaper economics. Small county seat print weeklies still exist for both purposes, local reporting of news and the publication of local advertising. You can’t have one without the other. This year the Easter season coincides with the Special Session of the Texas Legislature. Our representatives convene in Austin to try again to solve Texas public school funding. This 30-day session will be the third or fourth time they have tried and this time they are greeted with the news that the state has an $8 billion-plus surplus that was not anticipated. Intense arguments and debates will rage in Austin — but you won’t see them. Technically speaking, the Legislature is covered by the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA) — though some disagree — but you will get a better view of the issues’ discussion at an Austin bar than you will anywhere in the Texas Capitol building. The Legislature majority is Republican, as is the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor. They can vote anything they agree on. They don’t need Democrats though they might see some reason to court or coax a few for the novelty of the matter — it makes for good press. The Republican legislative majority’s leaders are meeting and discussing an important issue with billions of dollars of tax money at issue. When they get agreement among the leaders they will tell their followers. When they get the votes, they will tell the press what the leaders have agreed upon and the press will tell us. Favored members of the press may get some of this information early and tease us with it. These are called “leaks.” But there is no new school finance until the deal is done. And only a handful of legislators will have any part of cutting that deal. The process by which we govern ourselves is very different here and in Austin. And it is very different also in Washington, D.C. But wherever it is that public money is being divvied up the press will be there. This week the Pulitzer Prizes for the press were awarded. All the awards went to journalism institutions which maintain traditional standards of American journalism. The awards were for stories which were highly critical of government but at the same time were stories which were fair and accurate. The American Society of Newspaper Editors has a “Statement of Principles” which they describe as intended “to protect and strengthen the bond of trust and respect between journalists and the American people…” Article VI is “Fair Play” and includes the following sentence: “Persons publicly accused should be given the earliest opportunity to respond.” • (Also published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas April 20, 2006.) |