Sleepless in Midland

AI article writers are everywhere

An interesting article appearing in the Wall Street Journal contains an item honestly described as a fake news article created by artificial intelligence.

My favorite line: "Johnson hopes to find another place on Earth to explore to, but one that's closer than most -- the moon." It's not perfect, but it would provide fillers between ads for those newspapers that can no longer afford to seek real news.

Type 'ai article writer' in your favorite search engine and see all the software available to write articles for you. It's an interesting concept, but the quality is lacking, at least in the example they offered.

Editors' notes:
Hey, Sleepless, I could do it for this blog! Robo-ed
Well, it takes artificial intelligence. You've got the artificial nailed, but the intelligence is lacking. Sleepless
I heard that! Robo-ed

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1:58 PM 10/15/2019

The incredible shrinking newspaper

It's a habit -- reading the morning paper while I eat breakfast. But the direction the local newspaper is going, that habit might end due to lack of a newspaper.

The local paper, Midland Reporter-Telegram is still operating. But the pages are smaller than the used to be, there is a lot less content, there's less local news in it, and it arrives later in the morning than it used to. They are predominantly reliant on wire services and other newspapers for news. The advertising revenue has to be shrinking.

The only thing that isn't shrinking is the subscriber fee. So subscribers like me are helping to keep afloat.

Anyway, the latest thing we learned about it is that they've outsourced the printing to a facility 115 miles away. See Reporter-Telegram to move press operations to Lubbock. That probably means the paper will be arriving even later in the morning.

Anyway, the morning paper used to provide a lot of fodder for this blog. And they've received a lot of criticism on these web pages. But now I feel sorry for them. I just hope they can stay afloat, although to be fair, they should reduce the subscription price in relation to the reduced quality.

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12:31 PM 10/20/2018

County Commissioners love playing Santa Clause with taxpayer money

Stewart Doreen is really doing a bang-up job of keeping readers of the Midland Reporter-Telegram informed about the Midland County Commissioners spending of taxpayer money. In the latest he tells us this Proposed budget includes 9 percent raise for commissioners.

The Midland Texas County government is awash with money from tax inflow. And who can forget how surprised they were that a booming economy would cause a big jump in sales tax revenue? If only taxpayers could be that lucky.

So the county has money burning a hole in its pocket even after giving away a whopping $12 million to other taxing entities. For a refresher about that, see County answers call for collaboration. And see previously at this blog: Taxpayers are ignored in Midland County wealth distribution scheme.

If we are lucky, the winner of the County Judge slot in November will do some belt tightening. Although, it's hard to be optimistic since he will have to battle an entrenched entitlement minded commissioners court.

In any event, kudos to Stewart Doreen for maintaining a newsman's tradition of being a government watchdog. There were times when it appeared as if he were serving as a lapdog for the city council, so it's nice to see him dig into the county commissioners.

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9:02 AM 8/22/2018

Associated Press death row watcher, Michael Graczyk, goes independent

Late last month our local morning paper contained an Associate Press article telling us that Michael Graczyk was going to retire from AP and free lance doing what he did before.

Many professionals focus on something no one else wants to do. And they are successful if they do a good job.

Mr. Graczyk had an unlikely news business niche. He watched death row inmates get executed. Most of us might find that a little bit weird, but a reporter is supposed to look at subjects dispassionately. And Mr. Graczyk certainly made a claim to that narrow spot he filled.

Anyway, apparently he isn't going away, he's just going independent.

Here's a link to the AP article: AP reporter who observed 400+ executions in Texas retires.

Meanwhile, he was mentioned in 2010 at this blog in Henry Skinner's date with the executioner extended.

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2:20 PM 8/6/2018

Save the newspaper from extinction

I've bashed the local morning paper for quite some time, but lately I'm beginning to feel sorry for their plight. Our own Midland Reporter-Telegram was once a great local paper. But like all the others, they're struggling with the competition from online news sources. The classified ads are a fraction of that they used to be. They are still getting advertising from the car dealers and retail stores. But on most days it seems that there is more space occupied by ads than there is by news. And the news mainly comes from wire services. It's as if they are operating with a skeleton staff in the newsroom.

They are in survival mode. It's a Hearst property, and for all I know, the home office is cannibalizing the small newspapers out here in flyover country. I'm not enough of a visionary to see any positive developments on the horizon. But we can hope that they'll come up with something other than jacking up the subscription price on the remaining customers.

Meanwhile, here's a development that seems counterproductive: Denver Post journalists are revolting against the new owner.

And here's Barton Swaim who is nostalgic for a paper newspaper: In Praise of the News on Paper. It's behind the wsj.com paywall, but as of the time of this writing you could read it at investorvillage.com.

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2:49 PM 4/23/2018

The Greatest Story Never Told -- an unfortunate typo in TV schedule

The morning paper typically contains a schedule of the TV shows for the evening. And it's a convenient way to plan in advance if something good is on.

This isn't a fact-checking blog, but there was an amusing typo in regard to an old movie shown on TCM the other night: "The Greatest Story Never Told." It looked like a spoof of a famous old biblical movie.

But no. Turns out it was the old movie, "The Greatest Story Ever Told." Ever? Never? What a difference a letter makes.

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11:12 AM 4/1/2018

Why isn't Mella McEwen getting wider coverage beyond Midland Reporter Telegram?

The morning paper -- online at MRT.com -- employs a very good reporter in the field of energy production. Here's an example of her good reporting: ‘Frac hits’ growing issue as infill drilling, frac stages rise. That's an article about how some new wells are being drilled so close to existing wells that they tap into the frac fluid that was injected into the nearby well. Maybe that should have been common sense, but it was news to me.

The morning paper relies heavily on the Houston Chronicle for energy news. Both papers are owned by the Hearst corporation. So here's the question: Shouldn't it be the other way around, i.e., shouldn't the Houston Chronicle be using MRT's articles?

Well, we are out here in flyover country, even for other Texans. So I guess we are easy to ignore.

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1:03 PM 2/22/2018

Police Chief wants driving simulators for officers -- how about one for citizens?

There have been some high profile vehicle accidents involving police officers here in Midland, Texas, lately. And the police chief may be right to suggest the officers need more training. And a driving simulator may be the best way to create hazardous driving situations minus the hazard. The morning paper tells us about it in MPD chief requests ‘driving simulator’.

But maybe those of us out here in citizen-land need something similar. As people get older their reactions slow down. But maybe they could keep that edge with practice. I've long thought that a driving simulator might be a way for drivers to practice, and thus help to keep their skills at high level. But the only way I've been able to come up with involves the simulators sold as games for Xboxes and PlayStations.

So if the Chief is successful in getting the city to invest in a simulator, maybe by renting out time to citizens the city could recoup some of the cost as well as improve driver safety. It might be a smart move for vehicle insurance companies to contribute to such an effort.

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11:32 AM 2/11/2018

Women marching against sexual harassment must wonder why no one would want to give them CPR

There was an interesting juxtaposition in the morning paper. The top article screams, "Hundreds march against sexual harassment." But right below that one is this headline: "Study: Women less likely to get CPR from bystanders."

It's as if the top headline answers the question posed by the bottom one. Who'da thunk it?

Bonus: Democrats ridiculed VP Mike Pence when he said he wouldn't be alone with a woman other than his wife. After seeing the ancient claims of harassment coming out against Roy Moore, could any male blame him?

XCOR goes belly up without ever getting off the ground

According to the morning paper, XCOR filed chapter 7. And only now is the Midland Development Corporation scrambling to perfect a security interest in personal property that the MDC financed. Here are the sad facts from said article:

Hilliard told the Reporter-Telegram on Thursday that the economic development group is attempting to get a collateralized security interest in XCOR. The MDC took the step of filing uniform commercial code (UCC) financing statements with the Texas, California and Florida secretaries of state Wednesday.

Per the MDC’s contract with XCOR, incentive money was paid upfront without collateral. The deal predates Hilliard’s involvement with the MDC.

Perfecting a security interest is one of the FIRST things you do, not the LAST.

Oh, what the hell. Midland got lots of good, nationwide publicity when they announced the deal. There was no steak, but there was lot's of sizzle. As I've said in this blog in the past, that was the payoff. Too bad that was all we got, but it will have to do.

Oh yeah, I guess I should mention this group of winners. The lawyers involved in this fiasco will make out OK. So not everyone lost.

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8:47 AM 11/11/2017

Local government debt exceeds $1.2B -- politicians giddy with glee

A majority of voters in Midland, Texas, voted in favor of a $100 million bond issue for road and water line repairs on 11/7/17. While a sales tax might have been a better approach for raising the money, proponents of the bond convinced voters to pile a huge load of debt onto the backs of property owners.

The photo on the right of the ecstatic council member was on the front page of the print edition of the Midland Reporter-Telegram. I titled it Bond Glee.

Meanwhile, In case anyone is interested in the local government debt, here's a table based on the reports at Bond Review Board Database Search Texas Local Governments FY 2016:

Entity	Principal	Interest	Total
City	$119,420,000	$52,553,031	$171,973,031
College	$36,965,000	$6,715,591	$43,680,591
County	$17,665,000	$4,132,534	$21,797,534
Hospital	$104,115,000	$63,086,894	$167,201,894
MISD	$224,020,000	$136,130,051	$360,150,051
Water District	$226,331,160	$246,486,027	$472,817,187
Totals	$728,516,160	$509,104,128	$1,237,620,288

A few years ago Jason Moore told the Midland city council that the bond debt for the local taxing entities was approaching a billion dollars. The council members scoffed at that. But here we are with a debt as of last year at $1.2 billion. So add another $100 million -- who cares?

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10:58 AM 11/9/2017</p

P.S. I've been wrestling with whether to continue subscribing to the pricey print edition of the Midland Reporter Telegram. Then something like that photo comes along and it makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Eye opener in the morning paper -- businesses kicked in 100 grand to get tax hike on local residents

The voters in Midland, Texas, weren't sold. The effort failed to get enough votes for the tax hike to pass. But this effort by these companies to get it passed was an eye opener. See Stewart Doreen's article at Oil companies donate $100,000 for tax ratification election.

To it's credit, the Midland Reporter Telegram reported a list of recipients of this money which included the newspaper itself. They came out all right on the deal. So did former city councilman and mayoral candidate John James' company.

Fiercely Conservative -- how Associated Press sees Texas

In the morning paper --
An AP article about the recent court decision invalidating Texas' voter ID law described Texas voters as "fiercely conservative." AP'a true color came through on that one (hint: Blue).

It's hard to imagine them describing some of the hard core Democrat states as "fiercely liberal." Perhaps it's because Democrats are less inclined to act for themselves than they are to rely on the government for everything. But that's mere speculation. Because they sure did demonstrate some ferocity in Minnesota when Scott Walker took away some of their government goodies.

Neither President Trump nor Clinton seem too inclined to tackle the entitlement issue, so we probably aren't likely to see much emotion from anyone other than the special interest groups who might get snared in one or more of those candidates' campaign promises.

In any event, I like it. "Fiercely conservative," as in, "Don't mess with Texas." The question on many of our minds is, "Will it last?" At least one famous commentator thinks it won't. See Will Texas become another brick in the Democrats’ blue wall? by George Will.

As for the Texas voter ID law, it's a tough law. Most of us have a photo ID and don't think much about it. However, I know first hand how difficult it is to secure a photo ID for someone who doesn't have one. More on that in the future.

MSM love 1st amendment, 2nd amendment not so much

I couldn't help but notice the juxtaposition. On one side of the morning paper's opinion page is a piece advocating more gun control. To be fair, the piece advocated a tough standard on suspected terrorists. But that would be just a starting point. Many of us suspect that the msm, and Bloomberg in particular, would like nothing better than to claim they were responsible for laws that would ultimately require law abiding citizens to relinquish their firearms to the federal government. If luck in on their side, a Democrat in the White House next year might nominate some Supreme Court Justices who would be complicit in abolishing some of the hard won rights under the 2nd amendment.

As for the tough stance against gun buying terrorists, the bureaucrat who decides who is or isn't a terrorist may subscribe to the lists supplied by the leftist groups who think the biggest threat to the U.S. is from political conservatives.

On the other side of the page is a piece decrying Donald Trump's withdrawal of press credentials from WaPo for his rallies. (Read it at the WaPo site.) Of course there's the obligatory reference to the 1st amendment. There's some irony there. What a shame they can't respect both the 1st and 2nd amendments equally.

By the way, whether or not the Washington Post has a legitimate complaint, it really isn't a 1st amendment issue. Trump isn't the government -- are they simply looking ahead?

Aside: Washington Post's complaint about Trump is reminiscent of the media complaints about Sarah Palin when she stopped interviews with newspaper editorial boards even when everyone knew the boards were going to trash her no matter what she said. Trump is showing that it takes a tough skin to run against the main stream media.

Midland City Council members want to spend like its 2011

Back when the price of oil was bouncing either side of $100 per barrel the sales tax revenue was pouring in, and the city council was licking its lips over the prospect of playing Santa Claus with all that money for them to spend.

Fast forward. Now the price of a barrel of oil is bouncing around $30, and the tax collectors are looking at steep declines in revenue. For the tax spenders, it's complicated by the upcoming expiration of a portion of the local sales tax. Read all about it in this morning paper article which describes the council's confusing and desperate effort to get voters to approve the extension of the tax.

Unfortunately, all they seem concerned about is keeping the tax in place for another 10 to 25 years. They never considered the possibility that the voters could benefit from keeping the money themselves. Are the voters in Midland, Texas, fiscally liberal even in hard times? We shall see.

BTW, isn't it interesting that they didn't plan the vote to occur at the same time as the presidential primary? What a loss for taxpayers. Wouldn't it be grand if all those Donald Trump supporters showed up at the polls and put a big kibosh on the tax? Yes. Yes it would.

Let's stop begrudging court rulings that favor taxpayers over tax collectors

Apparently oil companies have been paying a Texas sales tax on certain items which they claim should be exempt. Sounds like a legitimate enough issue for the courts and an appropriate issue for a newspaper article. See Midland driller’s lawsuit could cost Texas billions in tax refunds which is a reproduction of a New York Times' partner, Texas Tribune, article a day earlier.

My issue is with the treatment given by the reporter. He calls the potential taxpayer refund a "cost," and that seems to mischaracterize the transaction.

If a business collected money for a product that was never delivered and then had to return the money, is that a "cost" to that business? There is probably a word for it, but "cost" doesn't seem consistent with ordinary meaning.

"Cost" is the word one uses when one is a fan of the notion that property and money really belong to the government -- whatever you get to keep is at the pleasure of the government. And if the the taxpayer dutifully paid the government through a misinterpretation of the statute, and the government is forced by a court to return it -- God forbid! -- that's not a cost. That is merely returning money to the rightful owner. That's justice.

With the sizzle XCOR provided, Midland could probably live without the steak

Many of us were skeptical when the Midland Development Corp. made such a generous offer to XCOR Aerospace to put an office at the Midland, Texas, airport. But when that generated such a tremendous amount of favorable nationwide publicity for the city, we had to acknowledge that there was indeed a payoff. Maybe that's all there will be. Then again, maybe it was worth it.

The MRT print edition reported on the front page *Sunday about a management shakeup at XCOR. What that means for the company isn't clear, but it's probably significant.

The company itself had convinced the investors that it was going to build a vehicle that would take paying passengers into low orbit. Not to take them somewhere, but just to give them the ride and the experience.

It seems almost crazy to think that people would pay a six figure number to ride in a spacecraft for a few minutes. Sure, the view would probably be spectacular, but that could hardly justify the expense. And it's hard to ignore all that high profile competition for those same dollars.

Well, we had the sizzle with the initial announcement. My thought was that that was going to be the payoff, not any business investment spurred by the venture or money brought in by space tourists. We may have to settle for the sizzle without the steak. But the sizzle was so good it might have been worth it.

*Now online.

James Durbin's airborne athletes

There's a very talented photographer working for the morning paper named James Durbin. The newspaper probably makes sure he's supplied with the very best equipment. But it takes more that a good camera to get the pictures he gets. It takes a good eye and superior skill. A little patience pays off, too.

Anyway, he has a knack for catching athletes in midair. And the results are phenomenal. Here are a few that appeared in the print edition.

Look for the air between the athletes and the earth.

Amazing.

You really have to see his photos in a quality format for yourself. Check out this display of the MRT.com's editors' picks here.

Nah, ya don't wanna see Santa in the obituaries

Say it ain't so. No, not Santa.

Take Santa Claus out of the obituaries and put him back where he belongs, in the advertisements.

Two newspapers in one

Our morning paper, The Midland Reporter-Telegram (mrt.com) likes to provide its readers with editorials from other newspapers, and one of their favorite sources is the Houston Chronicle. Last week they gave us editorials from there two days in a row.

The first one was titled "The threat posed by drug cartels along border could be hype." (It was titled Border Splurge at Chron.com.) And it decried the Texas government allocating $86.1 million for border security to protect Texans from drug cartels. Fear of drug cartels is misguided, because "there is no evidence there is a spill-over of violent crimes," an expert says. But they let this slip out:

To date, Texas taxpayers have spent more than $800 million on beefed-up security even though it is supposed to be a federal role, as reported by Chronicle reporter Mike Ward.

So expenditures for security are up, and crime is down. Let's play cause and effect. Spending more for security is supposed to get the crime down.

But all is not perfect along the border. For example, see Cartel Bosses Run Mexican Empires from Safe Houses in Texas.

Back to the editorial under examination. One of their complaints is that the phrase "drug cartel" is outdated and is no longer used by experts. That brings us to the morning paper's editorial the very next day.  See it on the right.

The title of that one was "US has opportunities to help our neighbor to the south, as well as ourselves." That was the subhead at Chron.com where the top line title was Editorial: Mexico's dark days, and it was about the case of the 43 students who went missing recently in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, and who are presumed dead.

The word "cartel" appeared four times. Since experts don't use that term then Chron.com editors are obviously not experts.

Editors note: Why do you keep picking on the local newspaper? Robo-ed. -- I just spent $208 for another year's worth of that stuff. I've earned the privilege. But in all sincerity, while newspapers are in decline, I really do hope the best for them. Sleepless.

Is that all the police mischief they could find?

Last week two days in a row the morning paper had front page headlines about police malfeasance they learned about through their open records requests.

The state gives sworn officers a tremendous amount of power over citizens, and we rightly hold them to the highest standard. For that the morning paper here in Midland, Texas,  is doing its job.

But the worst police officer offense they uncovered was the confiscation of panhandlers' signs and not turning them into the evidence room. The citizens were left thinking: "If that's all they could find, the cops must be pretty well behaved." No beatings, no blatant abuse of authority, just confiscation of panhandler signs.

The TV news picked up on it and ran it as news. See channel 9 and channel 7 where both use the word "homeless" without any indication they inquired as to the panhandlers' living quarters.

Now it's true that with sky high home prices and hotel room shortages there could be quite a few residents living in a van down by the river. But equating panhandling with homelessness is an assumption that may not be accurate.

In fact, there are rumors about people who do it because they make more money than they would at a job. It makes sense, especially if the individual is on public assistance that would vanish if he/she were officially employed.

There was also apparently one police officer who kept a set of brass knuckles for himself. That's not too good, but the Internal Affairs office dispensed its own punishment to the officer. And best of all, the other officers weren't afraid to report misdeeds they observed in the department.

In any case, it looks like we've got a pretty good police department. If you don't believe me, just ask the oil companies that are hiring away the experienced officers.

Morning paper discovers open records requests -- so how about looking into that skyscraper project

The other day the Midland Reporter Telegram was patting itself on the back for doing some investigative work in the form of open records requests aimed at our local government.

While it's tempting to say, "better late than never," we won't go there. Instead let's congratulate them and encourage them to keep it up. We've needed a watchdog to keep an eye on the goings on behind the government doors for a long time. And now that we've got a mayor who beat the newspaper endorsed candidate, maybe we'll get one.

While they're at it, may I suggest doing a few open records requests about that proposed skyscraper that's planned for the old court house square? Many citizens were amazed at how that project seemed to come out of the blue, however all the elected officials seemed to have already made up their minds. Were there any secret meetings that should have be subject to the open meetings laws?

Were there any emails or other correspondence among the elected officials or between the elected officials and the building promoters that the public should see? By the way, if some elected official discussed the project on his private email account it was still city business and should be subject to an open records request.

Make us proud, MRT.com, make us proud.