Too often getting broadcast news on Texas issues means filtering out static from reporters who feel the need to gussy up their stories with faux drawls, tired Texas-isms, and outdated references to Southfork. Whenever we tune in to NPR's Texas specialist John Burnett, however, we hear our state's affairs discussed with uncommon clarity. Burnet knows the territory, its people, its history - knows all those Lone Star myths, too - but he lets you know it in reports that are hoke-free: A recent report on the conflict between the Vatican and local bishop John McCarthy over birth control practices at Brackenridge Hospital was vintage Burnett: descriptive, detailed, and broad in scope, delivered with concise prose in his trademark solid, unhurried, forthright voice.
