The Weekly did a bit of that last week in its 10th anniversary issue. And since there’s no letters page this week – our traditional place for corrections – allow Static to do the dubious honors. (Don’t worry, faithful correspondents: Your epistles will appear next week.)
In the story on the anniversary – compiled by current and former staffers – the Weekly gave itself credit for inspiring the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to create Star-Time. Nope. Not even historically possible. The Weekly was birthed in 1996; Star-Time has been around since 1984. There was something called the Wrap, a short-lived arts-and-entertainment freebie similar to the Weekly that the Star-T published during this paper’s first year. The Weekly regrets – nay, sighs over – the error.
Then there was the picture last week of Sal Espino, which ran on Page 6 with a story about the Fort Worth immigration march. We labeled the city councilman with someone else’s name. The Weekly is mortified at the error.
Happy Static
But hey – bring back that horn. The Weekly took home two trophies last week in the First Amendment Awards competition, a Texas-Oklahoma competition sponsored by the Fort Worth chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The contest focuses on journalism that highlights open records and open government issues.
In the category for general news stories making “exemplary use of public records,” Weekly staffer Peter Gorman brought home the hardware for his story showing that Fort Worth police officers shot Midland architect Eric Hammock – who had committed the heinous crime of momentarily trespassing on a parking lot, then running from the cops – with Tasers 25 times before he died.
And in the “reporting on open government” category, freelancer Julian Aguilar and staffer Dan Malone won for their story “What Will It Take?,” which detailed how the federal government is keeping many illegal immigrants incarcerated long after they have served sentences for their crimes – despite U.S. Supreme Court rulings requiring that such prisoners be freed.
Peter, Julian, Dan, the Bill of Rights – here’s to ya.
