Credit Where Credit Is Due

It's fashionable these days to denigrate the fading traditional print media. There are a number of reasons why it is indeed fading, but there are times when it really shines. An outstanding example is a daily 'eyewitness report' of the battle of the Alamo currently running in the San Antonio Express-News.

The vehicle (Robert Kolarik - the reporter) is using is a “spadia,” or wraparound, that covers the left half, vertically, of Page 1. Sepia-toned and with a frayed edge like that of an authentic old newspaper, the space offers daily stories and graphics from a journalist who wasn't there in 1836, but might have been.

It's a cool visual effect, and a creative and well-done journalistic product.

Since there was no newspaper on the scene here in 1836, the Express-News is re-creating the so-called 13 days of the Alamo, as though our man was reporting from the scene in 1836.

So Kolarik was “there,” figuratively, on Day 1, when Mexican troops rolled into San Antonio de Bexar, “leaving this city of a few thousand souls” nearly empty, and he'll be there next Sunday, March 6, to report on the early morning fall of the Alamo with a sidebar on conflicting casualties figures from both sides.

The series is presented as journalism should be, but sadly often isn't.

Kolarik emphasized this is not “historical fiction.” Each quote or incident is attributable. So, when he quotes Enrique Esparza, “a lad of about eight who is the son of Texas trooper Greggorio Esparza, on moving into the Alamo ahead of the Mexican occupation, the words were the boy's own, as an Alamo survivor, spoken years later.

On the other hand, although the story of Travis drawing a line in the dirt with his sword is legend, it is not verifiable and isn't used in Kolarik's reports.

Excerpts from the series can be found here. Unfortunately, the complete daily reports are available only in the print edition. That makes good business sense, I guess, but certainly deprives the wider audience from enjoying and appreciating them.

For the record, we subscribe to the print edition. The daily reports have been a great (and relatively painless) way to educate the kids in Texas history, above and beyond what they get in school.

This would be a great vehicle for providing perspectives other significant historical events, if only the Express-News and other papers had the resources and inclination.

There's life in the old beast yet...

Predating the Alamo battle by six months, this flag was crafted following a skirmish in Gonzales, where the Mexican army was attempting to retrieve a cannon. Defiant Texians pointed to the artillery piece and responded to the Mexican lieutenant leading the force, “There it is. Come and take it.”