Welcome to SPJ Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

October 2007 - Posts

Wednesday, October 31, 2007 7:30 AM

Quiet Heroes

Several journalists recently have done exceptional work in presenting facets of heroism. In "To Walk on His Own, He Leans on His Friend," Pamela LeBlanc of the Austin American-Statesman tells how a 17-year-old boy has helped his disabled classmate walk
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 8:30 AM

Teachers' Prey

Three news organizations have produced outstanding packages on abusive teachers. In "The ABCs of Betrayal," Jennifer Smith Richards and Jill Riepenhoff of The Columbus Dispatch reveal that Ohio’s flawed system of disciplining and tracking teachers allows
posted by jonmarshall | 1 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,
Monday, October 29, 2007 8:30 AM

Faulty Airbags

"Front Airbags Don't Inflate in Hundreds of Head-On Crashes," by Rick Montgomery and Mike Casey of The Kansas City Star, is a nice example of how to mine data and crunch numbers to reach conclusions that will grab readers' attention. The Star analyzed
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Friday, October 26, 2007 12:08 AM

Making Each Day Count

Bianca Giaever has written a powerful profile in the Seattle Weekly of a teen boy who is trying to live life to its fullest while struggling with an incurable brain cancer. "Hurry Up and Live" describes the life of Nick Sears, whose urgent desire
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Thursday, October 25, 2007 6:43 AM

The Amazing Journey

Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Evan Osnos and photographers Zbigniew Bzdak and Wes Pope have created the most impressive reporting blog that I've ever seen.  "The Sichuan Diaries" describes a four-week journey they took by foot,
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,
Wednesday, October 24, 2007 8:30 AM

California Burning

The staff of the Los Angeles Times has responded to the fires ravaging Southern California with extensive and insightful multimedia coverage. It's not easy reporting about multiple disasters happening simultaneously, but the Times is managing
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 8:30 AM

Small Gems

Websites that track newspapers' most popular stories show that readers like nicely written columns that set up intriguing situations and then implicitly ask, "How would you react if that happened to you?" For example, in "Brazen Meets Kind in a Courtroom,"
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,
Monday, October 22, 2007 9:00 AM

An Untypical Profile

Tom Wyrwich of the Seattle Times draws the reader right in to "Deaf Bothell Football Player Shines": Everything goes silent in an instant. Students stamping on bleachers. Coaches screaming from the sideline. Referees blowing their whistles. All vanish.
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Friday, October 19, 2007 1:40 PM

Wounds of War

Most of the images we view from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are sanitized. Rarely do we see the full carnage that the violence brings. Photographer Peter van Agtmael, however, doesn't flinch from documenting the human devastation.
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Thursday, October 18, 2007 8:30 AM

High-Cost Capital of America

The Chicago region has led the nation for three years in a row in high-cost mortgages that often leave homeowners with crippling debt, The Chicago Reporter has discovered. "The High Price of Home Ownership" by the Reporter's Kimbriell
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 8:20 AM

Healthy Candidates

A great example of how the Web allows valuable journalism to be practiced in unexpected places comes to us from WebMD. The Web site's "Health Matters in the 2008 Election" page allows viewers to click on photos of all the presidential candidates
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Tuesday, October 16, 2007 8:00 AM

Exposing SIDS

Tom Hargrove and Lee Bowman of the Scripps Howard News Service have done a superb job in showing that reported declines in cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in fact are the result of flawed data collection and medical analyses that hinder researchers
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,
Monday, October 15, 2007 11:33 AM

Stolen Baggage

Nearly 50,000 U.S. airline passengers have reported thefts from their luggage over the past three years, Chris Halsne of KIRO-TV in Seattle reveals. In his "Access to Steal" investigation, Halsne tells us that nearly $40 million worth of property including
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Friday, October 12, 2007 8:30 AM

Attack on the Liberty

In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israeli jets strafed and bombed the USS Liberty, killing 34 and wounding 171. Israel and the U.S. claim the attack was a mistake, but in "New Revelations in Attack on American Spy Ship," John Crewdson of the Chicago Tribune
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 9:00 AM

Facing Meth

Two small newspapers have done superb work in covering what is often dismissed as merely a rural problem: meth. Teri Vance of the Nevada Appeal in Carson City, where one in six high school students say they have tried meth, has written an excellent series,
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,
Tuesday, October 09, 2007 10:15 PM

Tales Out of School

It can be hard to get reliable information on how well inner-city schools are performing. V. Dion Haynes and Aruna Jain of the Washington Post worked around this problem by contacting Cardozo High's Class of 2005, surveying 127 District of Columbia students
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under:
Monday, October 08, 2007 8:55 PM

The Young and the Talented

My faith in journalism's future was renewed this weekend at the Society of Professional Journalists convention where I had the good fortune to hear the talented reporters of Youth Voices. These high-school students from around the Washington, D.C., area
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Sunday, October 07, 2007 10:05 PM

Death Penalty: Still Capricious

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has produced an outstanding four-day series on the death penalty in Georgia, "A Matter of Life or Death." The series, by Heather Vogell, Bill Rankin, Alice Wertheim, Sonji Jacobs and Megan Clarke, is based on a two-year
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , ,
Thursday, October 04, 2007 9:29 PM

Baghdad Bunglers

Vanity Fair climbed to the top ranks of investigative reporting last year when it hired the dynamic duo of Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, who have won two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Magazine Awards together. Barlett and Steele proved
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,
Wednesday, October 03, 2007 9:26 PM

Back Story of a Breakthrough

In "From Virus to Vaccine," Paula Bock of the Seattle Times does a fine job describing the improbable collaboration between epidemiology professor Laura Koutsky and Dr. Kathrin Jansen that produced the world's first human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine,
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,
Wednesday, October 03, 2007 12:27 AM

The Weight

To celebrate SPJ's convention in D.C. this weekend, we'd like to feature a powerful story from the Washington City Paper in our host city. "The Battle Over Heavy T" by Mark Eaton profiles Terrell Hunter, a 15-year-old boy known as Heavy
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: , , ,
Tuesday, October 02, 2007 2:48 PM

Tuning to a Scam

When an expert on scams gets scammed, it's time to take notice. Especially when the expert is David Colker of the Los Angeles Times, who specializes in exposing scams. He was ripped off while shopping online for Sennheiser earphones, and found himself
posted by jonmarshall | 0 Comments
Filed Under: ,