This piece I felt came out strong, though the story was not the happiest to report. Thanks to photographer Ken Mostek for a great edit.
I can’t believe one year has passed since the biggest story I’ve ever covered. It was Feb. 19, 2010 when a man named Joseph Stack crashed his small plane into the Echelon Building in Austin, Tex. We later learned it was a suicide mission into a building with IRS workers inside. I have since moved on to Denver, Colo., and I know my profession will require me to cover more big stories, but this one, I will never forget.
<p style=”width:320px”>Pilot targets IRS in Austin, Texas: kxan.com</p>
Here’s my blog post from one year ago.
“Thursday, KXAN assigned me to a Texas Department of Public Safety Commission meeting to cover the latest security updates to the Texas State Capitol building. But phone calls started flooding the newsroom just after 10:00 a.m. that a plane crashed into the “Echelon Building” in North Austin. It had the stereotypical response of a reporter jumping at the chance to cover the story. I scrambled into a live truck to meet my photographer Mark Batchelder at the scene. He left about 30 minutes earlier to cover what we know now as Joe Stack’s house fire in North Austin.”
You can read the rest of the day’s events with the link below. Unfortunately the Youtube videos have been pulled, but you can see my description of the day I will never forget.
http://mattflener.posterous.com/a-reporters-perspective-on-the-austin-irs-pla
Here was a fun story my photographer Anne Herbst and I told tonight. A taxing piece to write, but she saved me with a great edit. I was extremely impressed by the National Western Stock Show and the hospitality of everyone there.
It may not seem like a big story, but it was for me. Because of this story, I received affirmation tonight that the freedom to ask questions of high-ranking officials in power really does affect change.
The University of Texas has taken a hard look at its past during the past two months.
It all started when KXAN learned about the story of William Stewart Simkins and the research of Thomas Russell, thanks to one of my sources in Austin.
Russell had uncovered the University of Texas had let thousands of students live in a dormitory named Simkins Hall for more than 50 years, without so much as telling them that Simkins was an admitted KKK member. Russell alleged UT officials brushed off Simkins’ past as a “colorful,” and said when he tried to confront University officials, they brushed him off too.
But Russell had published a new paper about Simkins’ past. I called him up and asked him to do a satellite interview from Denver, Colo., where he is currently a professor. Ironically, I am a reporter in the same town now.
Russell had stronger words to say in his interview than he did in his paper.
“It’s simply not appropriate for the University of Texas administrators to continue to honor a Klansman by keeping his name on a dormitory,” Russell told me.
So I called up UT’s Public Affairs office and started asking questions about Simkins Hall.
They provided me an interview with Dr. Gregory Vincent, UT’s Vice President of Diversity and Community Engagement. Vincent and his staff were very cordial, but he would not commit to renaming the dorm. He also said the dorm would come down at some point in the future and it would be a moot issue.
But after my interview, I still had questions. I wrote back, asking harder about why the University would continue to keep Simkins name on the dorm.
I got this response.
“Simkins’ affiliation with the Klan is deplorable and offensive, that is true,” said the division’s Associate Director of Communications Leslie Blair. “And although he was not memorialized with his name on a building until 1954, The University of Texas has since moved on.”
She also added this…
“To rename the building would set a huge precedent—one that could end up costing a great deal of money and time,” Blair said. “We feel that a better use of our time and money would be to continue to recruit and to provide programs that support more students, faculty, and staff from populations underrepresented at the University and to further a climate of inclusiveness and cultural diversity that looks to the future instead of dwelling on the past.”
Those comments, I believe, started a firestorm of online comments on KXAN’s web story. U.S. News and World Report, Huffington Post, even the Wall Street Journal picked up on the story.
About two weeks later, UT’s president asked Vincent and his staff to reconsider the name change and form a committee to study the issue.
Today, after the 21-member panel made its recommendation, Powers announced he will ask the UT Board of Regents to rename Simkins Hall.
It wasn’t just my story. It was a lot of stories putting pressure on UT to change. And it looks like it may happen.
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2010/07/09/simkins_residence_hall/
William Stewart Simkins was an admitted KKK member.
It took just more than two months. But this is a story I have followed ever since I left Austin.
