Houston.BloggersPub

To promote the Bellaire Home Tour, the Houston Chronicle does a nice profile on Houston surgeon Dr. Joe Agris. We learn how he and KTRK Action 13 consumer icon Marvin Zindler met at the beginning of the article:

In 1977, Dr. Joseph Agris spent four months and $30,000 getting ready to help a little girl who was born without a nose.

He ordered the appropriate tests. He did the preliminary exams. And he made arrangements with the world’s leading expert in craniofacial surgery to fly from Paris to Houston to handle the surgery.

Just days before all that was supposed to come together at The Methodist Hospital, Agris turned on the 10 o’clock news and saw that same little girl boarding a plane to Dallas to have the procedure done there.

At least in Agris’ mind, there was no question who was responsible for the change in plans. He was Marvin Zindler, the man in the white wig and blue glasses at Channel 13, Eyewitness News.

Agris grabbed the child’s thick medical file, drove to the TV station, and slammed the papers on Zindler’s desk.

“We had everything set to go for this little girl, but you didn’t know that because all you wanted was the picture!”

Not to mention, Agris thought, the publicity. And the credit.

The plastic surgeon stomped out of the office. Zindler called him a few hours later.

He said, “We have other kids who need help.”

RELATED
Everything I have ever written about Marvin Zindler

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The Star Trek Borg ship looking communications building at the University of Texas is going bye bye. In its place will be a new state of the art building named the Belo Center for New Media. Belo is the parent company of WFAA, KHOU, KENS and KVUE:

The five story, $50 million, 120,000 square foot building will have state of the art classrooms, production labs and a multimedia digital newsroom.

It will also become home to KUT, Austin’s public radio station.

Just to give you some perspective — here’s why this is so important.

The current college of communications opened in 1974 with the idea to serve a thousand students.

Today, there are more than 4,200 students who attend class in that building.

The Belo Center for New Media is scheduled to open in June 2012.

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Newspapers across Texas are bringing home the awards this weekend from The Texas Associated Press Managing Editors. SEE THE WINNERS

Congrats to T.J. Aulds of the Galveston County Daily News by the way.

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Wow. First Hudson and Harrigan and now Robb Walsh! That’s right, the Houston Press food critic is leaving (sort of) to pursue a freelance writing career according to the newspaper:

Eating…Our Words must sadly announce that our intrepid food writer Robb Walsh is moving to freelance status.

While he’ll no longer be a member of our full-time staff, Walsh pledges to complete his list of 100 favorite Houston dishes for us.

And don’t be surprised to see the occasional blog post from him either as he tours the state while researching his next (there’s always a next) cookbook. He may have some print features in store for us as well. READ THE REST

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Jeanne Jakle tells us that WOAI 4 chief meteorologist Jennifer Broome is leaving the station.

She has been at the San Antonio station since June of 2000.

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YouTube is a great resource to get video online, but even it doesn’t always have the clip you are looking for. That’s where Redlasso comes in.

I just so happened to blog about Redlasso signing up with the Fox TV group exactly one year ago! Wild. But the site lets you edit your own clip from Fox and a bunch of other programming too. Then you can put that video on a blog or a social networking account. Redlasso’s Gabriela Herbas talked to me about the potential she sees the site offering bloggers and other web users.

Mike McGuff: What is Redlasso and which media does it partner with?
Gabriela Herbas: Lets say you are watching FOX Chicago (as an example) covering Obama’s speech on Health Care and there’s this one portion where he talks about “federal subsidies” that you wish you could add to your blog. You can search the actual spoken word of the raw broadcast content on Redlasso, clip the specific portion you want, and add it to your blog (we provide you with the embed code, the link, shortcuts to add to twitter/facebook, etc) It’s so easy, and even better yet… it’s completely FREE! You can also search our clip library, but if you can’t find what you need, you can clip it yourself, moments after it airs on TV. We have licensed local news content from many of the Top 50 US major cities, some radio stations, and clip content from Wendy Williams, Lou Dobbs Radio, Governor Mike Huckabee and more.

MM: Why did the site go away for a while?
GH: As some may know, we did a Beta about two years ago and the story was very interesting. We were really trying to demonstrate our technology and provide a solution for broadcasters to better monetize their content, while giving web editors and consumers a better way to share broadcast content, all at the same time. For that purpose the Beta was very successful, and it was done in a very open way with all of the broadcasters. However, sometimes the right hand doesn’t always talk to the left hand very well. Our legal issues were resolved very quickly, and we secured our first licensing agreement for Television content with the entire Fox Stations Group. This was and remains amazing, and truly validates our platform and our mission. We spent a considerable amount of time redesigning the site, and even while we were preparing for a re-launch, more stations have partnered with us. We now have license to over 115 TV and Radio sources, many already available, some are still being integrated as we speak. We re-launched the platform officially in October of 2009, and things are growing every day.

MM: What features are on the site now?
GH: I’m glad you asked this because our core features are so different from anything else out there in the video space, sometimes… it’s just hard for people to visualize what we have. I like to describe it as being like: your DVR, meets search engine, meets YouTube. We are NOT just a clip site for video clips. You can actually MAKE the clips on the site. There is no uploading process. We actually store up to two weeks of the RAW and nearly LIVE television news-cast content. We have facilities all over the country that are indexing this content by the spoken word. So when you go to the “Make A Clip” tab at the top of the page, you can select a source or city, narrow in your time frame, put in your search terms, and the player actually delivers you to where that content was said in broadcast… with video. Like if you could search your DVR by the spoken word. Then, you can actually “clip” the part you want to share. Set the “in” and “out” points, hit save… and you’ve now got an embeddable and linkable clip to share. It’s pretty amazing actually… and fun!

Once you have the clip, the player menu provides you with the embed code of your clip, the link, an e-mail option, and shortcuts to social networking sites such as facebook and twitter.

MM: And you can make your own RSS feed?
GH: Yes, in a pretty unique way too. So, the top half of the site layout is really centered around the experience of making a clip. The lower half of the site is really the clips that are created and being shared by the other users. You can execute any search for clips, and add any filters by Category or even city… and once you get your results, click the RSS logo, and it will generate an RSS feed on the fly for that result set. If you want a politics feed, then just click “Politics”, then click the RSS icon… done.

There is another RSS icon at the top of the site, that allows you to enter some custom fields, then “generate” a feed that way too.

MM: Who is your target user?
GH: Even in the YouTube world, there are uploaders and viewers… those who want to consume, and those that want to be the “editors”. We tend to gravitate to Bloggers, Columnists, Newspapers, News, Politics and Entertainment sites, however… anyone can use the site. We recognize that by simply having a Facebook account, you have the power to be your own “editor” of your space. You have the power to share and comment on broadcast news content. Redlasso gives you the ability to not just consume clips, but to create the clip that interests you most, in the way you want to share. If I want my clip 5 seconds shorter than yours, to streamline the message in a new way… I can do that on Redlasso.

I think our demo video is helpful too. You can read about what we do, but to see it is even better. http://www.redlasso.com/player.htm?id=e6643c3d-b952-49fd-928b-e1437c2f9cc9

http://www.redlasso.com/

> Mike McGuff Blog

 
Hello all,
New show! YAY!! First show of the 2010 season.
Show notes:
Lambo and I discuss the new season as Philly girl lurks in the background
Around the MLB, how will the league fare out this season
Astros talk:  Will the astros do good, will they finish above .500?  Should we as fans have lowered expectations
Your comments are always welcome… […]

Anytime I have an excuse to post about KDAF 33’s Candice Crawford (Which Hollywood star is her brother?) I’m taking it because she brings in the readers. She has a new show in Dallas on 33 called The RC Project with other host Roni Proter.

The show airs at 5:30pm weekdays I think. Based on the show’s Web site I am not in the target demographic (or maybe I secretly am!):

Roni Proter and Candice Crawford are your lifestyle experts who will keep you ‘in the know’ of everything that’s hip ad cool right now. Let them be your resource to fashion and beauty trends, where to dine and shop, and how to live your most fabulous life! SEE MORE

Uncle Barky reviewed the show and started it out like this, “Resembling a public access TV pilot from Poughkeepsie — only infinitely worse — CW33’s The RC Project somehow premiered Monday in the nation’s fifth-largest TV market.” READ THE FULL REVIEW

You can watch a segment from the show below and judge for yourself.

One has to wonder if a show like this will appear on Houston station KIAH 39? Main anchor Mia Gradney is already positioned to host something like this.

> Mike McGuff Blog

Starting at 4:30am is not early enough for Fox 26 KRIV. The big buzz on the streets of Houston is that Fox 26 is starting its morning newscast at 4am from now on. The new time starts this coming Monday I believe.

That is pretty amazing since the station ends its morning news at 10am! Yeah so now KRIV starts before any other TV station in Houston and runs local news during the other station’s newscasts, network morning shows and syndicated programming. Wow.

But wait there’s more! Supposedly main anchor Melissa Wilson is moving to the morning show in a few weeks too. Good choice. I think Wilson will make a very good morning anchor. Lots of viewers will probably like waking up with her (if she has kids she probably likes the morning shift after working nights all of these years too). This move also makes sense because Sibila Vargas has been the only female presence during that long stretch of news.

That means Melinda Spaulding is anchoring the 5pm hour and the 9pm hour in Wilson’s place with Mike Barajas. Another good move. If anyone can fill Wilson’s shoes it would have to be Spaulding. She’s got the looks and the natural anchoring ability down. When I first saw her show up at Fox 26, I felt there were big things in her future.

RELATED
New Fox 26 KRIV anchor/reporter is Natalie Bomke from Fox 40 KTXL

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The day after the shock of Hudson and Harrigan being taken off the air at 100.3 KILT, we remember the original guys to play the famous morning team duo - Mark Stevens and Jim Pruett.

Former Rock 101 KLOL news anchor Laurie Kendrick writes an amazing piece on her blog about working on the Stevens and Pruett show. It is one of the best pieces I have seen about the former rock station and its famous morning team.

I’m not even block quoting from it, JUST GO READ IT FOR YOURSELF.

When you finish reading Kendrick’s post, then listen to Stevens and Pruett as Hudson and Harrigan on 610 KILT from 1977.

RELATED
- What about a Rock 101 KLOL documentary?
- Former KLOL rocker Dayna Steele wants to help you publish a book

> Mike McGuff Blog