Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Public Records Hiding in Plain Sight
Second installment of tips and info from the New England First Amendment Coalition Freedom of Information/Investigative Journalism seminar. Check out the other installment here.- Rule of Thumb: If the public pays for it, the records are public
- Know that federal agencies have more time (20 days) to provide information than state agencies (10 days)
- Ask if the information you’re looking for has been requested before –– you can FOIA a FOIA request
- If they deny your request, ask for it in writing and keep the denials, in case you need to appeal –– and to include them in your stories
- Know the appeal process for FOIA documents and use it (It can be found here: http://www.mrm.mms.gov/FOIA/appeal.htm)
- When sending FOIA letters, ask for access to information, not copies of it, in order to circumvent costs
- They should have digital copies of the info. If they don’t, there’s probably a story there
- Use the general law/charter/document that created the agency to find out what information they have to keep and who they have to report to. Use that info to request documents you know they have to keep.
- Records Retention Schedule dictates how long they have to keep documents. RI’s can be found here: http://www.sec.state.ri.us/Archives/pra/sched_dev/general_schedules/
- Also look for agency reports to other state or federal agencies; agency indexes of lawsuits, settlements or disciplinary decision
- Get copies of their policy and procedure books –– use their language in your requests
- Settlements are public if taxpayer money is being used to pay for it
- Use the Federal Audit Clearing House to search for federal audits (to know what to request) from agencies like the local housing authority or any agency that has to make a report to the federal government: http://harvester.census.gov/sac/
- Get Federal Criminal Justice Grant applications and awards for local courts, as well as performance reviews (for past grant rewards): http://www.ojp.gov/funding/solicitations.htm
- Talk to career civil servants rather than political appointees –– they’ll be more willing (sometimes) to give you information because they are proud of their work and unconcerned about politics.
- Programmers are your friends: if an agency says it will take X amount of hours to create a document, ask to speak to the programmer. You’ll usually find the search you’re looking for can be done in a few minutes.
- Unless the fee for FOIA requests is free, don’t pay for it. Know that you can also apply for a fee waiver.
- American Community Surveys are the best census data available for smaller communities. Otherwise, the best you’ll get is the older census data. Find the ACS here: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/
Labels: FOIA, investigative journalism, seminars/workshops, tips and tricks
continue...That information? It's free.
My paper sent me to the New England First Amendment Coalition's Freedom of Information/Investigative Journalism Seminar last week at the Boston Globe. The seminar was a full day chock full of tips, tricks and cool stories from seasoned journalists about how to get information from the government when they don't want to give it to you. I had to present what I learned to my team today at work, so I figured, "why not share the fruits of my labor with loyal Ten95 readers?"So here you are, readers. The first installment of my notes from the seminar. Enjoy!
Mark Benjamin (Salon.com)
Story about US soldiers in
- A “15-6” is Army speak for an informal investigation where an officer investigates him/herself.
- When asking for a copy of an Army investigation, you often get a summary, not the entire document.
Pulitzer finalist for report on mentally unfit soldiers being sent into war: http://dartcenter.org/content/mentally-unfit-forced-to-fight
- use government language to ask for information they say you can’t have
- good FOI letter generator: http://www.rcfp.org/foialetter/index.php
- understand the law better than the bureaucrats using it to restrict your access
- know the timetable of how long an agency has to keep a document
- personnel matters are not confidential
- If you start an FOI request, finish it to the end. Otherwise, agencies will begin to think that if they give you a hard time, you’ll drop the issue.
- Make all requests to a higher official, not the press person, when possible, that way, if you have to get into a fight, you’re dragging the higher official into the issue as well
- Documents created as part of an investigation aren’t open while the investigation is ongoing, but documents that existed prior to the investigation (that may be included as evidence in the investigation) are open
- Ask what the investigation is –– specifically, ask for the letter from the person ordering the investigation to the investigator. You’ll find out if they are really investigating the right thing and it could lead to another story.
Labels: FOIA, investigative journalism, seminars/workshops, tips and tricks
continue...Saturday, September 06, 2008
Election Reporters share tips, opinions
As I mentioned, I'm blogging live from the conference here.Here's a post I wrote earlier about a panel on election coverage. I thought the Q&A part would be helpful for our readers.
Election Roundtable: Q&A
A few questions and answers from the session....
Is who makes the most money really the best way to choose how you'll spread coverage around?
Sweet: Obama is a hometown guy; some candidates got more coverage than they deserved because they were interesting, etc.
There's not enough decoding of what is actually meant (should be done by reporters). There are not enough voices of color giving analysis or commenting (to give context like this).
The majority of top reporters covering politics at news outlets are white men over 50, says Jodi.
What do you read, watch, listen to, or not?
Felice: Loves Maureen Dowd, the Politico
Lynn: Mike Allen's Playbook at Politico, The Page (an aggregated site that looks at what moves the day), CBS/ABC aggregates, NYT, Wash Post, Chicago Sun-Times, and the links on her blog. She doesn't pay attention to one on one interviews. She needs places giving lots of information synthesized.
Beth: Mike Allen's Playbook, CNN, NYT for general coverage and Slate's XX Factor
Ann: Michele Cotta from the Republic, Rebecca Traister at Salon
Can the Obama campaign sustain the interest and energy?
Yes, they can sustain the energy, but will the young people who have mobilized for him really vote?? That's the question, said Beth.
Lynn Sweet: Term Obama uses is "intensity gap" -- they say they're ahead of McCain. Palin revs up Repubs the way Obama has done for the Dems.
Places like the Politico don't have the same resource base as the old media institutions -- are there going to be journos covering political campaigns in a new media world? What's our strategy to keep the journalism in the campaign?
Beth said they're doing partnerships with papers like St. Paul Pioneer Press and Denver Post. Also launching Politico network -- content and ad revenue sharing program that will launch on Tuesday. It all has to do with marketing and advertising. Can't see advertising is our enemy.
Labels: convention, election, journalism, McCain, Obama, organization, political coverage, primary, seminars/workshops, the industry, tips and tricks
continue...Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Photo schmoto
In working on a cover story for our feature section about local tribute bands, all I have come up with in terms of photo assignment are to shoot a few bands at, you guessed it: a concert.How boring is that?
Pretty damn boring.
What's a reporter to do? I admit. I'm not the best visual thinker. I can't use illustration to tell the story. The pictures in the newspaper are usually interesting to me. But that interest doesn't help when I've got a long form feature to bang out, and about six or seven pictures that have to go along with it. I just don't want six pictures of some band at some club on some random day in August. How do I help photo help tell my story?
Do I have a panel at NABJ next year on my hands?
Labels: advice, photos, tips and tricks
continue...Thursday, August 07, 2008
Summer Survivial
One-third of the Ten95 crew participated in a panel during Unity called "Paying it Forward: How to Maximize Your Internship," as a part of the all-star crew that included recruiting phenom Joe Grimm, radio guru Doug Mitchell and reporting superstars Chloe Hilliard and Marlon Walker. Veronica moderated and I was a panelist.The room was packed. The kids were eager. The advice was super sound. Below are a few pics from event and our Top 20 lists of things to do -- and not to do -- while on a summer internship. The tips were written from a print perspective, but are applicable across mediums.
- DO learn who is who on the staff.
- DO understand that each staff is a living organism that you should easy your way into SLOWLY. Assertiveness is great but sometimes misplaced enthusiasm can rub some the wrong way.
- DON'T blog (Facebook or MySpace) about your internship. Your employer is watching and reading.
- DON'T feel a sense of entitlement while you're in a newsroom. Just because there are front page stories (or great packages) without writers, don't think that one is going to be yours.
- DO watch your editor to determine his or her work pattern and the best time of day (or week) to seek guidance and feedback.
- DO arrive 30 minutes early every day to get the best assignments. The early bird gets the worm. There are stories that your editor is probably waiting to assign as people come in for the day so make sure you're in the mix!
- DO cultivate a few relationships with people who understand your thought process well enough to be excellent references in the future and collect their business cards.
- DO offer to help out in any little way with a big story.
- DON'T jeopardize your credibility by having a romantic relationship during your internship --- especially not one with a permanent staffer.
- DON'T ever be hard to reach. Questions and opportunites can arise at any time.
- DON'T take criticism of your work personally. Work with your supervisors to make it better.
- DON'T say "I don't want to," and don't hesitate to say, "I'm not sure how, but I want to learn."
- DO make sure that you understand your assignment and ask detailed questions before you head out to report. You can write the best story in the world, but if its not what your editor requested, it won't earn you any points.
- DO make or beat your deadline.
- DO chat up other reporters. If you see a story someone did and you liked it or are interested in the process, ask them out for coffee or stop by their desk.
- DON'T forget to check every name, age, address and fact in your story, in addition to running spell check. No one likes messy copy.
- DON'T turn your nose up at any assignment. Small stories lead to bigger opportunities.
- DO ask for feedback. Midway through your internship, schedule a sit down with your editor/supervisor to discuss your performance to-date. What areas need work? In what areas are you excelling? What does your editor want to see going forward? Take the feedback to heart and work on the areas that need improvement.
- DO set tangible goals. Make a list that will serve as the roadmap to your internship. What skills do you want to learn? What particular stories or topics would you like to cover?
- DO come up with your own story ideas and pitch them to your editor.
(Photo captions from top to bottom: Talia answering a question on the panel; Chloe and Marlon dropping knowledge on the interns; Veronica keeping us all in line.)
Labels: internships, Job survival, NABJ, office politics, tips and tricks, unity
continue...Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Maybe I didn't learn anything from the Wire?
So, apparently, the good folks at Merriam-Webster and the creator of the Wire got into a little online spat over the usage of "evacuate" in Sunday's episode. Full story is here.From New York Magazine:
"Merriam-Webster's Peter Sokolowski, using the handle "MERRIAM_WEBSTER" (heh), commented on our post, pointing us to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage's article on this very subject. Summarizes Sokolowski: "This was indeed a usage controversy until about WWII, by which time the 'remove (people)' sense had taken firm hold. According the MWDEU: 'The respectability of this sense is no longer subject to question.'"
Wire creator David Simon responded with his reasoning:
"At the Baltimore Sun in my day, I was chastised by the great Jay Spry, rewrite man to the world, for evacuating people in my report of a downtown gas leak. I plead guilty to an anachronism if indeed that is what it now is. However, I would argue that since the evacuation of people can in fact mean giving them enemas, the use of such a phrase should be discouraged by editors, given that the alternate phrase in which a given locale is evacuated is better and unequivocal. When a word has two meanings, find another word."
Go figure. I still won't use evacuate alone though. I'm scarred for life.
Labels: corrections, the industry, The Wire, tips and tricks
continue...Monday, January 07, 2008
Everything I need to know about journalism...
...I learned from The Wire. Maybe not everything, but I'm sure learning more than I ever thought I would.So, I'll admit it: I just got hip to this show, largely because I don't have cable and now, I have a friend who downloads the episodes and made me watch them in preparation for the last season, which premiered Sunday night on HBO. The show is essentially about the struggles between drug dealers, the police who chase them and the government processes and politics that equally helps and hinders them both.
From HBO: The fifth and final season of 'The Wire' centers on the media's role in addressing - or failing to address - the fundamental political, economic and social realities depicted over the course of the series, while also resolving storylines of the numerous characters woven throughout the narrative arc of the show.
Sounds like a potential teaching point to me.
As I watch the episodes, I'll try to point out one or two things I've learned about journalism or the media from watching. Feel free to do the same and add your comments to the post. Oh, an if you need to get caught up, most newspapers, like the Boston Globe, published a "What you Need to Know" about the Wire story in yesterday's paper. Check it out and plug in.
* Baltimore Sun reporter Alma Gutierrez turns in a story about a fire where more than 100 people were evacuated. City Editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes, tells her she's wrong.
Wire Lesson #1: In newspapers, buildings -- not people -- are evacuated. From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary -- evacuate: 1) to empty; 2)to discharge wastes from the body; 30 to remove or withdraw from. Without clarifying that the people were evacuated FROM the building, Gutierrez basically just said that after the fire, more than 100 people got enemas. Ew.
Labels: lessons, the industry, The Wire, tips and tricks, writing
continue...Thursday, August 02, 2007
LIteracy, Progress and the American Way
Another installment from my time at the Hechinger Institute seminar for New Education Reporters in July. Figured I'd wrap this up since we'll likely be blogging about the seminars we attend at NABJ next week.The notes below -- some are story ideas, others are sites to check out, still more are concepts. Enjoy and ask questions if you have them. I'll be happy to clear up any confusion.
- Get comfortable with the good folks at the National Center for Early Development and Learning (http://www.ncedl.org/)
- Same with the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (http://www.nichd.nih.gov/)
- When you observe a class, describe the emotional, organizational and instructional support to kids – that’s how you accurately assess a class. Check the tone of voice, physical distance that is maintained and eye contact.
- Tips for judging preschool classrooms (http://www.classobservation.com/): check the degree of engagement between kids and teachers – increased interaction shows comfort, security; look at other kids, not just hose close to the teacher – how are they engaged? Everything should be intentional – kids should be interacting, engaged and learning
- Tips for assessing high schools: what hits your eye when you walk through the door: that’s the image the school wants to project ( pictures of top 5 percent of graduates or athletic trophies)
- Test scores are akin to box scores in sports: you can’t describe a team accurately by scores (tests) alone; you have to look at the entire game (classrooms)
- Good principals can’t be found in the office; if they’re in their office, they don’t know what’s in their schools. Principal job is to get everything out of the say so the teachers can teach and students can learn
- How to Increase Access in Public School
- distrust is earned. By nature, news is things that are out of the ordinary.
- Don’t say schools have a “drug problem.” Society has a drug problem. That’s just reflected in the schools.
- Educators are legitimately protective of students (pedophiles, privacy issues, etc)
- Educational writers should write with context (ex: “It’s not easy to educate when parents are unemployed…instead of focusing only on ailing test scores, what factors outside of school building impact learning?)
- You won’t get in where there’s no personal access (get to know people)
- Let them know that the better look we get at the school, the better it is for kids – we can’t see how the school looks unless we get in. - Interviewing questions an educator always asks: How do you view teaching? Is it a calling or a job? Have you played competitive sports? If so, you’ve learned teamwork.
- who gets left out in this age of boutique schools -- are boutique schools tracking for the new millennium?
- The American High School system is obsolete – it needs reinvention and redesign, not reform (that is one take on it)
- Theory of Change: schools have no idea what the problem is or how to fix it because they don’t know what good teaching is supposed to look like. - Who actually gets fired because of the evaluation system? A pro forma system doesn’t foster improvement.
- Relevance and Relationships = how you motivate students. What is the value added? Extent you expect more from a student in the 10th grade than a student in the 4th grade?
Ask teachers what you want students to know and be able to do as a result of their lesson assessment? There are higher standards, yes, but are they performance or content based? Are those standards clear? What does excellence look like for a student? - Have political leaders take the NECAP (your local assessment) and then have them evaluate it.
- What do you mean by rigor and how will you assess it. IS content all you want to teach or do you want to teach competencies? Being able to memorize facts vs. being able to logically defend an argument.
- What does it mean to be a competent high school grad? What do they know? What don’t they know? What is the standard for excellence?
- Talk to people 2-5 years out of high school. What ways has high school prepared or not helped you for the career you’re doing now? What could they have done differently or better? What could they have done to help you? What could they have done to help you stay in school?
- There is no such thing as a grade level. What a 3rd grader in Atlanta learns is different than what a 3rd grader in Detroit learns: states set the grade levels of what students should know – it’s not regulated.
- Check out the Trial Urban NAEP -- http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/results2003/districtresults.asp -- did a major city assessment and found that environment was one of the things that impacts a student’s learning.
- Walk to school with a kid. What do they see? Libraries, businesses and clean parks? Or abandoned houses, graffiti and blight? What they see makes a difference?
- Look at old proficiency tests and see if the after school programs are effective and if it matters if they are cut or not. Compare NECAP (or other state tests) to former assessments.
- What safety nets are there for kids who can’t read in high school? How many kids can’t read? Define their plan of action for fixing things. What teacher training is there to help older learners? What are students reading? What is the class size? How do these learning classes impact their graduation credits?
Labels: education, seminars/workshops, tips and tricks
continue...Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Education 101: Testing
When it comes to covering education these days, it's likely you'll come across an alphabet soup of acronyms you'll need to use in daily reporting. But Drew Gitomer, from Educational Testing Service, and Daniel J. Losen, of UCLA and Harvard Law School, told Hechinger attendees that it's more than just NCLB, IEPs and HSPA***.
Here are a few of the tips, tricks and story ideas they offered:
- Get a technical advisor – someone from a local university to help explain things to you
- Weigh significance over meaning. It can be statistically big but mean nothing in the classroom. Numbers can mean different things to different people.
- Total definitions are wrong: there is no silver bullet or magic wand. It’s likely a combination of things that made the scores come out as they are.
- Testing became the solution, when really, all testing should be is a thermometer.
- Seek confirmation of what the tests say. Compare the test scores to tests that cover the same topics, graduation rates, grade retention, other trends over time. Are low achievers leaving the testing pod? What are your dropout rates?
- Look at the raw data. Has the test changed? What is the enrollment vs. the number of students who were tested? Who was left out?
- Dig beyond your state information: National Assessment of Educational Progress – shows no change in reading progress since NCLB began
- Other factors to focus on: graduation rates, attrition (and English language) mobility, grade retention/advancement (kids being held back to pass test?), suspension/attendance/lost instructional time (suspensions new ‘class trips’ for poor performing kids on test days), teacher quality retention
- Look at 9th graders and see how many actually get their diplomas
- What are the costs of dropouts: Cost of incarceration, welfare, etc?
- If a child receives multiple suspensions, the likelihood that they will drop out before they reach the 10th grade triples.
- Do your own math
- Look at data over time
- Disaggregate data by race, gender, special needs, etc
- Look for data loopholes
- Proficiency means different things in different states. What is the proficiency in your state? How does your coverage area hold up against other students? If I’m not proficient, what’ can’t I do? If I’m proficient, what can I do? What can’t I?
- Contact NAEP – are the tests dumbed down? Are they increase graduation to decrease the number of dropouts? Teachers staying on the job longer? Equating study.
- Get off message: When tests are good, administrators chalk it up to good teaching or new programs (FYI: always wait for a few years to pass before extolling the effectiveness of a program. Anything before then is just conjecture). When results are bad, they blame the budget, special needs students or other factors beyond their control. Ask them this: What did you do differently? That gets to the heart of the results. Evaluate from there.
***NCLB = No Child Left Behind
IEP = Individualized Educational Plan
HSPA = High School Proficiency Assessment
Labels: education, seminars/workshops, tips and tricks
continue...Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Honey, what you don't know could fill a book
This weekend, I attended the McGraw Seminar for Reporters New to the Education Beat at the Hechinger Institute in New York City.The information was really good. The sessions were really dense. Really.
In less than 72 hours, I - along with about 40 other journalists from across the country - got a crash course in No Child Left Behind, Teacher Pay vs. Student Achievement, Literacy and the all elusive Rigor, among other things. I believe I learned more about education in these past few days than I learned in 16 years worth of real education.
I have to say that attending the seminar was enlightening. Really, I suppose humbling would be a better word. By any account, I was a crasher to the conference. Sure, I applied and was accepted, but this seminar was for EDUCATION reporters.
In case you've been living under a rock, I cover the town of West Warwick. All of it. Cops. Courts. Sewers. Municipal Government. Everything. The reason I got in is because a good portion of my coverage is devoted to my local school district. I'm glad they made the exception.
Honestly, I thought I'd been doing a good job covering my school district. I wrote about the budget crisis. I've been following their soon to materialize legal woes. I've spent days observing special needs programs so that I can highlight them. I attend school committee meetings. What else could I do?
Apparently a lot.
Listening to the questions the other attendees asked with such authority, I felt downright ashamed. While they talked about achievement gaps, merit based pay and a whole bunch of acronymns I dare not repeat, I realized that there was so much more to education that I didn't know.
So much more of a story that I was missing.
I stayed relatively quiet during the weekend. Honestly, I felt that my questions would only serve to halt the conversation - not advance it. As a friend of mine once told me, I didn't feel like I knew enough to ask a question. So I listened. And took a lot of notes.
Over the next few days, I'll begin combing through my notes (half a stenopad's worth, front and back) to bring the information I learned to the wonderful readers of Ten95. (Sorry for not blogging sooner -- I didn't have my computer with me at the conference.)
If you get nothing else, I hope you'll be able to pull some story ideas that you can use in your district. Stay tuned.
Labels: education, seminars/workshops, tips and tricks
continue...Thursday, July 05, 2007
Ask and You Shall Receive
The e-mail blared a message of congratulations from the subject line:"You're Accepted! Seminar for New Education Reporters"
So, I know what you're thinking. No, I'm not an education reporter and yes, I have been on my job for almost two years now (my how time flies). But I'm one who always jumps at an opportunity.
A few weeks ago, a message to a journalism listserv I subscribe to mentioned the seminar and encouraged us to apply. I figured it might be cool to get some additional training. I mean, even though I don't cover schools exclusively, almost half of my job is covering my town school department, which makes up about 60 percent of the municipal budget. If a beat reporter ever tells you he or she doesn't need to cover education, pray for them. They're going to need all the help they can get to make it through this industry. I wrote how education stories are vital to understanding a community in my application essay:
Education is the stick by which all communities can be measured. Spend one day in a school and a person is guaranteed to have a better idea of what that community values and what is being passed on to the next generation. Battles over funding are evidenced by tattered social studies books and crowded classrooms. Changes in demographics manifest themselves in additional ESL teachers and adjustments to the curriculum. Racial disputes and criminal trends are often seen in truancy court or disciplinary hearings.
So, I applied. And even though the deadline had long since passed, the organizers agreed to take a look at my application. The next day, I got that congratulatory e-mail.
Just goes to show that it never hurts to ask. I kind of assumed the deadline had passed, but I figured I'd ask if I could still apply. Worst they could say is no. But, it also illustrates how important it is to be cognizant of deadlines: and to meet them. If I'd been keeping up with seminars I was interested in, I wouldn't have needed to be dependent upon the kindness of strangers.
Lesson learned.
Labels: Job survival, seminars/workshops, the industry, tips and tricks
continue...Monday, April 16, 2007
Coincidence? I think not.
A few months back, fellow Ten95er Darren blogged from the Nieman Conference on Narrative Writing in Boston.He told us about the secrets of professional athletes and how their antics are often stories.
He showed us how empathy can be a tool in reporting.
He relayed that the best narratives are kept short and sweet.
He had an award winning journalist break down a narrative.
And he rubbed elbows with the one and only Roy Peter Clark.
In doing so, he enumerated a lot of useful tips and tricks for us to take back to our newsrooms. He was the eyes and ears for those who weren't lucky enough to make it to the conference.
This weekend, Poynter fellow Pat Walters blogged this weekend from the National Writers Workshop in Connecticut. The result? 48 tips in 48 hours.
Biting our style? Just a little bit, I'd say.
Regardless, Pat has a wonderful collection of tips he's assembled from the weekend. Check them out.
After all, they do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.*
*There is no scientific evidence that Pat stole this idea from us. In fact, I'm sure he just thought it was a cool idea. And it is. I'm just jokingly pointing out that, in some incarnation, the good folks here at Ten95 had the idea prior to the wonderful post currently on the Poynter site. But it's all love. There's enough good writing tips and journalism to go around for everybody.
Labels: tips and tricks
continue...Thursday, March 22, 2007
A Tip
The wonderful Talia shared this with the YBJ listserv, and I thought it would be great to share this with our wonderful Ten95 readers too:I was writing up a FOI request earlier today and wanted to pass along a resource I found. This Web site has a letter generator that is really helpful and also provides links to cross-reference with state law to find which documents are subject to the law.
The link comes from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, www.rcfp.org.
http://www.rcfp.org/foi_letter/generate.php
or
http://www.rcfp.org/foi_lett.html
Happy FOI request filing!
Labels: tips and tricks
continue...