Welcome to your Daily Dose of West Texas!
Tonight, we start it on the site, not on our Facebook Page, which is awesome and ever growing and engaging, or on Twitter/X; but rather here on the site for what we call Raiderland. You see, unlike some folks, Raiderland still matters and still embodies what’s right in journalism and what we were taught at Texas Tech by great instructors… unlike some who tried to claim Raiderland as their own and were promoted by Texas Tech for years… whether they actually had a degree or not from Texas Tech.
You’d think that would matter. You’d think it would matter if you had actually completed your studies, but for some folks… if they were Famous and in the right field and had the right politics… it didn’t matter if they graduated or not.
No. We’re not talking about John Hinkley, Jr.
We’re talking about now fired and disgraced CBS talking-head Scott Pelley.
Pelley never finished his degree at Tech. But Tech celebrated him like he’d earned a Doctorate in Everything.. He was on TV. On CBS News. On 60 Minutes. He got his ass fired this week for being an ass. He’s always been an ass. Always been a man given to hubris and self-importantance and a man who was the Poster-Child for why American hold modern media in disdain in 2026.
This piece by The Federalist details it all.
I hate that Texas Tech promoted him and celebrated him over the decades to the detriment and exclucision of great graduates who actually embodied what we learned at Texas Tech in Journalism and Mass Media… More on that later…
But for years, if not decades, Texas Tech was whoring themselves out to whichever outlet or any media person might be on TV in a major market. Texas Tech felt like it needed that credibility for whatever reason instead of just teaching and graduating great media folks who could work in the industry and make a living and doing it right.
And so Pelley became the poster child for Texas Tech media and more.
Unlike Pelley, I have a degree from both schools we went to. I have a nice diploma from Lubbock Coronado High School. I have no idea where it is.. but I know it’s nice. I also completed all my studies at Texas Tech and have a degree in Telecommunications with a minor in Speech Communications. Class of ’92. I did it all while working outside of Tech, working in the Real World, in our profession. It would have been easy for me to quit like Pelley did. But I was a Red Raider. I was determined to finish to thank my parents for all they did to get me to the point to get a college degree. Did I need it to do all I’ve done in media? Probably not. Did it matter to me? Yes, it did. Unlike Pelley… getting a degree from Texas Tech mattered.
Turns out, Pelley’s easy exit from Texas Tech, while always willing to take accolades and reap the rewards from Texas Tech was a part of his M.O. He was and has always been a grifter.
I am and have been embarrassed that my degree, that I earned, has always been associated with Scott Pelley. Perhaps now, Texas Tech will realize how they’ve been played by Pelley, like so many other folks for so many years and move away from celebrating and enabling the exact type of “journalist” I was taught not to be at Texas Tech….
I doubt it though.
The desire to suckle at the teet of famous “alums” is too strong for most folks involved in colleges these days. They equate that as power… All it does though, is reduce and destroy the very value they say they are creating by bestowing a degree of whatever for the kids going through Texas Tech in 2026. . .
The best thing that happened in American media today?
CBS embraced journalism again.
My instructors at Texas Tech, for the most part, from 1988-92 should be proud. And I think they are… they’re just afraid to say so.
We aren’t.
Your Daily Dose of West Texas
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