Channel 8’s Byron Harris announced Friday that he’ll retire in October. Ed Bark posted a solid story Monday about the investigative reporter and his 40 years at the TV station. I’d like to go in a slightly different direction.
Harris won a ton of awards. I’m told he did a lot of great work (aside from that sloppy stuff about Medicaid-funded orthodontics for which Politifact called him out). The work I’m most familiar with is the work Harris did on me and D Magazine. If you really care, you can start here. That’s a post I wrote in 2007, right after Harris had interviewed me for a sweeps-week story. Then go here. That’s a series of posts written after the story aired, detailing the sensationalism and general lousiness of Harris’ work. The short version: Harris concocted the notion that we don’t do due diligence in putting together our Best Docs list. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, that’s the story he aired. He ignored facts, quoted a dubious expert, made misleading assertions, presented information out of context, and allowed people to conflate D Magazine with Texas Monthly.
Do I hold a grudge? Yes, dear readers, I do. So when I heard Friday that Harris was retiring, I tweeted: “Good riddance.” Then, for context, I posted a link to the above discussion about his sweeps story and wrote: “Here’s why Byron Harris is no friend of mine. He’s a kneecap artist, example of worst that TV news has to offer.” The most satisfying response I got to that tweet? WFAA appeared to agree with me by retweeting it:
