Briar Patch
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Of the nation's journalism reviews, HJR probably reflects the most extensive involvement on the part of broadcast people, or so believes Randy Covington, news director at the local ABC PM outlet, KAUM, and a vital force behind the Review. Much attention is paid to the electronic media, and radio and television folk contribute heavily in writing and editing. There are three editors for any given issue; they each serve three months running, on a staggered basis. Thus, a television newsman learns entirely new skills while sharing the helm with more experienced editors. Says Covington: "We've developed some fantastic editing talent this way. Sometimes we pay the price a bit in quality, but we've gained much more."
Susan Caudill says the Review's standards are often higher than those of the local dailies. "A reporter will usually do more rewriting and reworking for us than they would ever have to do in their own shop."
"I was getting so damn depressed before the Review," she added. "There was no spark, no outlet for people's energy. It's just the opposite with HJR. There's cooperation and excitement."
There are those who are not so enthusiastic, to be sure. A major criticism raised with the very first issue stimulated debate among the staff. The inaugural number included an article on the then recent struggle for American Newspaper Guild representation at the Post. The piece, highly critical of Post management, was written by Post reporters Caudill and Darrell Hancock. Chronicle scribe Steve Singer had an article in the same issue dealing with the Chronicle's handling of a story that he, Singer, had worked on. The critics felt the Review lost credibility by assigning reporters to write about situations in which they were themselves directly involved. HJR staffers accepted this criticism as generally valid and now seem to make a rule of writing only about institutions other than those where they work.
The most common early criticism was sloppiness. If you're going to set yourselves up as judges of the media, said some, you simply can't make any mistakes yourselves. The opposing argument posited that professionalism would come with practice and time, and that even an imperfect publication would serve an important role by raising issues and fomenting debate.
Steve Singer, who is now a reporter for Dallas television station KERA's Newsroom program, writes about the HJR experience in the first issue of the Dallas Journalism Review: "Perhaps the single most alarming aspect of what we had done, in the eyes of our colleagues, was consider the notion that our allegiance rested with our craft, and not necessarily with our employer. Heresy. What we'd done had made things uncomfortable in the newsrooms, and for this, some of our cohorts could never forgive us."
The Dallas Journalism Review is being edited by Colleen O'Connor, 23, a former UPI reporter. The Dallas publication has a magazine-type format and is printed on heavy stock paper. Unlike the Houston effort, DJR was not primarily instigated by members of the working press. It was inspired, in fact, by a citizens' group calling itself Free Flow of Information.
"I was skeptical at first," says Colleen O'Connor, "But it appears the time is really ripe. People are disgruntled, and willing to do something about it."
The situation in Dallas is tense enough that the DJR is not requiring its contributors to use bylines. In fact, Dallas Times Herald editor Felix McKnight was so incensed with the first issue that he sent a copy boy around to collect complimentary copies that had been placed on reporter's desks and then called an editorial meeting to denounce the upstart publication. DJR's lead item was a behind-the-scenes account of the Times Herald's probable plans to kick McKnight upstairs in favor of young, handsome LBJ protege Tom Johnson.
If the sparks keep flying in Dallas, the DJR may have a tough row to hoe. But who knows, maybe a lanky politician will crash their first anniversary bash.
PETS IN PARADISE
From the outside, the Pet Hotel looks like a very small hotel. Constructed of dark brown brick with a circular driveway graced by poodle-cut pittosporum and monkey grass, it is located on Royalton just off Chimney Rock ("on the fringe of the Magic Circle" the brochures say) in one of those as yet uncompartmentalized areas of Houston. There is an S.E. Teaff warehouse a block away but across the street is, appropriately enough, a stable of horses and a rooster which often crows at approaching Pet Hotel custo mers. Perhaps he wants in, who knows? There is a red and white flourescent sign atop the building announcing, like those "EAT" signs, "Pet Hotel."
You enter Pet Hotel through its nine-foot, carved wooden doors to find a world of Mexican tile, overhanging chandelier, sunken lobby, Muzak, and a smiling face behind the front desk inquiring, "Would you like regular accommodations, a split-level suite, or our Pampered Pet Care?" All this and cookie snacks, too, await PooPoo, Andromache and Deidre, as well as Romeo the goldfish (if you can carry the tank), and Delbert your duck. Your pet will be registered at the hotel's desk on a guest card. Information included on the card: services desired, pet's favorite snack, mealtimes, diet, and the particular form of attention that is gratifying to the pet's ego ("likes to have her ears massaged" or "enjoys a gentle scratching on his tummy").
Pet Hotel is the brainchild of Irvin A. Harrison, an ambitious young man who spent three years researching the pet market and traveling across the country inspecting kennels before deciding how the hotel should be designed and convincing investors that the need was there waiting to be served.
"We are not veterinarians here," Harrison says. "We will not accept an animal who is not vaccinated or who has any kind of skin disorder. In fact, we will even turn away a pet that is excessively dirty, or that, say, has not been bathed in a year. Cleanliness is the basis of our operation. It will be the key to our long term success."
And if cleanliness will do it, they ought to make it. The place is spotless. After touring the accommodations, which potential customers are invited to do ("We're going to remove that aura of mystery always prevalent in the kennel business," says Harrison. "No more closed doors.") you begin to miss a certain something which you had previously associated with any confined animal—the smell. It seems the air has been charged with negative electrons which kill the smell-producing bacteria. When asked how that is done, Harrison replies, "Very expensively." Whatever charging the air with negative electrons means, and however it's done, it does seem to work. You can't help wondering, though, if the pets can smell their own; and if they don't, do they long to.
There is a sober and dedicated seriousness about the operation. You'd think they were curing cancer there when they describe how they bathe their dogs in foamy coconut-based shampoo, then fluff dry them by hand on a grooming table. And when Harrison spots a pile in one of the dog's "suites" and close examination reveals that it has been disturbed, he exclaims, "We thought Herbie had been eating his droppings. Dogs will do that, you know, and it makes them sick. You see, we were right." You feel obliged to examine Herbie's stool, as Herbie prances about unapologetically, because it all seems so important.
Pet Hotel will take any pet they can handle, even goats. Monkeys, however, are out. They accepted one just once. "No more," says Harrison. "They are uncontrollable and they smell. Monkeys and male cats are by far the biggest odor producing animals." And woe to the odor producing in an operation that sells itself primarily on its cleanliness.
Cats are housed in a room kept constantly at 50 per cent humidity and 78 degrees, "an atmosphere they do well in." The birdroom is canary yellow. Hamster cages and aquariums are kept in the same room. All the rooms are distinctly shut off and squared away so that if an animal gets loose, it won't have far to run. There is a coffee shop for owners (Koffee Kennel) and a special "Poochie Penthouse" right by the front desk with fireplace, furniture, rugs, and big windows all around for the nervous pet who needs acclimatizing.
In the pet boutique, you can buy Itch Rid, Breath Deodorant, and rhinestone-studded gold-filled collars. There is Hairlax by the bottle for "regularity and catball elimination" and Doggy french fries whose ingredients are beef hide, salt, vegetable oil and preservatives, nary a potato in sight. There is a Doggie Dooley red plastic fireplug, combinating piddling post and pet toy chest as well as Petite Panties for those times of the month, and Puppy Potty paper which is impregnated with ascent that invites puppies to piddle properly.
Actually, the hype of the Pet Hotel is worse than its reality. It's a nice place, not unduly expensive if you leave off the frills and certainly, as advertised, clean. They like pets out there, and probably if you ask your veterinarian he'll tell you he boards healthy animals only as a service to his regular customers and that he'd really rather not if he didn't think he had to. And if your pet really needs those stewed apricots and a belly rub, you may begin to think…well, why not?
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