Learning, recharging at annual convention

I’m like the kid in that proverbial candy store this week, unable to decide which tempting morsel to sample first.
My brain receptors and neurotransmitters are completely overstimulated from three days spent with Texas Press Association friends, old and new. 
First, a disclaimer: I had very little to do with the planning or execution of TPA’s 2019 Convention & Trade Show, nor can I claim any responsibility for its success. So when I proclaim it a success—and a stunning one – I take absolutely no credit.
And second, an admission: If I had to pick one thing I learned over those three days, I could not. I returned home with my thoughts in full churn—like the rushing water of a creek after a thunderous downpour.
I tell my friends that newspaper publishers, editors and reporters are the most interesting people I know…both knowledgeable and curious, with a thousand questions, and a thousand stories to tell because they asked them. My hunger for good conversation, well-seasoned with humor and provocation, has been temporarily sated.
A few quick and somewhat random thoughts:
In our Jan. 24 Legislative Advisory Committee meeting, TPA Executive Vice President Donnis Baggett reported that nearly 500 bills already had been filed by the Texas Senate, and over 1,200 by the Texas House. Sixteen days into the 86th session of the Texas Legislature, 54 bills had already assigned to TPA’s watch list for their potential impact—good or bad—on government transparency and public access to information, and on our ability to do our jobs. 
The work being done on our behalf by Baggett, with the able assistance of Member Services Director Ed Sterling and our professional lobbyist, Laura Prather of Haynes & Boone, LLP, is perhaps the single-most important service this association provides its members, and one in which we should be actively engaged. Leonard Woolsey’s admonition published in last month’s Messenger, to cultivate working relationships with our state lawmakers, is worthy of repeating. Those legislators depend on us to communicate with their constituents. They should know our names and faces. They should also be willing to hear our concerns about the effect legislation will have on our newspapers, and our communities—and should expect to hear from us in print, if they aren’t.
On a personal note, Donnis is also a 2019 inductee into the Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame, along with The Rockdale Reporter’s Bill Cooke and the late Barney Hubbs, co-founder of The Pecos Gusher and Ector County News. No man has ever been more deserving of the honor than Donnis—a fierce and effective defender of transparency and press freedom, and a dear friend and advisor.
It was particularly satisfying to see so many rise from their seats during Friday’s opening luncheon when I asked our convention first-timers to stand. Many of them were young, and I assume many were relative newcomers to the newspaper business. Regardless, the sheer number of them was a staunch rebuke of the tired notion that newspapers are dying, and an affirmation of the convention’s theme, that community journalism matters. 
I was even more pleased to be told by many of those young(er) journalists that they had enjoyed and learned a great deal from the sessions and speakers, and were looking forward to returning next year.
A further rebuke—and a forceful one—was offered by another speaker and the 2019 winner of the Texas Newspaper Foundation’s Legacy Award, retired CBS news anchor and chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer. After accepting the award, Schieffer wasted no words. 
“Newspapers are what separates a totalitarian society from a democracy,” he said. “In a totalitarian society, only the government gives out the news. I don’t think there’s anybody in this room—I don’t think there’s anybody in America—who thinks that’s the way to go.”
“Newspapers are the place that our citizens can get independently gathered news….You’re doing a very good thing, and our country could not survive without it.”
Another dear friend and mentor – Roy Eaton, president and owner of the Wise County Messenger — was the recipient of one of TPA’s greatest honors, the Mayborn Award for Community Leadership. He joined Schieffer on stage in what was for many of us the convention’s transcendent moment. We were mesmerized as these two icons of the news business sat together and swapped stories of their lives and work, sharing moments of both gravitas – as when Schieffer spoke of his early reporting from the front lines of the Vietnam War and the tragedy of how those soldiers were treated when they came home – and humor, which included Schieffer’s pitch-perfect impression of Walter Cronkite. 
Their conversation concluded the convention, and I’ve no doubt most of the audience had pressing demands waiting at home. But I’d swear on a stack of AP StyleBooks that we all would have stayed as long as they were willing to keep talking.
Thank you all for coming, and for contributing. I, too, look forward to the next one…and to many more – though how we will top this one, I haven’t a clue.