A few weeks ago I saw attempts by Elizabeth Harper to get ahold of me about Chris. I suspected it was bad news but as his wikipedia entry still said “is” instead of “was” I figured he was still with us. I tried to tweet and DM her back but for some reason neither tweeting or emailing etc worked out.
This week she got ahold of old friend Baldilocks who was able to send me a DM today to confirm what I had suspected by the messages that she sent, namely that Chris had succumbed to Cancer. He died on July 23rd of this year at the age of 71.
Chris had a long and distinguished career in the MSM at ABC News back in the days when ABC News did, well news. He had been Newsweek Bureau Chief in Beirut, and ABC’s bureau Chief in both Cairo and Rome and I was very surprised when he expressed interest in taking part in DaTechGuy’s Magnificent Tryouts when I announced a couple of openings here. Here is a bit from his first of his six “tryout” posts from July of 2016 (via the way back machine):
As a journalism professor at Temple University, I was invited to speak to a group of 25 students at the School District of Philadelphia, spending about two hours answering questions and talking about the upcoming presidential race.
We calmly discussed many issues, including race relations, immigration and Donald Trump.
You realize that almost no one agreed with you, one student told me later, adding that a teacher did describe the meeting as a turning point in the students’ journalistic training. Of course, I replied, that’s because you’ve almost never heard a conservative point of view.
To nobody’s surprise Chris quality work earned one of the two full time spots on the blog and the full Chris Muir treatment.
Here is an excerpt from his first post as an “official” member of our magnificent seven bloggers Sept 6th 2016:
Flyover country may not be the battleground for the presidential election, but there are many lessons the candidates could learn from the Midwest.
Over Labor Day weekend, I traveled through South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. I found almost everyone I talked to held conservative viewpoints.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise, but I only speak in whispers about my viewpoints in my home of Philadelphia, a city dominated by leftists.
Chris combined intelligence with the desire to get to the bottom of things and was a person who had experience in dealing with facts. This made him an excellent choice to teach journalism at Temple University I suspect that his instruction on journalist ethics would have been vital to any student and I’d like to think that more than one young journalist might have thought twice about going along with a false MSM narrative thanks to him.
Illness required him departure from the blog last year. His 2nd to last entry came July 9th of last year. He talked about his own physical issues in reference to Joe Biden’s debate performance:
After an MRI, I started to understand how complicated it may be to find a treatment plan. But what’s worse is not knowing what is causing my mental issues. I can handle overseeing and protecting a stately blue house in central Pennsylvania. What I do and decide will have little or no impact except on my immediate neighbors.
Joe, you’ve got to come to terms with first finding out what’s going on and then determining what, if anything, can be done. You owe it to yourself and the rest of us.
If Joe Biden had taken this excellent device Kamala Harris would have been the first woman to serve as President of the United States regardless of the result of the November election and if the MSM had taken ethics as seriously as Chris did they would have reported on this years ago and the entire history of the country might have been different.
By then he was fairly sick and he regular Tuesday spot was usually empty. His final post at the site was just about a year ago Aug 20th 2024:
Last month, I underwent emergency surgery, which cost nearly $200,000. My cut is somewhere between $6,000 and $11,000. That’s likely to grow as the bills roll in.
Obama care didn’t help me a lick. Neither do the Democrats’ plans to “reduce” costs for drugs. In fact, the medications used during and after the surgery ran about $2,500. The new series of drugs cost another $2,000.
But at what cost? The hospital room alone ran more than $20,000!
The post was informative but the most important part of it was his ability to see BS for what it was, even if it was disguised as a helping hand:
The Democrats propose a plan to give money from the federal budget to those with debt—a giveaway for mostly seniors like forgiving college debt.
The plan is mostly smoke and mirrors, but, of course, the Democrats blame the GOP rather than the abomination that Obamacare created.
Any of the Democrats’ plans shouldn’t fool older Americans. You might get lower costs for some medications, but the big-ticket items will likely cost more.
Chris was always a reporter first who believed in facts and not even big bills was going to keep him from calling things as they were.
This blog was better for his presence. I’m proud he was here and I’m glad that you dear readers had the chance to experience the writing of a reporter from the days when reporters actually reported.
Both of his professions, Journalism and Education are poorer for his loss but while we join with Elizabeth in mourning him let us also take joy in the fact that such a man as him was among us.
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