{"id":666,"date":"2020-03-31T13:24:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T18:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fredmcghee.com\/?p=666"},"modified":"2020-04-01T08:23:54","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T13:23:54","slug":"on-the-25th-anniversary-of-selenas-death-my-april-1995-letter-to-the-corpus-christi-caller-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fredmcghee.com\/?p=666","title":{"rendered":"On the 25th Anniversary of Selena’s Death\u2014My April 1995 Letter to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Selena, like Sam Cooke over 30 years before, was murdered in a seedy wrong-side-of-town motel 25 years ago today. In response to those tragic events I wrote the following letter to the editor. To my surprise, the newspaper did publish an edited version of it. It is written from the standpoint of a young naval officer in the early stages of transitioning back to civilian life who had been stationed in the city for two years but who essentially knew nothing about Selena<\/a>. I felt bad about that. I felt even worse about the fact that racist Corpus Christi and its institutions should have known more about the truly international stature of this remarkable young woman, who was taken from us much too soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the Editor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would appear that David House would have us believe that critics of Caller-Times <\/em>coverage of the Selena shooting are merely “blaming the messenger instead of the message.” Mr. House rejects the thesis that coverage of the incident was exploitative and commercial. Selena’s death certainly was news; no one can doubt that. Unfortunately an examination of the Caller-Times’ <\/em>reactionary response to this tragedy reveals that commercial considerations played a considerable role and that the paper was largely surprised to find that Selena was as popular as she was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The\nQueen of Tejano Music” and “The Latin Madonna” were\nsome of the descriptions I read of Selena in national newspapers such\nas the San\nFrancisco Examiner <\/em>and\nThe\nNew York Times <\/em>when\nnews of her death broke. One would think that a woman who had\nascended to such heights in the Hispanic Community would be admired,\nperhaps even worshipped, in her hometown; unfortunately that wasn’t\nthe case. Selena has received more news coverage (and more focus has\nbeen placed on her life story) in the past few weeks than when she\nwas alive. That this is to be expected of papers like the New\nYork Times<\/em>\n goes without saying; that coverage of this Latin mega-star was not\neven worthy of consistent front page coverage in the Caller-Times<\/em>\n(in fact coverage of her, and of Tejano music in general, is often\nrelegated to the “Living” or “Local” portion or\nthe “Tejano Beat” section) is deeply disturbing and reveals\nsome fundamental truths about the newspaper and this city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many\nnon-Hispanics didn’t even know who Selena was. I didn’t. Many view\nthe Tejano subculture as a curiosity, a sort of weird hybrid. Others\nsimply don’t care for the music. So how is it that People<\/em>\nMagazine<\/em>\nhas now released a special version dedicated to Selena for release in\nthe Southwest? Is it because they cared about her and her music all\nalong? And how is it that the Caller-Times<\/em>,\nin the words of Mr. House, now decides that “It is no small\ndecision to decide to publish a section, such as Como\nla Flor,<\/em>\nthat carries no advertising, no “‘paid space.'” when it\ncould have published something like it while Selena was still alive? \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nthe death of Selena and the subsequent media feeding frenzy that\nHow do viagra from canadian pharmacies<\/a> these people get their grimy hands on your email address. Learning becomes a collaborative, goal-oriented task rather than a generalized desire to overnight cialis tadalafil why not check here<\/a> ‘stay current.’ At a more mundane level, leaders must tend to the organizational structures that support continuous learning, squeezing time out of a busy schedule, collecting and disseminating information that accurately tracks the organization’s performance, and creating forms of governance that support collective inquiry. European doctors have used healing online cialis sale<\/a> mineral water extensively. These web medical stores will free viagra 100mg<\/a> then provide you the right advice. <\/span>ensued, who did the national media initially turn to to find out\nabout the local “beat?” Why their affiliates and\ncolleagues at the Caller-Times<\/em>\nof course. The paper must certainly have been excited and grateful\nfor the exposure. The seeds of self-congratulation are already\nevident in Mr. House’s writing: “The reporters and editors who\nworked harder than I’ve seen this staff work in my seven years here\nwere focusing strictly on news value as they struggled to cover a\nrare confluence of stories that had international interest.” I\nguess “The Latin Madonna” wasn’t worthy of consistent front\npage coverage while she was alive. Not even in her own hometown. It\nwill be interesting to see how this careerist posing cloaked in\nvirtue plays out in the coming months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did\nthe\nCaller-Times<\/em>\n completely ignore Selena while she was alive? Of course not. But\nas the deification of her legacy continues, how is it that an\ninternational superstar of her stature, one of the most prominent\n(Hispanic) citizens of this community, a local\ngirl made good\ncould be so consistently overlooked in her own community? Maybe\ntelling her story would have been boring. She never seemed to be a\nbig deal here. Sure, her public service announcements were nice, but\nthat doesn’t sell newspapers. In fact, the safe anonymity (amongst\nmost non-Hispanics, at any rate) she enjoyed in Corpus Christi seemed\nto be something Selena simultaneously relished and wondered about. \nIt’s possible that the Caller-Times\n<\/em>simply\ndidn’t think coverage of Selena was newsworthy. The reasons behind a\ndecision like that are of no small interest and are something worth\nexploring….. Nevertheless, if the paper did think that covering\nSelena while she was alive wasn’t “news” it sure thinks so\nnow. If the Caller-Times<\/em>\nhad wanted to more vigorously promote Selena’s uplifting story it\ncertainly wouldn’t have had to look very far. That it took her death\nfor the Caller\n-Times<\/em>\nto discover what a wonderful person she was is unfortunate. But then\nagain that’s the whole point of journalism in the first place, isn’t\nit? Going out to\nget\nstories and not waiting for them to come to you…. Especially since\n“Newspaper journalists get into this business because they are\ndriven by curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, and the desire to help\npeople.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

F.\nMcGhee<\/p>\n