My birthday is Jan. 20.  Every four years, the nation stops its normal course of events and holds a parade and celebration.  The quadrennial festivities began, by coincidence, at the moment Dwight Eisenhower became the 34th president of the United States of America back in 1953.  Truly, a moment in history.  But, was either event an historic moment?  After 56 years of thoughtful consideration, I vote in the affirmative to both.

History, by its very definition, is in the past; therefore, an event of historic significance, be it my birth or the inauguration of a president, does not become a momentous occasion until after it occurs.  We can anticipate with great expectation the significance of a future event, but to do more is to wallow in the shallow pit of hyperbole.

And, the wallowing over the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the nation’s 44th chief executive has taken away some of the “historic” joy for me.  Here’s why I say this.  Three months before the Democratic National Convention, wide-eyed journalists gushed with school-girl giddiness over the fact that Mr. Obama would accept his party’s nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.  Yes, this would be a significant event in the histories of presidential politics and civil rights (USA Today termed it “serendipitous timing”), and the angle freshened an overly long story.  But, when journalists declared Obama the nominee (not “the presumptive nominee”), and brought to our attention the convergence of these two events, they smothered us with their unfettered excitement.  No fewer than 900 references to the serendipitous timing, but not with that wonderful phrase, turn up in a Google search for June 3-4.  Hundreds more show up in the days that followed.

Thank you for pointing it out, but stop beating me with it.

The same sentiment holds for the inauguration.  Today, just a few hours before the event, the forced creation of history by journalists and regular folks alike is making me want to turn away.  It’s like when your mother arranges a blind date with the daughter, or son, of a friend of a friend.  The build up rarely lives up to reality.

And, the sad thing is that the desire to be a part of any history is so strong with some people that they fail to see the irony in their words and actions.  Take this email describing the events at one Inauguration Day gathering in Houston: 

“The general plan is to commemorate the day with an ocular demonstration of ‘The Evolution of a Dream:  Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’ by simulcasting the swearing in of the 44th President who is a person of color.”  The follow-up email arrived a few days later with a flyer containing the Obama quote:  “This is not a White America.  This is not a Black America.  This is not a Latino America.  This is not an Asian America.  This is the United States of America.”

The new generation of journalists long for their own presidential Camelot.  Another Google search for the terms Obama and Camelot returns nearly a thousand hits.  The truth is that Camelot did not exist as a descriptive term for the shortened Kennedy administration until after the president’s assassination.  Also, keep in mind this bit of political irony purveyors of the New Camelot keep quiet:  Kennedy won the 1960 election thanks to some old-fashion Chicago vote-counting chicanery.

That historians will view my birthday this year as a significant day in the history of our nation is not totally a function of my being or of Mr. Obama’s racial mix.  The inauguration of the 44th president would have historic significance regardless of who won the election.  We could have had as president the first former prisoner of war, the first female, the first Mormon, the first Libertarian, the first former First Lady, the first cross-dressing former mayor, the first former preacher from Arkansas, the first former actor from Tennessee, the first Hispanic, the first president with hair plugs, the first . . . well, you get the idea.

My birthday and the national event that accompanies it this year are heady times, no doubt about it.  That’s why there’s something unseemly about all of the pre-birthday/inauguration hype.  Let the day be what it is to each person according to what’s important to that person.  It may be a day to celebrate the start of another year.  For some, the day may carry great ideological significance or racial pride.  And pride for others may be found in the peaceful transition of power that begins another chapter in our nation’s history. 

I intend to spend the day celebrating my birthday, celebrating a new president, and letting history sort out the significance of both.

The lead is one of the hardest, yet most essential, elements to a news story.  It sets the tone for the article and captures the reader’s interest by using a minimum number of words.  And speaking of minimum, the good lead offers, at minimum, the meat of the story: the who, the what, the when, and the where.  The why and the how come later.

Journalists learn lead writing in Journalism 101 classes.  They hone their skill through class assignments.  They perfect the art with the help of editors or producers.

So what happened at the Houston Chronicle last week?  Someone either (1) forgot how to write a lead or (2) the Chronicle, once again, demonstrated its penchant for shoddy writing and agenda journalism.  Of course, neither alternative is mutually exclusive.

Here’s what readers gleaned from the first three paragraphs of the front-page story of the city/state section under the headline, “Teen’s hanging in jail fuels many questions”:  17-year-old Arturo Chavez sat dead in solitary confinement in the Galveston County, Texas, jail after twisting a blanket into a noose around his neck within 48 hours of his arrest on an initial charge of making an illegal left turn.

Three paragraphs to tell us a 17-year-old may have committed suicide in the county jail after a traffic stop.

By the end of the fourth paragraph, the reader gets the idea this will not be a story about an apparent jail suicide, but rather a sob-sister account of an illegal alien from Guatemala who spent much of his time improving his English and working to send money to the folks back home.

The fifth graph introduces his older brother who says Chavez killed himself because he was “so beaten down he couldn’t take the pain.”  And then, if the reader had any doubts of the paper’s agenda, the sixth paragraph tosses them out by explaining that Chavez’s life was similar to those untold others who “live in the shadows” because of their immigration status.

Reading on in the eighth graph, we learn his parents filed a federal lawsuit against the police department, the county, and the county sheriff alleging authorities didn’t do enough to prevent the suicide.

The paper devotes the next 16 (count them, 16) paragraphs on Chavez’s dissatisfaction with his tips from loading baggage at a Guatemalan bus station; the 15 days he spent sneaking into Mexico and the U.S.; the $3,500 he and his family and friends forked over to coyotes; his rise from busboy to waiter at an unnamed restaurant owned by Mario Garcia (yes, the story named the owner, but not the restaurant); the $100 a week Chavez sent home; his classes to learn English; his pride of Guatemala, the U.S., and his Mayan heritage, his happiness with his 15-year-old girl friend; and his traffic stop.

Not until paragraph 25, more than halfway into the story, do we learn Chavez was in the U.S. illegally with no driver’s license or auto insurance, and in possession of a fake identification card.  And then, the paper takes two more paragraphs before describing how Chavez escaped from jail, scrambled up a wire-topped fence that cut his hands as he resisted arrest, and how police had to zap him twice with a taser and thwack him several times in the head with a baton before he gave up.

The remaining 16 paragraphs reflect the tone of the first 24 by painting an illegal immigrant who escaped from jail and resisted capture, who endangered lives and property, and who carried what may have been someone’s stolen identity as a hard worker whose poor family had to raise the cash to return his body to Guatemala.

There is nothing wrong with telling Chavez’s story to explain why the young man chose to kill himself rather than wait for the court to release him so he could continue his voluntary life in the shadows.  The Houston Chronicle, however, did a great disservice to its readers and to all legal immigrants and naturalized citizens by burying Chavez’s criminal activities and by portraying him as an innocent victim of a racist and uncaring society that beat him down until suicide was the only way to stop his pain.

I don’t have a problem with well-written, sob-sister, agenda journalism.  Just don’t put tripas on a plate and serve it as tournedos.

Every now and then, one has the opportunity to read the original story from one newspaper and the edited version carried by another newspaper.  This can lead to responses ranging from amusement to outrage.  Such was the case with a story that originally appeared in The New York Times (“Mexican Migrants Carry H.I.V. Home [www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/world/americas/17mexico.html?hp]) and which the Houston Chronicle (“Researchers fear AIDS crisis as migrants return to Mexico) extensively edited for its print edition.

Cutting a thousand words from a 1,300-word story is not easy if one tries to retain the original sense and credibility.  The Chronicle did poorly.  Here are some examples:

The Times story said, “As sweeping proposals for immigration-law changes founder in the United States, the expanding AIDS crisis among the migrants is largely overlooked on both sides of the border.”  The Chronicle edited the sentence to read, “As immigration reform founders, the expanding AIDS crisis among the migrants goes virtually unaddressed on both sides of the border.”

The terms “largely overlooked” and “virtually unaddressed” are not synonymous.  The Times piece tells us government and health officials have not given much thought to the significance of AIDS among Mexicans working illegally in the U.S., while the Chronicle’s edited version implies policy makers know about the situation and refuse to do anything about it.

The next sentences in the Times story point out that, “Particularly in Mexico, AIDS is still shrouded by stigma and denial.  In the United States, it is often assumed that immigrants bring diseases into the country, not take them away.”  The Chronicle story says simply, “In Mexico, AIDS is shrouded by denial.”  The paper cut the rest of the paragraph.

The word “particularly” in the Times story is of particular importance, as is the word “stigma” that the Chronicle editors deleted.  This is because the Times story refers later to studies that show one in ten Mexicans working illegally in Los Angeles and hanging around job-pickup sites are so desperate for money that they perform oral and anal sex for cash.  The Chronicle deliberately deleted all references to homosexuality and its “stigma” among Mexicans, thereby eliminating gay sex as one reason for the spread of AIDS in Mexico.  The Chronicle also removed the sentence regarding the assumption that “immigrants bring diseases” into the U.S.  By now, one suspects the Houston paper is pushing a political agenda.

The Times story goes on to note that a new study found the greatest risk of contracting AIDS faced by rural Mexican women having sex with their returning husbands is the refusal of their spouses to use condoms.  The Chronicle rewrite, however, placed the blame on “the women’s inability to insist that their husbands use condoms.”

The Times story points out that “AIDS has not yet exploded in Mexico and is focused mostly among prostitutes and their clients, and drug users and gay men.”  The Chronicle turned “prostitutes” into “sex workers” and edited out their customers.

The Chronicle also left out some additional relevant information, such as the percentage of Mexicans with HIV who used to live in the U.S. fluctuated between 41 percent and 79 percent in the 1980s and early 1990s; the percentage of illegal workers from Mexico in Los Angeles who take money to participate in gay sex; and that Mexico’s northern and southern borders are magnets for prostitutes and drug dealers drawn by migrating illegal workers entering and leaving the country.

The Times put its warm and fuzzy spin on the story by using the term “migrant workers” when referring to illegal immigrants.  It further attempted to evoke sympathy for these individuals by telling us they are “displaced” from their homes.  Victims of natural disasters or wars are displaced from their homes; these folks left of their own volition.

Probably the most tortured phrases came when the Times quoted a researcher who tried to explain why these workers do who they do.  According to the researcher, they are vulnerable, isolated, exposed to different sexual practices, hampered by language barriers, depressed, lonely, and abused.

But the worst aspect of both articles is the subtle implication that illegal immigrants come to the U.S. disease free and return to Mexico with AIDS and HIV without infecting anyone in this country.  It is ludicrous to believe they have sex only with prostitutes who give them AIDS or, in some cases, become prostitutes for men who give them AIDS.

In the end, a story giving the sad and disturbing truth about the spread of HIV/AIDS among the returning illegal immigrants and their families turned into a justification for their philandering and an indictment against our nation for not having the programs in place to make them less vulnerable, less isolated, and less likely to hook up with a hooker or to bend over for a buck.

Yes, it is a horrible problem, but it is not our fault.

Mundus vult decipi