No laptop access, so updates by phone will have to do for now.
Left Shreveport right around 3 p.m. We made it to Wichita Falls with three stops along the way. Two were necessary for the bathroom and gas. One was just a dumb idea - we drove for a time and didn't find a spot to sleep in Bowie.
Shooting for Denver tomorrow.
08 January 2017
06 January 2017
Reporting in the 318: A farewell to the local crime beat
Just before the holidays, I was asked to write up something that covers everything I thought people should pay attention to in the new year.
Because I'd received a lot of positive reaction to the new format for my daily blotter (but had to stop the new format after I gave notice at The Times), I decided to write it the way people liked one last time.
Although other reporters' work was published, mine wasn't.
But I wrote it, so I thought it deserved at least a few eyes on it.
Just keep in mind that, like all my blog posts, this is something I wrote fairly quickly and it hasn't been edited...
Having reported on breaking news — mainly covering crime, courts and public safety — for The Times in 2016, I've seen some of the worst sides of human nature, but I've also seen some of the best.
In the wake of floods, shootings and senseless acts of violence, I've watched the men and women of northwest Louisiana come together - every time I thought the concept of humanity was lost somewhere along the course of the year, I was proven wrong.
It reminds me of my favorite quote.
"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death."
Anne Frank wrote that.
In the attic.
And if she can have those thoughts and that attitude in the face of such horror and atrocity, I believe I can face anything with hope.
We all can.
My hope is that the unforeseen spike in crime this year was only a blip on the radar. I hope the number of homicides future crime reporters have to write about in the coming year will never again come near the elevated numbers of 2016. In fact, it would be nice if there weren't even one for an entire year.
If the homicide rate does begin to escalate in another trend, my wish is that the people of northwest Louisiana will band together to stop it.
On social media, we've seen a sudden uptick in behind-the-shades reporters engaging their neighbors with information on criminal elements within their communities.
Although I think this can be a good thing — people need to be informed — I believe it can also be a dangerous thing, especially when reports from friends and neighbors border on the prejudicial or downright ugly. It's important for people to know their community is watching. It's not important to tell people that minorities are walking down the street nearby - such information has absolutely no bearing on making a neighborhood safer.
Property crimes, especially in some of the areas more affluent areas, seem to be increasing as well.
But I think 2017 will show us that more community policing - which I believe Shreveport's new police chief will continue to increase - will make a world of difference. Not necessarily by preventing crimes, but definitely by helping to bring justice as needed.
Of course, I'm not an expert.
I'm just a journalist.
I don't create the facts, my only function is to report them, and I've spent the past year honing my craft in an effort to get better at it.
My heroes in the field are — of course — Woodward and Bernstein and Cronkite and Murrow, but they're also Joan Didion and Hunter S. Thompson, Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe, Nora Ephron and Dominick Dunne (not to mention all the Jackie Collins, Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon I like to read). None of them got it right 100 percent of the time, but they did the best they could and they constantly worked to do better.
They're all what journalists should be: students of the world, writing as objectively as possible on everything within view — allowing their readers to make up their own minds.
As I write these words, I'm in my final days in Shreveport.
Louisiana has been my home for every step of my personal and professional life, and I will always treasure my time in what I believe is the greatest state in the nation.
But the time has come for me to move on and see whether my wings will carry me as I spread them in the Pacific northwest.
I hope I'm leaving my hometown in very capable hands, and I hope it's only better the next time I'm here to visit.
Until then, stay safe, be nice to each other and don't forget to make time to enjoy this wonderful world we have here.
And try not to end up in the next crime reporter's blotter.
Because I'd received a lot of positive reaction to the new format for my daily blotter (but had to stop the new format after I gave notice at The Times), I decided to write it the way people liked one last time.
Although other reporters' work was published, mine wasn't.
But I wrote it, so I thought it deserved at least a few eyes on it.
Just keep in mind that, like all my blog posts, this is something I wrote fairly quickly and it hasn't been edited...
Having reported on breaking news — mainly covering crime, courts and public safety — for The Times in 2016, I've seen some of the worst sides of human nature, but I've also seen some of the best.
In the wake of floods, shootings and senseless acts of violence, I've watched the men and women of northwest Louisiana come together - every time I thought the concept of humanity was lost somewhere along the course of the year, I was proven wrong.
It reminds me of my favorite quote.
"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death."
Anne Frank wrote that.
In the attic.
And if she can have those thoughts and that attitude in the face of such horror and atrocity, I believe I can face anything with hope.
We all can.
My hope is that the unforeseen spike in crime this year was only a blip on the radar. I hope the number of homicides future crime reporters have to write about in the coming year will never again come near the elevated numbers of 2016. In fact, it would be nice if there weren't even one for an entire year.
If the homicide rate does begin to escalate in another trend, my wish is that the people of northwest Louisiana will band together to stop it.
On social media, we've seen a sudden uptick in behind-the-shades reporters engaging their neighbors with information on criminal elements within their communities.
Although I think this can be a good thing — people need to be informed — I believe it can also be a dangerous thing, especially when reports from friends and neighbors border on the prejudicial or downright ugly. It's important for people to know their community is watching. It's not important to tell people that minorities are walking down the street nearby - such information has absolutely no bearing on making a neighborhood safer.
Property crimes, especially in some of the areas more affluent areas, seem to be increasing as well.
But I think 2017 will show us that more community policing - which I believe Shreveport's new police chief will continue to increase - will make a world of difference. Not necessarily by preventing crimes, but definitely by helping to bring justice as needed.
Of course, I'm not an expert.
I'm just a journalist.
I don't create the facts, my only function is to report them, and I've spent the past year honing my craft in an effort to get better at it.
My heroes in the field are — of course — Woodward and Bernstein and Cronkite and Murrow, but they're also Joan Didion and Hunter S. Thompson, Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe, Nora Ephron and Dominick Dunne (not to mention all the Jackie Collins, Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon I like to read). None of them got it right 100 percent of the time, but they did the best they could and they constantly worked to do better.
They're all what journalists should be: students of the world, writing as objectively as possible on everything within view — allowing their readers to make up their own minds.
As I write these words, I'm in my final days in Shreveport.
Louisiana has been my home for every step of my personal and professional life, and I will always treasure my time in what I believe is the greatest state in the nation.
But the time has come for me to move on and see whether my wings will carry me as I spread them in the Pacific northwest.
I hope I'm leaving my hometown in very capable hands, and I hope it's only better the next time I'm here to visit.
Until then, stay safe, be nice to each other and don't forget to make time to enjoy this wonderful world we have here.
And try not to end up in the next crime reporter's blotter.
05 January 2017
How it happened: A post for Mary Lois White
I'd attended IRE - a conference for investigative reporters - on the heels of the shootings at Pulse in Orlando, and I found myself in New Orleans for the convention at the same time that Gay Pride was taking place in the Quarter.
Sort of a perfect confluence of events in a lot of ways.
I met a guy named Rafael, who was a bilingual reporter for The Arizona Republic, and I realized that all my work really needed was a little more time and attention.
And confidence.
So, Rafael and I spent afternoons and nights walking around New Orleans and taking in the sights and sounds and smells. There was a sort of electricity in the air the entire time and there was a promise of a little romance while we enjoyed everything that swampy hot city has to offer.
We attended workshops and met everyone who was anyone with USA Today. We learned tricks for how to become better journalists and we stood at the back of a standing-room-only auditorium to meet the Spotlight Team from The Boston Globe - the people portrayed by Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams and a few other famous faces in the Academy Award-winning film.
I returned to Shreveport from New Orleans, IRE and Rafael brimming with ideas and zest and wanting to tell my fellow reporters at The Times everything that I'd learned and everything that we had to do to be better journalists and really work as writers who are proxies to the public.
I planned to put together a workshop of my own where I could educate everyone I worked with on all that I learned.
But it never happened.
The grueling demands of my job and expectations to do much more with much less took over and I became more of a robot.
A single print journalist in competition with multiple local television stations who are doing it all with seemingly effortlessness while I got pushed for multiple quick hits on a daily basis to have all the same information up that everyone else did - before they did, if possible - regardless of tone, scope or thorough coverage. I was meeting the demands, but I was only doing it through complete repetition. I knew I wasn't being a journalist in the sense that I'd planned, but I figured I was honing my craft and at least getting all the motions down for how to do it to the best of my ability.
Toward the end of the summer, I reached a point where I fully realized everything I was doing had become a formulaic routine.
And then the cuts came.
They happened across the board and all throughout the company.
My local daily was hit pretty hard. Some of my favorite people and cohorts were gone.
And I realized I was probably not as safe where I was as I thought I had been.
But there was something I didn't know. I had a guardian angel, and she'd been watching me.
I'd stayed in touch with Alison - sort of a writer's equivalent of a fairy godmother, if that godmother is a Jewish lady who just wants you to write well and settle down - from the moment she'd left The Times to take a position in the Pacific Northwest and I'd considered her my mentor ever since she gave me my first shot writing as a freelancer for the Luxury Living section of the Shreveport daily.
Ya know those weekly 5 Things entries of how to break the bank in a single meal or spend the most money possible on a handbag? That was my start. And it was all because Alison gave me the chance and pushed me to keep going with it.
Not only was I keeping up with Alison, but Alison was keeping up with me.
And then one night, she mentioned that a position was open with the Yakima Herald-Republic and it was something she thought I ought to apply for.
It was around the middle of October and I was in the midst of prep for Tri-State, an annual convention some of us non-drinkers hold locally. My best friend, who moved to California in April, encouraged me to apply and at least see what the position had to offer.
So, I did.
I submitted my resume and examples of a few stories. And I just gave it all up to the higher power and waited to see what would happen.
And then they asked for more stories.
And examples of real-time reporting.
And more in-depth articles.
And in November, I got the call.
A guy named Craig wanted to have a telephone conversation with me and it was expected to take around half an hour.
I was in Fayetteville with my mom for Thanksgiving, so I told him to call any time. He did just that, and the two of us stayed on the phone for much longer than planned.
It was about two hours later that Alison called to tell me that the paper wanted to fly me up to Yakima. I was there for only a few hours when I realized I hadn't been brought there to be interviewed. I was there to interview them.
I fell in love with the city almost instantly.
It is breathtakingly beautiful, diverse and has a pervasive feeling of true significance.
What's more, I realized that accepting a job with the paper would mean that I would have the opportunity to be a real journalist. To take everything I've learned so far and apply it all with different people, in a different environment and with people who will really care to help me grow as a writer and journalist.
So, Mary Lois, here I am... sitting on my couch, looking around at the last of the furniture that hasn't been bought, the open boxes that need to be sealed and the other items that still have to be packed.
Tomorrow is my last day at The Times.
Monday morning I'll be driving away from Louisiana to live outside the state - for the first time in my entire life - and to continue doing what I can to do the only thing I've ever wanted to do: writing.
Sort of a perfect confluence of events in a lot of ways.
I met a guy named Rafael, who was a bilingual reporter for The Arizona Republic, and I realized that all my work really needed was a little more time and attention.
And confidence.
So, Rafael and I spent afternoons and nights walking around New Orleans and taking in the sights and sounds and smells. There was a sort of electricity in the air the entire time and there was a promise of a little romance while we enjoyed everything that swampy hot city has to offer.
We attended workshops and met everyone who was anyone with USA Today. We learned tricks for how to become better journalists and we stood at the back of a standing-room-only auditorium to meet the Spotlight Team from The Boston Globe - the people portrayed by Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams and a few other famous faces in the Academy Award-winning film.
I returned to Shreveport from New Orleans, IRE and Rafael brimming with ideas and zest and wanting to tell my fellow reporters at The Times everything that I'd learned and everything that we had to do to be better journalists and really work as writers who are proxies to the public.
I planned to put together a workshop of my own where I could educate everyone I worked with on all that I learned.
But it never happened.
The grueling demands of my job and expectations to do much more with much less took over and I became more of a robot.
A single print journalist in competition with multiple local television stations who are doing it all with seemingly effortlessness while I got pushed for multiple quick hits on a daily basis to have all the same information up that everyone else did - before they did, if possible - regardless of tone, scope or thorough coverage. I was meeting the demands, but I was only doing it through complete repetition. I knew I wasn't being a journalist in the sense that I'd planned, but I figured I was honing my craft and at least getting all the motions down for how to do it to the best of my ability.
Toward the end of the summer, I reached a point where I fully realized everything I was doing had become a formulaic routine.
And then the cuts came.
They happened across the board and all throughout the company.
My local daily was hit pretty hard. Some of my favorite people and cohorts were gone.
And I realized I was probably not as safe where I was as I thought I had been.
But there was something I didn't know. I had a guardian angel, and she'd been watching me.
I'd stayed in touch with Alison - sort of a writer's equivalent of a fairy godmother, if that godmother is a Jewish lady who just wants you to write well and settle down - from the moment she'd left The Times to take a position in the Pacific Northwest and I'd considered her my mentor ever since she gave me my first shot writing as a freelancer for the Luxury Living section of the Shreveport daily.
Ya know those weekly 5 Things entries of how to break the bank in a single meal or spend the most money possible on a handbag? That was my start. And it was all because Alison gave me the chance and pushed me to keep going with it.
Not only was I keeping up with Alison, but Alison was keeping up with me.
And then one night, she mentioned that a position was open with the Yakima Herald-Republic and it was something she thought I ought to apply for.
It was around the middle of October and I was in the midst of prep for Tri-State, an annual convention some of us non-drinkers hold locally. My best friend, who moved to California in April, encouraged me to apply and at least see what the position had to offer.
So, I did.
I submitted my resume and examples of a few stories. And I just gave it all up to the higher power and waited to see what would happen.
And then they asked for more stories.
And examples of real-time reporting.
And more in-depth articles.
And in November, I got the call.
A guy named Craig wanted to have a telephone conversation with me and it was expected to take around half an hour.
I was in Fayetteville with my mom for Thanksgiving, so I told him to call any time. He did just that, and the two of us stayed on the phone for much longer than planned.
It was about two hours later that Alison called to tell me that the paper wanted to fly me up to Yakima. I was there for only a few hours when I realized I hadn't been brought there to be interviewed. I was there to interview them.
I fell in love with the city almost instantly.
It is breathtakingly beautiful, diverse and has a pervasive feeling of true significance.
What's more, I realized that accepting a job with the paper would mean that I would have the opportunity to be a real journalist. To take everything I've learned so far and apply it all with different people, in a different environment and with people who will really care to help me grow as a writer and journalist.
So, Mary Lois, here I am... sitting on my couch, looking around at the last of the furniture that hasn't been bought, the open boxes that need to be sealed and the other items that still have to be packed.
Tomorrow is my last day at The Times.
Monday morning I'll be driving away from Louisiana to live outside the state - for the first time in my entire life - and to continue doing what I can to do the only thing I've ever wanted to do: writing.
03 January 2017
No resolutions, no reservations
I didn't have any resolutions this year, but I was pretty sure I was going to be much better at writing here every day. If I'd resolved to post daily, I would already have failed.
Only six more days in Shreveport and I'm on the road to Yakima.
And the move drive out of town isn't coming soon enough.
I don't have the path totally picked and I don't have a single reservation made for any of my hotel/motel stays along the way.
But my apartment is ready and I've got about 30 percent of everything here packed and ready to roll.
Let me get through these next three days of work, a few more episodes of Dynasty season 8, a few more pages in the Jackie Collins book I'm reading and I'll be out of this place that I once loved so very much and have recently begun to really hate.
Come on, January 9.
Only six more days in Shreveport and I'm on the road to Yakima.
And the move drive out of town isn't coming soon enough.
I don't have the path totally picked and I don't have a single reservation made for any of my hotel/motel stays along the way.
But my apartment is ready and I've got about 30 percent of everything here packed and ready to roll.
Let me get through these next three days of work, a few more episodes of Dynasty season 8, a few more pages in the Jackie Collins book I'm reading and I'll be out of this place that I once loved so very much and have recently begun to really hate.
Come on, January 9.
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