Welcome to SPJ Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

June 2006 - Posts

Friday, June 30, 2006 9:35 PM

Backtrack

On May 12 I lauded USA Today for a story saying that the National Security Administration has worked with the leading phone companies to compile records of millions of domestic phone calls. Today USA Today ran "A Note to our Readers" saying that it
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Friday, June 30, 2006 5:15 PM

Can Cheaters Prosper?

The Philadelphia Inquirer has done a great job investigating what really goes on with standardized testing in the schools. In "Education Tests: Who's Minding the Scores?" Kellie Patrick and Larry Eichel take a local cheating scandal and give it national
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 29, 2006 2:49 PM

Bank Battles

Dan Fitzpatrick of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette offers a wonderful example of explanatory business reporting with this week's "BankTown USA" series. Fitzpatrick shows how Charlotte, N.C., passed by Pittsburgh to become the second city of U.S. banking.
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 11:03 AM

Toxic Trap

Some strong stories are appearing this week in alternative newspapers."Containment Policy" by Gilbert Garcia of the San Antonio Current looks at a low-income neighborhood that is struggling with the toxic legacy of a shuttered Air Force base. Garcia
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 12:36 PM

Lone Star Justice

Maurice Possley and Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune continue their groundbreaking investigations into the death penalty with a three-part series that ended today. "Did One Man Die for Another's Crime?" looks at the 1983 murder of gas station clerk
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Monday, June 26, 2006 3:27 PM

Get the Lead Out

Sharon Coolidge of The Cincinnati Enquirer tells us in Sunday's paper that in the last five years 570 Cincinnati children have suffered from lead poisoning while city government does little to make landlords clean up their act. "Lead's Dangerous Legacy"
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Saturday, June 24, 2006 4:25 PM

Baghdad Encounter

Reporters Jacki Lyden and John McChesney and producer Emily Ochsenschlager had a brilliant story Friday on NPR's All Things Considered. "Anatomy of a Shooting: A Civilian's Death in Iraq" tells the story of Yasser Salihee, an Iraqi doctor who also translated
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 22, 2006 9:32 PM

The Rapist Next Door

The Kansas City Star continues its rich investigative tradition with "Predators in Hiding" by Tony Rizzo and Laura Bauer. The Star team went door-to-door to find out if registered sex offenders were living where they were registered. The two-part series
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 1:05 PM

Over the Border

As the U.S. House prepares to debate immigration, it's worth looking at two excellent enterprise stories that shed light on the human side of the issue. "Migrating From Farm Hand to Orchard Owner" by Miguel Bustillo of the Los Angeles Times profiles
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Tuesday, June 20, 2006 11:38 AM

Women in White Coats

Seven Days, a weekly paper in northern Vermont, is featuring an interesting trend story by Mary Hegarty Nowlan that looks at how the growing number of female doctors are altering health care in the U.S. "Medicine Women" describes how about half of all
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Monday, June 19, 2006 12:45 PM

Security-Industrial Complex

Dwight Eisenhower warned us 45 years ago about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. In "Homeland Security Inc.," Eric Lipton of The New York Times shows just how prescient Ike was. The two-part series reports that at least 90 former officials
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Sunday, June 18, 2006 3:42 AM

Dad Discovery

For Father's Day, Dallas Morning News photographer Louis DeLuca gives us a different look at becoming a dad. Through photos and audio, DeLuca tells his own story of rediscovering the joys of fatherhood after meeting Fu Yang, a Chinese boy flown to
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 15, 2006 9:28 PM

Bang for the Buck

How efficient is your local government? The Kansas City Star tries to answer that question with one of the most helpful uses of data crunching that I've seen. "Our Tax Dollars at Work: Who's Doing the Best Job?" by Michael Mansur and Rick Montgomery
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Wednesday, June 14, 2006 9:11 PM

Behind the Kitchen Door

Despite its financial turmoil, I'm still seeing some exciting journalism coming out of the Tribune Co. newspapers. In today's Los Angeles Times, John M. Glionna has a fascinating story about the immigrants who toil in the nation's 41,350 Chinese restaurants.
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Tuesday, June 13, 2006 10:00 PM

Sunken Money

Tracking how money in a government budget is actually spent is tough enough to do. Tracking how that money is spent when it's not even listed as a line item in the budget takes a Herculean reporting effort. That's what John Monk of The State in Columbia,
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Monday, June 12, 2006 8:56 PM

Behind Locked Doors

The last two days the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has run a terrific series on extensive neglect and abuse against some of our most vulnerable citizens. "Broken Promises, Broken Lives" by Carolyn Tuft and Joe Mahr documents how mentally ill and retarded
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Sunday, June 11, 2006 9:30 PM

China Syndromes

I saw a couple of strong stories on the environment in the Sunday papers. In "Aging Nuclear Plants Pushed to the Limit," Mike Hughlett and Robert Manor of the Chicago Tribune look at the implications of the nuclear industry's drive "to run reactors
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 08, 2006 1:25 PM

Globe Trotters

I can't resist recognizing the work of some of our own Medill News Service graduate students who worked with the Center For Public Integrity and American Public Media to produce "Power Trips: Congress Hits the Road." The main story, "Congress Travels
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Wednesday, June 07, 2006 9:20 PM

Back to New Orleans

I'm glad some journalists are still reporting hard about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Pete Souza, for example, presented a great photo essay in Sunday's Chicago Tribune showing what has happened to New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward. His images of cars
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Tuesday, June 06, 2006 2:44 PM

Pain Killer

A spark of curiosity while looking through rows of numbers in a vital statistics report led to a great series by Scott Finn and Tara Tuckwiller running this week in The Charleston Gazette. After more than six months of digging through data and talking
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Monday, June 05, 2006 6:34 PM

Car Trouble

I'm seeing the level of investigative reporting on the business beat moving up a few notches in the post-Enron journalism world. A case in point is "A Look at the Books" by Jennifer Dixon in Sunday's Detroit Free Press. Dixon used SEC records and court
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Saturday, June 03, 2006 4:50 PM

Air Sickness

I like how Saturday is the big day for Canadian newspapers. That way we can find great investigative scoops on both weekend days if we're willing to do a little border hopping. The Hamilton Spectator make that cross-border journey worthwhile today with
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 01, 2006 9:04 PM

Profiles in Courageous Reporting

The deaths of CBS cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan and the injuries to correspondent Kimberly Dozier remind us once again how much we owe the journalists who are brave enough to continue reporting from Iraq. I continue to be astounded
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments