Tejano Music Columnist Busted For Hiring Ghost Writer, Northeast Shocked Texas Has Journalism
12 June 2008, 12:45 PM. By Guanabee Staff
We were surprised to find a ghost writing scandal about San Antonio Express-News Tejano music columnist Ramiro Burr on Gawker this morning, but not nearly as surprised, it seems, as Gawker was. In a story entitled, “Even Texas Journalists Now Hire Ghost Writers,” (we’re sure that was edited from “Even Texas Has Journalists”), Gawker editor Hamilton Nolan writes:
Didn’t it used to be that only journalism’s upper crust muckety-mucks hired ghost writers for their columns, like when Mort Zuckerman got Harry “Mr. Tina Brown” Evans to work on his columns in US News & World Report? That sort of thing is expected amongst the elites. But the Latin music critic in San Antonio? Where’s the amusing elitism in that?
Sure, Tejano music as an overproduced, cheese-filled and Nashville-ized genre of the 90’s is dying out. But anyone who looks at the facts–which would exclude Hamilton, we’re sure– can’t deny that Tejano, in all it’s over-synthesized glory, was a ridiculously lucrative music genre during the last twenty years in the circles where Latinos run (which, as we all know, span roughly from the border of Mexico to the the border of Canada in various levels of concentration.) This may not apply to Hamilton and his friends. Heck, it doesn’t even apply to us and our friends. But it applies to somebody. Enough somebodies to syndicate Burr in 3 major newspapers for 18 years and employ him in a freelance capacity with publications like Billboard, Pulse and Amazon to name a few. Enough to make him feel like he needed to farm out stories, unethically of course, to young writers he should have credited. So, you see Hamilton, when you write a post like you did, you’re the one who sounds like a sheltered, ignorant Northeast bumpkin. Believe it or not, when Texans aren’t out riding horses, or starting fights in saloons, they do get around to reading the paper. And some of them even go to college and write for those papers. And some of the shadier of them, when they get old and tired and lazy, actually decide it’s okay to trick upstart college students into writing those articles for them without any proper credit. (Not cool, Burr.) Texas is still working on getting the internet, though. They don’t call New York the center of the universe for nothing.
Full disclosure: (As if you needed it.) Guanabee Editor Cindy Casares is from Texas. Is not a Tejano music fan, but does love Conjunto. Look it up, Hamilton.
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Ugh, that was lame of them to act like that. It makes me extra mad because I just wasted two hours at work watching Selena videos and I’m all teary-eyed because I miss her so much.
Good job, Cindy!
**note to self
Cindy is animal when mad….
rawr!
Annoying. I wonder where this Nolan guy is from. I can’t stand people that move to places like NY or LA and all of the sudden their pasts disappear. You could move to Mars but if you are a nerd from the midwest……you’ll always be that nerd from the midwest. Embrace it!
i don’t think the point here is that Hamilton’s being a racist, he’s merely mocking the fact that a journalist (in this case one that reported on the Tejano music scene) needed to abuse his power and exploit some poor journalism student (probably some Hispatino).
La Cindy es mi hero…this Angelino lives in Austin now…
Ugh…that’s exactly why I like Guanabee…so tired of the White-washed tunnel vision of mainstream “corporate blogs”. I am neither Mexican, nor Texan, nor a fan of Tejano music, but th eay Hamilton just dismissed Tejano music as if it was completely unimportant, or at best a curiosity, really rattled my Latino radar. Good Lord, how condescending!
nice post!
very glad for the informed exiled tejanos out there in gringolandia ready to call out the white boy idiots.
now if only guanabee would give out some occasional props to the spurs…
Our local newspaper syndicated only his column in their music section of their entertainment section, so I came to find (what I believed were) his writings tolerable.
Also he didn’t just cover Tejano; He covered other jems of the Latino music industry such as Daddy Yankee, RBD, and The Kumbia All-Stars.
MY LIFE IS A LIE!
NOT RAMIRO!!!
There’s the logical side of me that goes “take a joke, there’s even the disclaimer at the bottom.” Then there’s the other part of me that’s ungodly sick of Texas-as-backwoods jokes. Especially since I think Austin is one of the best places in the US to live. Logic… logic…
@mimiroro: I was with you, but I think what ultimately got me were the follow up comments like this one, “When I heard about this, I was more confused that there was a regular column on tejano music at all. Like, seriously, how much is there to write about on that topic?”:http://gawker.com/tag/ramiro-burr/?i=395931&t=even-texas-journalists-now-hire-ghost-writers#c6163747
Some stupid questions deserve to be answered.
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