Houston local media have engaged in some interesting local watchdog reporting over the last week (or so), most of which we did not manage to highlight here.*
KTRK-13’s Undercover Man Wayne Dolcefino looked into a massive July police chase that drew dozens of officers. As Dolcefino learned from interviews and analysis of public information requests, many more officers abandoned their beats to go take part in this chase than should have under HPD policy, leading to lengthy response times along abandoned beats. The incident, he reports, is under review.
Chronicle reporter Bradley Olson discovered that some political candidates spent quite a bit of effort (and, in some cases, campaign cash) to gain the endorsement of the Tejano Democrats. Olson claimed the practice did not appear to be normal, but in fact it happened during the last municipal elections.
In other reporting for the big newspaper, Olson notes that a plugged-in political donor has resigned his Houston Sports Authority post after questions were raised about his sexually oriented businesses (and the fact they weren’t registered as such, but conveniently managed to escape scrutiny from HPD). He had been appointed by Mayor Bill White, although spokesman Frank Michel denied that such appointments are ever made based on donations or political pull. Olson did not indicate if Michel winked after that statement.
On Friday, Craig Malisow posted a copy of MCV Consulting’s (poorly written) report on BARC to the Houston Press Hair Balls blog (we have since uploaded it to Scribd, for those who do not like to download pdfs to read). In today’s Chronicle, Bradley Olson** summarizes some of the report’s findings, and adds a few quotes from interested parties.
Also on Friday, Paul Knight followed up on his earlier Houston Press reporting about the city’s abandonment of David Mincberg’s grand plan to spend $35 million to remake the blighted area surrounding Hobby Airport. City officials said those funds had been diverted to other projects. Knight reports that of those seven “other” projects listed by the city, only one has been completed. Interestingly, one is being developed by a group with two directors who donated to Bill White’s political campaigns! Knight does not include a quote from Frank Michel, but we are certain Michel would assure us that these sorts of choices are never made based on donations or political pull. *wink* Knight has included a very helpful Google map detailing the locations of the various projects/boondoggles.
Finally, the crew at Texas Watchdog this week posted about METRO’s expenditures on “media monitoring” and a La Porte councilmember who really likes to travel on the taxpayers’ dime. They also published a handy interactive map of 2009 Harris County Commissioners Court financial disclosures.
Did you see a good example of watchdog reporting that we missed? If so, let us know in the comments or via email.***
* Instead, lowlights of Houston journalism — really Chronicle journalism — occupied much of our attention. And it’s worth noting that the Chronicle never did issue a formal correction to its erroneous identification of “Dr. Roxana Mayer,” instead assigning two reporters to do a lame followup story on the matter, never admitting to their original errors or the sloppy reporting and fact-checking that allowed them. Kudos go out to Lone Star Timesman David Jennings, who has been covering these meetings, and who spoke to not-doctor Roxana Mayer on the phone around 5 pm on Wednesday, definitively confirming she was a fraud. Local bloggers effectively did the vetting the Chron SHOULD have done.
** If the newspaper could clone this guy and spread him around the metro/state desk, the bad-journalism level would surely decline. Indeed, as many beats as the newspaper has the poor guy trying to cover, it sometimes seems as if he is cloned already.
*** Those of us who value this sort of reporting probably need to do a better job of letting the journalists — and their bosses — know we appreciate it.
