January 7, 2009
[Editor's note: Gustavo Reveles Acosta, the Times City Hall reporter, wrote a blog entry explaining that he did not make a mistake, because Wilson received an adjustment instead of a raise. Whatever you call it, she's getting $10, 321 more a year, bringing her annual salary to $216,743, which he did not report, so I'm standing by this piece.]
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One of the basic tenets of journalism is correcting mistakes, which are bound to happen. I'm not going to make a habit of this, but when I saw this one repeated, I thought it worth mentioning.
About a month ago, City Manager Joyce Wilson received two things from City Council -- a rave review and an automatic raise. With her review came an opportunity to negotiate with the City Council for a larger raise, which she turned down.
David Crowder reported it accurately. [link]
The El Paso Times did not.
Its story, titled "Wilson gets raves in evaluation, but refuses pay raise," was misleading. I assumed it would be corrected, but it wasn't. Oh well, I thought. At least NPT readers were better-informed. I forgot about it, but when I saw it repeated in Gustavo Reveles Acosta's blog, it stuck in my craw a bit. All El Pasoans, not just NPT readers, deserve the best information we can give them.
So why am I writing this? Well, other than getting the facts straight, there's a bit of a political angle. It's relatively minor, but clearly, in this round of City Council elections, some people are going to try and make Wilson an issue. Just thinking out loud here, but Wilson negotiating a large pay raise at the beginning of December, with an economic meltdown and layoffs all around, would have been the epitome of bad public relations.
The mayor and council didn't highlight the automatic raise, but they surely did make a big point of Wilson turning down her contractual opportunity to get a bigger raise.
Whether it was on purpose or not, highlighting her gesture served the purpose of getting at least one news outlet to report something that was far more flattering than the whole truth.
And I just thought that was worth mentioning.
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What is KHRO doing now that The Strelz is off the air (although perhaps only temporarily).
Tuesday, it was six hours of Ken Hudnall, who was on from 3-6 talking politics, then picked up his regular 6-9 show.
Today will be Hector Montes, extending his normal 1-3 time slot.
The rest of the week, Promotions Director Abel Rodriguez said, will be "a la carte."
However, he said, "There is something in the works that could possibly start Monday. We're still stirring the soup."
The lineup for the radio station, at 1150 on the AM dial, is Greg Freyermuth from 7-10 a.m., Barbara Perez from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Hector Montes from 1-3 p.m., and Ken Hudnall from 6-9 p.m.
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NPR has finished off its series on Juarez. Here are synopsis about the reports of the last three days, and here's the link to the NPR page where you can hear the reports.
-- "Building Young Assassins In Juarez": January 7, 2009 • In the final part of this Hearing Voices series about the drug violence plaguing Juarez, Mexico, independent producer Scott Carrier reflects on how the killings affect people's daily lives. Remarkably, he says, residents of Juarez are able to go on.
-- "In Juarez, Gangs Come In Many Forms": January 6, 2009 • We talk with residents of about the murders that plague their Mexican city. The military has stepped up its presence to try to turn the tide of drug gang violence. But the public is not impressed, and many wish the soldiers would leave.
-- "Shooting Crime Scenes In Juarez, Mexico": January 5, 2009 • Violence plagues the city, just over the border from El Paso, Texas. We meet with a newspaper photographer, whose days are spent shooting crime scenes.