Startlegram

That's what the locals call the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Startlegram. So, yesterday I verbalized my slight umbrage at the Star-Telegram's purple prose regarding America's Team: The Dallas Cowboys. I said something about how that paper regularly annoys me.

And then I got feedback via email from my Eyes on Texas website and the page I added yesterday about "America's Team" about my amusement at the articles in the Startlegram. A couple of the feedback emails asked what other examples of goofiness I've seen in that notorious paper.

Well.

Probably the worst was when downtown Fort Worth opened a food court called the Sante Fe Rail Market. The Star-Telegram turned Chamber of Commerce propaganda booster and repeated in article after article that this lame little market was the first public market in Texas, that it was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market and markets in Europe. Of course, being from the Seattle zone that set up some high expectations for me. When it opened I visited the Santa Fe Rail Market and webpaged what I saw. I could not believe a newspaper would so misrepresent something to this extent. Had no one on that paper been to Seattle? Did they not realize that some of their readers may have been to or were from Seattle and would know how ridiculous it was to say this little food court type thing was modeled after Pike Place? Even after this was pointed out to the Star-Telegram the erroneous propaganda continued to be repeated.

And then I found out that not only was this soon to fail lame thing not the first public market in Texas it wasn't even the first one in Fort Worth! It was as if no one on the Star-Telegram had even been to the Dallas Farmers Market, a location that actually does resemble Pike Place.

Let's move on to another example of what a bad newspaper this is.

A sporting goods store named Cabela's wanted to open a store in Fort Worth. Cabela's wanted tax breaks and other incentives. Cabela's PR told the powers that be in Fort Worth, including the Star-Telegram, that Cabela's would be the #1 Tourist Attraction in Texas. This was repeated ad nauseum in the Star-Telegram, which never once questioned the absurdity of the premise. One of their more idiotic columnists, I won't name him, suffice to say he shares a last name with a president who was killed in the big city to the east of here. The number of supposed 'tourists' at Cabela's ranged from 5 million to this bad columnist's high of 8 million. When I pointed out to him how absurd this was, via email, he told me I must hate business. So, Cabela's got its tax break, Fort Worth got snookered and Cabela's is now open and has performed so poorly there have been a lot of layoffs and they had to return incentive money to Fort Worth because Cabela's did not perform as advertised. And Cabela's has opened another store in Austin! Cabela's must have left that planned store out of the info they gave Fort Worth when conning them with the "Top Tourist Attraction in Texas" nonsense.

Another example of this irresponsible newspaper's knack for being a bit lacking with facts---River Legacy Park opened a new section of the park a couple years ago on the north side of the Trinity River. A new pedestrian/bike bridge connected the old trail with the new. The new trail added about 4 miles. The new trail and bridge was open and being used for months before the park declared it done. The Star-Telegram reported this by describing, wrongly, that a final mile of trail had been completed and opened connecting the River Legacy trails to 360. (360 is a highway that bi-sects the D/FW Metroplex). Now, I had already been pedaling to the end of this new trail for months. I knew it did not end at 360.

So, the very day after the Star-Telegram printed this false information, incorrectly describing the River Legacy Trail, I pedaled the new trail. At the end of the trail, at the 7 mile marker, there was a guy. He had jogged to the end. I stopped. He asked me how you get to 360 from there? He said he thought the trail went to 360. I asked him if he read that in the Startlegram. He said yes. I told him you can not trust what you read in that paper, that I highly doubted if they had any reporters who were sufficiently non lard assed enough to actually see a trail for themselves. This guy had told friends that he would be on an overpass on 360 when they returned from the airport. I let him use my cell phone to leave a message for his incoming friends.

Okay, I've got more of these type things in my memory bank, but it is time for Amazing Race.