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October 16, 2005

Blogbat Publicitus Weekly Roundup II

 

 

In case you’re all wondering what I’ve been up to, much is the answer. You might find a couple of my adventures this week to be of moderate interest:

 

Monday I attended the Stephen A. Philbin Media Awards luncheon hosted by the Dallas Bar. Our featured keynote speaker was none other than former Secretary of State, James A. Baker III, who gave an interesting talk covering everything from Al Qaeda to gas prices to China. Of course there was some buzz about Harriet Miers, particularly since she served as former president for both the Dallas Bar and the Texas state Bar. Her name seemed to draw polite applause when it was mentioned from the podium and murmurs at the table.

 

That wasn’t the only topic at the table of course. We had two journalists from the Dallas Morning News dining with us as well; one a crime reporter, the other having just returned from covering New Orleans. The latter had some quite interesting tales to tell – and later that evening an award for a piece she had done earlier that year. The Dallas Morning News of course still suffering the embarrassing blow of having to repay advertisers after it was learned its circulation numbers were bloated.

 

A friend of mine who used to work for the paper says the management-top-heavy company still hasn’t learned anything yet. Beyond there being too many chiefs and not enough Indians at the company, they still haven’t lifted a finger to prepare for the demands of the 21st Century, as if in denial that they are quickly becoming an antique. The friend, who also has worked for other Belo holdings he says were suffering similar problems told me that another such outlet in trouble for many of the same reasons was TXCN Texas Cable News. He predicts that as long as the companies continue to run things like the federal government, they’ll continue to suffer layoffs and other woes.

 

Wednesday I dropped in at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas to hear W. Michael Cox, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist speak over lunch. Richard W. Fisher, President and CEO of the Dallas Fed also spoke briefly. The talks were interesting, but not nearly so much so as the food, the literature or the company.

 

Before we were escorted into the dining hall I did manage to pick up something published by the Dallas Fed about China. The shiny new publication was chock full of ways the venturing investor could take advantage of Chinese workers currently being exploited by their government to help bankroll the Communist state’s military buildup. Of course, it wasn’t exactly laid out in this fashion. Not much mentioned either about the government’s harvesting of organs from political dissidents, bulldozing of churches, rampant infanticide or that nasty habit of supplying Iran and North Korea with all sorts of duel-use technology. Nor any mention of the duel-use potential of the technology we are shipping over there for them to cheaply assemble.

 

As for the luncheon, turnout was great; the fact that I was the only guy at a table that seats 8 that happened to be seating 7 charming and delightful gals wasn’t so bad either. During our introductions one of the more fascinating tales to emerge was that of one of the women who had just returned from Jordan where she worked for an Arab-Israeli magazine. During her time working near Amman, she managed even to learn some Arabic. But the other stories at the table were also interesting ones.

 

Posted by Martin at October 16, 2005 11:25 PM

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