News Gems

The New Military Campaign

jonmarshall — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:16:00 GMT

Longtime readers of News Gems know that I'm a huge fan of two-time Pulitzer winner Paul Salopek of the Chicago Tribune. In 2006 I named his "Tank of Gas, World of Trouble," the #1 News Gem of the year. This week Salopek is back with another masterpiece. His "Africa: A War on Terror's Hidden Front" takes us to the Horn of Africa, where the U.S. military is waging a little-known campaign against terrorism. In the following passage, he uses an incredible mix of vivid details, analogy...(read more)

How the System Failed Jamie

BrianSummers — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:32:00 GMT

Ruth Teichroeb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer tells a troubling story of sexual assault and official neglect in "Voiceless and Abused." To her attacker, Jamie must have seemed like the perfect victim: blind, nonverbal, infantlike in her mental ability and utterly dependent on her caregivers. But her body revealed what she could not say -- that someone had raped and impregnated Jamie in her own home. When she miscarried in March, a DNA match pointed to a nursing assistant at Integrated Living...(read more)

Drug Wars Hit Home

BrianSummers — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:24:00 GMT

"Mexico Drug Wars Spill Across the Border," by Richard A. Serrano and Sam Quinones of the Los Angeles Times, describes an alarming development in the international drug trade. The drug violence that has left about 4,000 people dead this year in Mexico is spreading deep into the United States, leaving a trail of slayings, kidnappings and other crimes in at least 195 cities as far afield as Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Honolulu, according to federal authorities. The involvement of the top four Mexican...(read more)

Life and Death of a GOP Genius

jonmarshall — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:12:00 GMT

Before there was Karl Rove, his mentor Lee Atwater was the top Republican strategist in the land. In "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story," producer Stefan Forbes documents Atwater's rise as a brilliant, charming and sometimes vicious strategist who orchestrated George H.W. Bush's march to the White House but later regretted many of his actions when he learned he was dying of brain cancer. The PBS Frontline special includes intriguing footage of Atwater spinning...(read more)

Casting a Wide Net

BrianSummers — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:31:00 GMT

"Strategies for Rebuilding Cleveland: What Can Be Learned From Other Cities" by Robert L. Smith of The Plain Dealer is a fine example of how to find solutions where readers might least expect them. Here's what Smith found in Schenectady: Like a flower in the sand, a peach-colored house blooms from a bleak and battered street in the inner city of Schenectady, N.Y. On a block of outdated and sometimes boarded-up double deckers, the slender home wears vacation clothes. Its siding gleams in cool Caribbean...(read more)

Dying to Play

BrianSummers — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:01:00 GMT

In May we highlighted "Former High School Pitcher Hopes Rules Are Changed to Protect Young Arms" by Tom Wyrwich of the Seattle Times. Now Wyrwich has written another outstanding story about young athletes playing when hurt, "The Dangers of Adolescents Playing Football With Concussions." Here's what happened to one youngster who had headaches after a big game. Six plays into his next game, David Bosse collapsed. Stan Bosse rushed to his side, and immediately, he could tell the injury was life-threatening....(read more)

Barack's Hometown

jonmarshall — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:44:00 GMT

In "Uncommon Ground," Peter Slevin of The Washington Post does a terrific job of describing Barack Obama's neighborhood of Hyde Park. Slevin mixes observation with quotations and descriptions to give us a tour of this unusual Chicago neighborhood: A few blocks from Obama's home, the Currency Exchange cashes paychecks only steps from an Aveda shop. A pita restaurant's bulletin board carries notes for Tri Yoga, Ken's Klean Kuts and the Temple of Mercy Association Annual International Marcus...(read more)

Illicit Trade

jonmarshall — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:46:00 GMT

The magnificent "Tobacco Underground" by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists proves that great things can happen when reporters cooperate across borders. The consortium, which is affiliated with the Center for Public Integrity, brought together reporters from more than a dozen countries in Asia, Europe and North America to work on this investigation. Together they exposed the vast blackmarket trade in smuggled cigarettes that costs governments more than $40 billion in lost...(read more)

What the F.D.A. Never Sees

BrianSummers — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:28:00 GMT

In a disturbing article, “The Safety Gap,” Gardiner Harris of The New York Times explains why the F.D.A. is overwhelmed by the flood of imported drugs. The record is particularly bad in China. Over the past six years, the F.D.A. has managed to inspect annually an average of just 15 of the 714 Chinese drug plants that export to the United States. At its present pace, the F.D.A. would need more than 50 years to visit all of these Chinese plants. By contrast, the F.D.A. inspects domestic drug plants...(read more)

Behind the Scenes with Barack

jonmarshall — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:04:00 GMT

Less than six hours after Barack Obama's victory speech Tuesday night, Newsweek published its epic "How He Did It," written by Evan Thomas and reported by Daren Briscoe, Eleanor Clift, Katie Connolly, Peter Goldman, Daniel Stone and Nick Summers. The story provides wonderful insider details of the wild twists and turns of the presidential race, following Obama, McCain, Clinton and the other contenders from the early jockeying in 2006 through election night. Here they describe one of...(read more)

Getting Away With Murder

BrianSummers — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:53:00 GMT

“Deadly Silence” by Maureen Boyle of The Enterprise in Brockton, Mass., is a finely crafted report on the “no snitching” code of silence that protects violent street criminals. For more than a year, The Enterprise has been taking a close look at the so-called “code of silence” by examining court records and crime statistics; interviewing investigators, victims, community leaders, business people and neighbors; going to crime scenes, and watching dozens of trials to see — first hand — what effect...(read more)

A Local Look at Federal Spending

BrianSummers — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:47:00 GMT

In a thought-provoking series, "Follow the Money," Dan Stockman of The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Indiana, helps local readers grasp the scope of federal spending. Here's an excerpt from part 1. Over the next two weeks, The Journal Gazette will follow the money as it flows back from federal coffers into northeast Indiana. Using a federal procurement database of every purchase contract the government signs, The Journal Gazette was able to trace back $5,618,386,731.89 spent on goods and services...(read more)

The Rape of Rwanda

jonmarshall — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:27:00 GMT

Photographer Jonathan Torgovnik's "Intended Consequences" on Media Storm provides a powerful look at the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Torgovnik movingly shows the lives of women who were raped during the genocide, often leaving them and the children conceived during the sexual attacks with HIV. His brilliant photos trace the pain etched into the faces of the survivors, while video and audio narratives allow the women to use their own words to describe their struggles. These are...(read more)

Medevac Crashes

BrianSummers — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:52:00 GMT

"Unnecessary Flight Risks?" by Robert Little of The Baltimore Sun reveals a troubling aspect of medevac flights. The flights can save lives, and sometimes involve extraordinary heroism. But after The Sun reviewed the data on 26 fatal medevac crashes, it found that many of the flights did not involve life-or-death missions. The medical helicopter crash in Prince George's County that killed four people last month was one of more than a dozen fatal crashes nationally during the past six years that...(read more)

Where Housing Still Bubbles

BrianSummers — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:46:00 GMT

The Plain Dealer is doing a fine job exposing corruption in Cuyahoga County. Their latest report, "CMHA Paid Top Dollar for Houses Even As Property Values Crashed," was written by Stan Donaldson. The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Agency used taxpayer money to buy dozens of Cleveland houses this year, some at prices more than double what the houses sold for just months earlier. Just as Cleveland's home values hit all-time lows, CMHA spent $2.7 million on 33 properties on the West Side. That's...(read more)