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Houston Chronicle Secret Memo Alleges Vast Light Rail Conspiracy
(from the Houston Review)
http://www.houstonreview.com/1102/secretmemo.htm
By Phil Magness
Someone who operates the Houston Chronicle website must have had a terrible day
on November 20. What the Chronicle described in a notice intended to cover its
tracks as an "internal
document" entitled "A Houston odyssey: DeLay, Lanier and light rail"
appeared briefly in the editorials section on the newspaper's website beginning
late in the evening on November 20.
Houston's daily newspaper quickly removed the "internal document" upon its
discovery and posted a brief correction to the page, though not before the
document was publicly accessible for at least several hours. According to the
retraction, "An internal Houston Chronicle document was mistakenly posted to the
editorial/opinion area of the Web site early Thursday morning." The message went
on to apologize for the "confusion" it may have caused, yet said nothing of the
document's contents.
The "internal document," which appears to be a memorandum to the paper's editors
and editorial writers from one of their own, proposes that the Chronicle
Editorial Board essentially embark on a year-long editorial campaign to help
pass an as-of-yet not publicly announced November 2003 referendum giving Metro a
blank check to expand light rail throughout the Houston area.
The memo begins, "I propose a series of editorials, editorial cartoons and
Sounding Board columns leading up to the rail referendum." Each is to have "this
specific objective: Continuing our long standing efforts to make rail a
permanent part of the transit mix here." The author, who is presumably involved
in some capacity with the editorial page, suggests of this effort that "There
isn't a more critical issue on the horizon."
The memo continues with the suggestion that news stories could be used to
accompany the Editorial Board's opinion pieces. "I suggest that [the editorials]
could be built upon and informed by a news-feature package with an equally
specific focus," writes the unnamed Chronicle official. The main purpose of
these "news-features" would be to "inform" readers of a supposed anti-rail
conspiracy in Houston. In other words, expect the Chronicle's radical pro-rail
editorial opinions to seep over into their news coverage as the Chronicle
intentionally engages in the art of yellow journalism so famously associated
with the founder of their parent company, William Randolph Hearst.
According to the document's author, a virtual conspiracy of power comparable to
the "Chinatown" organized crime epidemic decades ago in Los Angeles revolves
around highway construction in Houston. "Since World War II, Houston's currency
has bee (sic) concrete," reads the memo, "millions of cubic yards poured for
freeways."
The document then outlines the nature of this supposed conspiracy by bullet
point with the implication that each should be part of the editorial and
"news-feature" package of political propaganda that will be promoted through the
paper. The chief architects of the conspiracy are identified as former Mayor Bob
Lanier and Congressman Tom DeLay. The Texas Public Policy Foundation is also
fingered and the memo pledges to expose each of them.
For example, the memo describes Lanier as the "public kingmaker" for all who
seek to be elected in Houston and implies that he uses his fundraising prowess
to leverage his support in exchange for candidates agreeing to oppose rail.
Those who seek political office in Houston, the document asserts, pass through
"Lanier's den" and "kiss the great man's ring and bid for his approval." Even
the former mayor's wife is not spared as the author proposes for a story "Elyse
Lanier: From jewelry salesperson to Houston political insider."
With DeLay, the memo takes the Chronicle's usual obsessive slash-and-burn
approach of smearing the Congressman. DeLay has been the target of some two
dozen vitriolic editorial attacks by the Chronicle Editorial Board and its
columnists over the last two years, most of them related to his positions on
rail. If the "internal document" is any indication, readers should expect more
of it with greater intensity.
The memo calls for an investigation of DeLay's rise to seniority in Congress,
the topic being "How it come about (sic) and . . . how it was funded (by the
highway lobby)." Other topics include supposed disputes between DeLay and mayors
in Fort Bend County and, ultimately, the "DeLay-Lanier relationship" in politics
and in any campaign against the Metro spending referendum, described in the
document as "Ground zero for November."
The latter part of the memo strays off into some seemingly unrelated questions
with a unifying disdain of highway and road construction. It calls for an
investigative story about why the developers of what is now the Southwest
Freeway built it to go southwest instead of simply west. Another bullet point
calls for investigation of frontage roads on Texas interstates. The story, it is
said, should as why we have them "in the first place," why Sam Rayburn included
them in the Interstate Highway Act, and "At whose bidding?"
The overall implication is that frontage roads encourage development along
highways, which the memo implies is somehow a bad thing. It is unclear what this
has to do with any objective consideration of light rail, but that does not seem
to be the Chronicle's interest. Instead, they seem motivated by a radical
anti-road agenda commonly known as "Smart Growth."
As always, there are several serious problems with the conspiracy theory
outlined in the memo, none of which the memo pauses to consider. First, Lanier's
hand-picked successor Mayor Lee Brown is a strong supporter of light rail,
debunking the notion that he somehow has continually wielded his power to
sabotage rail in Houston. Also, while Lanier's opposition to rail did help vault
him to victory over Kathy Whitmire, Lanier has shown little interest in the rail
issue one way or another since leaving office. He certainly did not publicly
oppose the Main Street rail referendum in November 2001 and he did not back
Orlando Sanchez, the only anti-rail candidate in the last mayoral election. Yet,
the memo focuses more on Lanier than any other figure, even DeLay who the
Chronicle Editorial Board has long despised.
Another auxiliary participant in the supposed conspiracy is identified
indirectly as a "San Antonio-based think tank doing the the (sic) research to
discredit rail." The reference is to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which
has extensively researched transportation policy in Texas and published studies
showing that light rail is not an efficient or cost-effective option in cities
as spread out as Houston. Is there something sinister about a think tank
consistently opposing light rail because their studies show it does not work?
While much has been written about the TPPF's chief benefactor Dr. James
Leininger, no one has alleged that this inventor of medical equipment and owner
of the Promised Land Dairy has any financial interest in Houston's
transportation policy. These facts suggest that a Chronicle "investigation" of
this group would amount to nothing more than an attack on a source whose facts
and conclusions they cannot refute on their own merits.
As for the highway construction firms that are supposedly spooked by rail, their
financial support was nowhere to be found in the under-funded referendum to kill
the Main Street project last November. While one can argue the limited scope of
the project was not enough to stimulate their interest, everyone recognizes it
is the critical and long sought after camel's nose under the tent for rail in
Houston.
The truth is that those in the highway construction business have little to
worry about because the average new light rail line in the United States carries
barely 20 percent of the volume of a single freeway / motorway lane, according
to transit expert Wendell Cox. This statistic and a wealth of other evidence
showing light rail has only a marginal effect on traffic congestion can be found
at Cox's website,
publicpurpose.com.
What is most disturbing about this in-house document outlining the Chronicle's
coverage of light rail over the coming year may be what was not included. In
addition to the omission of obvious flaws in their conspiracy theory, the
missive was silent on whether the motives or activities of pro-rail entities
would be similarly scrutinized. If the Chronicle made any pretense about being
an equal opportunity investigator, they would certainly want to ask whether
METRO has a motive to expand its own budget through rail and what contractors
and consultants will benefit from rail construction.
In sum, the inadvertently posted memo constitutes an announcement from the
Chronicle that they have no intention of being fair or objective in what
promises to be a year-long pro-rail propaganda campaign clothed in a garb of
journalism by this monopoly newspaper. Pro-rail activism began on the editorial
page and in a John Williams political article only days after the inadvertent
posting, suggesting the memo was indeed a preview of what we can expect from now
until November. However, thanks to a fortuitous programming mistake, the people
of Houston are now on notice that the Chronicle's coverage will be
conspiratorial pro-rail propaganda, not objective analysis.
Although the memo has been removed from their site, you may find a copy of it
here:
http://www.houstonreview.com/1102/chroniclememo.htm
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