Belo: From Newspapers to New Media (review)

288Southwestern Historical QuarterlyOctober theology or religious ideology play an important role in sustaining the movement? I believe answers to these questions would give the readers a better understanding of how the movement affected the work of the church radier than vice-versa. Overall, Marco Prouty's work is to be commended for investigating the emergence of the Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee as a powerful influential force for social justice and human rights in the lives of Catholic farm workers and in society at large. César Chavez, tL· Catfolic Bishops and tL·Farmworkers' Strugglefor SocialJustice will make a fine addition to the literature on religious studies, labor history, and American studies. South Texas College, McAllenJames B. Barrera Beb: From Newspapers to New Media. By Judith Garrett Segura. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008. Pp. 326. Illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780292718456, $50.00 cloth.) Prior to 2008, when it split into two companies, BeIo Corporation published the Dallas Morning News, three other papers, and the Texas Almanac. It owned twenty television stations that reached 14 percent of American households, including WFAA in Dallas/Fort Worth, KHOU in Houston, KENS in San Antonio, KVUE in Austin, and the Texas Cable News. Pronounced "Bee Low," it is the oldest operating business in Texas and is still directed by fourth-generation descendants of G. B. Dealey, founder of the Dallas Morning News. Beb: From Newspapers to New Media describes the company's evolution from a paper, founded in 1842, to a cuttingedge , multi-media conglomerate. Whenever new technology like radio, television, or the internet threatened to overwhelm it, leaders at BeIo tried to adapt. As G. B. Dealey admonished his employees: "Always stick to thejob" (29). For BeIo, the job is to providejournalism of the highest quality and community leadership that leads to social improvement. Its corporate culture is the essence ofProgressive ideals . The value ofthis book is to show how those ideals have been practiced through 1 67 years of reporting die news. Judith Garrett Segura is well-qualified to write this history of BeIo. A full-time employee of BeIo from 1980 until 2004, she worked in outreach and public affairs to develop young readers and represent the company to the community. With the full cooperation of die Dealeys, she established a corporate archive of executive papers, as well as minutes dating back to 1926, corporate reports, and eighty years of inter-departmental records. In other words, she admits to building the archives by cleaning out everyone's closet. Additionally, she recorded at least sixty oral history interviews with employees, board members, and relatives. Her knowledge is comprehensive and phenomenal. After her retirement, Segura wanted to explain what happened at BeIo, but also why it happened. Due to the kind of company BeIo is, she focused on family dynamics. Personalities mattered. Each generation had its own leadership style, editorial views, and way ofinterpreting the company's overall mission. Much of die human interest in the story relates to periods of transition , when one generation passed control to the next. The writing style is measured and reserved, as befits a company that takes itself 20ogBook Reviews28g seriously. Even die less admirable members of die organization are treated with understanding. Segura is most at home describing die personnel in the executive suite, and the perspective is "from the top down."An academic historian might pay more attention to external events, or the experiences of non-executive workers. However, there is plenty of material here for scholars who want to draw out larger comparisons. Happenings at BeIo reflected everything around it, and changes at the company mirrored those in society at large. For example, the ultra-conservative views ofTed Dealey in the early ig6os and his daring criticism ofJohn F. Kennedy shordy before the assassination (at Dealey Plaza, ofall places!) deeply embarrassed younger corporate officials. Once Ted was out of the way, tiiey compensated by exhibiting sympathy for the Civil Rights movement. In 1968 WFAA-TV hired the first African-American on-air reporter in the Metroplex (a former Dallas Cowboys player who did sports reporting). From 1965 to 1971, the company added eleven women and eight minorities to the newsroom. In 1977...