It was a slow week for Chronicle Wrap-ups, so Jason Spencer had to dig deep to find this one that revives a tired Chronicle complaint — HISD spends too much money on its press office.
Metro/State columnist Rick Casey tried this awhile back, when he criticized HISD for paying chief spokesman Terry Abbott what Casey thought was an exorbitant salary. Casey didn’t disclose how much the Chronicle pays HIM to write his drivel, nor did Casey provide any balance by noting how much, for example, Metro’s spokesman is paid. I pointed out back then that Abbott earns every penny of his salary just fending off the Chronicle.
So today Spencer notes that the $363,000 HISD press office put out a press release touting the HISD board’s decision to save taxpayers $330,000 by cancelling the elections of unopposed HISD trustees:
Three of the five school board elections previously scheduled for November are now canceled because incumbents Dianne Johnson, Harvin Moore and Greg Meyers are unopposed. HISD won’t have to spend money on ballots and poll workers in areas represented by those trustees.
Now, that’s the kind of creative, positive thinking HISD expects from its $363,000-a-year press operation, whose stated mission is to “quickly and accurately respond to media inquiries and generate positive publicity about the great programs and people at HISD.”
The news isn’t so much that the district is canceling three elections. It’s that HISD now has an extra $330,000 to spend on something else.
Cute.
Out of curiosity, I emailed Spencer asking if he had attended the board meeting last week when this decision was made. He replied that he hadn’t attended the meeting — he was out of town attending a family member’s funeral. While I am sorry for Spencer’s loss, isn’t it a teensy bit ironic that he used HISD’s (expensive) press office — here’s the HISD press release — to write a wrap-up story that slams HISD’s (expensive) press office?
Or how about this story Spencer wrote over the weekend about HISD leasing Douglass Elementary to KIPP charter schools for (primarily) evacuee schoolchildren. You see, the HISD board made the decision at last week’s board meeting…the one Spencer couldn’t attend. But his byline is on the story. So, he had to have used HISD’s (expensive) press office to gather up all the information for the story.
We also know what else HISD’s (expensive) press office is good for — fulfilling open records requests. Media outlets and whistleblowers often file open-ended public information requests — a necessary part of government transparency — and who do you think helps compile all that information?
So, instead of berating HISD for its (expensive) press office, Jeff Cohen should be thanking HISD and Dr. Saavedra for saving him money he would otherwise have to spend on more education reporters. And in this age of Chronicle layoffs, that’s very generous of HISD!
