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THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL. 62 NO. 3 FALL 2008 VOL

. 62 N 62 . 21st Century Muckrakers O . 3 FALL 2008 STA 2008 FALL 3 . Staying Local, Digging Deep

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UN Overcoming Obstacles to Get News Out IV ERS

I Words & Reflections: T Y Y Essays About Books and Journalism ‘to promote and elevate the standards of journalism’

Agnes Wahl Nieman the benefactor of the Nieman Foundation

Vol. 62 No. 3 Fall 2008 Nieman Reports The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University

Bob Giles | Publisher Melissa Ludtke | Editor Lois Fiore | Assistant Editor Hana Hsu | Editorial Assistant Diane Novetsky | Design Editor

Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published Editorial in March, June, September and December Telephone: 617-496-6308 by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, E-Mail Address: One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098. [email protected]

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THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY VOL. 62 NO. 3 FALL 2008

4 21st Century Muckrakers: Staying Local, Digging Deep

5 Making Firm a Newspaper’s Focus on Investigative Reporting | By David Boardman 7 Investigative Reporting: Strategies for Its Survival | By Edward Wasserman 10 Investigative Reporting: Keeping It Relevant, Keeping It Local | By Paul D’Ambrosio 12 The Benefits of Computer-Assisted Reporting | By Jason Method 14 Remembering the Value of Investigative Journalism | By Rex Smith 17 Finding Support for a Lengthy Mission | By Brendan Lyons 19 Needed: A Leader to Champion the Cause | By Doug Pardue 21 Employing Different Strategies With Two Projects | By Ron Menchaca 24 Joining Forces to Produce Public Service Journalism | By David Ledford 27 Connecting Congressional Earmarks With Campaign Contributions | By David Heath 30 Investing in Watchdog Reporting | By Mark Katches 31 Public Investigator: Transforming Tips Into Stories | By Raquel Rutledge and Ellen Gabler 33 Nurturing Newsroom Talent With Local Investigations | By Michael Sallah 35 When Fierce Competitors Join the Same Team | By Gary Schwab 37 Investigative Talent Departs After Awards Come In | By Dave Murray 39 Changing Circumstances Delay An Investigation—and Lead to a New Approach | By Steve Eder 42 From Idea, to Beat Reporting, to Investigative Project | By Lois Norder 44 Team Reporting on a Watchdog Project | By Darren Barbee

Cover Graphic: Nieman Reports Online Diane Novetsky/Nova Design www.nieman.harvard.edu Zimbabwe Overcoming Obstacles to Get News Out

47 In Zimbabwe, Courage Is the Journalist’s Companion | By Andrew Meldrum 49 Graphic Art As Political Commentary | Images by Chaz Maviyane-Davies 51 Zimbabwe: Telling the Story, Reporting the News | By Wilf Mbanga 54 The Emotional Tug of the Zimbabwean Story | By Tracy McVeigh

Words & Reflections Essays About Books and Journalism

56 Reporting on the White House From the Outside In | By Amy Goldstein 59 Editorial Cartooning: Tradition, Timidity and Transition | By Chris Lamb 62 Finger-Wagging At Journalists Doesn’t Illuminate the Problem | By Doug Struck 63 Connecting the Threads of Democracy and Journalism | By Gerald B. Jordan 65 The Internet: How It Changes Everything About Journalism | By Joshua Benton 67 Correcting the Errors of Our Ways | By Greg Brock 68 Public Service Pulitzers: How These Stories Were Told | By Elizabeth Mehren 70 The Missourian: A Unique Approach to Teaching Journalism | By Philip Meyer 72 The Life and Times of a Female Foreign Correspondent | By Mary Jordan 73 TV News: When the Networks Were In Their Prime | By Bill Wheatley

3 Curator’s Corner: Making Change While Retaining Our Core Mission | By Bob Giles

75 Nieman Notes | Compiled by Lois Fiore 75 The Rights and Responsibilities of Journalists | By Joel Kaplan 77 Class Notes 84 End Note: Georgian Journalists Send Word of Their Fate | By Karl Idsvoog

2 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Curator’s Corner

Making Change While Retaining Our Core Mission Curators have expanded the program through the years ‘to confront the challenges brought about by societal and technological changes that affect journalism.’

BY BOB GILES

orting through boxes and folders of Nieman history of the narrative class is the annual narrative journalism has occupied us this summer as we prepare for the conference and the online Nieman Narrative Digest, now foundation’s 70th Anniversary Convocation this fall. directed by Constance Hale. SIt is a fascinating exercise, rediscovering long-forgotten A generous gift in the mid-1990’s from Murrey Marder, anecdotes, reviewing critical moments in the life of the a 1950 Nieman Fellow, encouraged greater engagement program, and getting a fresh perspective of what it has with watchdog journalism, an idea that led to the Nieman been like to be a Nieman Fellow through the years. Watchdog Web site, edited by Barry Sussman, which helps Nearly 20 years ago, in the spring of 1989, the founda- members of the press to ask probing questions. tion prepared to celebrate its 50th birthday, and Howard Recently, Nieman Fellows have expressed anxiety about Simons, the curator, wrote in Nieman Reports that he “was how the emerging digital technology is affecting the struck by the fact that the core program has not changed practice of journalism. In an attempt to alleviate some in 50 years .… It is a tribute to belief in the bromide, ‘If of their uncertainty, the foundation is offering a series of it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’” workshops throughout the year that will focus on learning Curators have been mindful of the imperative to continue how to take advantage of opportunities presented by these the fellowship program as hundreds of fellows have expe- new tools of journalism. At the same time, the foundation rienced it—and about which they often speak with great saw a need to establish its own presence in this time of affection. But they also have recognized that promoting transformation. After much discussion and deliberation, and elevating the standards of journalism—the foundation’s the Nieman Journalism Lab was established this summer mission—has meant expanding its role from time to time with Joshua Benton, a 2008 Nieman Fellow, as its editor. to confront the challenges brought about by societal and Its Web site, www.niemanlab.org, will be launched this fall technological changes that affect journalism. as a resource for learning about best new practices that The first significant expansion of the foundation’s role support quality journalism. came in the founding of Nieman Reports in 1947. The report In our early years, Nieman classes were populated ex- of the Hutchins Commission on A Free and Responsible clusively by newspaper journalists. As television and, later, Press, published that year, deplored the absence of a forum public radio came of age, broadcast journalists were selected for regular and serious criticism of the press. This inspired but in far fewer numbers than their print counterparts. In Louis M. Lyons, the curator, and the class to establish spite of recent efforts we’ve made to encourage networks Nieman Reports “as a medium for discussion, appraisal and cable news organizations to consider the value of mid- and criticism of professional newspapering.” Today, under career education for their leading journalists, we remain Editor Melissa Ludtke, a 1992 Nieman Fellow, its content disappointed by the relatively small number of broadcast speaks to topics far broader than its original mandate. journalists who apply each year. International fellowships were the next enlargement of Still, Nieman classes have become more diverse in re- the program in 1951. Lyons was eager to bring a global cent years as documentary filmmakers and photojournal- perspective to the program and wanted to support inter- ists, online journalists and freelance writers have joined national journalists in strengthening their independent their classmates who come from more traditional roles at voices as a result of their Harvard experience. mainstream news organizations. It is no longer rare for Writing has been a subject of keen interest to Nieman a fellow to be offered a buyout during the year, and this Fellows since the very early years of the program, when new reality in newsrooms has compelled the foundation they found an outlet in an English seminar taught by to include journalists in transition who use the resources Theodore Morrison. After Morrison retired, the foundation of Harvard to prepare themselves for new directions in began to offer writing instruction with Diana Thomson, their journalism careers. the wife of Curator Jim Thomson. In more recent years, Enlarging our footprint during these 70 years attests to Nieman Fellows have studied and practiced the literary the desire of curators and fellows to find ways to respond form under the tutelage of Anne Bernays and Rose Moss. to the evolving challenges of improving and sustaining the In 1999, in response to increasing interest from fellows, craft of journalism. Yet, in thinking about the Harvard the foundation expanded its writing program to include experience of fellows in 1938 and 2008, the fellowship’s narrative nonfiction, taught first by Robert Vare, a 1997 core idea of enabling a year of study at Harvard for work- Nieman Fellow, and then Mark Kramer. An outgrowth ing journalists has not changed. 

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 3 21st Century Muckrakers: Staying Local, Digging Deep

During a July 28th conference call about A.H. Belo’s sharply declining earnings (a 15 percent decline in the second quarter) and the impending round of 500 staff layoffs at its three daily newspapers, Goldman Sachs analyst Peter Appert asked Belo CEO Rob- ert Decherd what he called an “impossible question,” according to Rick Edmonds, who reported this on the Poynter Institute’s Biz Blog. The question Appert posed is precisely the one that many newspaper owners, publishers and editors are asking themselves at a time of accelerating and deep staff cuts, with reductions in the news hole, and with the multilayered challenges they face in meeting the demands of the digital audience. “How do you maintain editorial relevance and quality as you are doing such dramatic cuts in staff?” Appert wanted to know. Decherd’s response, like Appert’s question, echoes through the corridors of many news organizations. While acknowledging fairly substantial changes in newsroom opera- tions, Decherd would not concede that the Belo relevance—as conveyors of news and information in their communities—would suffer, even as the number of those available to do reporting and the financial resources to support their work continues to decrease. Variations on this equation—pairing the known losses of input with rosy predictions of stability for the output—have gained a foothold in newspaper newsrooms. Each time more layoffs are announced, this notion rises as the mantra of those left behind. Rarely do newsroom leaders respond to cutbacks by acknowledging that fewer resources + few- er reporters + fewer photographers + fewer editors will likely result in a less appealing product for consumers. And when it comes to investigative reporting, what is required is the patience of editors, the persistence of reporters, and the deep pocketbooks and legal protection of publishers, all things that surely get depleted as newsrooms shrink. All of this was acknowledged by none other than Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who in July at the Ad Age Madison + Vine Conference in Beverly Hills, California, wondered aloud about whether and how investigative reporting will survive as its platform shifts from print to digital media. His reasoning: the great difficulty being had in finding vi- able financial models to support the work of those who do this kind of labor-intensive reporting. In this issue—our third in a year-long, four-part project exploring various aspects of the changing journalistic landscape for investigative reporting—editors and reporters from midsized newspapers with a proven reputation for investigative journalism speak of their evolving approaches to doing this kind of work. From the standpoint of readers, finding new strategies to keep investigative reporting alive and well is critical to retain- ing them. Ask people for ideas on what content news organizations should emphasize in this era of staff cuts, as The Miami Herald recently did, and the response is summed up well by the words one reader wrote: “What is most important to me is that the Her- ald survives to blow the whistle, investigate, create a community dialogue. You’re the only watchdog left.” 

4 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Making Firm a Newspaper’s Focus on Investigative Reporting ‘In an age when our critics love to crow that news is an undifferentiated commodity available anywhere, investigative reporting clearly isn’t.’

BY DAVID BOARDMAN

t was one of those meetings of each squeezing more blood news organization are immeasur- in which newspaper editors from our respective department’s ably greater. spend all too much time these turnip. Our answer? We can’t afford Idays: a cross-departmental con- The home-delivery director not to. versation about how to cut our made a beeline for me, clearly company’s budget. Executives wanting to share an idea for Sustaining Our Watchful from around the operation—ad- how I should cut the newsroom Eye vertising, circulation, production, budget. Knowing that newspaper news—turned ashen in unison editors and circulation managers As our industry moves from a as we pored over another set don’t always see eye to eye, I business model largely supported of ugly ad-revenue returns. We braced myself. So I was delighted by classified advertising to one adjourned with the assignment when he said, “Whatever you do, fueled by new and largely still please, please, please don’t cut elusive revenue sources, we must the investigative reporting!” retain our audience and sustain He knows what I know: Inves- our mission. We believe that now tigative reporting is expensive. It’s and in the future, investigative time consuming. It’s risky, both reporting is not only good jour- in terms of digging dry wells and nalism, it’s good business—in instigating litigation. It can anger print and online. readers and advertisers. In Seattle, the record supports And he also knows this: It that. While the industry saw an may be our saving grace. In an average circulation decline of age when our critics love to crow nearly 20 percent between 2000 that news is an undifferentiated and 2007, the Times is actually commodity available anywhere, selling more newspapers than investigative reporting clearly we were eight years ago. One isn’t. It’s something newspa- major reason, we are certain, is pers do that hardly anyone else our investigative reporting. can afford to: spending weeks, Readers love it. Nothing we do months and sometimes even years elicits more response—and these uncovering important stories that days, more Web site hits—than a powerful people and institutions provocative investigative report. don’t want the public to know. When, earlier this year, we ex- Of course, these days, we in the posed the previously unreported newspaper industry are asking level of criminal activity among ourselves whether we can still members of the 2001 University afford to do it. It’s a question of Washington Rose Bowl football we’ve asked ourselves even at The team, newspapers flew off single- Seattle Times, where watchdog copy racks, and the story and its reporting has a long and rich sidebars dominated our Web site tradition. Our newsroom staff is traffic for more than a week. significantly smaller than it was It’s great for our “brand.” In a decade ago, while the demands surveys, people in the North- of being a 24/7, multiplatform west—both readers and nonread-

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 5 Investigative Journalism

ers—consistently cite our watchdog learning that great watchdog stories to coach and teach. approach to news as one of our at- are everywhere. And they know that • “Chief Sealth Recruiting,” in which tributes. They know that during the if they find one, we will team them a tip to a prep-sports reporter led past 15 years, we have taken on our with expert investigators who can help to an investigation exposing illegal region’s biggest employer (the Boeing them deliver the goods. recruiting of players to the two-time Company), one of our best advertis- state champion girls basketball team, ers (Seattle-based Nordstrom), our 3. Training and technology. The same which was ultimately stripped of hometown airline (Alaska), and the medium that has stolen away our want those titles. most respected medical facility in ads offers us new, more efficient ways • “Selling Drug Secrets,” the product the Northwest (the Fred Hutchin- to dig up information and to report of pairing an investigative journalist son Cancer Research Center) in our it. We are striving to make optimal with a biotech beat reporter, leading investigations. While each of those use of Web-based tools in collecting to the revelation that despite signing reports has angered a segment of the and collating data, experimenting in confidentiality agreements, doc- readership—usually people employed crowdsourcing techniques to gather tors across the country were being at those companies—the collective re- tips and test theories. We’re using paid by elite investors to reveal the sult is a belief that our organization is our intranet to put powerful technol- secret details of their ongoing drug beholden to no one and not afraid of ogy tools at reporters’ fingertips and research. the powers that be. Both readers and training them how to use them. And • “Landslides and Logging,” an inves- advertisers like to be associated with we’re using the Internet—and our Web tigation that actually began with a that strength and independence. sites—to present investigations in new, picture by one of our photographers So nearly everyone at the Times, richer, more multifaceted fashion. of a massive mudslide in the Cascade from our owner-publisher to the cir- Mountains, which led one of our culation and advertising directors to The result is an evolution of the environmental reporters to work the troops engaged in the breaking- investigative tradition that began in with our mapping expert. They news battle on the Web, believe with the last midcentury here when a cub proved that Weyerhaeuser’s logging conviction that we can’t abandon reporter named Ed Guthman published practices were both destroying the watchdog journalism and, in fact, the first bull’s-eye hit on McCarthyism. landscape and putting watersheds must expand it. It’s a tradition that developed through at risk. But how, in these times of pau- the decades, producing a passel of Pu- city? litzers and other investigative awards Every one of these investigations, We’re focused on three elements: and, more importantly, changed laws, and others like them, set tongues a- saved lives, and improved the quality wagging in our community, and all 1. Structure: Certain aspects of investi- of life in the Northwest. had direct, positive results. They were gative reporting, such as complex data In this decade, investigations are good journalism. Every one of them analysis, document navigation, and springing from beats like never be- also sold newspapers and drove Web difficult confrontational interviews, fore: traffic. They were good business. And demand experience and expertise. For every one of them was a reminder— that reason, we are not disbanding • “License to Harm,” in which medical to the newsroom, to the rest of our our I-Team of seasoned, highly skilled and investigative reporters revealed company, and to our community—of investigators. But we have moved that Washington State allows hun- what newspapers still do better than a couple of them from that largely dreds of medical professionals to anyone else.  sequestered elite group out to the continue to practice even after sexu- middle of the newsroom to work on ally abusing their patients. David Boardman is executive editor of the metro reporting team, where they • “The Art of Deception,” in which The Seattle Times and a past president will be more visibly in the daily mix our visual art critic teamed with an of the board of directors of Investiga- and will be powerful evangelists for investigative reporter to expose the tive Reporters and Editors, Inc. (See the investigative ethic we’re working sale of counterfeit Chinese antiqui- story by Seattle Times reporter David hard to instill across the staff. ties at a respected Seattle gallery. Heath about his award-winning in- • “Coaches Who Prey,” in which a vestigation of Congressional earmarks 2. Culture: During the past few years, court reporter’s instinct based on a on page 27.) we have stressed, and demonstrated, couple of unconnected lawsuits led to that the best ideas for investigations the revelation that 159 middle- and come not from meeting rooms but high-school coaches in this state from the street. Our beat reporters— had been reprimanded for sexual from biotech experts to art critics to misconduct with players—and that high-school football reporters—are most had been allowed to continue

6 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Investigative Reporting: Strategies for Its Survival New funding mechanisms and newsroom changes are needed if watchdog journalism is to thrive in small and midmarket news organizations.

BY EDWARD WASSERMAN

he future of investigative report- consolidated or are being drawn away The challenge is to find new ing is linked inextricably to the by highly effective, narrowly targeted mechanisms to provide investigative general economic crisis affect- Web sites. (They’re also being pum- journalism with the resources it needs, Ting U.S. journalism. That should be meled by the current macroeconomic especially in the small and midmarket obvious, and by saying that I’m not hard times, but those will pass. Those operations that are being starved of the suggesting that investigative work other developments won’t.) kind of reporting that has tradition- doesn’t have unique vulnerabilities: It’s None of this is cheery news for ally held local political and business expensive, offers uncertain payback, news operations, but the cost to them establishments in check. ties up resources that could be used in of hanging onto advertising as they Before we turn to some of those more conventionally productive ways, migrate online isn’t cause for cheer, mechanisms, two points. fans staff jealousies, offends power- either. Web-borne technologies enable ful constituencies (including touchy advertisers to know, with unprecedent- 1. These resources aren’t exclusively readers), invites litigation, and usually ed precision, who is reading what and financial. They include in-kind comes from the most endangered class where else they have been on the In- subsidies, for instance in the form in the newsroom, the senior reporters ternet. Hence, advertisers are, or soon of labor that is donated outright or whose ranks are being thinned aggres- will be, able to forecast the audience sold at a fraction of its value to news sively through forced retirement. for certain kinds of content and to outlets. Still, for all its uniqueness the tot- base their ad placement decisions ac- 2. Preserving investigative journalism tering support for investigative work cordingly. And what advertisers know, may not be identical with preserving needs to be understood within the news managers will have to learn. That investigative journalists. The overall larger collapse of advertising-funded means editors are not far from being concern should be nurturing a com- journalism. The marriage between able to determine the revenue value munitywide capability to unearth, consumer advertising and news, which of certain kinds of news and calibrate report and explain so as to hold dates in this country from the advent coverage with that in mind. That’s not major institutions accountable, ad- of the penny press in the 1830’s, is an appealing prospect in general for dress injustice, and correct wrongs. crumbling. The principal reason is those of us who value independence Full-time professionals will have less related to circulation declines— in news decision-making; nor does it their place, but they won’t occupy daily newspapers, for instance, still bode well for investigative work to be it alone. dominate their metro markets—than subjected to narrow, profit-and-loss to the exuberant flowering of Internet arithmetic. Here are some of the more promis- sites, some devoted to information ing dimensions of the emerging regime and entertainment, others simply Finding Investigative under which investigative reporting can to sales, that offer advertisers much Resources survive and flourish. Some are more more efficient ways to find and reach feasible than others; some are already customers than riding alongside news So journalism in this country faces taking shape. Each has its drawbacks, reports into their homes. a general problem replacing the ad- but they have in common an overall Daily newspapers, for all their vertising subsidies on which it has direction of marshaling support from a general interest posturing, had come flourished for nearly two centuries. wider array of sources than we’ve seen to rely chiefly on a narrow range of And investigative journalism has a under the ad-support model. business sectors—automotive, help particular canary-in-the-coal-mine wanted, home sales, and department problem of being acutely sensitive to Mobilize the Public: The 2006 “crowd- stores—and these sectors have either thin financial air. sourcing” project of The News-Press in

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 7 Investigative Journalism

Fort Myers, Florida is frequently cited analytical, not conceptual or political, outside contributors. They’d do this by as an impressive example of a local and where the goals of the amateur creating procedures and mechanisms paper serving as agent provocateur and newshounds—saving money—are to promote strong investigative work communitywide reporting manager. durable. The danger is that assign- from nonjournalistic professionals who The stories concerned excessive impact ing priority to projects susceptible to bring to bear their knowledge within fees levied on residents in connection crowdsourcing could mean giving short the community at large. with their water utility expansion. shrift to highly worthwhile inquiries Though similar to crowdsourcing, Much of the ensuing investigation, whose constituencies are less easily this takes us in a slightly different which led to a rollback of assessments, mobilized, less mainstream, and less direction, toward a more nimble style was conducted by knowledgeable ir- richly skilled. In short, by institutional- of newsroom management and a more regulars who gathered and analyzed izing a commitment to crowdsourcing serious grant of operational autonomy evidence of municipal anomalies the are news organizations introducing a to outsiders. As one source of such out- paper reported and posted.1 durable tilt toward reactive, pocket- siders, consider institutions of higher There’s no use dwelling on the huge book projects that appeal to college education: One of the paradoxes of the supervisory challenges within a news educated, professional readers? current economic straits of the news organization that are raised by such Moreover, when a newsroom incor- business is that while news outlets crowdsourcing, nor on the need to porates outsiders into the process, what are suffering, university journalism make sure that those involved under- they have to say has to be listened to, programs are booming. (Travelers are and an appropriate role must be found familiar with a similar paradox: every for them in shaping the coverage they airport you use is expanding, every contribute to. What if your amateur airline you fly is near bankruptcy.) sleuths want to expose employers who Many of the senior journalists who hire illegal immigrants, or bird-dog are being chased from their news- suspiciously foreign workers back to room berths are being welcomed on their apartments to see who’s renting campuses, which are benefiting from to them? Do editors allow crowd- the increasing largesse of wealthy sourcing to become mobsourcing, baby boomers who view donations or do they roll up the carpet on the to educate tomorrow’s journalists as empowerment that was promised to highly worthwhile. these helpers? Those new academics could continue That said, those are good problems to produce journalism. A good many to have. The potential gains from lawyers and accountants too have se- leveraging in-house investigative rious investigative training; some can and supervisory staff by enlisting even write. The problem is that news communitywide resources on mat- operations—with some exceptions, The Fort Myers News-Press invited readers ters that require laborious empirical notably long-form magazines—are to help them investigate a story about an work are abundant and enormously neither managerially suited nor cultur- expansion of the water, sewer and irriga- appealing. ally disposed to routinely incorporate tion system, in a method known as crowd- the work of people who aren’t FTEs. sourcing. Relax the Full-Time Employee (FTE) That incapacity denies them a Newsroom Model: News operations ready source of subsidy, since the aren’t sustaining themselves with potential contributor’s reporting is stand basic principles of journalistic revenues from their own operations essentially paid for by his or her professionalism. A larger concern is on anything like the scale that com- day job. Naturally, that dependence whether such an approach is self- munities need to be covered adequately. may raise serious conflict of interest limiting in ways that aren’t especially What follows may sound heretical, problems, much like those that op-ed desirable. but one response is to make greater pages traditionally handle so poorly. It The Fort Myers case seems to ex- resources available by encourag- also requires addressing novel quality emplify the kind of work that’s ripest ing the newsside to incorporate the control issues. for crowdsourcing: where the main practice pioneered by op-ed pages, But given that the need now is to reporting problems are empirical and which have long been dominated by perform a thorough inventory of the

1 “Using Expertise From Outside the Newsroom,” by Betty Wells, in the Spring 2008 issue of Nieman Reports, describes other efforts within The News-Press newsroom to build on this model of engaging citizens in investigative efforts. This article can be found at www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/08-1NRspring/p65-wells.html.

8 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep investigative resources available in a zoning scams, courthouse favoritism, ing; the crowd needs to be enlisted community in order to harness them environmental degradation, political as a source of financial support, too, so as to keep the toughest and most cronyism, and all manner of wrongdo- which has already been happening at trenchant journalism alive, ignoring ing that may not register on a scale of Minnpost.com, which was launched in the capabilities of knowledgeable, eager national significance but that shapes November 2007. In a midsummer mes- and capable professionals of all kinds municipal life in powerful ways. The sage, MinnPost CEO and Editor Joel would be foolish. evisceration of local newsrooms risks Kramer reported to readers that the creating vast free-fire zones for cor- online publication has “932 members, Endow Chairs: Much has been written ruption, which no amount of attention people who have decided to support about the national nonprofit journal- to national affairs will restrain. financially the nonprofit journalism ism outfits that either make grants to that MinnPost.com provides.” enable reporters to do major long-term Tap Into Community Resources: Simi- projects or, in the case of ProPublica, larly, nonprofit initiatives need not be Create Specialized Spinoffs: Intense use foundation funding to employ exclusively national, either; they could scrutiny of powerful institutions and top-tier investigative aces and direct take the form of citywide foundations important social developments is a them onto stories of national scope.2 A bankrolled by local donors either to difficult undertaking for which some different approach to using nonprofit make grants for individual projects or people will indeed pay quite a lot, money would apply a model familiar to provide funds for a sustained jour- especially if that audience gets to see to the academic world and be built nalistic operation comprising full- or the findings while they’re fresh and hot. around endowed investigative posi- part-time staff. This inside-baseball model is key to the tions created on the staffs of small That fundraising effort need not success of the newsletter business and and midmarket news operations, which be confined to soliciting big contribu- other premium informational services have been decimated by the declines in tors. Investigative reporting produces classified, home sales, and automotive tangible benefits to communities, even advertising. if those civic benefits can’t be readily For example, a single national donor, monetized through the private mar- giving only half the $10 million annual ketplace because they can’t be priced stipend that enables ProPublica to effectively. But that doesn’t mean employ 20-some investigative report- they aren’t real and valuable. What is ers in Lower Manhattan, could seed chasing a crooked mayor from office 100 newsrooms with $50,000 apiece “worth?” If asked, one citizen might to partially fund investigative chairs. say that having an independent team (Partial funding would ensure a local of skilled investigators whose mandate buy-in and enable the employer to ad- is to root out and expose local corrup- just the reporter’s total compensation tion is worth, perhaps, $100 a year to to its newsroom pay scale.) In addition her; another might put the figure at The New York Times creates newsbooks to that seed money in the provinces, $50, still another at $1,000. But there by reprinting some of the newspaper’s some modest funding could go into is some value that each of us would investigative series. The newsbooks are sold creating a centralized supervisory or attach to that benefit. The continuing through their online store. advisory capability, perhaps vested in success of listener-supported public ProPublica or one of the existing in- radio suggests that audiences recognize vestigative shops. The objective would and, under certain circumstances, are that continue to flourish in spite of the be to supplement the supervision the willing to pay for similar informational current wisdom that the subscription reporter gets on site from editors who benefits. Some bloggers, too, have model is dead. Might that be a model are deeply knowledgeable about local also been successful in fundraising to enable certain areas of investigative realities with the expertise of seasoned of this sort. work to continue—sell the reporting as investigative journalists. The challenge is to create the a stand-alone publication to the people What’s important is recognizing that funding mechanisms and position who are willing to pay for it? investigative work doesn’t solely mean the appeals to enable community Many journalists will find it dis- national stories. Fundamental to the resources to be pooled reliably and tasteful to propose that a news op- civic role of small and midmarket news effectively. Crowdsourcing should not eration might devote a portion of its organizations has been their work on be confined to research and report- resources to reporting that will be

2 For articles examining various nonprofit models of investigative journalism, see the Spring 2008 issue of Nieman Reports, which includes one by ProPublica Editor Paul E. Steiger, at www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/08-1NRspring/p23-lewis.html.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 9 Investigative Journalism

denied to readers who don’t specifi- are eager to see their work trumpeted lapse of U.S. journalism’s advertising cally subscribe to it. (The objection is into the public domain, which ratifies dependency has made it harder than ironic in view of the eagerness with their importance and reaffirms their ever. New sources of support need which news organizations are dicing subscribers’ commitment. to be devised, and the community’s their broad-gauged audiences into Moreover, what’s the choice? If the reservoirs of skill and energy, as well vertical microslivers of neighborhood, alternative is that the reporting won’t be as money, need to be inventoried and age, profession, hobby and any other conducted at all, submitting to a two- tapped. But this is possible. And the social descriptor that seems to hold step process—first to subscriber, then consequence may be a richer and appeal for advertisers. Such verticality to general public—is plainly preferable. more fully responsive capability for is expressly intended to provide spe- Having a pair of investigative sleuths investigation, exposure and reform cific audiences with some information prowling the statehouse and reporting than was possible under the vanishing and withhold it from others. Perhaps on shadowy legislative maneuverings old regime.  because the information is innocuous, for 2,000 subscribers who pay $500 the practice isn’t objectionable.) Still, a year may not be an ideal response, Edward Wasserman is Knight Profes- if this proposal meant that important but it sure beats shutting the capital sor of Journalism Ethics at Washing- information would be kept secret, the bureau or assigning a skeletal staff to ton and Lee University. A veteran edi- idea would be ethically problematic. knee-jerk stenography. tor and publisher, he writes a media But that’s not the case. The more typ- column for The Miami Herald and ical practice of specialty publications In sum, keeping alive the flame Palm Beach Post that is distributed is to keep their subscribers satisfied by of investigative—or, as others prefer, nationally by The McClatchy-Tribune ensuring them a first look at important accountability—journalism has never wire. findings; the publications themselves been easy, and the slow-motion col-

Investigative Reporting: Keeping It Relevant, Keeping It Local ‘Our story selection is attuned to answering the question a reader might ask: How does this affect me?’

BY PAUL D’AMBROSIO

hen an obscure real estate Could it have been a dull real estate management have strongly stated that developer bounced a $25 story? Sure. But it wasn’t. That topic investigative reporting is an important million check at a local became the most searched item on First Amendment mandate for us. It Wbank in the spring of 2006, it was our Web site. Subsequent investigative is also a niche no one else can fill. one of those stories that could easily stories in 2007 and 2008 about the Bloggers can’t do it, and community have been deemed the “weird news” subprime foreclosures in our area were Web sites don’t have the resources to item of the day and dispatched with consistent high-traffic generators on do it well. a front-page brief. the Web, beating out fire and traffic A projects reporter for the Asbury accidents that traditionally drive most Newsroom Methods Park (N.J.) Press thought otherwise. He of the Web-based news. soon uncovered a massive, $400 mil- The bottom line for these stories To put theory into practice, our project lion real estate ploy that, in hindsight, was relevance—the mantra for our team operates like most others: We proved to be one of the bellwethers four-member projects team that I look for issues that affect our reader- of the 2007 subprime house market have led since 1999. In the shifting ship. But how do we do this efficiently collapse. Signatures on mortgages sands of modern-day journalism, in and effectively? How do we merge the were forged, millions of dollars were which reporters and editors strive to benefits of the Web with the robust illegally shuffled, and allegations of stay current both on the Web and in reporting that we prepare for print? physical threats between multimil- print, project reporting at the Press We avoid the “he said, she said” lionaires were all uncovered through has thrived in recent years. Gannett, stories that lack conclusions. painstaking research. which owns the Press, and Press We try to look for stories with high

10 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep impact—those that will change laws overtime chief ’s superiors and then it is this: avoid complacency. It’s easy and attitudes. A story has to have a called us. The overtime chief was later to withdraw into a comfort zone and definitive feel that shows an ill that suspended, and we, of course, wrote dismiss story ideas as “been there, needs to be corrected. the story. done that.” Like book plots, there are To this end, we are highly focused perhaps only seven story topics in the on computer-assisted reporting at Relevance to Readers world. But what exists in all of our the Press. We vacuum up millions of communities is an infinite combination records a year from local, county, state This all circles back to our mantra— of people, bureaucratic bungling, and and federal governments to use as our relevance. Our story selection is ill will—more than enough to keep base sources. This gives us a powerful attuned to answering the question investigative reporters occupied for way to look for trends, compile ques- a reader might ask: How does this quite some time. tions, and check information without affect me? We can’t expect readers to The lack of affordable health care wasting a lot of time. We are able to wade through hundreds of inches of for the working poor is a well-reported place at least one investigative piece copy in an investigative series if we topic. But I felt it would be interesting in the paper each week, usually on can’t tell them, as part of the story, to revisit it in light of the Democratic a Sunday. This also helps keep our what the impact of this issue is on presidential primaries. My sense was reporters’ names in the community, their lives. that we would find some key examples which can lead to additional news Our most recent series, “Fixing New of local citizens falling through the tips. I also keep a log of people who Jersey,” seeks to answer how the state’s cracks and stimulate a debate about call and write, which proves useful debt affects every citizen. On four suc- the role of government in protecting when we need sources for stories. cessive Sundays our reporters took a the health of all. We’ve also developed a rapport with close look at the winners and losers In one family we profiled, the our Web users, who know a lot about in the political battle over the debt, father was employed, yet struggled what’s not working the way it should at the state’s massive tax collection each month to pay the bills. Should in their community. machine, at the state’s addiction to he pay the rent or buy medicine for We have successfully merged proj- runaway spending, and at the most his chronically sick child? Should his ects with the Web by placing a vast likely solutions to the tangled issues wife, who had the flu, suffer at home amount of searchable data on our Web at hand. or seek relief at a hospital? Yet if this site (www.app.com). The Press’s most We avoid flopping an issue on the father earned too much money, So- popular Web offering is our DataUni- table and then running away, as if to cial Security would cut off his child’s verse.com brand, which receives an say it is someone else’s problem now. benefits, putting the family further average of one million page views per So we have a proactive approach to in the hole. week. This searchable bank of govern- the investigative series that we pub- What happened next surprised me, ment records provides everything from lish. Through the years, we’ve called as I discovered how our story had home assessments to public salaries for a better hospital health reporting hit community members squarely in to criminal records. system, more openness in the lawyer the heart. The family received more By having this useful resource on and physician discipline processes, than $4,000 in unsolicited contribu- our Web site—for us and community and fuller public access of government tions, even though we didn’t put their members to use—we are building a records. And we’ve stayed with these address in the paper. The doctors good rapport with potential sources. stories until we’ve seen improvements offered to treat the family for free. It DataUniverse provides the Press— happen in one way or another. was an unexpected ending to what I’d and our projects team—with a high In 2003, our eight-day “Profiting thought was a routine story. But what community profile. Citizens, govern- From Public Service” series exposed the it reminded me is that writing about ment employees, and union members outrage of lawmakers using the govern- relevant issues in our community never clamor when updates are delayed. ment as a piggy bank for themselves, grows stale.  One reader wrote these words on their families, and their friends. The our forum: “DataUniverse: Fantastic final chapter outlined the role citizens Paul D’Ambrosio is the investigations tool for the ordinary citizen!” As an can play to fix their government, and editor for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press. example of how having this resource the residents of New Jersey eagerly He and his team have won the Selden available can work to our advantage, responded at the polls. The state Sen- Ring Award, the Farfel Prize, the a state employee used our site to ate president, who set up a series of National Headliner Award for Public check the overtime payments to the part-time government jobs that paid Service, and more than a dozen other agency’s overtime chief. It turned him more than $200,000 each year, national awards in the past few years. out that the chief averaged $40,000 lost reelection along with others who They were a finalist for The Shoren- a year in overtime pay, an amount had blurred the line between public stein Center’s Goldsmith Prize in 2004 that immediately raised suspicions. service and private gain. at Harvard University. The curious employee informed the If there is a corollary to relevance,

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 11 Investigative Journalism

The Benefits of Computer-Assisted Reporting ‘… in this day of easily accessible data, computer expertise can be a great equalizer.’

BY JASON METHOD

ur projects team at the As- the subprime mortgage crisis—was but failed, to convince customers not bury Park Press had spent told by the Asbury Park Press. Our to refinance their homes yet again five months tracking the $300 coverage garnered national awards for more lifestyle expenses. And, he Omillion collapse of a local said, a whole new class of real estate tycoon in 2006. loans—called “subprime”— The story was interesting had come to dominate the enough, as the 33-year-old market so much that a had leveraged his promi- conservative bank like his nent family connections to could no longer compete. attract wealthy but naive At the New Jersey shore, investors and lull banks real estate is always a hot into lending without the topic. Eighty percent of usual due diligence. the houses in the Press’s But after an interview, coverage area are lived in one local banker told by their owners. Most of me about an even better the rest serve as summer story—national in scope beach houses for residents with implications for Wall around the state. The Street and the financial shore holds some of the markets. To be certain, it most expensive property was a large-scale story for William Soodul of Allentown co-owned his own title search company in America. Although the a medium-sized newspaper but, despite his knowledge of mortgages, signed onto a $233,000 housing mania had not like the Asbury Park Press loan with a $10,000 prepayment penalty. “Why didn’t I know bet- quite reached the hysterical to handle. ter?” said Soodul, who could no longer afford the escalating payments heights of Southern Cali- Even in our high-tech on his option ARM loan. Photo by Dave May/Asbury Park Press. fornia or Florida, prices at age, many editors and the northern Jersey shore, reporters—especially at where the Press circulates, smaller outlets with tough had gone up nearly 150 staffing and time constraints—will not and, as importantly, won praise from percent in the previous 10 years. attempt to tackle such a large story local readers. Though the banker had described a (or even a smaller one) that requires national story, I could also see how it reporters doing original research, Crunching the Numbers could be intensely localized. There was crunching numbers, and providing no reason to shy away. As I told my analysis. There are plenty of reasons It all began with that after-interview editor, “Everyone in our area who owns to be found to avoid this kind of heavy chat with a local banker. The defunct a house cares about this story.” lifting. Editors, feeling too pressed by developer was only a symptom of a I ordered the federal database of daily deadlines, are reluctant to put widespread disease, he said. Banks mortgage applications, known as the reporters on such time-consuming across the country had dramatically Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. tasks, and many reporters still balk at lowered their underwriting standards That prodigious computer record gave such undertakings, observing that they to provide money to just about anyone me a profile on every mortgage ap- fled to journalism to avoid math. In with a pulse. The country’s culture and plication in the country: the amount, many newsrooms, computer expertise attitude toward finances had changed the applicant’s income, their gender has been left to a select few, as the so much that many people were re- and race, whether the loan would be rank-and-file stick to their beats. financing their house two, three or used for a purchase or a refinance, Yet through the use of relatively four times to pay for Florida vacations whether it was for a primary residence basic computer-assisted reporting, the for their kids and Hummers for their or other home. There was also a vari- largest financial story of this decade— driveways. The banker said he tried, able that let me know whether the

12 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep loan was subprime because it came The Asbury Park Press suddenly Journalism Awards. (The Wall Street with a higher interest rate. looked very smart, and if the crisis had Journal’s 14-member subprime team Even better for a regional paper like waited just a bit to explode, we might won the award in the business/econom- the Asbury Park Press, the data was have been hailed as geniuses. ics reporting category. Two reporters coded so that I could compile results I did not stop covering the story for Bloomberg were also finalists.) Just for the state, our local counties, and even as it became daily national news. as important as earning recognition even for neighborhood census tracts. I wrote about rising foreclosures, within our profession, knowing that Instant local news. I loaded the data prepayment penalties, the effect of a readers loved the mortgage stories into a program used for advanced U.S. Supreme Court decision on state reminded us of the value of what statistics, SPSS, and parsed off smaller regulation, and a national mortgage we’d done. The stories were top on- data sections into Microsoft Access fraud under investigation by the FBI line draws on the days they ran, and and Excel. Then I hunkered down to (which included local victims.) In the we received scores of complimentary find the story. Soon, with the computer fall, my analysis of the new federal e-mails and calls. running at full speed, I had Early this year, a group a three-inch binder full of of real estate business printouts. people and bankers invited Meanwhile, I read Fed- me to dinner to talk about eral Reserve studies on the series. They recalled household finance, spoke key details of stories writ- to experts, and canvassed ten months earlier, such our area to speak with local as the $5,000 pool table mortgage bankers, apprais- purchased by one couple ers, real estate brokers, in debt. foreclosure investors, and troubled mortgage loan CAR: An Essential borrowers. Newsroom Tool I was putting the final polish on the “Home Rou- The beauty of computer- lette” series just as the first assisted reporting (CAR) is subprime shudders hit Wall that, in this day of easily Street.1 We published in accessible data, computer March 2007. The package expertise can be a great included online maps that Marie Citarella of Waretown, New Jersey, was victimized by a na- equalizer. It can allow readers could use to focus tional mortgage fraud scam that involved 200 people in 27 states. smart reporters at any on various dimensions of She believed she was only refinancing her home to obtain some extra size news organization to this problem in their town. money to live on while she was unemployed. But she had, in fact, saw wood on national or On one map, a deep brown sold her house. A mortgage was taken out by principals of a company state issues and drill the cluster quickly identified who have since been indicted in California. Photo by Tim McCarthy/ story down, sometimes to areas in the state where Asbury Park Press. the neighborhood level. more than 30 percent of Certainly, the benefits the mortgages relied on of those efforts can be subprime loans; on a different map, mortgage data ran in our paper during seen, especially online, as interactive this same color indicated places where the same week The Wall Street Journal databases and maps are favorites on at least half of homeowners had re- reported on their examination of the news sites. financed within a two-year span of same information. But many frontline reporters have time. It would be preposterous to think not joined in the computer-assisted re- Every story in this series featured a paper like the Asbury Park Press porting revolution, some 15 years after local people, and photographs that ran could run with top business reporting its advent. Instead, they wait to ask the side-by-side with our reporting showed organizations in covering the biggest computer experts in their newsroom readers how these people’s lives had financial story of the decade. But last for help, if they ask at all. In recent been affected—people who could have April I felt honored to be named as a years, CAR has, for many, evolved into been their neighbors. finalist in the Scripps Howard National a priesthood of computer specialists

1 The first article in the three-part series—as well as links to interactive maps—can be read at www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070318/NEWS/70318001/0/ SPECIAL.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 13 Investigative Journalism

editors caught in the reaucracy, or even Mother’s Day, there crush of meetings and are numbers and records that can be deadlines—especially analyzed with tools that have been those at smaller news around for more than a decade. CAR organizations—can gives journalists the opportunity to dig overlook the poten- for truth in data, and the comparative tially powerful con- analysis that a computer can do often tributions that the reveals pertinent questions. What re- CAR basics could porters are able to learn from using make even in daily CAR provides readers with knowledge reporting. and insights that can cut through Spreadsheets, the clutter of opinionated noise and databases and on- celebrity obsession. line services such It also can allow even relatively Beth and Paul Duncan of Toms River, New Jersey, struggled to as LexisNexis offer small news operations to delve into make payments on a $327,000 subprime mortgage loan, but immediate help for problems affecting the global commu- they admit their own spending contributed to their financial even the most press- nity, yet speak to readers and viewers  problems. The refinancing paid for a $5,000 pool table and ing deadline stories. right around the block. new addition to the house. October 2007. Photo by Bryan Fer- Classic programs for reira/Asbury Park Press. CAR practitioners, Jason Method was an investigative/ like SPSS and the computer-assisted projects reporter at ArcView mapping the Asbury Park Press for nine years program, offer so- before his promotion to bureau chief who have long since abandoned writ- phisticated analysis for a relatively in July. He was on the Press’s team ing words in favor of writing code, modest price. There is an investment for the “Profiting from Public Service” queries and command statements as of time required to learn, but it can series, which won the Selden Ring they master more and more advanced pay immediate dividends. Award, a National Headliner Award, programs. As a consequence, report- Whether the story is about real and was a finalist for The Shorenstein ers can shy away from learning how estate, foster care for children, school Center’s Goldsmith Prize in 2004 at to integrate CAR into their work, and performance, taxes, government bu- Harvard University.

Remembering the Value of Investigative Journalism A newspaper editor describes six newsroom strategies that ensure that watchdog reporting thrives—even at news organizations where resources are limited.

BY REX SMITH

henever I begin to despair it is now and is likely to be for several career by bringing journalism that mat- about the future of jour- more years. “Worse,” rather, in what I tered to our community. His personal nalism, and newspapers confronted personally, for I was once agenda and my vision for our paper Win particular, I remind myself that the editor of a money-starved small yielded results. One fond memory: I’ve lived through worse and that my newspaper that was part of a chain led The stories we produced prompted newsroom produced powerful report- by a bully, whose decisions squeezed Investigative Reporters and Editors ing even then. both the money and the spirit out of (IRE) to invite us to collaborate on Not “worse” in the macro sense, my paper. a panel called “Small Town Heroes: for there hasn’t been a time when the Back then, though, I lucked out by Kicking Butt on a Budget.” It almost combination of a damaged economy finding a gutsy and talented veteran didn’t matter to us that we had to pay and industry upheaval has been as reporter who had been knocked around our own way to the conference. daunting for mainstream journalism as by alcohol and wanted to redeem his My life is better nowadays, thank

14 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep you. My current newsroom’s budget, In the digital era, fewer people Marshal resources, however limited and though tight, affords enough resources are turning to their local newspaper strained, to support journalism that for some high-impact reporting, and I to find out what happened yesterday. makes a difference. Long before great now work for an enlightened company Most news has become a commodity stories are launched, tough decisions with smart strategic leadership and a supplied by any number of sources—all confront an editor who wants to pay commitment to good journalism. And, readily accessible on the computer or more than lip service to investiga- yes, I have still been lucky in hiring. cell phone. To thrive, our focus must tive reporting. A tradeoff will almost But what that hardscrabble news- be on unique content that readers certainly need to occur in which room 15 years ago cemented in my consider valuable. If the newspaper’s something good at the newspaper mind is the notion that where you brand is identified in readers’ minds as gets pushed aside so the newsroom work isn’t the deciding factor when a place where they find content they can afford to do something even bet- it comes to making journalism that can’t get elsewhere and as a watchdog ter. Example: When a talented artist matters. From my experience—as a who is on their side when it comes left our staff, we used that vacancy to reporter and editor at newspapers rang- to taking on powerful interests, then create a research director position. We ing from a 3,800-circulation Corn Belt we’ll be a welcomed—perhaps even then cut back on other expenses to daily to a Top 10 powerhouse in the an esteemed—guest in their homes put money into acquiring databases Northeast—I’ve become convinced that and workplaces for years to come, in that our research director can use to an editor who cares about journalism print or online. support the newsroom’s investigative that holds the mighty to account need Editors who share this devotion to work. We created a new investigations not be held back by limited resources a journalistic imperative that is also team by taking reporters from other or a tough economic climate. a smart business strategy might wish beats, even though we knew we would to consider six tactics that I’ve come miss some of the daily stories those What Our Readers Expect to view as helpful. reporters would have produced. To give this sort of reporting the space Newspapers develop identities—for Nurture the support of key people in it often fills, we had to cut other such attributes as, say, great narra- your organization outside the news- content—and implement story length tive storytelling or fine design or best room—including your publisher and guidelines—because the days of easily practices in generating reader involve- other department heads. An editor adding extra pages have vanished with ment. All those are important. But I’m has three constituencies, really: the the rise of newsprint costs. pleased that the (Albany, N.Y.) Times people in the newsroom who create Union in recent years has drawn at- our journalism; those in the community Hire tall. Back when the Chicago Bulls tention for its investigative work. It’s who consume what we create, and the dominated the NBA, I had a boss who not that we don’t value all the other people who lead and sustain our enter- urged us to think the way Phil Jackson merits of a great newspaper, but I’m prise. The latter is often the group we would if he had to replace someone convinced that a focus on watchdog fail to cultivate. If your publisher isn’t in his starting lineup. “You have to journalism is not only the right thing committed to the sort of journalism hire tall,” I was repeatedly told. “No to do journalistically, but also a smart that sometimes makes his or her job second-stringers here.” It’s especially business strategy. harder, and if the folks who work in important advice when it comes to Readers care about watchdog re- your newspaper’s advertising, circula- investigative reporting because of the porting. A study—Building Reader tion and marketing departments don’t stakes involved. Second-rate writing Loyalty—we commissioned last year understand why watchdog journalism is embarrassing, but flawed investi- revealed that 68 percent of our read- is important, the editor runs the risk gative reporting can ruin lives and ers believe it is important for a me- of losing the financial backing that affect your newspaper’s bottom line. dia outlet to “investigate community good journalism requires and the nec- Don’t settle for mediocrity or, as too issues”—one of the top three attributes essary moral support to get through many papers do, for the imitation of they’re looking for. The same study difficult times. real investigative work. Several years reminded us that the Times Union was Sober conversations need to happen ago, leaders of the Hearst Newspaper the most used source for that sort of with these non-newsroom colleagues division challenged the editors of the news. People told us that “providing about the values that drive journalism company’s five metros to hire the best news that is up-to-date” is the most and the business benefit that arises investigative editors we could find; important service a newspaper pro- from establishing a bond of trust with they promised that the company would vides. But clustered right behind that consumers. Don’t assume support for fund the first-year salary of that person in our survey were values associated all of this will be there without asking at each of the papers. There was no with watchdog reporting: providing for it. And use whatever communica- shortage of outstanding candidates in in-depth information, alerting readers tion channels exist with the corporate Albany, but to lure the best of the field, to harmful situations, and investigat- overseers, too, to build the case for we had to go far beyond our usual ing community issues. journalism that matters. salary package and create a position

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 15 Investigative Journalism

with newsroomwide responsibilities. to tap, when managed very carefully: objected. “It’s kind of like we’re try- My great hire was Bob Port, a veteran students. Because Port is not only our ing to draw attention to ourselves,” of the New York Daily News, The As- investigations editor, but also an ad- one editor told me. Yep. Similarly, sociated Press, and the St. Petersburg junct professor teaching investigative when we break a big story online, Times. He has not only established techniques at Columbia University’s we fight the broadcasters who swipe investigative techniques as a vital part Graduate School of Journalism, under our information by letting our print of our work—he also oversees research his careful teaching and editing eye readers the next day know what and database acquisition—but also has students have assisted in reporting time the story was first published on energized our entire news report with and thereby extended our reach. timesunion.com. We use house ads the ethic of watchdog journalism. This to remind readers of our triumphs. is a place where an editor can make a Take on some big dogs, and celebrate We partnered with our community’s difference. Don’t fail to do so. when you beat ’em. The leaders of the strongest commercial TV station on New York state legislature have for one groundbreaking investigation, and Take all the help you’re offered, in- years withheld details about so-called we’re weighing whether to do more cluding some that’s free. In terms member items—that is, local spending of that; although our overall reach is of both training and content, don’t that individual legislators earmark for bigger, the TV newscasts touch tens of turn down handouts. Reporters and use by their constituents. With strong thousands of people who don’t read the editors alike need instruction and support from Hearst Corporation, we Times Union, so extending our brand inspiration, and there’s a lot of it sued to get the information released. in that way might make sense. that doesn’t cost much. Send staffers The general counsel of Hearst, Eve to state and regional conferences or Burton, came to Albany to person- Most of us went into journalism enroll them in online training from ally argue the case, and she won. The to make a difference. And our role Poynter’s NewsU. Seek out the flock judge ruled that the state had wrongly as an independent public watchdog— of journalists-turned-authors stump- denied us information clearly in the recognized as an essential balanc- ing the countryside; when they’re public domain and awarded Hearst at- ing force to hold powerful interests nearby, ask them to drop into your torneys’ fees—which Burton promptly accountable—has its roots in the newsroom for a brown-bag lunch with turned over to the Times Union to founding documents of our democracy. the newsroom staff. Consider publish- fund more investigative reporting. Her Our hope today is that by continuing ing content from beyond what the letter transmitting $37,000 to us is on to focus resources and attention on newspaper’s staff produces—content our newsroom wall, alongside other investigative reporting we will reveal that sets a good example for your awards that we treasure. And when a true picture of experiences that af- newsroom and underscores in readers’ that reporting won an IRE medal, we fect people’s lives. Watchdog report- minds how much the newspaper cares announced it in the newsroom with ing is vital to what newspapers offer about investigative reporting. only a bit less hoopla than a Pulitzer readers, though in these challenging This summer, for example, the Times might have generated. We recently times doing this job can seem to us Union was the first newspaper to beat the Albany police chief on a the hardest kind of work to sustain. publish work generated by ProPublica, public access case, and we have gone Yet our readers assure us they need the nonprofit investigative newsroom to court so many times as plaintiffs us to keep doing it, so when we do we headed by Paul E. Steiger, the former in recent years that I can’t remember send an important signal that even in managing editor of The Wall Street all the cases. We’re quite pleased, in tough times we recognize the value Journal.1 A few days later, we secured fact, when an official takes a stand of journalism that matters. Knowing permission to use a smart investiga- that leaves us no option other than this—and demonstrating that we do—is tive piece relevant to our community to sue. We want officials to know we what will keep us vital through these that had been originally published in won’t back down and that we’ll go stormy times.  a fine newspaper a couple of hours after our attorneys’ fees if they stand south of us, the Times Herald-Record in our way. Rex Smith is editor of the Times Union of Middletown, New York. Neither of in Albany, New York. His commen- those stories cost us anything. But Let your readers know what you’re tary about what is happening at the they surely reminded readers that the doing. If there was a time for subtlety newspaper and in the industry can be Times Union is the place to look in in our business, it has passed. The read at http://blogs.timesunion.com/ our community for powerful report- first time I used the label “exclusive” editors/?p=932. ing. Another source of cheap labor on a Times Union story, the reporter

1 An article by Steiger about ProPublica’s mission and operation was published in the Spring 2008 issue of Nieman Reports and can be read at www.nieman.harvard.edu/ reports/08-1NRspring/p30-steiger.html.

16 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Finding Support for a Lengthy Mission To do this investigative story, ‘we needed the total investment of our editors, our newspaper’s publisher and, in turn, Hearst Corporation executives.’

BY BRENDAN LYONS

t was 11 o’clock at night. I was standing in a motel room in central Florida about 1,200 miles from my Inewsroom near New York’s capital. A couple of Orlando TV stations were covering the story we’d broken that day, and pretty poorly. So I switched channels to CNN. They were on it. Clicked to ESPN. A couple sports- broadcast icons were discussing the latest steroids scandal to strike the sports world. “Albany Times Union.” There, one of them said it. The words just hung there. I smiled. Not a bad national scoop for a medium-sized daily from upstate New York. CNN called to request an interview, as did another network and radio jocks across the country. But news was still breaking, and I wasn’t the story. I declined. Law enforcement officials bring out boxes of items seized from the Signature Compound- In the days that followed, reporters ing Pharmacy in Orlando, Florida in February 2007 during a multiagency raid of the drug from nearly every major news organi- company. Photo by Paul Buckowski/Times Union. zation parachuted into Orlando and also into our home base of Albany, New York. They were looking for a consternation and anger of some of in tough shape and reporters under piece of the steroids investigation the investigators) not long after the pressure to produce a lot of stories that revolved around a grand jury multistate task force kicked in a door and do so today—another key building investigation initiated by our local or two and rocked those pharmacists’ block had to be in place. We needed district attorney. worlds. Now readers wanted names. the total investment of our editors, our The case was rattling the profes- Who were the cheaters? Any New York newspaper’s publisher and, in turn, sional sports world. Wrestlers. Ballplay- Yankees on that list? Hearst Corporation executives. All ers. NFL stars. They all were on the of them had to be steadfast in their customer lists of an Orlando pharmacy Applying the Basics decision to dedicate resources to the that investigators said had been ped- work of a small investigative team dling steroids to tens of thousands In Albany, the local media was froth- and let this team spend considerable of customers in New York and other ing mad and claiming favoritism had time—if needed, and to the envy of states. Dozens of doctors, pharmacists resulted in us getting this story. (Full other reporters—hunting down big and wellness center operators were disclosure: Early on, Sports Illustrated stories. rounded up across Florida and hauled had a team on the story, but we pulled Our local competition, mostly some back to New York for arraignments on the trigger first.) But landing the story TV stations and a foundering daily, the sealed indictments. really came down to basics—careful weren’t aware that this story had Few of the good details were sourcing and meticulous reporting, been quietly unfolding for months spelled out in court documents. But factors that have always been the in the public courtrooms of Albany our investigative team at the paper cornerstone of solid investigative County. One of the first arrests in had them, including names. We broke journalism. But for this story to hap- the case took place long before the the story on our Web site (to the pen in these times—with newsrooms Florida pharmacy raids. It involved

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 17 Investigative Journalism

an alcoholic physician reporters share a bond: A with a revoked medi- lot of people don’t trust cal license who was either one of them. So arrested and hauled this editor pulled me into into court in Albany his cubicle and told me because she ignored the paper wanted a cop investigators’ warnings reporter who’d also focus to stop writing phony on police corruption. We Internet prescriptions. need incisive coverage, he (There were also three explained, and that’s how people from Houston my work as an investiga- who were indicted and tive reporter began. brought through our Despite the nation- local airport in hand- wide attention with our cuffs. Law enforcement steroids series, I find officers did tip us off that most Times Union about the significance readers still relish the of these unusual arrests Kirk Calvert, marketing director of Signature Compounding Pharmacy in local scandals we un- that if seen as separate Orlando, Florida, is led out in handcuffs after being arrested in February cover, and that’s why two incidents didn’t seem 2007 during a multiagency raid of the drug company. Photo by Paul Buck- projects we did this year like much.) owski/Times Union. resonated with them. The For us, time spent first exposed real estate cultivating sources on this case helped I flew to Florida and photographed and frauds by a former Urban League di- to bring the broader story into focus. visited one of the Palm Beach County rector and his partner, an iconic city The more we learned, the more we wellness clinics seven weeks before it detective; the second centered on the realized this was a major and un- was raided. We cultivated a wider net secret and illegal purchases of federally precedented case, sparked by a years- of sources, and they were the ones regulated machine guns by dozens of long probe within the state’s Bureau to help us weave the story together. city cops and some civilians, including of Narcotic Enforcement. Internet It was a tense time, because Sports a prosecutor and a judge. prescriptions. Steroids. Painkillers. Illustrated had a dogged reporter on Both stories were confirmed, in part, Everything a pharmacy can produce the story, Luis Fernando Llosa, and he by the pro se efforts our newspaper was being doled out to nearly anyone seemed to know more about a related made to unseal court documents, in- with a computer and a credit card. investigation in Alabama that had cluding search warrants obtained years Congress had warned about this new implicated heavyweight boxing champ earlier by the FBI and the Bureau of frontier in the war on drugs, and the Evander Holyfield. In the end, Sports Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Our Albany investigators joined forces with Illustrated had greater detail in their attorneys let us know that the unseal- a Florida task force. Because New report, but the Times Union got credit ing orders by this federal magistrate— York’s prescription laws were among for breaking the story. based on First Amendment rights— the toughest in the country, the Florida This became our first major strike had set a strong precedent for future suspects, who did millions of dollars for the Times Union’s three-person in- unsealing requests. in illicit business in New York, were vestigative team that had been formed Knowing we have support of man- going to be prosecuted here. about a year prior. I am convinced that agement to turn to the courts when we As our questions made it apparent what put us in a position to land the need to—and the understanding within how close we were to breaking this sto- story was the decade of experience the newsroom that our investigative ry, law enforcement sources pulled us I had in cultivating sources within team will have the resources we need to aside and explained the consequences the law enforcement community. stay with our watchdog probes—means of exposing their investigation. They Back then, an editor at a different local readers will continue to get from asked us for an embargo. In return, newspaper—a former Marine with a us what they told us they want. They they gave us an assurance we could storied journalism career who’d spent value reporting that matters, and that be on the story when they raided the more time in war zone, as a journalist, includes stories that are unlikely to pharmacies. We handled this situa- than most soldiers—asked me to take get done unless journalists trained in tion in the way a news organization on that beat. investigative techniques are given the embedded with a military unit would Once on the beat, he wasted little opportunity to dig.  deal with a request to delay reporting time in teaching me how to break the on a planned air strike. mold. Too many cop reporters hang out Brendan Lyons is an investigative re- Even as we reached this agreement, with the cops, he said. That’s under- porter at the Times Union in Albany, we were going harder on the reporting. standable, since in many ways cops and New York.

18 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Needed: A Leader to Champion the Cause In restructuring The Post and Courier’s newsroom, the top editor strengthened the focus on investigative journalism in the newspaper and on the Web.

BY DOUG PARDUE

he future of investigative report- top editors wanted it to work. In 2006, Arizona State University ing is bleak, unless the follow- Since then, I’ve remained a full- journalism students conducted a survey ing circumstance exists in your time investigative projects editor at of investigative journalists at the na- Tnewsroom: Someone close to the top three different-size newspapers, The tion’s 100 largest newspapers. From 86 has to see it as a priority. These were Tampa Tribune, USA Today, and The of these papers they received responses. the very words Bill Hawkins, the top Post and Courier. I’ve experienced Support for investigative reporting was editor at my newspaper, The Post and varying degrees of success with varying superficial, the journalists said, and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, structures, from an I-team with four they get less time for it. At 37 percent used when I asked him what it takes reporters to an I-team with just me of the newspapers, there was no full- to keep investigative and project re- and whichever reporters I could snatch time investigative reporter; 61 percent porting alive in newspapers during from the city desk for a project. had no investigative reporting team, this time of shrinking newsroom and 62 percent lacked an editor resources. in charge of investigations. In this day of corporate own- Given this situation, I was ership, many of us forget how With our Web site’s interactive somewhat fearful of what would personal the journalism remains. happen here a few months ago I have tried to specialize in in- capacity, we offer ways for people when our top editors, Hawkins vestigative or project reporting and Managing Editor Steve Mul- for some 25 years, with vary- to easily let us know what they lins, called me in for a closed-door ing degrees of success. It was think needs fixing or investigating, session. The conversation began in 1993 that I first became a with the words reporters have full-time projects editor at The whether it is dirty restaurants or learned to dread: “We’re restruc- State newspaper in Columbia, turing the newsroom.” South Carolina, working under corrupt officials. And we keep folks The last time I heard that, I then-Executive Editor Gil Thelen up-to-date on what we find out lost my team’s two investigative and Managing Editor Paula Ellis. reporters. But no—this time, that At that time, many newspapers about their tips. wasn’t happening. Instead, the were retrenching, which meant editors were going to reassign two cutting back coverage to their investigative reporters to work metropolitan areas. The State with me full time. Their core mes- also was retrenching, but Thelen sage: produce more investigative and Ellis wanted to add muscle to the Common to these three jobs was reporting and work even harder with paper’s ability to make a difference and the factor that the top editors wanted other reporters and editors to produce offered me the opportunity to start and pushed for an organized system more breaking watchdog reporting and an I-team from scratch. I would even for project reporting. middle- and long-range projects. get to hire two additional reporters Okay, so I’m thinking, “What’s the of my choice. Hope Springs Eternal catch?” Wow. I couldn’t turn that down. And Ellis sweetened the pot with this line: Though I’ve been among those lucky Back to the Future “Come to the state that’s at the top of enough to stay focused full time on the lists you want to be at the bottom projects and investigative reporting, To Hawkins and Mullins, the catch is of, and at the bottom of the lists you the sound of collapsing newsrooms the future of journalism. Not that my want to be at the top of.” So for the around the industry is hard to ignore. little I-team is the future. Rather, it’s first time in my career I had a clear I worry about whether investigative what they want us to do with it. We mandate to focus solely on breaking, reporting, especially at medium and were told to work closely with our short-term and long-term investigative small circulation papers, is heading out online folks to create a watchdog site reporting. It worked because those two the door with the stock listings. on our Web site, which we launched

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 19 Investigative Journalism

in May.1 On it, we are showcasing our Watchdog Editor Matt Reed says the reach on the Web by giving readers public service reporting—both our site is popular with readers. With our a better opportunity to get involved long-term projects as well as briefer online watchdog site, Hawkins wants to in helping bring about such change. items revolving around community play off our success with investigative “I am counting on the result to be issues. With our Web site’s interactive projects that have brought about posi- more quick-hit investigative pieces that capacity, we offer ways for people to tive change for the community. These supplement our long-range projects,” easily let us know what they think changes are things our readers have he says. Hawkins clearly expects that needs fixing or investigating, whether it noticed and they realize wouldn’t have we will get more plugged in with the is dirty restaurants or corrupt officials. happened if not for the newspaper’s community, “especially as more and And we keep folks up-to-date on what efforts to shine a light on what was more people … realize that we are we find out about their tips. wrong and offer possible ways to bring interested in their tips and fearless in All of our investigative efforts can about improvements. pursuing them,” as he put it. In some be seen there, but in addition we ways, we’ve been doing that already as provide readers with information on Watchdog Probes we’ve responded to tips we’ve received how they can do some digging of their in phone calls, letters or walk-ins. Hav- own on topics of interest to them. We Among our investigative work this ing the Web page simply gives people call this DIY (Do It Yourself), and to year that promised change was our in our community an easier way to get them started we supply them with follow-up coverage of the June 18th get their ideas to us. Already, tips are many of the online tools of investiga- Sofa Super Store fire that killed nine pouring in through our watchdog site, tive reporters. These include links to Charleston firefighters. Our reporting and we are now involving our entire Web sites and databases to help them revealed how the fire department did newsroom by farming out the good find a person, check the background almost everything wrong in fighting ideas to appropriate beat reporters. of a day care center, or the financial that fire.2 Now, the city is upgrading “Hell yeah!” Hawkins says. “Good stability of a company. There is also the department’s equipment, training investigative reporting effects change a video/photo spot on the site called and fire-scene leadership. A series we in a positive way. It makes our com- “Smoking Gun” where viewers can see did on how the state’s public school munity better. It resonates in the people caught in the act of some form bus fleet is the oldest, most pollut- community. It makes people look to of waste, abuse or fraud. ing, least safe in the nation caused the newspaper and say, ‘they’re the We launched our watchdog Web the General Assembly to pass a law ones watching our back.’” site with a close-up look at a local requiring that older buses be phased Bottom line: Investigative report- problem that angers a lot of residents. out on an annual schedule. Another ing has a future on the Web. Now, Appearing first on our Web site—and investigative project we did revealed if we can just get the Web to make followed the next day with a Page One that many people who eat fish from real money.  story in the newspaper—our reporting our state’s rivers have elevated levels team gave readers a front-row look at of toxic mercury in their bodies due to Doug Pardue is projects editor for The parking cheaters who abuse handi- mercury fallout from coal-fired plants. Post and Courier in Charleston, South capped parking permits, stuff meters After that series was published, the Carolina. For his work as a reporter to jam them, and find all sorts of other U.S. Department of Interior urged the and editor, he has received five Na- ingenious ways to get free, convenient state to stop approval for a new $1.25 tional Headliner Awards, including parking. This series was amazingly billion power plant until a thorough two this year, and a Robert F. Kennedy popular and demonstrated well how study is made on the effects of mercury Journalism Awards Citation. He was watchdog reporting can effectively go pollution. The interior department part of a Roanoke (Va.) Times team after some of the pet peeves many of also urged the state to drop plans for that was a 1990 Pulitzer Prize finalist us deal with every day. a coal-fired plant in favor of cleaner for coverage of the yearlong Pittston Creating this watchdog site is part technology. And state environmental Coal strike. of our newspaper’s effort to develop officials agreed to take a new look at into a news organization rather than how it measures and regulates mer- thinking of ourselves as only a news- cury releases. It also posted warning paper. signs at all boat landings and public Unabashedly, Hawkins admitted fishing spots. stealing this idea from other newspa- With the new watchdog site, pers, especially Florida Today, where Hawkins says, we’ve expanded our

1 www.charleston.net/news/watchdog/ 2 The Post and Courier’s spot coverage of this fire won the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Jesse Laventhol Prize for Deadline News Reporting by a Team.

20 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Employing Different Strategies With Two Projects ‘… investigative reporting can be just as effective at revealing why something did happen as it can be in documenting how something could happen.’

BY RON MENCHACA

sat in the darkened auditorium, my face illuminated by the glow from my laptop screen. It was June I18th, the one-year anniversary of the Sofa Super Store blaze that killed nine Charleston, South Carolina firefight- ers in 2007. I was blogging for my newspaper, The Post and Courier, from a memorial service marking the solemn occasion. As slide-show images of the fallen firefighters flashed on a giant video screen, I reflected on the past year—the tragedy that rocked our city and our newspaper’s efforts to investigate what went wrong. In the wake of the blaze, we un- covered numerous failings in the Charleston Fire Department that directly contributed to these firefight- ers’ deaths. Our stories prompted a complete overhaul of the fire depart- The caskets of the firefighters killed in the Sofa Super Store fire are loaded into hearses ment, the abrupt retirement of a on June 22, 2007, after the memorial at the North Charleston Coliseum. Photo by Alan beloved fire chief, and pledges from Hawes/The Post and Courier. the mayor to rebuild the department into a national model. But a sense of guilt gnawed at me condition of South Carolina’s 6,000 To tell this story, another reporter, that day. If we’d been a public watchdog public school buses. No one had died, Mindy Hagen, and I spent months before the fire, perhaps this loss of life nor had anyone been seriously injured crisscrossing the state interviewing might not have happened. Of course, on a state-owned school bus. So who parents, teachers, bus drivers, bus it’s hard to say if we could have pulled were we to question the condition of mechanics, and others to find out off an investigation back then given the the aging fleet of buses or the safety whether—and then describe specifi- revered status of our fire chief and the of those who ride in them? cally how—the state’s school buses were mayor’s constant refrain about our city But if there were problems—and we putting children’s safety in jeopardy. By having the country’s best fire depart- had reason to think there were after employing the state’s open records laws, ment, with firefighters known for their a series of bus fires around the state we obtained school bus maintenance daring rescues and selfless heroics. No the previous year—then the lives of and accident records. We compiled the firefighter had been lost in the line of the tens of thousands of children who information into a database and used duty in decades. Why should the local rode them each day were in danger. So that to document an alarming trend newspaper be questioning the depart- we decided that their safety and the of accidents, including the fact that all ment’s practices and expounding on potential for disaster were too great too often buses were suddenly catching what might happen? to ignore. In our three-part series fire with children onboard. Yet that’s exactly what we should published in March 2007, “School have done. Bus Breakdown,” the evidence we’d Newsroom Demands Why do I feel so certain about this? gathered enabled us to reveal that our Not long before this tragic fire, our public school buses were the oldest, Reporting and writing the bus series newsroom faced a similar question most polluting, and least safe in the differed dramatically from how we about whether to investigate the dismal nation. would end up tackling the investiga-

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 21 Investigative Journalism

tion we did after the fire. pleading for more time For starters, on the school and balancing project de- bus series, I was teamed mands with other reporting with Hagen, a young duties—the investigation beat reporter who, while of the fire department fol- talented and energetic, lowed a very different track. had never worked an Reporting on it was more investigation. During our methodical, with a news- work on that story, she room strategy of publish- continued to be respon- as-you-go being applied to sible for covering two large what was found. The fire was county school districts. simply too big of a story to (The newsroom—in the not throw everything at it. midst of belt-tightening So we worked the story just and a hiring freeze—could about full time, almost like a find no other reporter to Fire Chief Rusty Thomas directs Charleston firefighters as they battle regular beat, for months. take over that coverage.) a fire that destroyed the Sofa Super Store and a warehouse. Photo by Throughout the assign- Tyrone Walker/The Post and Courier. Investigating a ment, her beat responsi- Tragedy bilities often took priority over the school bus project, and I was buses claimed the life of a child. The Post and Courier newsroom did left nudging it toward the finish line Our series prompted a public not have a formal investigations team on my own. outcry. State lawmakers reacted by when the fire broke out on the evening As a general assignment reporter immediately passing a law requiring of June 18, 2007. It was the country’s at the time, I was also forced to set the state to retire and replace a por- worst firefighting tragedy since 9/11. aside my reporting on this project as tion of school buses every year. In A small outdoor trash fire swept into harried city desk editors requested my many ways, this series was a classic the sprawling furniture store and help with the daily paper. I tried not newspaper investigation—the findings boiled into a raging inferno, killing to complain too much because I knew growing slowly over time, then hitting nine firefighters when they became that times were tough on everyone the front page with a big splash. disoriented in the coal-black smoke in our newsroom given the financial After completing this series about and maze of flammable couches. constraints we now faced. When even the buses in the old-fashioned way— The fatal blaze devastated our city one of us was freed up to focus on the school bus project, I felt fortunate that some progress was being made. But this on-and-off approach sapped our momentum and motivation. The important work of building and explor- ing a complicated database became next to impossible. Only after we’d wrapped up our reporting and prepared to write the series was Hagen given a block of time to help me craft the three main stories and sidebars. Once completed, our series revealed how children in public schools were often forced to ride buses with more than 400,000 miles—buses that lacked modern safety features such as antilock brakes and extra emergency exits. Our investigation determined that the state agency in charge of school bus mainte- nance was undercounting the number of bus fires, and we quoted by name bus experts and school officials who Mechanics rely on parts from old school buses from this bus graveyard in Beaufort, South predicted that it was only a matter of Carolina, to keep the current fleet rolling. Over time, however, scavenging becomes less vi- time before one of these decades-old able as buses run out of spare parts. Photo by Grace Beahm/The Post and Courier.

22 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep not only because of the with titles such as safety, scope and suddenness of incident command and the loss but because of water supply, and began to the hype we’d heard for so investigate each one, then long from the mayor and publish what we learned. fire chief about our fire de- With each successive story, partment. Frequently, they new tips surfaced. What touted the department’s we came to realize is that top national rating from the accuracy of our report- the insurance industry. ing on technical subjects But what we soon learned gained us credibility within was that this rating had the fire service, and this en- almost nothing to do with couraged reluctant sources the department’s actual Firefighters battle the blaze at the Sofa Super Store. Photo by Tyrone to share what they knew capabilities and that the Walker/The Post and Courier. with us. Had we waited to “Best in America” motto publish a lengthy series, at was a myth. least some of what we were Once we started our examination How could this happen? able to include in our reporting would of the department it became appar- Our projects editor, Doug Pardue, very likely have been missing. ent that the tragedy had been decades argued that the fire story’s significance In the newsroom, there was never in the making. The fire department’s (by then, it had generated a lot of na- much doubt that the investment of tactics, equipment and training were tional interest) and the circumstances time and resources were worthwhile. 30 years behind the times, and it was unfolding around us meant that a The death toll was so high—even by completely unprepared to handle a fire traditional multipart series wasn’t firefighting standards—it was evident of such magnitude. the best direction in which to head. something had gone terribly wrong. From the start, our executive edi- [See Pardue’s article on page 19.] Our editors, from the top down, tor, Bill Hawkins, had made it clear Firefighters and fire service profes- trusted that we’d eventually piece it that the fire was one of the bigger sionals from around the country were together. stories in our city’s history. We would calling and e-mailing us to point out not cede any ground in reporting on things in photos and video of the fire Lessons Learned it. In the first few days after the fire, that looked totally wrong. They were story assignments were a free-for-all. mystified by the sight of firefighters Working on these two assignments No idea seemed too far-fetched or running around the blaze without taught me much about investigative unjustified. Any reporter who wanted proper safety equipment. But most reporting. In neither case did I work to pitch in could. were reluctant to go on the record on my own. Having a colleague to share Our early coverage broke news while the fire department and city the workload is critical, since a collab- by describing how the city discour- were still reeling. When the fire chief orative effort offers an intangible that aged businesses from installing fire issued a gag order on his firefighters, is often overlooked as team members sprinklers by charging exorbitant fees, our access to the local fire stations act as a cheerleader for one another how lax code enforcement failed to evaporated overnight. and for the project. Another lesson: flag illegal building additions at the As we began our investigation—by the need for a dedicated projects edi- sofa store, and how the department’s assembling and verifying what we’d tor to orchestrate. Pardue shepherded practices at the fire conflicted with heard from these fire experts—the both projects from day one, keeping contemporary firefighting standards number of alleged inconsistencies and us focused and inspired. He even and guidelines. mistakes at the fire seemed overwhelm- helped report and write a couple of Over time, the number of reporters ing. In part, we felt this way because the fire stories. working the story tapered off. It was at that point we lacked understanding These projects demonstrated that then that I found myself paired with about the firefighting profession. So investigative reporting can be just as veteran police reporter Glenn Smith, we backed away and spent countless effective at revealing why something with whom I’d been teamed on an- hours educating ourselves. We at- did happen as it can be in document- other investigation about bad cops a tended firefighting conferences, read ing how something could happen. couple of years earlier. In working on fire journals, and talked with lots And both of these projects received that story, we’d developed an effective of firefighting experts, whether they numerous state and national reporting collaboration, and as we started our were in our backyard or thousands awards. All of this helped persuade work on this project we knew that our of miles away. our top editors that even with this comprehensive examination of this fire We organized the myriad problems work being a resource-heavy load to needed to answer the core question: we’d been told about into categories carry in our slimmed down newsroom,

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 23 Investigative Journalism

investigative reporting is worthy of in the Minnesota bridge collapse last really know is a credit to investigative special focus and the reporting time year: perilous conditions were there to journalism.  it takes to get it right. be discovered before people died. The Recently, The Post and Courier set loss of life in both of these tragedies Ron Menchaca, an investigative up a dedicated investigations desk might have been averted if journalists reporter at The Post and Courier, was called Watchdog. As we work to get here and there had devoted more time named 2007 Journalist of the Year by our new team off the ground, we are to questioning policies and practices at the South Carolina Press Association. trying to keep in mind that not all good governmental agencies responsible for The probe of the fire received the 2008 investigative stories need to spring out public safety and infrastructure. National Headliner Award for inves- of tragedy. Instead, watchdog journal- It’s certainly possible—though not tigative reporting and a 2007 Sigma ism can help prevent the tragedy from able to be proven—that our investiga- Delta Chi Award for nondeadline occurring in the first place. What our tive reporting has helped head off the reporting. fire reporting showed us was echoed in deaths or injury of children riding the what post-tragedy reporting uncovered state’s school buses. That we’ll never

Joining Forces to Produce Public Service Journalism ‘By using a model like this one, we can more effectively use our staff to do investigative journalism that holds government institutions accountable.’

BY DAVID LEDFORD

hen The Associated Press was to tell an important story by Sense, the Sunlight Foundation and, Managing Editors (APME) helping reporters find the connective of course, The Associated Press (AP), seriously began discussing threads between earmarked requests, which has worked with newspapers Wthe prospect of its first-ever national the flow of money, and influence in since its inception in 1846. Here is reporting project in the summer of the legislative process. In fiscal year a glimpse at the role each of these 2007, the newspaper industry was 2008, earmarks loaded into bills were partners played: struggling, but it didn’t feel like it worth $18.3 billion, and most were was searching for its soul. Today, it tantamount to no-bid contracts. In • Taxpayers for Common Sense sifted, is being dismantled at breathtaking explaining how the system works—for sorted and made sense out of a series speed. And those of us left must ask: recipient and legislator—we provided of very large federal databases. Their Who are we? What are we attempting readers valuable watchdog report- efforts helped reporters connect the to do? Why does it matter? ing. dots between earmarks and cam- Through a national investigative We also created a potential model paign contributions from lobbying reporting project—focused on ear- for investigative journalism, one that firms and businesses to members of marks loaded into the federal budget weaves together the newsroom needs Congress. and collaboratively undertaken by 75 and skills of smaller market papers to • The Sunlight Foundation organized newspapers—a few answers have begun create a story that some news orga- and oversaw free six-hour training to emerge. As a consequence of this nizations could not do on their own.1 sessions in 13 cities across the coun- project, APME leadership decided to And what we’ve learned might be of try to show reporters and editors how forge partnerships with open govern- help to newspapers as they struggle best to harvest information. It also ment foundations as a way to produce through their darkest financial chapter conducted two lengthy Webinars for high-quality public service journalism since the Great Depression. those who couldn’t get to a class- in smaller newspaper markets through- In this project, newspaper report- room. More than 220 reporters and out the country. ers joined forces with our nonprofit editors from 150 news organizations Our intent with this initial effort partners—Taxpayers for Common participated.

1 In the Spring 2008 issue of Nieman Reports, Brazilian journalist Fernando Rodrigues wrote about a similar collaborative model of investigative reporting undertaken on a global scale. Read his article, “Global Efforts at Investigative Reporting,” at www. nieman.harvard.edu/reports/08-1NRspring/p71-rodrigues.html.

24 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

• The Associated Press writers and Franklin’s sidewalks. Robert Frost’s Atlanta for training, describes this editors played an invaluable role by farmhouse. The Mount Washington opportunity as “golden.” taking the information that had been Observatory. A Nashua engineering APME, AP, and Sunlight are plan- gathered by reporters working at lo- firm. What do they have in common? All ning to collaborate on another public cal newspapers and then producing benefited from spending requests tucked service project in 2009. APME operates analysis pieces imbued with histori- into the current federal budget. under the same strict ethical guidelines cal perspective. This collaborative Those weren’t the only beneficiaries as does AP, and we’re careful about effort placed the local investigative of so-called “earmark” spending in selecting partners. When partnerships reporting into a broader national New Hampshire. Dozens of companies, are carefully structured with groups context. nonprofit groups, and communities such as Taxpayers for Common Sense across the state received millions of dol- and the Sunlight Foundation, whose Each of the partners played an es- lars in federal cash this year, thanks to missions revolve around openness sential role in gathering and analyz- requests from the state’s four members in government, I see the combined ing information about Congressional of Congress. efforts of foundations such as these earmarks. Once assembled, and news organizations this information—tailored being a potential force in to the interests of local producing solid watchdog readers and written in dif- journalism. As the news- ferent styles and with vary- In fiscal year 2008, earmarks loaded into paper industry experiences ing emphasis—appeared bills were worth $18.3 billion, and most wave after wave of staff cuts in newspapers scattered after each disappointing throughout the country on were tantamount to no-bid contracts. In earnings report, we need a weekend in early June.2 to become more inventive, In The Herald in explaining how the system works—for and sometimes that entails Monterey (Calif.) County, recipient and legislator—we provided taking risks. staff writer Julia Reynolds By using a model like began her article, called readers valuable watchdog reporting. this one, we can more ef- “Bringing Home the Ba- fectively use our staff to con,” by focusing on the do investigative journalism local Congressman. that holds government in- stitutions accountable. Rep. Sam Farr says he doesn’t think Lessons Learned, Future At the same time, editors at the bar- the public understands pork. At least Directions ricades could use some help from the not the legislative kind. industry’s leaders, who’ve been search- In fact, Farr—a Democrat who has Newspaper editors involved with this ing a long time for a business model been voted “porker of the month” by project tell me that it helped their to sustain what journalists do. With a taxpayers’ group and is regularly reporters produce good work that hit our print, online and niche reader- derided by Republicans for bringing with pinpoint accuracy. What their ship numbers combined, so-called old millions in federal funds to the Central staffs learned will have long-range media now reaches a larger audience Coast—vigorously defends legislators’ impact on these papers’ ability to do share than ever before. Yet a financial use of the earmark system to bring sophisticated database journalism. solvency isn’t on the horizon. home the bacon. And the interactive links set up on As newspapers soldier on in search “I’m on the appropriations commit- the newspapers’ Web sites give read- of such a new profitable model, tee, and I’m there to represent Monterey, ers the opportunity to experience for journalism groups like APME will Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties,” themselves how the earmark game continue to forge partnerships with he said. “I’m glad to argue with anyone is played in Washington, based on foundations to enrich the experience about it.” searchable databases prepared by for readers. Ryan Alexander, president Taxpayers for Common Sense. These of Taxpayers for Common Sense, sees In the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, databases contain information about promise in what’s been done. “We can reporter Daniel Barrick took a differ- the 13,000 earmark items in the put together data sets, but they are so ent approach in his article, “Are state’s 2008 fiscal budget. Susan M. Catron, much more amplified when the work is earmarks wasteful? You decide.” [A box executive editor of the Savannah (Ga.) shared with citizens [through projects from his article is on page 26.] Morning News, whose team went to like investigating earmarks]. There’s

2 A project overview and links to specific articles that appeared in local papers can be found at www.apme.com/earmarks/.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 25 Investigative Journalism

a benefit for everyone.” Ellen Miller, work that helps readers understand into a dying business model of words executive director and cofounder of the how well the officials they elect are delivered only on the printed page. Sunlight Foundation, sees this kind of serving them. On the right topics, We’re in this fight to preserve partnership as being essential to main- these kinds of reporting partnerships journalism—which, as this project taining a healthy democracy—in part between AP and APME member reminds us, is a fight to preserve in- because it is apparent that newspapers, newspapers deliver critical informa- vestigative storytelling that strengthens traditionally the nation’s most effective tion to taxpayers—exactly what news our democracy.  watchdog, need help. “Sunlight firmly organizations should be doing.” believes in supporting the future of The industry is being forced to re- David Ledford is vice president for journalism,” adds Miller. invent itself. Those left standing need news and executive editor of The News Kathleen Carroll, executive editor to stop talking about what we used Journal in Wilmington, Delaware. of AP, observed that “The earmarks to be and focus on what we can be. He also is president of the Associated project is the kind of journalistic We’re no longer fighting to breathe life Press Managing Editors group.

CHARLOTTE THIBAULT / Monitor sta!

26 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Connecting Congressional Earmarks With Campaign Contributions An investigative reporter creates a database of earmarks revealing the relationship between wasteful spending and political favors.

BY DAVID HEATH

s an investigative reporter, a cornerstone of American democracy, Searching for Earmarks I’m accustomed to digging up it is the most secretive public body I’d information that’s been delib- ever covered. I tried to plum the few documents that Aerately buried. But I underestimated The only real public documents on Congress does make public. At first, I the archeological excavation it would Capitol Hill come in the form of press felt pretty confident that they’d lead take to unearth details from a public releases. In recent years, it’s become me to some answers. After all, while document. Not just a public document, a common practice—among at least lawmakers control the purse strings, but a law passed by Congress and half of the lawmakers—to tout how they do so through a legislative process. signed by the President, and Earmarks have to be put in one having to do with how the bills to become law. Surely, dollars spent on our nation’s Congress can’t hide what is defense are being allocated Though lawmakers passed the Freedom of actually printed and even during a time when two wars embossed in a public law. are being waged. Information Act to deal with such abuses of As I started to read the I was looking for ear- power in the wake of Watergate, the law 2007 defense appropriations marks1—pet projects lawmak- bill, I found a few earmarks. ers insert into spending bills, covers only the executive branch. Congress I knew there had to be more. usually as favors for particular The Congressional Research constituencies in their district made itself exempt. Service had counted 16,000 or state. What I wanted to earmarks among several ap- examine was whether the propriations bills in 2005, at people and companies ben- a total cost of $52 billion. efiting from these military-related they successfully added earmarks to Where were the hundreds of earmarks earmarks had donated to the campaign pieces of legislation and thereby gar- I’d expected to find in this year’s de- of the person who had inserted their nered mostly favorable stories from fense department bill? request in the legislation. In other their hometown press. So it was to Fortunately, I stumbled across an words, I wanted to investigate whether these press releases I was ultimately article written by former Senate aide members of Congress were reaping forced to turn, given that the actual Winslow Wheeler. It offered a detailed campaign dollars in return for their documents in Congress—the kind I guide to finding earmarks, and after generosity in doling out tax dollars. routinely am able to get from local reading it I gave Wheeler a call at It’s a simple question, and naively and state governmental bodies—are the Center for Defense Information, I thought getting the answer would secret. Though lawmakers passed the a think tank where he now works. be relatively easy. But I’m an outsider Freedom of Information Act to deal Earmarks aren’t actually in the law, he to Washington, D.C., and it turned with such abuses of power in the wake explained to me. They’re buried in the out that my reporting on this story of Watergate, the law covers only the “joint explanatory statement,” a report taught me a surprising lesson about executive branch. Congress made itself intended to explain how the Senate and Capitol Hill. While Congress might be exempt. House resolved their differences on a

1 The word “earmark” derives from a mark that farmers made on the ears of livestock for identification. On Capitol Hill, the word refers to any part of a spending bill that allocates money for a very specific purpose. In defense bills, an expense is considered an earmark if Congress adds money beyond the department’s request “at a level of specificity below the normal line item level,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 27 Investigative Journalism

particular bill. Wording in legislation took months of work, even with the companies that had received earmarks tends to be carefully crafted to with- help of a couple of interns in the and, of those, nearly 80 percent had stand scrutiny from the courts, but not newsroom. Over time, we managed employees or political action commit- so with the explanatory statement, an to construct a one-of-a-kind data- tees that gave money to Congressional informal document that doesn’t carry base of key information about all of reelection funds over a period of six the same legal burden. the earmarks—including sponsors, years. Their donations totaled more It turns out that lawmakers slipped recipients, how much each recipient than $47 million. Additionally, these nearly 2,700 earmarks, costing nearly gave to the campaign of the earmark’s companies spent more than $160 $12 billion, into the 382-page report sponsor, and how much recipients million in 2006 alone to lobby for that accompanied the defense ap- spent on lobbying. Now I am in the earmarks. propriations bill. These earmarks process of rebuilding this database were not easy to read, and I mean so it is current for 2008. And once Stories Behind the Earmarks this literally. Congressio- nal staffers had converted Of course, numbers were the text of the earmarks not about to be able to to images and shrunk the tell the entire story, since type down to a tiny 1/20 the lawmakers are slip- of an inch, making them ping earmarks into the illegible to my farsighted defense appropriation eyes and impossible to copy bill to request that the and paste. Even worse, the Pentagon buy things that descriptions were so brief it hasn’t even requested. and cryptic as to resemble a This practice is Congress’s secret code. For example, I way of ensuring no-bid read that Congress set aside contracts for favored com- $2.3 million for the Navy panies. Once we decided for “LCS ASW mission area to take a closer look at commonality” and another what actually happened $1.3 million for “Multispec- to the items Congress had tral threat emitter system,” forced the military to buy, yet I still had no idea what Hal Bernton, who covers any of this meant. Microvision, Inc. received earmark funds to develop the Nomad, a the military for the Times, Despite the difficulty in helmet-mounted computer monitor. It was called “junk” by a soldier joined the project. knowing what had been who helped evaluate it. Photo by Ted Baz/Courtesy of Microvision. earmarked, at least I was Helmet-Mounted Com- comforted in knowing we’d puter Monitors: Our focus found them. My next step became again, the process is time consuming was on earmarks targeted at companies figuring out which members of Con- and challenging, yet the work on it in the Pacific Northwest. Microvision gress had authored each one. The continues to receive full support from Inc., which was developing a computer appropriations committees had such my editors despite two rounds of job screen that is put onto soldiers’ helmets, information, but they wouldn’t reveal reductions this year that—through had received $55 million in earmarks it. I also sent out scores of e-mails shuffling of bodies—cut the size of in recent years, and its executives and made dozens of phone calls to our investigative team in half. With were big campaign donors. On May military officers at bases to find out the extreme budget cuts journalists 10, 2004, five Microvision executives more about the vendors who’d been are enduring industrywide, I fear that each gave $1,000 to Washington granted the earmarks. Most feigned readers will see fewer stories that re- Senator Patty Murray’s campaign. A ignorance by saying either the contract quire so much time and effort. month later, Murray announced that hadn’t yet been awarded or that they When the data were assembled, we she had gotten a $5.5 million earmark simply didn’t know. were able to see the disturbing pattern for the company. Bernton tracked In the end, my best sources still of the close relationship between the down soldiers in the Army’s Stryker turned out to be press releases sent inclusion of earmarks and campaign Brigade, based out of Fort Lewis, out by lawmakers. As I searched the donations. It suggested that lawmak- Washington, who served in Iraq. They Web site of each of the 535 lawmakers, ers who granted favors by inserting told us that hundreds of Microvision’s I found that about half had boasted earmarks to defense companies were helmet-mounted computer monitors— about their earmarks. rewarded for it with campaign con- mostly bought with earmarks—had Doing this often tedious research tributions. In all, we identified 500 been stored away in unopened boxes.

28 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Soldiers didn’t like them and didn’t defense bill with the earmark passed it. So the boat sat idle for years on want to test new equipment in battle, in September 2006, one executive a university pier near downtown Se- especially something that interfered gave another $750 to Wu. Two oth- attle. Recently, the National Weather with their vision in situations where ers followed with identical donations Service took it. Guardian Marine and their lives were at risk. within three weeks. the subcontractor who assembled the In August 2005, Microvision lost a boat donated nearly $150,000 to the competition set up by the Army to test Patrol Boat: I was also curious to learn campaigns of those who helped with various helmet-mounted monitors. Yet what had happened to several boats the earmarks. four months later, apparently acting on Murray and others had forced the Navy an earlier lobbying effort by Microvi- and Coast Guard to buy from a tiny We’ve posted our database online; sion, Senator Murray managed to get Edmonds, Washington company. The it can be searched for any member the company a $6 million earmark to $4.5 million boat was big and fast, of Congress or recipient of earmarks. sell 1,599 of the rejected Its information will reveal devices to the Stryker Bri- the relationship between gades. The Army gave the this member’s legislative use-it-or-lose-it funds to action and campaign con- Microvision to do further tributions this member of research. Congress received from the earmark recipient.2 Polyester T-Shirt: Bernton Congress made some also tracked down the story modest reforms last year of a polyester T-shirt ear- and toyed briefly with a marked for Marines in Iraq. moratorium on earmarks. In late 2005, Congress- Each of the presidential man David Wu of Oregon contenders supported the got a $2 million earmark moratorium proposal, for InSport, a small ath- which leads to specula- letic clothing company. tion that the November Wu said Marines would election could have a big be more comfortable in impact on the future of InSport’s polyester than in Neither the Navy nor the Coast Guard could use this patrol boat that earmarks. Of course, the their standard-issue cotton they were forced to buy. It was transferred to the University of Wash- greatest impact would shirts. But polyester melts ington and later to the National Weather Service. Photo by Thomas come if Congress increased when exposed to heat and James Hurst/The Seattle Times. its own accountability by was banned in early 2006 opening its records and after a Marine, caught in an its processes to the public. explosion, suffered burns over 70 per- sort of a cross between a sports car It’s time for us in the news media to cent of his body. His melted polyester and a recreational vehicle. The Coast demand it.  shirt had to be cut from his body. Guard didn’t want it, so Murray put an Despite the ban, the Marines went earmark into a bill specifying that the David Heath, a 2006 Nieman Fellow, ahead and bought the InSport shirts, Coast Guard had to buy “a currently- is an investigative reporter for The saying they could only be used in developed 85-foot fast patrol craft that Seattle Times. For their series “The training. InSport later made a shirt is manufactured in the United States.” Favor Factory,” Heath and his col- with fire-resistant sleeves, but the The only company making such a boat league Hal Bernton won the national Marines wouldn’t approve it for use was the Edmonds company, Guardian Clark Mollenhoff Award for Excellence in battle because most of the shirt Marine International. in Investigative Reporting. This story remained polyester. Still, Congressman The Coast Guard tested the boat but was featured on “Bill Moyers Journal,” Wu got InSport another $1 million eventually gave it away to a sheriff ’s and the video telling this story can earmark last year to sell the shirts to office in California. The Navy didn’t be seen at www.pbs.org/moyers/jour- the Marines. want its boats either and, before one nal/02222008/profile.html. InSport executives gave Wu’s cam- of the boats was even built, gave it paign $6,100 on a single day in the to the University of Washington. But spring of 2006. The day after the the university couldn’t find a use for

2 The database and series can be found at www.seattletimes.com/favorfactory.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 29 Investigative Journalism

Investing in Watchdog Reporting ‘… the Journal Sentinel has built a 10-person Watchdog Team with a robust Web presence called Watchdog Online.’

BY MARK KATCHES

ournalists are trained to be skep- endocrine system by bisphenol A, a and Cary Spivak prompted Congress to tics, and investigative reporters hormone-mimicking compound found hold hearings, and their reporting on ratchet up the skepticism a notch, in numerous household products, potentially dangerous chemicals hid- Jalmost to a point of paranoia. So including many used by babies and den in everyday products continues. when Milwaukee Journal Sentinel children. In June, American Journalism The investigative culture at the Editor Martin Kaiser and Managing Review profiled our watchdog team. Journal Sentinel extends well beyond Editor George Stanley hired me in The next month, Editor and Publisher our Watchdog Team. Daily beat report- November 2006 to help build one of named the Journal Sentinel as one of ers are getting into the act—helping the largest investigative teams in the “10 That Do It Right.” The Associated to brand the Journal Sentinel as United States, I encountered doubters Press Managing Editors have also se- the go-to Web site for hard-hitting, among my peers. lected us as a finalist for the Innovator high-impact investigative reporting Could the Journal Sentinel pull this of the Year Award for our watchdog in Wisconsin. Since February 2007, off? The newspaper certainly had a rich work in print and online. we’ve published more than 50 stories tradition of explanatory and investiga- under the “Journal Sentinel Watchdog tive reporting. But the paper had gone Diversity Is Critical Report” label. Many were produced years without a dedicated project team. by daily beat writers working on their So when I started putting feelers out to In an industry beset by unprecedented own or in tandem with members of a couple of people I considered hiring challenges, our investment represents the Watchdog Team. from other newspapers, I was met with a “good news” story that began with A few months after we launched long pauses and blank stares. We’ll courage and commitment from the the Watchdog Team, Kaiser decided believe it when we see it, they said. newspaper’s top editors, Kaiser and he wanted to see more quick-hit, Their reaction was understandable Stanley. Next, it required us to take a consumer-focused watchdog stories. To given today’s climate as newsrooms multidimensional approach. Instead of get a sense of what might be possible, mostly slash and cut. emphasizing only ambitious projects we looked at other news organizations, There’s something awfully reward- that can take months, quick-hit in- including the Fort Worth Star-Tele- ing about bucking the trend. During vestigations, blogs, consumer-focused gram, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the past 18 months, the Journal Sen- watchdog stories, and searchable data- and Florida Today. We then set out tinel has built a 10-person Watchdog bases are stressed. We have launched to create our model with a distinct Team with a robust Web presence a popular Citizen Watchdog site, a look and feel and hired a team of two called Watchdog Online. Despite ris- one-stop center for Wisconsin resi- reporters. Raquel Rutledge moved ing newsprint costs, shrinking clas- dents wanting to do their own poking from a general assignment position, sified sections, and numerous other around. It includes links to campaign and we hired Ellen Gabler just as she challenges, we’ve found new—often contributions, lobbying reports, busi- was finishing her master’s degree at Web-centric—ways to invest in public ness records, government meeting Columbia University’s Graduate School service journalism while also manag- agendas, and much more. of Journalism, where she focused on ing two staff buyouts and dramatically Along the way, we manage to investigative reporting. boosting our online breaking news mix in some longer-term watchdog output. projects. Each of our award-winning Public Investigator Our investment in this high-impact investigative projects (about pensions journalism has paid dividends. The and chemicals) took about six months With Rutledge and Gabler on board, Journal Sentinel won this year’s Pu- from sign-off to publication and had Stanley came up with the name “Public litzer Prize for Local Reporting for immediate impact. Dave Umhoefer’s Investigator” (P.I.) and added a motto uncovering illegal pension deals that pension story prompted Milwaukee that appears with all of our stories: cost Milwaukee County taxpayers County officials to turn themselves in “Taking tips, chasing leads, solving $50 million and a Sigma Delta Chi to the IRS and launched a criminal problems.” Rutledge and Gabler mostly Award for a two-part series examining investigation. Our “Chemical Fallout” write about people getting a raw deal. the health risks posed to the human series by Susanne Rust, Meg Kissinger, Inevitably, when they report one story it

30 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep generates a flood of tips from a public latitude. They have written about Is the public noticing the Journal that is clearly hungry for a place where shady political dealings and problems Sentinel’s watchdog additions? Thanks their experiences merit attention and in local schools. But their primary to Web tracking tools, we know they action. Of course, not every tip we mission is being a watchdog for local are. Our Public Investigator features receive turns into a newspaper story. consumers. Rutledge and Gabler often consistently rank among our most But many of them lead to items on tell their stories through the experi- clicked stories on our Web site and the P.I. Team’s blog, which is updated ences of a single individual, but are are always among our more popular at least once a day.1 [See next article, able to connect their experiences to watchdog stories. We’ve heard lots of by Rutledge and Gabler.] larger trends and problems occurring anecdotal evidence from appreciative Our experiences with blogs like in Wisconsin. readers to back up what the data tell this one have helped transform how The P.I. Team has proven to be us and, of course, there is the e-mail we handle nuggets of reporting in innovators, offering readers some- box filling up with more story tips. the Journal Sentinel newsroom. A thing we call “extras”—self-contained Our other watchdog offerings also few years ago, if a reporter learned quick facts. These include everything drive Web traffic. Searchable databases of a juicy news item that wasn’t quite from product recall announcements on our “Data on Demand” page log interesting enough to merit a news- to spreading the word about broken as many as 800,000 clicks a month, paper story, the item would remain streetlights that need attention. They and clicks on our Watchdog Online in the notebook, either filed away in are featured as stand-alone items on pages—excluding our searchable a cabinet or tossed away. Now blogs our blog and also at the bottom of databases—have shown double-digit offer a perfect outlet for these little our stories. One of my favorites is growth nearly every month since No- gems. This blog is used, too, for a something we call “Tick Tock.” The vember 2007. little marketing—teasing stories that reporters start a stopwatch when The investment is most definitely are soon to appear on the Web site they enter places like a post office. paying off.  or in the newspaper. And the success They report how long it takes to get of the P.I. Team’s blog inspired the served—the type of thing that every Mark Katches is the assistant man- Watchdog Team to launch a second reader can relate to. In a small way, aging editor for projects and inves- blog called “Dogged.”2 this kind of reporting helps hold public tigations at the Milwaukee Journal We’ve given the P.I. Team lots of institutions accountable. Sentinel.

1 http://blogs.jsonline.com/piblog/default.aspx 2 http://blogs.jsonline.com/dogged/default.aspx

Public Investigator: Transforming Tips Into Stories Two reporters use quick-hit, watchdog journalism to investigate local issues— and blog about what they do.

BY RAQUEL RUTLEDGE AND ELLEN GABLER

oyce Hill had tried everything she Sentinel and sent us an e-mail. page story exposing an unscrupulous could imagine. She complained Upon first blush, her story might store owner who had a pattern of to the state consumer protection not excite most journalists. It certainly closing down and reopening under a Jagency. She hired a private investi- didn’t fall on anyone’s beat. Using new name, sometimes down the block gator. Nobody could help her. Hill, typical standards to judge its news- from his last location. The story also a longtime factory worker, had been worthiness it easily could have been revealed a splintered oversight system swindled out of $1,336 she had put overlooked—one consumer, not the that allowed this situation to continue down on layaway for a new dining masses; dollars lost, 1,336. Not huge. for years. room set. The store, and its owner who Ho hum, one might think. Yet with a Our initial fear was that this con- had taken her money, had disappeared. lot of digging and cobbling together sumer watchdog assignment could Then she spotted a Public Investigator of public records databases, the P.I. end up being the proverbial “pot hole” (P.I.) story in the Milwaukee Journal team turned Hill’s tip into a front- beat, a dumping ground for insignifi-

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 31 Investigative Journalism

cant stories about broken street lights Our blog is also a place where we let but we toss around ideas, and we keep and the like. But it’s turned out to be people know when our investigations one another informed about what we’re just the opposite; since the launch of result in changes. After we wrote about working on. P.I. in September 2007, 32 of our 53 a senior home that charged families Neither Katches nor we are afraid to stories have landed on Page One (as rent long after their loved ones had have fun with stories or try new things. of late August). died, the practice was stopped—with With our “Under the Microscope” Our stories run the gamut. Many urging from a United States sena- feature, we’ve been testing products times they are about how someone tor who’d read our story. That story to find out what’s in them. It costs got a raw deal. Often they’re about wasn’t going to make the paper as a the Journal Sentinel a little money, what a government but it has proven to be agency or program did an innovative approach or didn’t do. Some of for the paper to take and our stories turn out to led to some eye-catching be the ones that create stories. Of course, there a buzz—the proverbial are times when the test- “water cooler” piece— ing doesn’t result in a such as our “Bad Beer story, but it’s been worth in Brew City,” in which taking the risk. we tested beer tap lines Another goal is to in local watering holes try to be very acces- and found some caked sible to readers. That’s with bacteria. Turns out why every P.I. story in that in Wisconsin, un- the paper and online like other states, there is accompanied by our is no law requiring looking-glass icon next restaurants or bars to to the words “Blow the clean their keg lines regularly. full-blown story, so our blog was a Whistle. Do you have a tip for the P.I. Others stories we’ve done have perfect fit. Team? We’re all ears.” Under that we taken a hard look at situations involv- We use computer-assisted reporting publish our tip line e-mail, our names, ing the breakdown of public services and laboratory testing as investiga- phone numbers, and direct e-mail and the consequences to those who tive tools for some of our P.I. stories. addresses and, finally, offer a link to are dependent on them. In one case, We also base many of our reports the P.I. home page. we investigated a problem at the on documents we obtain through What’s hard about the job is that county food stamp office that was open records requests. Using these there aren’t more of us doing it. There causing thousands of people not to investigative techniques makes stories are times when we feel overwhelmed receive public assistance within the harder-hitting and gives them the by the volume of tips and reader re- time period required under federal watchdog edge we want. For three sponse to our work, as well as their law. P.I. also spotlighted how many stories, we included searchable data- requests. After a story runs, other of Wisconsin’s neediest children were bases that have generated tremendous people affected by a similar situation not being tested for lead poisoning, Web traffic. call in, and they want us to do an even though it is mandated by federal A major reason for P.I.’s success is investigation of their situation or help Medicaid rules. the backing we get from our editor, them with a particular problem. Every day, in addition to stories we Mark Katches. [See Katches’ story Since P.I.’s launch a year ago, we’ve do for the paper and the Web site, we on page 30.] He is constantly push- been in touch with many people in write on our P.I. blog. It’s our way of ing us to hold people and agencies the community. We’ve discovered interacting with readers and keeping accountable and to probe until we that there’s a huge appetite for local, the “Public Investigator” name in find the real reason why something quick-hit investigations. With the help their minds. We also solicit tips and went wrong. With his support in of readers, our watchdog work seems seek help from people who might be the newsroom, we are given ample to be feeding the public’s hunger for affected by something we’re writing time to do the necessary digging. We accountability.  about. Recently, we used our blog to don’t have story quotas, but both of find customers who’d been back-billed us make a concerted effort to keep a Raquel Rutledge and Ellen Gabler are by the local utility company. We also steady stream of short- and long-term members of the Milwaukee Journal blog after a story runs to share read- ideas flowing. This way we keep P.I. in Sentinel’s Watchdog Team who report ers’ reactions, sometimes posting their front of the public—whether in print, for the paper’s Public Investigator comments after we get their okay that on the Web site, or on our blog. We section. their comments are on the record. write most of our stories individually,

32 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Nurturing Newsroom Talent With Local Investigations ‘For projects, the newspaper now typically links a lead investigative reporter with beat reporters.’

BY MICHAEL SALLAH

hen The Miami Herald published a series expos- ing corruption in the local Whousing agency in 2006, hundreds of citizens stormed county meetings and marched in Miami’s poorest neighbor- hoods. Enraged over the newspaper’s findings, readers contacted the state attorney’s office demanding arrests of developers who pocketed millions but failed to build promised homes. “The housing agency was supposed to be their lifeline, and it failed to come through,” said reporter Debbie Cenziper, after receiving the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for the series, “House of Lies.” That same year, the newspaper published two other major projects, “Predators Among Us,” which revealed breakdowns in Florida’s treatment of sexual offenders, and “Deadly Express,” an exposé of the hidden dangers of air cargo carriers across the United States. For years, the Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust reported to federal officials that com- While the stories prompted reforms panies such as Overtown Manufacturing Company—where Gerda Billy, pictured above, and, in some cases, arrests, they also worked—were not only operating, but also thriving, with dozens of newly created jobs. presented a new challenge to news- The reality is that Overtown had been shut down since 2003—with no job gains, as was room leaders: How can a newspaper reported in the Herald’s “Poverty Peddlers” series. Photo by Danna E. Natale Planas/The with a rich tradition of local watchdog Miami Herald. reporting continue that work in an era of dwindling staff and diminish- ing resources? On another level, who model than having a member of the In 2007, the Herald launched three is going to do this kind of work in a I-team fly solo or with other team projects. Two landed in the newspaper community where corruption runs members. last year, and a third was published so deep? For projects, the newspaper now this summer—all with remarkable im- typically links a lead investigative pact. For each assignment, we paired Moving to a Different Model reporter with beat reporters. This an I-team member with a reporter (or enables us to keep several projects reporters) who knew the beat related With staff turnover taking away some on track each year while allowing to the project’s topic. As work on the of our top reporters (a 17 percent staff younger reporters to get the kind of story took place so, too, did mentor- cut in June) and a hiring squeeze dur- training they may have waited years ing in the skills and challenges of this ing the past year, The Miami Herald to acquire. It more fully invests those type of long-term reporting. has been determined to continue to beat reporters into their turf, giving The first investigation examined launch ambitious projects, even with them time to spend exposing serious the Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust, fewer full-time I-team members. To issues that normally get shorter shrift the area’s largest antipoverty agency, do so, we have turned to a different in their daily reporting. by investigative reporter Jason Grotto

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 33 Investigative Journalism

rounds of editing, he gradually picked up on the more declarative style of projects writing.

Teaming Up to Cover Corruption

The newspaper also teams up vet- eran editors with metro reporters on short-term investigations. Herald Urban Affairs Editor Ronnie Greene, a former I-team member who reported the “Deadly Express” series, directed coverage of an explosive issue in the city of Miami involving a once-secret memo written by one city commis- sioner relaying allegations that another commissioner was demanding kick- backs for political allies. The Herald successfully sued to get the memo and, once obtained, broke ground on several major tentacles of what’s Diddy, hip-hop entrepreneur and MTV host, sits in his Rolls Royce in front of the Hotel now a prosecutor’s corruption probe. MTV (Surfcomber Hotel) on Miami Beach. The Miami Herald uncovered tens of thou- Hiaasen and city hall reporter Michael sands in payments made by the local antipoverty agency to pay for Diddy and other celebri- Vasquez joined in an examination of ties to fly to the city for the MTV Awards. Photo by Patrick Farrell/The Miami Herald. the ties between the commissioner accused in the memo and her most ardent allies, who had been hired as and metro reporter Rob Barry. While to town for the MTV Video Music lobbyists by city vendors. Grotto found the agency failed to vet a Awards and funding expensive junkets After the city and county approved troubled biotech park project that cost for agency board members. an unprecedented three billion dollar taxpayers millions, Barry determined In working as partners on this megaplan that would build everything that despite millions spent to create project, each reporter utilized his from a new baseball stadium to a new jobs, the poverty rate in Miami was particular strength. Grotto, who’d port tunnel, Greene led beat reporters actually increasing. been a computer-assisted reporter, on a four-part series, breaking apart The result of this combined effort— worked the numbers while Hiaasen each piece of the project and serving “Poverty Peddlers”—led to the arrest of mined familiar ground from his years as a mentor during the reporting. a prominent developer and the shut- covering local government. Their effort As a former county reporter, Greene down of the biotech project. For other resulted in a shared byline on four of was able to keep reporters focused on articles in this series, metro reporter the “Poverty Peddlers” seven stories— several key issues, including influence Scott Hiaasen joined with Grotto for articles that stirred outrage, prompted peddling and lobbying. “This is Mi- a deeper dive into the Empowerment a second criminal investigation, and ami. You follow the money,” he kept Trust; he set out to examine the agency’s the recovery of millions in tax dollars. on reminding them—and he showed programs since 2000 and probed its The county has since overhauled the them how to do it. job creation program. In doing so, he antipoverty program. Overall, every reporter in the turned up information demonstrating This experience proved invaluable Herald’s newsroom is encouraged to that the trust fabricated job numbers for Hiaasen, who now leads projects carry out watchdog journalism and, while continuing to receive federal while assigned to the paper’s I-team. from these journalists, the newspaper dollars. The reporters also found a In the course of his career, he had develops its next generation of I-team small cadre of developers—insiders worked on some serious enterprise members. From the experience working with deep ties to the county’s most stories, but this project truly tested with Cenziper on the housing series, powerful political figures—were si- him. “There was so much information beat reporter Larry Lebowitz is now phoning millions in public dollars to work with,” he said. “It would have steeped in his own investigation on the from projects without delivering any been easy to get overwhelmed.” Hiaa- county’s transit authority. Investiga- services. Additionally, they found the sen said Grotto was able to teach him tive reporter Jack Dolan was teamed antipoverty agency had spent tens of how to better organize his information with business reporter Matt Haggman thousands of dollars flying celebrities in computer files and, through long and Rob Barry for an investigation

34 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep published in July that showed Florida within the ranks. By teaming our Michael Sallah is investigations editor regulators allowed thousands of ex- investigative staff with beat report- and reporter at The Miami Herald. convicts to peddle mortgages in the ers, we are, naturally, training the He was co-recipient of the 2004 Pu- state—with many going on to steal next crop. The strategy will allow us litzer Prize for Investigative Report- millions from borrowers. to persevere in our newspaper’s core ing for the Toledo Blade and directed Rarely does the newspaper hire mission—relentless digging on local The Miami Herald investigation that a projects writer from the outside; issues—even as the industry changes won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Local rather, editors develop them from around us.  Reporting.

When Fierce Competitors Join the Same Team North Carolina’s leading newspapers now publish each other’s investigative work ‘as prominently as we would have had we reported them ourselves.’

!"#$%&'(#%&)**+,&-./01&23/.4"#356&07.&4%38"#9&#%76:3:%/6,&;1%&213/4.00%&<=6%/>%/& Our competitors are everybody else 3#8&;1%&?34%"91&-%76&@&<=6%/>%/,&13>%&=%%#&.7#%8&=A&;1%&B$2430$1A&2.C:3#AD&;7.& …. We’re not going to lose this game A%3/6&430%/,&3E0%/&3&$.C:3#A7"8%&/%8($0".#&.E&603EE&"#&B$2430$1AF.7#%8&#%76/..C6,& to The Charlotte Observer. If we’re 213/4.00%&<=6%/>%/&G8"0./&?"$H&;13C%6&3#8&?34%"91&-%76&@&<=6%/>%/&GI%$(0">%& going to lose, it’s to some upstart G8"0./&'.1#&J/%6$1%/&0.48&01%"/&603EE6&0130&01%&07.&:3:%/6&7"44&13>%&3&E3/&$4.6%/& Web site.” 7./H"#9&/%430".#61":D&!.C%&8%:3/0C%#06&7.(48&C%/9%,&01%A&3##.(#$%8,&"#$4(8"#9&01%& :3:%/65&$3:"034&=(/%3(6&3#8&6:./06&603EE6D&;1%&:%/6.#&6%4%$0%8&0.&1%38&01"6&#%7&6:./06& Reconfiguring Assignments 8%:3/0C%#0&"6&K3/A&!$173=,&71.&E./&01%&:360&6%>%#&A%3/6&138&=%%#&;1%&213/4.00%& <=6%/>%/56&:/.L%$06&%8"0./,&71%/%&1%&.>%/637&0130&#%76:3:%/56&"#>%60"930">%&/%:./0"#9D& In 2007, political editors divided M%E./%&366(C"#9&1"6&#%7&L.=,&!$173=&7/.0%&01"6&3/0"$4%&E./&-"%C3#&?%:./06&3=.(0& coverage of John Edwards on the 6.C%&.E&7130&1%58&%I:%/"%#$%8&36&01%&07.&:3:%/6,&.#$%&N%/$%&/">346,&138&=%9(#&0.& presidential campaign trail, and sports 7./H&0.9%01%/&0.&=/"#9&4.$34&"#>%60"930">%&/%:./0"#9&0.&C./%&/%38%/6&"#&-./01&23/.4"#3D& editors split up ACC basketball assign- O"6&7./86&.EE%/&3&>34(3=4%&94"C:6%&"#0.&.#%&.E&01%&73A6P"#&3#&%/3&.E&8"C"#"61"#9& ments. And we began to plan how to /%6.(/$%6P01%&7./H&.E&"#>%60"930">%&/%:./0%/6&30&/%9".#34&#%76:3:%/6&$3#&=%&=/.(910&0.& get the largest impact out of our best %>%/F%I:3#8"#9&3(8"%#$%6D investigative work. Riley shared with me what it was like for him to break the news to longtime BY GARY SCHWAB News & Observer investigative reporter Pat Stith, known for his competitive t was the most bizarre conversa- competed against each other for de- spirit, that he was planning to tell our tion I’ve had in 25 years at The cades, battling to be first and best in paper about his latest project. Charlotte Observer. Here’s the coverage of politics, ACC basketball, Stith looked at him and said, “Riley, Ilong-term investigation we’re work- and important news investigations. this has got to be a bunch of crap. We ing on, I explained two years ago to Then, in 2006, McClatchy Company can’t tell the Observer.” Steve Riley of The Raleigh News & bought Knight Ridder, Inc., and our “Pat,” Riley replied, “look at it this Observer. And Steve, in turn, shared newspapers were now considered to be way. If we tell them, they can’t go to with me his paper’s plans. part of the same team. In a time when work on it.” For the two of us, each the editor in newspapers are struggling for revenue Stith stroked his chin, then said, charge of projects at North Carolina’s and resources, the advantages in work- “Then go tell them everything.” two largest daily newspapers, telling ing together soon became clear. Though we’re still figuring out all each other what we’re working on was “At first, it seemed really odd,” says of the logistics, our basic guidelines like the New York Yankees and the News & Observer Executive Editor are these: Boston Red Sox exchanging strategies John Drescher, who formerly worked for an upcoming three-game series in in Charlotte. “Faced with the thought 1. When one paper hears what the the midst of a heated pennant race. The of cooperating with The Charlotte Ob- other is working on, it can’t go out two papers serve communities about server, a lot of the staff really recoiled. and do its own two-day version of 170 miles apart and don’t generally But I think our folks realized that the the story. compete for readers, though we’ve Observer isn’t the competitor anymore. 2. It’s good to do a local sidebar to

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 35 Investigative Journalism

make the investigative project even packages sooner, since more relevant to your own paper’s each newspaper works readers. out its own display and 3. We’ll play the other paper’s stories as production. Raleigh, for prominently as we would have had example, sometimes runs we reported them ourselves. shorter versions of our 4. If we both are working on the same stories and vice versa. project—well, we’ll figure that one Though we share a out if it ever happens. healthy respect for each other’s reporting stan- Expanding the Reach of dards, there is sometimes Reporting disagreement. In our poultry series, Raleigh In February, we delivered a glimpse editors decided not to run After three years of being a line worker at the House of the power of the new relation- some information we’d of Raeford chicken processing plant, this 35-year-old ship. A Charlotte six-part series, “The published and attributed woman’s hands are gnarled and swollen and always shak- Cruelest Cuts,” examined the human to unnamed sources. In ing. “My hands were good when I started,” she said. “Now cost of bringing poultry to the din- a Raleigh series on the I can’t do anything.” She was fired in February 2007. The ner table and showed how one large Duke lacrosse case, we reason: three unexcused absences. She disputes this, North Carolina company masked the chose to not include some saying she called the plant several times to say she was extent of workplace injuries behind graphic detail of the rape seeing a doctor about her hands. “They fired me because factory walls. The Observer reported investigation. they had no use for me,” she said. “My hands don’t work. that House of Raeford Farms ignored, To be sure, there’s a I could no longer do the job.” March 2007. Photo by John intimidated or fired workers who were valid argument to be D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer. hurt on the job and also found the made that having report- company had broken the law by fail- ers from different papers ing to record injuries on government competing as they pursue safety logs. the same story will benefit Two weeks later, the state’s mental readers. And that still health director resigned days before happens on some stories. The Raleigh News & Observer began But we’ve also found the a five-part series on the state’s failure readers benefit when one to reform mental health services. The paper handles an as- newspaper reported that the state had signment for both; this wasted at least $400 million in an ill- arrangement frees other conceived and poorly executed plan to reporters’ time for other treat more mentally ill people in their enterprise and watchdog own communities and fewer in the work. Coordinating in- state’s four psychiatric hospitals. vestigations and planning The two newspapers have produced their rollout gives us even powerful work before. But this time, greater impact. The House of Raeford chicken processing plant in West both series received prominent play Reaction from legisla- Columbia, South Carolina, has 150 workers packed in both newspapers. Combined, total tors was swift when the into six evisceration lines where they pull skins, remove circulation for the two reaches about two newspapers pub- chicken tenders, and make cuts with razor sharp knives 475,000 on Sunday—or more than a lished both of these while birds move down the line to the next station for million readers. “In moments like these, investigative reports in more processing. May 2007. Photo by John D. Simmons/ we truly become a state newspaper,” February. Lawmakers The Charlotte Observer. says Charlotte Observer Editor Rick vowed reform in response Thames. to both of them, and the U.S. Sen- Gary Schwab has been projects editor Both series had strong online com- ate and House committees have held at The Charlotte Observer since 2001. ponents, expanding the reach even hearings to focus on worker safety in Previously, he was executive sports more. Charlotte had 2.4 million unique response to our poultry series. editor at the newspaper for 14 years, online visitors in March. Raleigh had “Suddenly, the best journalism being and this summer was named to over- 1.7 million the same month. done in the state has a bigger platform,” see the merged sports department of Even as this happens, we are con- says Charlotte Managing Editor Cheryl the Observer and The Raleigh News & tinuing to work out details of our re- Carpenter. “That’s good for readers. Observer newspapers. lationship. We’d each like to get series That’s good for justice.” 

36 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Investigative Talent Departs After Awards Come In The Blade’s commitment to investigative reporting endures despite the loss of key reporters to larger news organizations with better pay.

BY DAVE MURRAY

t was June 2005, and The Blade was lars in one of them. over. Boak’s career had just taken off, in the middle of unraveling Ohio’s I had edited and managed several along with the careers of the five other rare-coin investment scandal—the investigative projects at The Blade reporters on the Coingate team. The Ibiggest investigation the Toledo, Ohio before but never a story like Coingate. investigation was named a Pulitzer newspaper had ever undertaken. finalist in 2006 for public service Blade reporters uncovered that and won other national journal- dozens of rare coins the state ism awards. had purchased were missing and, The Coingate investigation led to as they continued to investigate, Awards, Then Defections they brought to light an exten- the criminal convictions of Governor sive pay-to-play system in state By the end of 2007, Boak and four government. The Blade’s probe Bob Taft, several former aides, and other team members departed The prompted the formation of a prominent Republican officeholders Blade for newspapers in Chicago, state and federal law enforce- Baltimore, Detroit and Charlotte. ment task force and the eventual for violating state ethics statutes. The The Blade was the victim of its acknowledgement that millions own success, but that was nothing of dollars were missing from a Blade’s reporting unraveled a web of new. The Blade has maintained state agency’s $50 million rare- corruption in Ohio and resulted in the its commitment to investigative coin fund. reporting, but during the past Reporters were pulled from state turning from red to blue 10 years we have had to form the city desk, business desk, four new investigative teams as regional desk, and statehouse in November 2006 …. we’ve watched some of our bet- bureau to build a team that would ter reporters depart for bigger unmask the scandal that would papers after their investigative eventually be called “Coingate.” work was recognized with national Shortly after state officials ac- awards. knowledged that $10 to $12 million The team eventually expanded to six was missing from state coin funds, they reporters, an editorial librarian, a • Sam Roe’s groundbreaking Blade in- admitted they’d concealed a separate forensic accountant, and a file clerk. vestigation into the death and injury $215 million investment loss in an After The Blade successfully sued the caused by the American beryllium offshore hedge fund. state for access to coin-fund records, industry earned him several national As the newspaper’s special assign- the team was moved to Columbus awards as well as being named a ments editor, I needed another reporter to report on the 500,000 records Pulitzer finalist in investigative to cover the development, so I turned that were eventually released by the reporting in 2000. He soon left for to Joshua Boak, who had just been state. the Chicago Tribune. In April, he hired. I asked him if he knew anything The Coingate investigation led to was part of the team at the Tribune about hedge funds. He began telling the criminal convictions of Governor that won the Pulitzer for investiga- me about risk aversion and hedging Bob Taft, several former aides, and tive reporting for its product safety against market upturns or downturns. prominent Republican officeholders series. He had never worked for a newspaper for violating state ethics statutes. The • After The Blade won a Pulitzer for before, but I knew he had graduated Blade’s reporting unraveled a web of investigative reporting in 2004 for from Princeton and Columbia. He corruption in Ohio and resulted in its Tiger Force investigation into was smart, and I needed somebody the state turning from red to blue in Vietnam War atrocities, writers Mike like him to explain hedge funds to November 2006, with the Republicans Sallah, Mitch Weiss, and Joe Mahr our readers. I had no idea what they losing all but one statewide executive left for jobs at The Miami Herald, were; all I knew was that Ohio had office to Democrats. The political The Charlotte Observer, and the St. just lost almost a quarter billion dol- careers of Taft and his cronies were Louis Post-Dispatch.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 37 Investigative Journalism

The pattern repeated itself after the picking up awards for their investiga- extensive knowledge of Ohio politics. success of the Coingate investigation. tion. Early on, I had informed Ballow Many of his ideas and tips turned into Each time an award was won, a team that it had taken years to build a cul- Page One stories. was lost. And each time, The Blade ture of investigative reporting at The One of the benefits of having the began building another team and Blade, and I feared that would be lost publisher on your I-team is that scarce looking for the next great investiga- if he was successful. I still remember resources become available. As with tive story. It’s a frustrating situation what he told me after one of our first most great newspaper investigations, for editors, but one that has worked meetings, “Son, we’ll get you a new Coingate coverage was not planned or in Toledo. team when this is all over.” budgeted and happened during a year Ballow has returned to Nashville, when The Blade was losing money. Shrinking Pay, Departing and The Blade’s investigative team After Blade attorney Fritz Byers, Reporters has been reduced to one reporter. It who had won numerous public records is time to rebuild. lawsuits for the newspaper, sued the While The Blade was racking up state and the Ohio Supreme Court awards for its investigative journal- The Value of Support ordered the release of all records docu- ism, financial losses were also piling menting its rare-coin investment, the up. In 2006, Blade executives decided By nature, an investigative editor wakes Ohio attorney general began releasing they had to stop the losses, so they up feeling cynical—always looking for several boxes of records each day to hired the Nashville law firm of King what’s wrong with government, with The Blade, the Columbus Dispatch, & Ballow to negotiate with the paper’s business, with the institutions that and the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer. By labor unions. At his first meeting with impact readers’ lives. To get through this point, the other big Ohio papers newsroom editors and managers, Bob the day, however, requires that the had assembled teams of their own to Ballow told stories about how he broke editor also be an optimist. Time and cover the expanding state government into the newspaper business as a boy time again, The Blade has watched scandal. and his life in the South. He also said reporters head to bigger papers, but On the third day of the records unions had been running The Blade we’ve come back stronger. Years ago release, Blade reporters came across for far too long and now it was “our I learned that successful investigative a document that would make a great turn.” reporting is a team sport, only possible story if we could only remember where Here was a well-dressed southern with smart and hard-working reporters we’d put a related document we’d read gentleman hired to save The Blade being well supported by top editors. three days earlier. Our small office from financial ruin. He handed out And despite our loss of reporters, we was filling up with stacks of paper, Goo Goo Clusters, Nashville’s signature have been able to maintain our editing and state officials told us there were chocolate confection, and a completely and newsroom management team. hundreds of thousands of records yet new contract for The Blade’s union The Blade’s executive editor, Ron to be released. workforce that he said he wrote himself. Royhab, and managing editor, Kurt The phone rang, and it was Block It called for cuts in pay, vacation, sick Franck, have spent many nights read- asking for his daily update. I was time, personal days, and for a longer ing copy behind me, asking the hard frustrated, and he could sense it. He workweek. questions I don’t always think to ask asked me what was wrong, so I told Over the next year, labor turmoil and running interference with the him what I was facing. I told him the roiled The Blade. Ballow locked out bean counters on the business side coin team needed a bigger office and five production unions at the paper, who always want to cut space and a file clerk to create a record system with reporters crossing daily picket budgets. And any honest editor will to help reporters stay organized. He lines with the permission of their admit that the copy desk and design told me to rent more space, hire a file union. Months dragged by, the unions desk catch mistakes and transform clerk, and said he was hiring a forensic held rallies, called for circulation and what investigative teams produce into accountant to help the team find the advertising boycotts, and Ballow and pages that look amazingly good. fraudulent transactions he was sure Blade owners didn’t budge. In the The top editor at The Blade is John were documented in the records. end, the unions capitulated, agreeing Robinson Block, the newspaper’s co- The Blade continued to cover the to wage and benefit cuts and a two- publisher and editor in chief, and the unfolding scandal, most days staying tiered salary structure that drastically grandson of Paul Block, Sr., who bought ahead of state investigators and our lowered pay for new reporters in return the paper in 1926. John Block is a competition. Within months, Republi- for an end to the lockouts. hands-on editor who is a driving force can fundraiser and Bush Pioneer Tom During this protracted labor dispute, behind his newspaper’s investigations. Noe had been charged with fraud, reporters realized they would soon During the Coingate investigation, he money laundering, and stealing more face pay cuts, and many of them left called me daily asking for “coin team than $13 million from the rare-coin for other jobs, including five of the six updates.” I considered him the seventh funds he founded and managed for the Coingate team reporters, fresh from reporter on the team because of his Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensa-

38 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep tion. Noe now sits in a federal prison By early last year, as the entire Coin- ment takes more planning, but so far in Florida. After serving a 27-month gate investigation wound down, two of it’s working well. He’s been working sentence for illegally funneling cash the remaining reporters on the team— with our health reporter on a project to President Bush’s 2004 reelection James Drew and Steve Eder—were we recently published as a four-part campaign, he will be transferred to an looking for their next investigation. series, will soon travel overseas—a Ohio prison to serve an 18-year state I asked them to contact the workers trip made possible by funding from sentence for his state crimes. to get their side of the story. In July a nonprofit foundation—and he is 2007, The Blade published “Without already laying the groundwork for an Starting Over Warning,” an investigative series that investigation he’ll do with one of our showed how corporations across the sports reporters. The only thing I know to do after an country routinely violated the federal And we’ve finally begun to hire investigation ends is to find another Worker Adjustment and Retraining reporters again. Most have limited one to begin. It’s that simple. Notification (WARN) Act, which experience, but they want to be at Before Coingate was published in requires a 60-day notice to workers The Blade in large part because of our The Blade in 2005, I fielded a call whose plants are closing. [See Eder’s tradition of investigative reporting. I’ve from a former employee of National article, below.] begun working with several of them Machinery Company in Tiffin, Ohio. On the second day of the series, on Sunday stories, as well as with The worker explained that he was Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown intro- beat reporters. It is in these moments part of a group of employees who duced legislation in the U.S. Senate that my optimism surfaces. Many of sued the company when the factory to reform and strengthen the WARN them have the potential to join Eder they had worked at for years closed Act. By the end of that year, the U.S. on what could be the resurgence of without warning. The Blade had writ- House had approved a WARN Reform The Blade’s I-team. ten a news story about the settlement Act, which remains bottled-up in the So it begins anew.  the employees received, and I recall Senate. After this investigation, Drew being struck by a comment in that left for The (Baltimore) Sun. Dave Murray is the special assign- story by the federal judge who ap- The Blade is trying a different ments editor for The Blade, where he proved the settlement. He said the tactic with our remaining projects has been a reporter and editor for 28 money the workers were to receive reporter, Steve Eder. We are pairing years. was a “pittance,” but it was all they him with other reporters on staff to could hope for. conduct investigations. This arrange-

Changing Circumstances Delay An Investigation— and Lead to a New Approach With The Blade’s I-team no longer functioning, the paper’s only investigative reporter now partners with beat reporters to do watchdog stories.

BY STEVE EDER

our days after Christmas in De- years, the employees there had built ing for answers and a way to channel cember 2001, National Machinery the machines that cut nuts and bolts. their furor, some learned that National Company workers read in disbelief With its deeply rooted traditions like Machinery might have violated the Fthe headlines in their local newspaper its summer picnics and its Quarter federal Worker Adjustment and Re- that their factory, a cornerstone of Century Club for its longest-serving training Notification Act, known as Tiffin, Ohio, abruptly closed. More employees, the workers of Tiffin felt the WARN Act, by failing to notify than 500 men and women—many who honored to serve “The National,” as workers of the impending layoffs. served the company for 25 years or more they affectionately called it. The 20-year-old law requires many and some who were second and third The manner in which they learned employers to give workers 60 days generation employees—lost their jobs of National’s shuttering left the workers advance notice before plant closings without any notice. For more than 130 stunned and feeling betrayed. Look- and massive layoffs.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 39 Investigative Journalism

Murray. He pleaded the days after Christmas 2001, and for the paper to do later in 2002, when the company re- some digging, and opened as National Machinery LLC. this became my first Former employees told stories of lives investigative project changed overnight. For some, it had with The Blade. taken years to find new jobs; others In July 2007, nearly never returned to work. A gripping three years later, The story began to emerge of what it’s like Blade revealed in a when hundreds of dedicated work- four-part series the ers from a community’s dominant shortcomings of the employer suddenly have no jobs and WARN Act and its no paychecks. failures to protect Next, I needed to figure out how not only the men the WARN Act failed these people. and women who’d So I started to review thousands of worked at National pages of legal documents and de- Machinery Company positions. As I did it became clear but displaced workers that this law—intended to help such nationwide. workers—was of little use to them or That this series of other workers who were confronting stories took nearly this same circumstance. I had already three years from as- found dozens of examples of employers signment to publi- nationally skirting their obligations cation is testament under the WARN Act with little or to the kind of re- no repercussions. This prompted the source-related chal- paper to decide to examine more lenges confronted by broadly how often workers had been newsrooms, even by ill served by the WARN Act. ones as dedicated as ours to investigative Expanding the Investigation’s National Machinery workers in 1967. Courtesy of National efforts. During those Focus Machinery Company. Photo by Jeremy Wadsworth/The intervening years, la- Blade. bor disputes arose at Early in the spring of 2005, just as The Blade, investiga- the National Machinery investigation Workers later sued, seeking 60 days tive reporting colleagues departed, was picking up steam, another Blade of back pay, the most they could de- and a huge watchdog story broke in investigation took off. On April 3, mand under a WARN Act claim. Three our backyard stretching our depleted 2005, reporters James Drew and Mike years later and over the objections of ranks even thinner. Now, my role Wilkinson wrote the initial stories former National Machinery employees, with The Blade is evolving as the about Toledo-area rare coin dealer Tom U.S. District Court Judge James Carr paper’s only remaining investigative Noe, a political insider who managed reluctantly approved a settlement that reporter. These days I am paired with a $50 million rare-coin fund for the paid the workers $375 each, a far cry beat reporters on projects of varying Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensa- from what many felt they were owed. length and scope to expose them to tion. Within two weeks, there was an The judge labeled the settlement a investigative reporting as we try to onslaught of attention on the story— “pittance” and explained that it was keep alive The Blade’s reputation as known soon as “Coingate”—and this the best they could hope for under the public’s watchdog. caused The Blade to expand its “coin the weak WARN Act. To report this story initially, I team” to include Christopher Kirk- shuttled between rural Tiffin, Ohio, patrick and me. [See Dave Murray’s Needing a Public Watchdog and Toledo, about a 50-minute drive. article on page 37 for more about The In Tiffin, I pieced together the history Blade’s Coingate investigation.] Spurned once by his longtime employer of National Machinery Company and For two nearly two years, and as our and again by the government’s failure to the lineage of the Frost-Kalnow family, team grew to six reporters, we tirelessly protect workers on the verge of losing which owned the company for most of investigated Ohio state government, their jobs, Tom Kummerer, a National the 20th century. I met with groups triggering a state and federal probe employee for nearly 25 years, called of National Machinery Company that led to 19 criminal convictions, The Blade in nearby Toledo and spoke employees so I could chronicle their including Ohio Governor Bob Taft on with Special Assignments Editor Dave stories and learn what transpired in ethics charges. In November 2006, a

40 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep judge sentenced Noe, a top contributor of the governor and President Bush, to 18 years in prison for stealing mil- lions of dollars from the coin fund. As Coingate ballooned, my National Machinery files sat untouched. It wasn’t until early 2007, as Coingate drew to a close, that the files were opened again. At that point James Drew, who worked with me on The Blade’s inves- tigative unit, joined me on this story, and we picked up where I’d left off— starting to examine in-depth national examples of the failures of the WARN Act. Soon we were in Detroit for a week, working out of the nonprofit Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center that assists workers in WARN Act lawsuits, where we sifted through the center’s records and correspondence. Elmer Hoffman, who worked for New Delphos Manufacturing Company for nearly 47 This gave us a good sense about the years until it abruptly shut down in 1990, walks on the empty field the company used to number of people affected by this act’s occupy. Photo by Andy Morrison/The Blade. weak provisions. Combining the center’s records with court documents, we built a database of paper’s lone investigative reporter. Julie M. McKinnon. The series was the 226 WARN Act cases nationwide. This The rapidly changing circumstances first under our newsroom’s new strat- is what steered our reporting through of newspapers in this uncertain time egy of integrating beat reporters into the final months of the investigation of declining ad revenues and digital investigative projects. In transforming as these records highlighted for us the demands haven’t permitted The Blade our approach to investigative reporting, many ways that businesses exploited to hire an investigative reporter to fill the goal is to train more reporters in the law’s loopholes to avoid warning Drew’s position. Our I-team is no lon- our newsroom to perform watchdog workers facing layoffs. We spotlighted ger a team but loopholes by pairing the information a single player. we’d garnered from documents with But this has stories we were hearing from affected not prevented workers across the nation, including us from doing coal miners in West Virginia, mortgage watchdog jour- company employees in Connecticut, nalism. and paper cup manufacturers in Il- In August, linois. Their stories—like those we’d The Blade pub- heard in Tiffin—illuminated how few lished a four- protections the WARN Act actually part series doc- provides, and our reporting about this umenting new situation spurred legislative initiatives threats to the in the U.S. Congress.1 doctor-patient relationship, an Trying a Different Approach eight-month in- vestigation that Within months of the publication of I coauthored Gene Goshe was abruptly laid off by the National Machinery Com- our WARN Act series, Drew announced with Blade pany and joined other workers in a lawsuit related to the WARN Act. his departure, leaving me as the news- health reporter Photo by Jeremy Wadsworth/The Blade.

1 The House of Representatives passed an overhaul of the WARN Act in 2007, and action in the Senate—where Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has backed a bill to reform the plant closing notification law—is pending.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 41 Investigative Journalism

journalism so our tradition of inves- globe, and from there I will report Steve Eder is projects reporter at The tigative reporting holds strong. an investigative story that will be of Blade. He was a member of the pa- Like other newspapers, The Blade significant importance to our local per’s “Coingate” reporting team whose is looking for ways to tap alterna- readers. When I return, the plans coverage won a National Headliner tive sources of financing for costly call for me to resume my role as an Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, and an investigative projects. Earlier this investigative partner with beat re- Associated Press Managing Editors’ year, I was awarded a World Affairs porters in the newsroom; this time I Award. The WARN Act project won Journalism Fellowship through the will work alongside a sports reporter first place in investigative reporting nonprofit Washington-based Inter- on what promises to be a long-term from the Inland Press Association. national Center for Journalists. I will project. And like the others I’ve done, use this fellowship opportunity in the its roots are likely to burrow deep into fall to journey halfway around the our local community. 

From Idea, to Beat Reporting, to Investigative Project At the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the I-team created a new strategy to make certain that watchdog journalism is featured in the newspaper.

BY LOIS NORDER

s a rookie reporter, I wore out my editors asking for the okay to pursue investigative stories. AFinally, they told me the paper would be interested in publishing the stories. But they had two caveats. “You can’t have any time,” they said, noting that there was no one else to cover my beats. “And you cannot,” they emphasized, “spend any money.” I took that for a “Yes.” Now, it seems much of the investiga- tive reporting at newspapers is accom- plished under the same restrictions— and not just at small dailies, where in-depth work has always been the province of the passionate. Investiga- tive reporting slots are disappearing from midsized dailies and project teams are shrinking at the majors. Yet as resources dwindle across en- tire newsrooms and I-teams are asked The Star-Telegram published investigative stories about public employee pensions in to show that they can help to carry the Texas. Firefighter Gene “Shakey” Holder, who worked with the Irving Fire Department for load, we can find new approaches that 50 years, remained on the job past his retirement age. Financial incentives offered by the strengthen investigative journalism Irving Fireman’s Relief and Retirement Fund allowed firefighters to retire as millionaires. and overcome the public perception Photo by Tom Pennington/Star-Telegram. that newspapers have abandoned that core mission. In the process, maybe we can also change the harsh opinions of some beat reporters, whose interest in gee-whizzes of the newsrooms. Glory And leaving them to deal with the (and support for) investigative work can hogs. Goldbrickers. Here today, then follow-ups as we move on to pursue be pretty rickety. To them, we’re the gone (on to something else) tomorrow. the next big thing.

42 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

A strategy we’re using at the Fort So I relented, with a caveat of my conflicts of interest, high costs, and Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram is to own. We’d both spend two or three squandered opportunities. try to devise ways to break up some weeks immersing ourselves in the projects. Rather than producing an topic. We’d find out what kinds of Making ‘Beat’ Investigations enormous package of articles and data and source documents might Work boxes and graphics after many months be available. Then we’d talk scope. of work, we spin out stories in our Taking that plunge convinced me that Not every project can or should be newspaper and on our Web site as we the project would pay off—but also carved up in this way. In making move along. Doing this, we’ve found, persuaded me that it was hopelessly decisions about which ones are suit- can tamp down newsroom pressures complex. This meant that if I sent able, consideration might be whether and keep an important topic in front Berard out to identify the flaws in the a topic is important enough and of the public for an extended time. Texas pensions, she’d be on this story compelling enough to justify dedicat- This strategy became more of an exclusively for several months. And ing an investigative journalist for an imperative this summer when the I’d be down by one reporter for the extended period of time. As editor, I Star-Telegram, like other McClatchy entire time it took her to both report must consider whether each segment newspapers, had a sizable layoff. We the story and then find her story line will offer fresh insights. I also need lost a member of our investigative in the thicket of information she was to weigh whether our reporters—and team and now scrutinize use of all bound to discover. ultimately our readers—will be able to our resources more carefully. Gone are Beat reporters wouldn’t have this make sense of the parts of the story the days of having four investigative same challenge. With experience on a without understanding the whole. reporters, each assigned to a separate specific beat, they gain the knowledge But our I-team has used the “beat” long-term project. and sources to point them to the next strategy with subsequent projects on story and then the next. And that is nursing homes, public housing, and Devising a New Investigative why I knew that some of the best emergency medical services, and we Strategy project ideas can come from those adapted it this year for an examina- reporters. tion of our public health system. These Actually, budget constraints didn’t So my solution was to have Berard are the keys we’ve found to make this give birth to this strategy. Ambition approach government pensions as a work well: did. Turns out that at times we were beat, starting with a couple of promis- reaching for projects that we lacked ing topics we initially identified. We • Identify and prioritize story seg- the expertise to grasp. would see where it went from there. ments. In 2004, reporter Yamil Berard As it turned out, she wrote more • Set aggressive deadlines to complete bent my ear time and again about than two dozen stories during the next these segments. her desire to examine various govern- two years, shook up pension funds, and • Modify our story plans as we build ment pension plans in Texas. I was helped prompt changes in state laws on our knowledge. hesitant. Berard had recently joined and oversight. Her reporting revealed • Have reporters be expected to “own” our investigative team after years as how millions of dollars were being the topic and cover related news an education writer. Her only exposure drained from public employee pension developments—perhaps in perpetu- to pension topics came from a handful funds through high fees; she identified ity. of stories related to teacher retirement conflicts of interest between pension accounts. As the paper’s investigative consultants and money managers, and The approach is particularly well editor, I would find it hard to guide she showed how boards were failing in suited to the Web. Readers interested her, because I didn’t know much about their oversight, even as they ventured in a topic can click through to find pensions. I wondered, too, how we into riskier investments. previous stories online, along with would snag readers with our cover- As stories were published, readers source documents. We also have used age. And I could only imagine what weighed in with tips. Sources stepped our Web site to invite readers to sug- it would be like in the newsroom to forward to offer help, and she began gest stories through comment board pitch a story about actuarial account- to write stories about pension fund or e-mail, and this helps us identify ing or unfunded liabilities. policies that allowed retirees to double new angles and fresh sources at the On the other hand, state and local dip or game the system and about in- grass-roots level. pensions are among the huge pools of centives that were allowing firefighters The payoffs for following this strat- tax dollars that received little media and public works employees to retire egy can be numerous. The topics get scrutiny. And as part of Berard’s effort as millionaires. Finally, as her under- more durability. Stories are shorter, to convince me of the story’s merits, standing deepened, she undertook an so they are less of an imposition on she put me on the phone with one of analysis of the city of Fort Worth’s readers’ time. Yet they can include a her expert sources, who urged us on pension fund, showing how flaws richer level of detail, improving cred- and shared some tantalizing tidbits. in the fund’s oversight could lead to ibility. And readers who follow along

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 43 Investigative Journalism

can see how we got from point A to project team. And when newspapers Lois Norder is the managing editor of point Z. no longer define “investigative journal- news at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. For reporters, this approach makes ism” as a lengthy package that appears She won the 2008 Mimi Award, given framing their stories easier, and they two or three times a year, perhaps by the Dart Society, an independent get adrenaline fixes from their more the public will appreciate that we’re group of journalists dedicated to pro- frequent bylines. Newsroom colleagues doing a good job in fulfilling our vital moting sensitive coverage of victims of also remember—and show collegial watchdog role.  violence. respect for—those who work on our

Team Reporting on a Watchdog Project Tensions surfaced as an investigative team produced a six-part series amid pressures of a downsized newsroom.

BY DARREN BARBEE

n retrospect, I would like to be twisted and morphed, at times on a able to describe the Star-Telegram’s daily basis. Remaining flexible—“shift investigative team as a well-oiled and fire,” they call it in the military— Iengine that relentlessly pushes for- became our strength. In the end, what ward. But our team’s dynamics just emerged was a solid six-part newspa- didn’t work that way during the four per series, and consequences followed months this year when we joined for some whose actions and policies forces on a project. Stress, the mesh we’d investigated along the way. The of personalities, and the heat of the hospital’s chief executive officer was moment—with deadline pressures shown the door. The chief financial intensified by newsroom cutbacks and officer also resigned. State inspectors our topic’s own timeline—created a and a health care accrediting agency different kind of combustion. launched surprise inspections, turning There were arguments, days of up dozens of violations. The cleaning strained (if any) communication among service was fired. The board of direc- us, and at least one smartly slammed tors began studying the impact copay- door. There was also exultation, and ments have on medical care for the a few eureka moments, and the time poor. Board members left. And angry one of us dubbed “geeky pants day,” county commissioners and community to commemorate when something groups lashed out. went our way. We set out with a simple plan to JPS Health Network CEO David Cecero analyze a complex public hospital Making Plans, Hitting Walls delivers his farewell speech as he resigned system. JPS Health Network operates during a board meeting. April 2008. Photo three dozen clinics and two hospitals In our newsroom, there had been by M.L. Gray/Fort Worth Star-Telegram. in and around Fort Worth, Texas; talk for years about investigating the the network employs 4,000 nurses, “hospital district,” which is the primary doctors, technicians and janitors, and provider of health care for the poor. In treats 156,000 patients each year. Re- 2005, the Star-Telegram had uncovered coming our way as the local medical porter Anthony Spangler’s job was to serious problems in jail inmates’ health society blasted JPS for failing its mis- dig out how much money the public care provided by JPS. Yet a year later, sion, and a survey of doctors showed hospital had in the bank. Yamil Berard efforts to launch an investigation of the concerns over hygiene and staffing as was to probe the sources of its wealth. hospital district had fizzled due to the comments such as “we don’t help the I was to hunt for people denied access complexity that the reporting of this poor” surfaced. to the system. story required combined with the lack So in late 2007, Lois Norder, who We expected our plan to change, of newsroom resources. Still, a steady oversaw investigative projects, drafted and we weren’t disappointed. It trickle of complaints and tips kept a team of two investigative reporters—

44 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Staying Local, Digging Deep

Berard and myself—along with Span- gler, who had covered the district as part of his county government beat. She’d already spent months sending out public information requests to state and federal government to gather financial details, which she’d carefully analyzed and put in spreadsheets. Our first assignment: to enter reading hell as we tackled scholarly articles and journals and slogged through govern- ment reports mostly without a work- ing coffeemaker. We sifted through JPS’s annual audits cover to cover; most challenging was deciphering the mysteries of hospital finance. Then, our real frustration began. Despite being a public institution subject to state public records law, JPS trauma surgeon Dr. Chuck Webber spoke on the record with his observations about the hospital district stonewalled some practices he observed at the hospital. Later he repeated his comments on video for the of our requests, though officials there newspaper’s online presentation. Photo by M.L. Gray/Fort Worth Star-Telegram. said they were unaware of others. More than once I sent long e-mails detail- ing unanswered requests and then days or weeks later district officials complaints about their care. For them, would ask me what requests hadn’t this was the only medical option they been fulfilled. When information did had. But we also had some success, reach us, it was sometimes unusable. mostly thanks to Spangler’s county At times JPS used the nuance in the sources, in getting a highly respected wording of a request to skew their surgeon to go on the record with his answers. None of this was surprising. critical observations about practices JPS board members and county com- at the hospital, words he was willing missioners had long grumbled that the later to repeat on video for our online hospital district administrators were presentation. not forthcoming. Berard, in the meantime, wrapped For our project, however, such delays up an eye-opening analysis of hospital were damaging. We could feel time pricing and then set up a meeting rushing by and yet we were missing with local religious leaders who had crucial chunks of essential financial done their own review of the hospital’s information. We were told, for example, finances. Though they were largely that the district didn’t know how many advocating for allowing illegal immi- nurses it employed prior to 2006. We grants to access the hospital district’s also suspected that enrollment in the health care, they also knew of patients hospital’s charity care program was who were angry about their treatment flat even though the need for such by JPS. medical services had increased with the growth in the county’s population. A Buried Report Is Found But we couldn’t get answers even as the statutory deadline to provide us One of my most challenging writing June Kelly spoke to the Star-Telegram the information passed. assignments during the project may reporters about the bad treatment she felt Two months into our investigation, have been the hour I spent carefully she’d had at a JPS Clinic. Photo by Ron T. we were staring at a largely financial crafting an e-mail suggesting a meet- Ennis/Fort Worth Star-Telegram. story, which was not what we’d envi- ing between the three reporters on sioned, nor a story our readers would the project to “talk about what we’ve want to digest. At the district’s clinics, got, what we need, and where we’re people I interviewed seemed resigned going with it.” In the end, we managed to long waits and were muted in their only a two-thirds majority and, as the

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 45 Investigative Journalism

project wore on, we began to grow performed. Nurses impatient with one another. We were readying operating occasionally tripping over one another’s rooms that they’d sources. Our meetings weren’t always thought were clean going smoothly. But as we began to found blood, bone share potential sources, that helped and fat globules on lead to some breakthroughs. Berard, tables and on the for instance, sacrificed a couple of her floor. solid patient sources to us. She also Given what we’d initiated contact with another source learned, I went back whose information proved enormously and interviewed valuable. several patients Spangler followed up and learned three or four more more that led to the discovery that times. One woman Jamara McRae talked with Star-Telegram reporters about the JPS had commissioned a consultant’s complained she’d death of her son, Jacob, after his visit to JPS. Photo by M.L. study but kept its findings under wraps. been locked in a Gray/Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Asking for the report from the public room at a hospital hospital would likely mean another clinic, separated long, drawn-out fight. The hospital from her service dog. An asthma pa- we’d done as individual reporters and district had contested releasing to us tient told me he was left off the food as a team. Discussing this later with similar information about an American distribution list after being admitted Norder, we agreed that completing this College of Surgeons report. (The col- to the hospital. A weeping mother project was akin to falling in love. At lege verifies trauma centers.) told me how her son had gone to the first, there was the desire to maintain Spangler arranged to get the series hospital with chest pains and been sent control, even as it seemed everything of consultant’s reports from another home. He died hours later at another was spinning out of control. Then came source. Late on a Thursday, he told us hospital. One surgeon told us that his the realization of liking being in this breathlessly about 600 pages depicting patients were turned away because new place, even though getting here a hospital system replete with filth, they could not afford the $20 copay, required relinquishing control. ineptitude and callousness. That was and he suspected some had died as With our project available in mul- what he called our “geeky pants day,” a a result. Another said that money, timedia on our Web site (www.star- phrase he says refers to a time “when not quality of care, was driving the telegram.com/jps/), our investigative one is so enthralled by something of district’s decisions. reporting on related topics goes on, a wonky nature that one begins to At about this same time, I sent though in different ways. No longer dance, metaphorically of course, in another e-mail to the hospital district are the three of us intertwined by one one’s ‘geeky pants.’” spelling out all of the information they’d specific project; instead, each of us is And so we did, in a manner of said they couldn’t provide. I copied it building on the expertise gained on speaking, as our editor, Tony, and I to the board chairman. Suddenly about this assignment and using it in more spent the weekend studying the reports. a dozen spreadsheets were sent our frequent enterprise reporting. Stories In them, we discovered information way. As we suspected, one showed the I’ve done recently about Texas laws and data that corroborated the almost district had fewer people enrolled in that keep from the public informa- unbelievable stories that patients and its charity care program than five years tion about the quality of hospital and doctors had been telling us, as word earlier. Despite this, we knew from physician care are a natural outgrowth spread about our project. Unlike those looking at the financial records that of this project, as is the ongoing work whom we’d tried to interview at the year after year the hospital district had of the others on this team. clinics, these individuals sought us out deposited tens of millions of dollars Public reaction was overwhelming with information about what they’d into its bank accounts—money that to our series, but the comments I experienced and observed. Some told of was supposed to go toward providing heard from the higher-ups at the pa- flies buzzing around beds, bloodstained medical care for the poor. per were also gratifying. Coming off a mattresses, and hostile treatment. With notebooks of three reporters round of layoffs, with morale low, the What we now had was an exhaus- now bulging and spreadsheets pro- project served as a reminder in these tive inside look at critical areas of liferating, Norder created order out troubling times of what a newspaper the hospital and its clinics. Just as of our informational chaos. Using can accomplish for the community it the community groups had suspected huge sticky notes, she broke down serves.  and patients had conveyed, serious by category the hospital district’s deficiencies were widespread. Large systemic flaws. Her notes became my Darren Barbee is a staff writer at the numbers of medical records were cue cards, which as the project’s lead Fort Worth (Tex.) Star-Telegram. missing. Unnecessary tests were being writer I used to synthesize the work

46 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 ZIMBABWE In Zimbabwe, Courage Is the Journalist’s Companion ‘What Mugabe did not want the press to report was how he was using systematic state torture and violence against blacks opposed to his rule.’

BY ANDREW MELDRUM

rinting presses bombed. is one of the most repressive did not mind when journalists Five newspapers banned. against the press in the world, concentrated on his seizures of Scores of journalists according to rankings by the white-owned farms. He wanted Pjailed on spurious charges. Committee to Protect Journal- the world to view him as the Editors, reporters, photogra- ists and Reporters Without radical African leader who rid phers and cameramen beaten, Borders. his country of white farmers, tortured and murdered. Robert Despite Mugabe’s efforts to a vestige of colonialism. Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe silence journalists, however, What Mugabe did not want Zimbabwe’s ongoing political, the press to report was how economic and humanitarian he was using systematic state crisis succeeds in grabbing torture and violence against headlines. In the past year blacks opposed to his rule. it has been one of the most When I uncovered human widely covered African stories rights abuses against black in the American and British Zimbabweans, Mugabe and press. Exposés of state tor- the state media labeled me a ture and the chaos caused by “terrorist.” I was knocked out multimillion percent inflation by one of Mugabe’s so-called have been reported thanks to “war vets” who hit my head brave Zimbabwean journalists, with a rock. In May 2002, I determined foreign correspon- was jailed for two days and dents (and their Zimbabwean charged with publishing a on-the-ground co-reporters falsehood, a crime that carried and sources), and courageous a two-year jail sentence. lawyers. The Internet, short- My lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, wave radio broadcasts, and defended me brilliantly, and plain old newsprint all helped I was acquitted. I continued spread the Zimbabwean story my reporting until May 2003, around the world and, cru- when I was abducted by state cially, back into the country. agents and held captive with a I worked in Zimbabwe for 23 hood over my head and forced years, writing for The Guardian onto a plane out of the country. and The Economist. For most At that time, I was the last of that time, other journalists resident foreign correspon- and I could report relatively dent in Zimbabwe. Since then freely about events. But since foreign journalists have had 2000, when Mugabe’s presi- to sneak into the country as dency was challenged by a new tourists and do their reporting An image created by Zimbabwean graphic artist Chaz opposition, he has worked to undercover. Several have been Maviyane-Davies. Courtesy of the artist. muzzle the press, though he caught by authorities, includ-

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 47 Zimbabwe

ing New York Times correspondent looms over the papers. • ZimOnline is produced by Zimba- Barry Bearak, who spent several days The state holds a monopoly on all bwean journalists in Johannesburg, in jail earlier this year. He, too, stood television and radio broadcasts. The South Africa, and highlights break- trial and was acquitted thanks, again, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation ing stories. to Mtetwa’s legal representation. competes with the state newspapers • ZWNews is a daily digest of stories Beatrice Mtetwa is one of the for the most shrill pro-government about Zimbabwe that is compiled outstanding heroes of the battle to coverage. from a wide variety of news sites keep a shred of the free press alive Radio news is crucial because including British, American, South in Zimbabwe. She has defended it reaches Zimbabwe’s rural areas, African, and Zimbabwean newspa- several journalists, both foreign and where more than 60 percent of the pers. Zimbabwean, as well as many more population lives. Although the state opposition supporters and ordinary controls all AM and FM broadcasts, Many Zimbabweans access these Zimbabweans. She has been beaten enterprising Zimbabwean journalists sites from Internet cafés in Harare twice by police, but this has not de- are managing to pierce Mugabe’s “radio and other major cities. Zimbabwe’s terred her from crusading for the rule curtain.” Three shortwave broadcasts secret police, the Central Intelligence of law. Mtetwa has also represented are beamed into Zimbabwe featuring Organization, have caught on to this, the handful of courageous Zimbabwean special reports critical of the Mugabe and agents now haunt the cafés to hunt journalists who continue to write for regime: for any antigovernment activity. the international media, including Exiled journalist Wilf Mbanga The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence • “Short Wave Radio Africa,” created spotted a loophole in Mugabe’s strin- France-Presse, The London Times, and by Zimbabwean journalist Gerry gent antipress laws that allow the the Telegraph. Jackson, is produced in England and importation of newspapers printed Visitors to Zimbabwe are struck by broadcast back into Zimbabwe. outside the country. He launched how overwhelming is the pro-Mugabe • “Studio 7” is produced by the Voice The Zimbabwean, which has achieved propaganda spewed forth by state of America in Washington, D.C., with wide circulation in the country. [See newspapers, television and radio. Many exiled Zimbabwean journalists Ray Mbanga’s article on page 51.] In the Zimbabweans complain that no mat- Choto and Blessing Zulu, and it is past few months the government has ter how hard they try to ignore the relayed back into Zimbabwe. slapped a hefty import duty on the constant stream of state diatribes, it • The “Voice of the People” is produced paper, and its delivery truck was fire- still gets to them. in the Netherlands and sent back bombed. The Zimbabwean’s articles are The Mugabe government shut down into Zimbabwe. also available on its Web site [www. the country’s most widely circulated thezimbabwean.co.uk]. newspaper, The Daily News, in 2003, The shortwave reception for these Foreign correspondents continue to and now the country’s two daily news- shows is often scratchy, but these efforts surreptitiously sneak into the country papers are both state-owned govern- all have devoted listeners. The Mugabe as tourists. Many use local Zimbabwean ment mouthpieces that spout virulent government has jammed the broad- journalists to provide reporting from rhetoric that media-monitoring groups casts, using equipment purchased from townships and rural areas where they and the European Union have blamed China. The rebel shortwave stations get are not able to go unnoticed. Although for whipping up government support- around the jamming by sending news the Mugabe government tries to control ers to carry out the antiopposition bulletins via text message to thousands the news, determined journalists— violence witnessed this year. of cell phones in Zimbabwe and by Zimbabwean and foreign alike—have Two fiercely independent weekly sending their stories on the Internet. battled to keep getting the story out newspapers have managed to keep Zimbabwe has an estimated 100,000 to the international community and publishing in Zimbabwe. The In- Internet users of a total population of the Zimbabwean people. At a time dependent and The Standard, both 13 million, a high ratio for Africa. when people in this country are suf- owned by Trevor Ncube, publish on Several exiled Zimbabwean journal- fering with hyperinflation, a repressive Fridays and Sundays, respectively. ists take advantage of the new technol- government, violence against those They directly contradict government ogy with online news services: who oppose Mugabe, who has refused propaganda, report on abuses, and to relinquish power, there is great uncover corruption scandals. Their • Former Daily News editor Geoff need for this kind of extraordinary journalists have spent many nights Nyarota fled Zimbabwe in 2003 effort.  in jail, but they remain determined after he was arrested six times and to continue. received two death threats. Now in Andrew Meldrum, a 2008 Nieman “Each week we are never sure which exile in the United States, he edits an Fellow, reported from Zimbabwe for story or what headline is going to land online paper, The Zimbabwe Times, The Guardian and The Economist. some of us in jail,” said Standard editor which features reports by journalists Bill Saidi of the constant threat that in Zimbabwe.

48 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Getting News Out

Graphic Art as Political Commentary

The arresting images (above, on page “If design is used to sell perfume right before my eyes,” he told me. “I 47, and on the following page) created and lipstick, why can’t it also be used created these images to stay sane.… by Zimbabwean graphic artist Chaz to promote democracy and the values Design is my weapon. I call my work Maviyane-Davies are editorial com- of human rights? I would not be happy ‘creative defiance.’” ments presented as art. as an artist if I didn’t do that,” said His stark, sharp designs with Stifled by racial discrimination Maviyane-Davies. pointed antigovernment messages in white minority-ruled Rhodesia, When Zimbabwe was wracked by traveled across the Internet and were Maviyane-Davies went into exile and state violence in the run-up to the reproduced throughout Zimbabwe and studied art in Britain. He returned June 2000 election, Maviyane-Davies abroad. Sensing that he and his family to majority-ruled Zimbabwe in 1982 launched his own campaign in which were no longer safe, Maviyane-Davies where he reveled in the liberation of he designed a graphic image com- left Zimbabwe. He is now professor his country and established himself menting on the election every day for of communication design at the Mas- as a sought-after graphic artist, both a month. He created another series of sachusetts College of Art in Boston, locally and internationally. He became daily graphic commentaries during and he continues to create designs known for combining his commercial the presidential election campaign in that promote democracy and human work with messages of African libera- March 2002. “I was horrified to see my rights. More of his work can be seen tion and human rights. country descending into dictatorship at www.maviyane.com. —A.M.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 49 Zimbabwe

Images courtesy of Chaz Maviyane-Davies.

50 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Getting News Out

Zimbabwe: Telling the Story, Reporting the News ‘The finer points of journalism have, regrettably, had to be compromised in the desperate battle for access to information. This is guerrilla journalism ….’

BY WILF MBANGA

hen Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and his political party, the Zimba- Wbwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, lost the presidential and general elections in March for the first time in their 28-year history since liberating Rhodesia from colonial rule, Mugabe’s chief election officer, Emmerson Mnan- gagwa, blamed the media. Mnangagwa singled out The Zim- babwean, the country’s mass circula- tion weekly independent newspaper, and SW Radio Africa, an independent broadcaster, for having adversely influ- enced the electorate. Within days our truck carrying 60,000 copies of the Africa Day (May 25) edition of The Zimbabwean on Sunday from South Africa to Zimbabwe was hijacked and torched by eight plain-clothed gunmen in unmarked vehicles brandishing new AK-47 assault rifles. Speaking At three o’clock one morning, the head of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization in at a government media event a few the town of Chipinge, accompanied by a gang of men, arrived at the home of Crispen Ram- days later, Mugabe’s press secretary, bo, a car washer, and broke down his door. They beat him and hit him on the head with a George Charamba, declared that the piece of angle iron, then drove him in the official vehicle some 40 kilometers before beating government would “deal with” The him again and leaving him unconscious. Three hours later, after regaining consciousness, Zimbabwean. He moved fast. By the he was rescued by a stranger, who took him to the Movement for Democratic Change offices beginning of June, a new “luxury” in Chipinge. He was admitted to S.A.S.U. Hospital in Mutare. Photo by Lylaani Dixon. tariff had been officially announced, which slapped punitive duties on all foreign news publications. Mugabe’s battle against the inde- independent daily, The Daily News, Zimbabwean has been subjected to pendent media hit a new low in 2003 and its sister Sunday, in its first two exorbitant charges of 40 percent duty, with the passage of the misnamed Ac- years of existence. plus 15 percent value-added tax, as cess to Information and Protection of Exploiting a loophole in AIPPA, The well as a surcharge of 15 percent—all Privacy Act (AIPPA). This draconian Zimbabwean is published outside the payable in foreign currency. Prior to legislation made it mandatory for all country and trucked in from South this duty being imposed, the paper journalists and media organizations Africa for sale on Thursdays. The was charged in local dollars at the operating inside the country to be entire content of the paper is available rate of 10 percent. registered (and therefore policed) by on The Zimbabwean Web site (www. Because of this financial situation, the Media and Information Commis- thezimbabwean.co.uk) each Wednes- we’ve been forced to suspend pub- sion (MIC). Headed by an unashamed day at midnight, with updates made lication of the Sunday edition and Mugabe apologist, Tafataona Mahoso, several times each day during the rest cut severely our print run for the the MIC holds the dubious distinction of the week. A link to it is also sent Thursday edition—from 200,000 to of having closed down five independent via e-mail to online subscribers. only 60,000 copies per week. Even newspapers including Zimbabwe’s first Since the beginning of June, The at this limited level, we’ve had to pay

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 51 Zimbabwe

more than $100,000 between early the country—and doing any reporting forms) last year. Cameraman Edward June and July 29 in duty costs to about what’s happening there—means Chikomba has been killed. In no case the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority. In they are constantly at risk of being of physical torture, harassment or addition, the loss of our truck forced arrested, beaten or worse. murder of a journalist has there been us to incur expenses of $40,000 in In the past few years countless a conviction. transport hire charges to Under such conditions get our newspapers into it is virtually impossible to Zimbabwe. operate as a professional Frantic project propos- news organization. We do als to donors have elicited our best to get the story funding for another truck out and break the silence and 100 tons of newsprint, by exposing the appalling and checks poured in from human rights abuses and well-wishers in response to government corruption. British newspaper reports The finer points of jour- about the paper’s situa- nalism have, regrettably, tion. But the cost is just had to be compromised too astronomical. While in the desperate battle we have funds to enable us for access to information. to keep going for another This is guerrilla journal- few weeks—after that, who ism and, as in guerrilla knows? war, shiny boots and smart parade-ground salutes Guerrilla Journalism have to be sacrificed to While celebrating the victory of Mathias Mlambo in the Musirizwi get the battle won. The Zimbabwean has grown area of Chipinge, Daniel Simango, 24, was attacked and beaten by quietly from 10,000 copies four ZANU-PF youths (members of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African Na- How We Report a week when it began in tional Union-Patriotic Front party), one of whom stabbed him in the February 2005 to 200,000 eye. He ran into hiding, then came to the Movement for Democratic We gather our news from a copies in the run-up to the Change offices in Chipinge, and from there he was brought to the variety of sources. Zimba- March elections—having S.A.S.U. Hospital. Photo by Lylaani Dixon. bweans love to tell stories. become the largest news- There is no shortage of paper ever to be published well informed, thinking in Zimbabwe. It effectively penetrated people to offer opinion pieces and Mugabe’s media blackout and gave analysis. We have countless contribu- accurate information and hope to Simply by being in the tors—all unpaid. In addition, through millions of Zimbabweans suffering country—and doing any the years there have been numerous at home under Mugabe’s rule. Active “leaks” from disgruntled intelligence market penetration into the rural areas reporting about what’s and military officers. It might surprise provided information, as opposed to some to learn that many government crude propaganda, to the people who happening there—means officials at all levels have been keen to had hitherto formed Mugabe’s main [our reporters] are provide us with information. On some stronghold. At the same time, our occasions, even cabinet ministers are Web site grew phenomenally—peaking constantly at risk of being eager to be our Deep Throat. at 3.8 million hits a week during the In such situations, there is only election period. The paper edition is arrested, beaten or worse. one way we can protect our sources also available in 52 countries through from horrific consequences: We must newspaperdirect.com. give them total anonymity. And so we Because of the AIPPA legislation, it have. The same applies to members is not possible for our reporters—who numbers of journalists have been of various opposition political par- are not officially accredited—to operate harassed, arrested, beaten, tortured ties operating in Zimbabwe, among as journalists within the Zimbabwean and locked up. Among them was Gift whom we can always find people with system. This means that they cannot Phiri, chief reporter for The Zimba- good information to pass along. The attend or cover official events, nor can bwean, who was tortured and had his challenge for us is that human na- they seek official comment from police finger broken by Mugabe’s extra-legal ture being what it is, the temptation or army spokesmen. Simply by being in militia forces (dressed in police uni- to embellish information is always

52 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Getting News Out present. So we need to corroborate public places and Internet cafés where We are fully aware that those who and check what we are told, and so Central Intelligence Organization op- report for The Zimbabwean are con- we do this to the best of our ability eratives and informers always hang stantly at risk. They are under strict while protecting the identity of those around. At great cost, we’ve provided instructions not to meet new sources who gave us the information. There is laptop computers and various means in isolated spots, not to take infor- always the niggling doubt mation or informants at that the information could face value, and to always be planted—and that our make sure that someone newspaper could be used to else knows exactly where further someone’s agenda. they are. At the newspaper, In fact, there have been a we receive lots of threats, number of instances when and we do not take them we’ve spotted government lightly. Mugabe’s militia, intelligence attempts to as well as state security destroy our credibility. This agents, are more than is a constant worry. capable and willing to If, after publication, thrash, torture and even somebody approaches us to kill journalists. We rely with an alternative view- constantly on the guidance point or new and different and assistance of Lawyers information that presents for Human Rights, who the “other side” to a story we are always ready to rush published, we provide them to court on our behalf, with equal opportunity to as they’ve had to do on make their point. The Meikle farmhouse in Zimbabwe, where 19-month-old Jesse several occasions. Modern technology has Sazukwa lived, was burned by the farm’s owner and a young man In mid-July another “of- been a helpful partner in from ZANU–PF, according to a report given by her mother. Because ficial” death list surfaced enabling us to publish of the fire, Jesse received medical attention, which likely saved her and made the rounds of news about Zimbabwe life because her doctors treated her malaria as well. Photo by Lylaani Zimbabwean Internet while being thousands Dixon. sites. There was a chill- of miles away. (Those of ing new dimension to this us directing publication one. After listing pretty of The Zimbabwean face the threat much every known living Zimbabwean of death at the hands of Mugabe’s journalist not working for the state- forces if we return to Zimbabwe.) controlled media, the final paragraph Digital media allow citizens within [Our reporters] are under says, “The majority of those named on Zimbabwe to report news and send strict instructions not the list, although they are living in the the information and photographs to bliss and security of the Diaspora and us. The Zimbabwean receives more to meet new sources in the anonymity of cyberspace, their fam- than its fair share of its news in this ily members will not be so lucky.” way; today, reports received from isolated spots, not to take Despite the family being sacrosanct nonjournalists in Zimbabwe is perhaps information or informants in Zimbabwean culture for centuries— the main source of the information and never before threatened—Mugabe contained in our columns. at face value, and to always has taken horror to new heights. This However, communicating with our action flies in the face of everything reporters (and citizen reporters) on make sure that someone decent, as what was once unthinkable the ground inside Zimbabwe is a huge else knows exactly where has become reality. My fellow journal- challenge. Apart from the constant ists and I have chosen to fight Mugabe electricity blackouts, bandwidth is they are. to the death. We are prepared to face limited, and e-mails are monitored the repercussions of our actions. Some by government officials. We work on have already paid the ultimate sacrifice. the premise that our e-mails are in- But can we put our families at risk? tercepted and telephone calls bugged. That is a tough one.  All of this does not make for clear of communication to our staff report- communication. Those who provide ers so they don’t need to rely on these Wilf Mbanga is the editor of The Zim- information to us also have to avoid public locations. babwean.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 53 Zimbabwe

The Emotional Tug of the Zimbabwean Story ‘I’ve fallen hard for the country and for its people and ache to go back. And when I am there, I feel more challenged as a reporter than I’ve felt anywhere else.’

BY TRACY MCVEIGH

still have a postcard my father sent third of its population has fled over- it first annexed Shona land to create to my elder sister when he was seas, its economy has deteriorated even Rhodesia in 1890, Britain has made working in Africa. The year was more, and its aging president, Robert mistakes of an eye-watering order, and I1968, and it shows a street in Salis- Mugabe, has transformed himself into the Blair government’s belief that it bury, the capital of Rhodesia. When the continent’s stereotypical despotic could simply put the past behind and he came home, I remember how much madman. get on with a new era in its relations I loved hearing his stories, especially There has been criticism, expressed with Mugabe, the hero of indepen- the ones about him being charged certainly by several of The Observer’s dence, was naive in the extreme. There by a bull elephant. As a child I was readers, that the British press gives a are many Zimbabweans who fervently fascinated, too, by this picture. level of coverage to the Zimbabwe crisis believe that the British government More than three decades later, I that it would never dream of giving promised to compensate Zimbabwe stood in the same spot as the photog- to other African countries, especially over land stolen by white farmers—a rapher did when he took that picture, places like Sudan and Congo, where pledge that, in all probability raised but now the name of the city and the substantial loss of human life is oc- behind closed doors, was never made country were different. In front of me curring. Conflict in Somalia, Ethiopia anywhere near public enough to be was a view of Harare, the capital of and Eritrea is almost ignored by the taken as a serious political commit- Zimbabwe, and I recognized the spot Western news media. Undoubtedly ment. because it looked so much the same, the British colonial link and a histori- yet the fortunes of the people who lived cal familiarity with Zimbabwe (and Working in Zimbabwe there had changed beyond recognition. Kenya fits the bill here, too) piques In 1968, the country—transitioning the interest of both the British reader Of course, there are the practical dif- from one name to another—was pro- and journalist. ficulties of working there. To start with, ceeding on its journey from colonialism There is recognition and ease of Mugabe and his regime have banned through white minority rule and war, communication between cultures most foreign press from entering or moving toward independence. when there has been an historic reporting from Zimbabwe; to enter When I first went to Zimbabwe connection. But the downside—as a the country, then, is to be an illegal. (I two years ago, I arrived as a British reporter working for a publication think the prison sentence is six years, journalist working for The Observer, in Great Britain—is the impossibility but it changes.) It’s not safe to stay a publication effectively banned from of reporting the Zimbabwean story in a hotel because police raid them the country. Zimbabwe was in a state in a vacuum. For us, our nationality frequently, looking for foreign journal- of long-term and devastating economic is the first thing every Zimbabwean ists. Just staying there on your own or crisis—one that showed no promise of with whom we speak wants to know, having a laptop in the room puts you being turned around—and I had a hard and once this information is given it under suspicion, so someone has to be time persuading my editor there was taints any interactions we then might willing to let you stay in their home. much new to write about this failing have. And though an astonishing number of African state. There are some big, lingering people I have met have been willing This year a hotly contested presiden- grudges and, as a British journalist, to do so, that kind of hospitality puts tial election and a real desire for change Zimbabweans expect me to know and their safety and security at risk. among an oppressed people breathed understand these festering issues of Working in Zimbabwe is a risky life into the Zimbabwean story. And contention. They stretch back over business, but it is not a war zone, the wave of murderous violence that the decades and involve the duplicity nor is there anything remotely heroic followed the March election, won by by the British authorities that have in just keeping your wits about you opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, enabled the Mugabe regime to be so and maintaining as low a profile as has kept the world’s attention on this forthright in its rejection of interna- possible. It’s the Zimbabweans who beleaguered country, even as up to a tional criticism. In its dealings since run the real risk—those who house

54 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Getting News Out and feed foreign journalists and talk and the struggle to keep independent have faced the constant threat of with them. Several opposition party newsgathering in operation has been a harassment and harm. A few years members I’ve interviewed have later courageous business. The Zimbabwean, ago, The Observer’s Andrew Meldrum been subject to beatings, and one man the newspaper edited and produced by was beaten by Mugabe’s forces, jailed was killed. exiles before it is smuggled each week for two days, and put on trial for two The possibility that talking to a into the country, is an extraordinary months, where he faced a two-year jail white journalist in any way raised operation of defiance and bravery sentence if found guilty of “crimes” their profile among their neighbors that has without question held up related to his work as a journalist. He and made them more identifiable to the spirits and hope of many tens of was also abducted, held captive with a their enemies preys on my conscience. thousands of people trapped by the hood over his head for 12 hours, then It’s those kind of issues that are the grip of Mugabe’s oppressive regime. illegally forced onto a plane and taken hardest to deal with. Perhaps this is [See the article about The Zimbabwean out of the country. With his departure, why I’ve found it offensive when a on page 51.] Meldrum became the last resident for- minority of British and American eign journalist in Zimbabwe. TV reporters, notably John Simp- [See story by Meldrum on son of the BBC, tacitly present page 47.] Then there is the their presence in the country as exceptional, dogged determi- some kind of extraordinary news It’s the Zimbabweans who run the nation of my journalistic col- event in itself. With the suffer- league, The Guardian’s Chris ing going on in Zimbabwe, with real risk—those who house and feed McGreal, who spends months people struggling for basic food foreign journalists and talk with them. at a time illegally inside Zim- and medicines, with the dozens babwe. Several times McGreal daily swimming a crocodile- Several opposition party members I’ve has been named by Mugabe’s infested river to swap one kind mouthpiece newspaper, The of destitution for another, those interviewed have later been subject to Herald, as an “enemy” of Western journalists who manage beatings, and one man was killed. Zimbabwe. His calm, infor- to get past the poorly staffed and mative reporting has earned noncomputerized immigration him the deep animosity of authorities at Harare airport have many within Zimbabwe Afri- a duty to go easy with the self- can National Union-Patriotic congratulatory attitude. Front, Mugabe’s political party, I don’t dismiss the dangers that As I look at the risks this story holds who have the power to do him gross exist in Zimbabwe for all journalists. for me, I always return to the fact that harm. Those dangers are very real. Foreign I choose to go to Zimbabwe. There This kind of unobtrusive, intrepid journalists must take enormous care have been a lot of places I’ve worked and honest reporting is an essential inside Zimbabwe to avoid arrest and as a journalist and many people I’ve force in trying to prevent Mugabe and imprisonment, and I know several met with whom my engagement has his forces from hiding from the interna- who have spent a far from pleasant been fleeting; I’ve written a story and tional community’s eyes the desperate few days in a Harare cell, including moved on. But in reporting on the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans. In this one who was lastingly traumatized by humanitarian and political crisis af- kind of effort, journalism, too, assists the experience. And I’ve had a few flicting Zimbabweans, I’ve developed a its own reputation at a time when such adrenalin-pulsing run-ins with police deeply emotional as well as professional a lift is so desperately needed.  and an encounter in the bush with a interest in the story. I’ve fallen hard trio of armed war veterans with the for the country and for its people and Tracy McVeigh became foreign editor hardest eyes I have ever seen. That ache to go back. And when I am there, of The Observer in 2002. This year she moment left me with a recurring I feel more challenged as a reporter became the newspaper’s chief reporter nightmare and a strong sense that I than I’ve felt anywhere else. It’s an and has covered stories throughout had a lucky escape. addictive feeling, and sometimes it is the world. Africa, and Zimbabwe, in Zimbabwean reporters and editors hard to sort out whether my impulse to particular, hold special interest to who’ve tried to work in their country return is driven by my love of the place her. She has also produced short news as independent journalists have faced or by an adrenaline-related response videos for Guardian Unlimited, The much harassment, including arrests to the challenges of working there, Observer’s Web site, including those and beatings, with police raids and which makes this feeling akin to the about Zimbabwe, at www.guardian. abrupt closures and fire bombings of attraction war correspondents develop co.uk/world/video/2008/mar/29/ presses and offices. The threat to their to working in conflict zones. zimbabwe. lives—and their families—is very real, Resident foreign journalists also

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 55 WORDS & REFLECTIONS Reporting on the White House From the Outside In ‘If reporters entrusted to cover the White House know we are in the midst of a “truth-deficient” environment, what is the most responsible way to do our work?’

BY AMY GOLDSTEIN

What Happened: Inside the identity of a covert CIA officer “knowingly misled” and ordered Bush White House and Wash- whose husband was an early to tell an unwitting falsehood ington’s Culture of Deception critic of the Iraq War. in order to protect three of the Scott McClellan The brief video clips that President’s men. PublicAffairs. 341 Pages. captivated the jurors showed His complicity in the White President Bush’s press secretary House’s deceptions about Libby in the early fall of 2003, Scott is a central, gnawing episode in McClellan, at the familiar podium a progressive disillusionment— in the White House briefing with Washington and with a room. On the tape, McClellan President in whom he believed— was insisting that Libby and that McClellan traces in his book, two other senior members of the “What Happened: Inside the administration had not leaked Bush White House and Wash- information about the officer, ington’s Culture of Deception.” Valerie Plame. “I spoke with McClellan’s main argument is them, so that I could come back that the Bush White House, like to you and say that they were not several before it, fell captive to a involved,” McClellan assured the “permanent campaign” mentality White House press corps. in which political marketing— Prosecutors had fought hard whether of the Iraq War, Social to play the videotape during Security or, in this instance, the the trial, telling the judge that reputations of top aides—became the press secretary’s assurances paramount, even if it eclipsed undercut Libby’s defense that the truth. he had been scapegoated by the White House—and heightened A Revisionist Appraisal Libby’s motive to lie about his role in the leak when he would It is an unlikely critique, coming be interviewed by FBI agents in- from McClellan, who gravitated vestigating it soon afterwards. to Bush as a young politico, Just after lunch on February 1, In the end, the jury believed followed him from Texas into 2007, a jury in a federal court- neither McClellan nor Libby, the White House, and spent a house a block from the U.S. convicting the vice president’s half-dozen years articulating the Capitol sat, utterly rapt, watching longtime right-hand man of per- President’s message. Predictably, a few moments of old videotape. jury and obstructing justice. when “What Happened” was The trial, the first I had covered Now, two years after he published in the spring, Mc- in more than two decades, was the stepped down from the podium Clellan’s revisionist appraisal celebrated case against I. Lewis for the final time, it turns out was condemned by several of “Scooter” Libby, Vice President that McClellan is the one who his former colleagues. But as I Cheney’s former chief of staff. believes he was scapegoated by pored through the pages over the Libby was on trial for lying to the White House. “I threw myself summer, many of its basic themes investigators about whether he in front of the bus,” is the way rang true, from my experiences had slipped to reporters the he describes it. He says he was with the Bush White House and

56 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Books with Scott himself. as his critics contend, cashing in or evasion, denial, noncommunication” I covered the White House for trying to advance his career prospects that McClellan has now confessed, I three and a half years of George W. by distancing himself from a Presi- learned to report indirectly, from the Bush’s first term until I decamped to dent who has become extraordinarily outside in. It was a curious aspect of Cambridge for a year, in part because unpopular? my beat that, although I was assigned I wanted to gain perspective, away for In a sense, though, McClellan’s to cover the White House, some days a time from the venomous political motivation for what he has written I did not speak with anyone there un- climate in Washington that McClel- is beside the point. “What Hap- til late afternoon or early evening. It lan describes. During those years, pened” describes a corrosive style of was more productive, I discovered, to my focus was writing about domestic behaving with the press, the public, spend the day pursuing other sources, policy issues. Given the way issues and the opposing political party that often in Congress or among interest were divided among the press office was familiar to me and to any other groups aligned with or in opposition staff, I interacted with Scott, while he reporter who has covered the White to the administration—anyone who was the chief deputy, more frequently House during this administration, “… had a strong self-interest in ferreting than with Ari Fleischer, Bush’s first a truth-deficient culture,” as McClellan out what was going on inside. The press secretary, or with the office’s insights I gained in this way gave other deputy. me leverage, once I finally called McClellan, I found, was guarded McClellan or someone else in the and faithful to the White House’s It is hard to know whether this White House, to confront them party line, but usually honest. I with what I already knew. It was know of at least one occasion on lack of grace at the briefing room not a perfect reporting strategy. which he was a source of infor- Sometimes, officials yelled at me— mation for one of my colleagues, podium was because he was, as he or, on occasion, my editor—that then turned around and berated now suggests, trying to reconcile we would publish a story at our this reporter, publicly insisting peril, refusing to confirm what we that the story he personally had his talking points knew to be true. Yet, it enabled me leaked was untrue. But I do not to break stories before the White recall any such episodes firsthand. with his conscience. House wanted them out—to pierce, If McClellan was spinning me, he in other words, the infamous Bush usually would acknowledge it. If “message discipline.” he was not allowed to answer a In the administration’s early question, he would tell me that, rather describes Washington in one of his weeks, this indirect reporting method than lie. book’s more memorable phrases. enabled me to write that Bush was Once he took over as press secretary He raises the issue, debated widely about to abandon a half-century tra- during the summer of 2003—just a ever since the Iraq War began, of dition in which Presidents had relied few months before he would errone- whether the press was, as he contends, on the American Bar Association ously vouch for Libby—he sometimes “too deferential.” Even this issue, sig- for advice about the qualifications seemed more stilted, awkward. It is nificant as it is, is not the heart of of potential federal judges—a move hard to know whether this lack of the matter. Reporters’ questions, no that foreshadowed years of ideologi- grace at the briefing room podium was matter how incisive, cannot compel a cal disputes over the administration’s because he was, as he now suggests, White House to provide answers—or judicial nominations. Later on, I was trying to reconcile his talking points honest ones. able to write about disagreements with his conscience. Or perhaps he within the White House over how simply was less agile in that more Journalistic Coping Methods quickly to pursue changes to the So- public spot. cial Security system and about cuts It is hard to know, too, what to For me, the essential thing is this: If the administration was on the cusp make of his revisionism. Is he sincerely reporters entrusted to cover the White of proposing in nonmilitary parts of remorseful, now that he has reflected House know we are in the midst the federal budget. on his time in the White House? “… of a “truth-deficient” environment, The other habit I adopted was an we perpetuated the endless investiga- what is the most responsible way to obsessive resistance to being a passive tions and scandals we’d vowed to move do our work? As my editors knew stenographer. The rhythm of White beyond,” he writes, “by engaging in well, it is a question that nagged at House reporting can make it difficult spin, stonewalling, hedging, evasion, me throughout my time covering the at times to write with enough balance denial, noncommunication, and deceit Bush White House. It influenced my and detachment. This is particularly by omission.” Is he bitter? (“I sacrificed reporting methods and the stories I true on the road, when members of my own credibility,” he writes, “for the chose to write. the press corps cover a presidential sake of the administration.”) Or is he, Confronted with the “hedging, speech, then have perhaps 90 min-

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 57 Words & Reflections

utes to file a story before boarding giving him a chance to draw further General Accounting Office concluded a charter flight back to Washington. attention to an important part of that the Department of Health and Increasingly, I prepared for such travel his agenda for the year. On this day, Human Services illegally spent federal days by reporting hard ahead of time, the White House had chosen Grand money on what amounted to covert gathering history, context and people Rapids, Michigan, for a Medicare propaganda,” I wrote, “by producing with divergent views who agreed in speech. I remember Bush standing videos about the Medicare changes advance to send me their reactions in front of a large backdrop that said, that were made to look like news immediately after Bush spoke. In this “Strengthening Medicare.” Timing his reports.” way, the stories I wrote on those tight remarks, I noted that he devoted just deadlines were less dependent on the three minutes of his 42-minute speech Such stories enabled me to feel White House message machine. that I was doing my job with proper If the Bush White House influenced independence. But they were cop- my reporting methods, it also affected ing mechanisms in a bad reporting the kinds of stories I wrote. Here are It is uncertain climate. They were not a substitute a few examples, not about Iraq (which for an open rapport with people who I did not cover) but about Medicare, whether the dynamic run the government, willing to make the vast health insurance program for that McClellan says themselves accessible to the journalists the elderly that I wrote about often who cover them to explain what they when it became a dominant domestic disillusioned him will were doing and why. issue around the same time that the In the final pages of his book—after war began. outlast Bush’s tenure. he chides Bush’s decision to commute Libby’s 30-month prison sentence as Revealing distortions of the truth: In one more misplaced use of political early 2004, not long after Congress had power—McClellan shifts from recollec- passed a major law that Bush favored, tion to a prescription for the future. His adding prescription drug benefits to to the topic. Even more significantly, specific recommendation is to create a Medicare, a respected, nonpartisan the President and the aides who ac- deputy White House chief of staff for federal employee in charge of analyz- companied him that day repeatedly governing. Whether a change in the ing the program’s costs told me that dodged the central question looming West Wing’s organization chart would administration officials had threatened over their plans: Did the White House help is debatable. But the premise to fire him if he disclosed that his want to make prescription drug cover- behind McClellan’s recommendation internal calculations showed that the age available to everyone 65 and older strikes me as sound for the White change would prove more expensive who Medicare insures or only people House and the press corps alike: than the White House said. Richard willing to switch to managed care—a Counterbalance attention to politics S. Foster, the chief Medicare actuary matter that carried deceptively large with attention to substance. for nine years, said he nearly resigned practical and political significance. In January, a new President will in protest after his boss in the Health The story I wrote that day was about move into the White House. It is and Human Services Department had what Bush did not say. uncertain whether the dynamic that ordered him to “cease responding di- McClellan says disillusioned him rectly to Congress” about the cost of the Exploring the anatomy of the admin- will outlast Bush’s tenure. Certainly, legislation. Foster told me he believed istration’s efforts to manipulate public intense partisanship in Washington— his boss was acting under instructions opinion: One of the most colorful of in McClellan’s view, the root cause of from the White House. these stories involved a videotape that the “permanent campaign”—is deeply administration officials sent in early entrenched. And, having watched how Writing about negative space: What 2004 to television stations across effectively Bush and his aides used the President does not say, I came the country. It appeared to feature a presidential “noncommunication” for to believe, can be more telling than reporter describing advantages of the political purposes, their successors what he does by shedding light on revisions to Medicare; in reality, the might be tempted to do the same his governing style and on evasions of woman, who ended the tape by say- thing. Still, 2009 will offer the next policy questions for political advantage. ing, “In Washington, I’m Karen Ryan administration—and the journalists I was particularly struck by this when reporting,” had been paid by Health who cover it—a fresh chance to tell I covered a speech that Bush gave the and Human Services to read a script the public the full truth.  day after his 2003 State of the Union the agency had written. Two months Address. It had become customary for later, when the investigative arm of Amy Goldstein, a 2005 Nieman Fel- the President to fly somewhere in the Congress found that the publicity low, is a staff writer at The Washing- country the morning after his annual campaign violated two federal laws, ton Post who now writes nationally address to Congress and the nation, that was a front-page story, too. “The about social policy.

58 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Books

Editorial Cartooning: Tradition, Timidity and Transition Missing from a lot of cartooning ‘is Mauldin’s sense of righteous indignation.’

BY CHRIS LAMB

Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front meant to American soldiers. When Todd DePastino word spread about Mauldin, veterans W.W. Norton & Company. 370 Pages. came to his bedside. Others sent cards and letters, telling Mauldin that his cartoons in Stars and Stripes “saved my During the last weeks of editorial soul” and “kept my humanity alive.” cartoonist Bill Mauldin’s life, he was One veteran said that he remem- visited by countless World War II bered being in a foxhole full of water, veterans; many came dressed in the reading a soggy Stars and Stripes, and same fatigues they had worn more then seeing a Mauldin cartoon and than a half-century earlier. Most of laughing. In one of Mauldin’s most these men, in their late 70’s, 80’s famous drawings, Willie and Joe are and 90’s, carried medals and tattered in a muddy swamp. Willie, his arm photographs and newspaper clippings around Joe, says, in earnest, “Joe, from a day long ago to share with yestiddy, ya saved my life an’ I swore Mauldin, whose body was in constant I’d pay ya back. Here’s my last pair agony from a scalding in a bathtub o’ dry socks.” accident and whose mind was ravaged by Alzheimer’s disease. Cartoons’ Enduring Power In his riveting biography, “Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front,” Todd DePastino’s vignettes of soldiers com- DePastino tells the story of how ing from all over the country to pay old soldiers came to pay their last homage to Mauldin remind us of the respects to Army Sergeant, Techni- staying power of editorial cartoons. no less timely today than they were cian Third Grade Bill Mauldin, who Cartoons are drawn of the moment, in Minor’s day. had distinguished himself not on the but the best ones take hold of us and Mauldin responded to the assassina- battlefield but by capturing the verities never let go. They don’t just outlast tion of President John F. Kennedy by of the battlefield in his cartoons that other cartoons, they outlast written drawing a weeping Abraham Lincoln. appeared in the military publication words. Few articles, if any, captured The grief cartoon has since become Stars and Stripes. Lyndon Johnson’s failed presidency a cliché—but, in Mauldin’s hands, it Jay Gruenfeld, then 77 years old, as well as the David Levine cartoon captured the nation’s mourning in a was wounded five times while fight- of Johnson raising his shirt to reveal way that was sui generis. ing in the Philippines. As Gruenfeld a gall bladder scar in the shape of Mauldin’s best work was created recovered in an army hospital, he Vietnam. from his sense of righteous indig- received a copy of Mauldin’s book, Herblock captured the right-wing nation—such as his civil rights era “Up Front,” which chronicled the life hysteria of the 1950’s by showing a man drawing of two rednecks using their and times of soldiers Willie and Joe labeled “Hysteria” climbing a ladder clubs on blacks demonstrating for with unmistakable irony, humor and to douse the Statue of Liberty’s flame. equal rights. “Let that one go,” one poignancy. Gruenfeld never forgot how Thomas Nast’s drawing of the corrupt redneck says to the other, “he says the book “spoke for him, expressing “Boss” Tweed with a bag of money he don’t wanna be mah equal.” When his grief, exhaustion and flickering for a head appeared nearly 150 years newspapers insisted that he tone down hope,” as DePastino put it. ago. The cartoon will remain timely as his cartoons, Mauldin simply refused Fifty-seven years later, Gruenfeld long as there are corrupt politicians. and left the profession. He would not now found himself at Mauldin’s bed, During World War I, Robert Minor compromise his integrity. pinning his own Combat Infantryman characterized the military’s exploita- Mauldin’s death in 2003 came two Badge on Mauldin’s pajama shirt. When tion of soldiers by drawing a hulking, years after Herblock’s death. Of the Gruenfeld returned home, he wrote headless soldier standing next to a five giants of editorial cartooning in newspapers and veterans organization medical examiner, who gushes, “At last the second half of the 20th century, to remind them what Mauldin had the perfect soldier.” These drawings are Mauldin and Herblock are dead, Paul

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 59 Words & Reflections

Conrad and Pat Oliphant are in their Joel Pett and others, they acted more might it do to its real critics? Then- 70’s and 80’s, respectively. Only Garry as government propagandists than White House press secretary Ari Fleis- Trudeau continues to produce work satirists. They defended the Bush cher used his bully pulpit to condemn comparable to his best work. Edito- administration’s claims that Iraq had cartoonist Mike Marland, who criti- rial cartooning—like any profession or weapons of mass destruction—contrary cized Bush in a drawing appearing in civilization for that matter—needs its to the findings of U.N. weapons in- a few New Hampshire newspapers. If heroes. Heroes, as Joseph Campbell spector Hans Blix and U.S. weapons Fleischer had intended to send a mes- said, tell us what we’re capable of. inspector David Kay. Cartoonists were sage, he succeeded. Marland received Maybe if the profession had more he- brutal and unconscionable in their death threats and had trouble finding roes, more cartoon- newspapers that ists would aspire to would publish his great cartoons and work. not be satisfied with When Wash- their first drafts. i n g t o n P o s t This is not to say cartoonist Tom there aren’t a lot Toles criticized of good cartoonists then-Secretary of working today. There Defense Donald are. The best cartoon- Rumsfeld, the ists continue to create Army Joint Chiefs work that rises above of Staffs, in an un- caricature and simple precedented act, tomfoolery to the wrote a scathing level of satire. They letter to the news- are no different than paper. The car- the best cartoonists toon was innocu- of any day. Editorial ous enough; the cartoonists should administration reveal our leaders simply wanted as they are and not to punish Toles, as their publicists a frequent critic. portray them. Satire Cartoonist Ted often tells the truth Cartoon courtesy of Ann Telnaes. Rall, who also has laughing. But the best received death satirists use humor threats because as a means to an end and not as portrayals of Blix and Kay, who turned of his criticism of the Bush admin- an end itself. Too many cartoonists out to be correct, of course. istration, defended Toles’s freedom today are simply in it for the laughs. Nor have editorial cartoonists been of expression in an interview with What’s missing from a lot of cartoon- as hard on the Bush administration as conservative Fox News commentator ing is Mauldin’s sense of righteous the Bush administration has been on Sean Hannity. When discussing how indignation. cartoonists. Administration officials, Americans would react if we heard for instance, once sent a Secret Ser- generals were trying to intimidate a Cartoonists and the Bush vice agent to interrogate Los Angeles cartoonist who criticized the govern- Administration Times cartoonist Michael Ramirez. ment, Rall said, “We’d be up in arms Ironically, the administration had and rightly so.” Editorial cartoonists failed, in par- missed the point of Ramirez’s draw- The Bush administration and its ticular, in their response to the Bush ing, which was intended to defend friends on Fox News and talk radio administration and the war in Iraq. the President. Ramirez, of all people, have made it a practice to accuse gov- Like much of the news media, too should have reacted with anger to the ernment critics of being unpatriotic. many editorial cartoonists fell in line administration’s policy of intimidating Yet nothing is more patriotic than free with the government in the months critics—or those the administration speech; criticism of the government leading up to the invasion of Iraq. even viewed as critics. Instead, Ramirez is as American as the First Amend- Unlike much of the news media, how- continued—and continues—to defend ment. No profession takes the role of ever, editorial cartoonists should have the administration. government critic more seriously than known better. With notable exceptions If the Bush administration would go editorial cartoonists. such as Trudeau, Oliphant, Conrad, to such lengths to intimidate Ramirez, Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly once Clay Bennett, Ann Telnaes, Ted Rall, a friend of the administration, what accused Garry Trudeau of undermin-

60 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Books ing the war effort by having one of Doonesbury’s long-running characters, B.D., lose his leg in battle while on a tour of duty in Iraq. “A case can be made that Trudeau is attempting to sap the morale of Americans,” O’Reilly wrote, calling the strip “irresponsible.” While Trudeau’s cartoon spoke to the reality of what was happening with soldiers and Marines in Iraq, O’Reilly’s condemnation was predictable and misplaced. He, of course, did not men- tion Trudeau’s monetary contributions to or his involvement with the Fisher House Foundation, which supports a home away from home for families of soldiers recovering from wounds. (Trudeau donated all of the proceeds from his book, “The Long Road,” which detailed B.D.’s own recovery, Cartoon courtesy of Joel Pett. to this project.) A lot of soldiers see Trudeau’s comic strip not as undermining the war effort disapprove of their work based on po- righteous indignation—that drives but rather as sensitively addressing the litical leanings. When John Sherffius great cartooning. Too many edito- morale of wounded soldiers. “I think worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch rial cartoonists are concentrating too it’s fantastic what he’s doing,” said he, like Mauldin before him, quit much on being animators that they’ve Army Spc. Joe Kashnow, a 4th Infantry rather than work under the onerous forgotten—temporarily, I think—that Division soldier who lost a leg after dictates of an editor who insisted that they’re editorial cartoonists. Too many being wounded in Iraq in 2003. he include criticism of Democrats animated editorial cartoons sing and Trudeau’s treatment of soldiers is in cartoons that criticized the Bush dance but lack punch. The great Mu- the closest any cartoonist has come to administration. The Boulder (Colo.) hammad Ali floated like a butterfly, but Mauldin’s Willie and Joe since World Daily Camera hired Sherffius, who is he also stung like a bee. Ali’s opponents War II. His defense of soldiers, however, currently doing some of the best work knew when they’d been hit. has come with a price. Van Wilkerson, in editorial cartooning. Editorial cartoonists may end up the president of Continental Features, Editorial cartooning, to be sure, has producing work better than anything which provided Sunday color comic had better days. The fate of editorial in past generations. This will require packages to newspapers in nine south- cartooning is linked to the fate of the that animation become a means to an eastern states, strongly supported the newspaper industry. The industry is in end and not the end itself. Editorial administration. He decided to no longer transition. Newspapers, as they have cartoonists need to remember their own include “Doonesbury” in the package been for centuries, are being replaced tradition. Editorial cartoons should of comics going to 38 newspapers by modern technology. Newspaper grab readers by the shirt collar and and replaced it with a strip that did editors and publishers are holding shake them out of their indifference. not criticize the administration. The on with one hand in the past and Editorial cartoons should say some- editor of one of those newspapers, H. one in the future. Online newspapers thing. They shouldn’t defend the high Brandt Ayers at the Anniston (Ala.) will replace printed newspapers just and mighty. They should comfort the Star, called the decision “an obviously as talkies replaced the silent movies afflicted and afflict the comfortable. political effort to silence a minority nearly 80 years ago. The actors who Editorial cartoonists need to remem- point of view” and continued to pub- survived were the ones who made the ber Bill Mauldin and his approach lish “Doonesbury” inside its paper in transition. to editorial cartooning. “If it’s big,” black and white. Likewise, the future of editorial Mauldin said, “hit it.”  cartooning belongs to those cartoon- New Demands of Animation ists who can make the transition from Chris Lamb is a professor of commu- pen or pencil to animation. Thus far, nication at the College of Charleston With job opportunities for cartoonists however, something has been lost in Charleston, South Carolina. He is more and more scarce, many of them in the transition. What’s missing the author of “Drawn to Extremes: The feel pressure to obey their editors who, from animated editorial cartoons is Use and Abuse of Editorial Cartoons.” in turn, are pressured by readers who that sense of purpose—that sense of

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 61 Words & Reflections

Finger-Wagging at Journalists Doesn’t Illuminate the Problem ‘What we need—and this attempt doesn’t satisfy—is insight into how all of this happened.’

BY DOUG STRUCK

So Wrong for So Long: How the administration. Press, the Pundits—and the The only thing more annoying than President—Failed on Iraq a scold is a scold who was right and Greg Mitchell keeps telling us he was right. Mitchell Union Square Press. 298 Pages. undoubtedly was right in much of his parade of criticisms of the performance of the American press leading up to President George H.W. Bush stopped and into the Iraq War. He reminds us the rush to capture Baghdad Febru- often in his columns how prescient he ary 28, 1991, on a Kuwaiti road that was and, if we miss the point there, he earned the name “highway of death.” reminds us often again in the intro- It was a shrewd call. The allied co- ductions he penned for this collection. alition that included nine Arab na- His book can be fairly summed up by tions was fraying at the spectacle of the mantra, “I told you so.” Pentagon videotapes showing Iraqi I was left wondering at the point troops being gunned down from the to this finger-wagging approach. Yes, air like carnival targets as they tried we in the press should be collectively desperately to retreat from Kuwait into contrite for our lack of aggressive Basra. Even the American public had skepticism. Of course, we should learn little stomach to watch this massacre from mistakes we made and, yes, the much longer. predominant narrative was shanghaied On the ground, days later, the by one or more ambitious reporters highway still was a gruesome tableau those who were ignorant of the conse- and a masterful and unethical public to those of us reporting on the war. quences of doing so. A decade later, his relations campaign from the White The convoys had been pinched with son took it upon himself to finish the House. Some of the shrewder editors textbook strategy: The front and rear job for his father. Amazingly, he still in the country got fooled, along with vehicles were disabled, trapping the did not have a plan for what would a majority (at times) of the American others between for the next strafing happen afterwards. Sadly, we would people and the U.S. Congress. runs. Evidence of the terror that en- all learn the consequences. But we already know all of this. We sued was clear. Trucks crashed into President George W. Bush set about don’t need another recitation of the jeeps, smashed cars, and overturned, creating support for his Iraq quest indictment. What we need—and this trying to careen out of the killing line. with now familiar moves: a cynical Big attempt doesn’t satisfy—is insight into Drivers fled, their doors open, meals Lie linking Saddam Hussein with the how all of this happened. Reliving this left on seats, Kuwaiti loot piled in the September 11th attacks, fabricating evi- period, and hearing once again about rear. The blood on the sand suggested dence of weapons of mass destruction, the many failings Mitchell’s columns many did not make it. and an Orwellian campaign equating spotlight, raises more fundamentally There was another calculation in patriotism with support for his war. troubling questions not answered by Bush’s decision to end the war in 1991. A book by Greg Mitchell, editor of the stock prescription that journalists If the Baghdad regime were toppled, Editor and Publisher, revisits the suc- should have been more skeptical of what would happen then? No one had cess of this strategy with the media the war claims. a plan. Saddam Hussein was vile and through a collection of his columns Heretical as this may seem, I’m not ruthless, but anyone with knowledge published from 2003 through 2007. sure it would have mattered. of the region knew he was a cork stop The columns—compiled into a volume Case in point: Recall how many to even more chaos that would be entitled, “So Wrong for So Long: Americans believed Saddam Hussein unleashed by a void in Baghdad. How the Press, the Pundits—and the was personally involved in the Sep- The first President Bush took harsh President—Failed on Iraq,” rail at a tember 11th attack. Two years later, in criticism for not “getting Saddam” by compliant press and a manipulative September 2003, nearly 70 percent of

62 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Books

Americans believed this, according to of the day could have outweighed a wrong or foolhardy. Journalists should a Washington Post poll. By 2007, the President hell-bent on whipping up not have been infected by this. Nor figure had only slipped to 41 percent war fervor in this country, especially should members of Congress or families (Newsweek poll) and to a still astound- given the fragile national psyche after who sent loved ones to war. Yet, too ing 28 percent by March of this year September 11th. many were. (CBS/New York Times poll). Even back This raises a second critical issue: I saw the grip of this mentality in 2003—and continuing through the the willingness of the nation as a on a personal level. While I made years—reporting debunking this as a whole—including the press, public regular reporting trips to Iraq, my lie pushed by Dick Cheney (still) has and Congress—to be swept by emo- brother offered feverish flag-waving been out there, even if it was offered tion into a drumbeat of nationalism. support for the war from his home up too weakly when the lie was first When I’d return periodically to Iraq in Pennsylvania. It was the kind told. Yet for a sizeable portion of the to cover the story for The Washington of love-America, send-guns-to-Iraq public, none of this matters. Post, I always felt I was entering Alice’s support that Bush and Cheney and This divergence—between what Wonderland. The reality I’d find there Donald Rumsfeld encouraged. My the press reports and what the public held little resemblance to the impres- brother never once asked me what it believes—is profoundly discourag- sion of Iraq at home. My newspaper was really like on the ground in Iraq. ing for those of us who think of our featured its war coverage on Page One He did not want to know the truth jobs as resting on the premise that day after day. And Western and Iraqi about what was happening there. In given the facts, the public will make journalists risked their lives to bring preferring to hide behind blinders, he reasonable decisions. To imply that factual accounts to those pages. But is all too typical. America would not have gone into the view I found at home was framed In our business, too many of us this war if only journalists had writ- not by our reports—or other original did fail to dig hard enough. But the ten the truth is to buy into a myth of reporting from Iraq— but by the Bush failures that let this war happen went the power of the press that I think is administration’s spin, which charac- beyond those of journalists.  no longer true. terized this as a simplistic good vs. With the public relations strength evil struggle from which no patriotic Doug Struck, a 2004 Nieman Fellow, and electronic bully pulpit of the American should shirk. reported from Iraq nearly a dozen presidency—bolstered by the echo My disappointment lies not so times between 1990 and 2006 for The chamber of the Web and the pun- much with the journalism, but with (Baltimore) Sun and The Washington ditry of talk radio and cable TV—I’m the seizure of American minds by a Post. He is a freelance writer in Boston. not sure any amount of journalism kind of patriotism that demanded critical of the conventional wisdom support for jingoism, no matter how

Connecting the Threads of Democracy and Journalism ‘Too often, the decision—based on expedience and expenditure—to publish what is popular or entertaining trumps what is necessary.’

BY GERALD B. JORDAN

Moyers on Democracy of dead white people.” Now, my stu- the historic roots of how we came to Bill Moyers dents refer to it as “the study of dead be who we are—and why it matters Doubleday. 416 Pages. white males.” So this generations-long today—gets quashed further in the resistance toward understanding how babble of AM talk radio and dumbed our democracy came to be and how down by political ads and the rarity of School children don’t like history. it continues to function carries forth critical assessment of their distortions. Why should they? It’s a topic that has into our most fundamental civic role, With the Internet so pervasive in our been so thoroughly and successfully as voters turn their backs to reason or communication, we find ourselves in derided from my parents’ generation, plunge their heads into the sand. the throes of deciphering damage when it was dismissed as “the study It is during our election season that done by disinformation so effortlessly of dead people,” to mine as “the study any residue of understanding about spread on it.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 63 Words & Reflections

Certainly, disinformation is Those old enough to know (and nothing new, especially involv- expect) something different have ing political campaigns, but it is all but retreated to the comfort of nonetheless a great relief to be misinformation as they’ve become given a restored sense of hope dulled by lack of perspective. A in the form of “Moyers on De- press corps weakened by attrition mocracy,” a wonderful collection and under greater pressure to of talks veteran journalist Bill bolster corporate profits than to Moyers has given in recent years puncture governmental misdeeds in which he lays out when, where and corporate greed can’t possibly and how we, as Americans, have keep stride. gone off track. Not surprisingly, The danger in all of this, the quality of our democracy and Moyers argues, is evidenced in the quality of our journalism are anthropologist Jared Diamond’s deeply entwined. As Moyers told book, “Collapse: How Societ- the National Conference for Media ies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” Reform in May 2005, as he ad- Moyers contends that “If elites dressed the Bush administration’s insulate themselves from the attempts to curtail PBS (includ- consequences of their decisions,” ing the pressure to cancel his as Diamond’s book shows has PBS show), “We’re seeing unfold happened before, it’s a “blueprint a contemporary example of the for failure.” If defense spending is age-old ambition of power and crucial—and it is—then why does ideology to squelch and punish a wealthy country like ours smile journalists.” proudly while folks organize bake sales to support U.S. troops serv- Abandoning ing in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or Responsibility families buy flak jackets to send to loved ones posted in that region? Wall Street is forcing media com- disappearing. And just five percent Where is the public’s outrage when panies—especially newspapers—to of editors surveyed say they are very U.S. soldiers are being electrocuted retrench. In the past three years, 85 confident in their ability to envision in their barracks showers because of percent of large dailies and 52 per- how their newsroom will operate in faulty work being done by well-paid cent of smaller ones have cut staff five years,” according to PEJ’s report, private American contractors? Why size, according to a comprehensive released in mid-July. do so many veterans lack the kind of survey of editors done by the Project This is hardly the first dire reading medical care their wounds—physical for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ). of the state of newspaper journalism. and psychological—require to return Where financial markets see fat to It surely won’t be the last. In Moyers’ them to good health and productive be trimmed, editors see loss of the vision, conveyed to those attending the lives? capacity to pursue complex stories National Conference for Media Reform “They’re counting on patriotism to that take days, weeks or months to in January 2007, the press is losing distract you from their plunder,” Moy- uncover. Too often, the decision—based ground to a “thoroughly networked ers said in an October 2001 speech on expedience and expenditure—to ‘noise machine,’ to use David Brock’s on the impact of money on politics. publish what is popular or entertaining term, creating a public discourse that “They’re counting on you to stand at trumps what is necessary. has changed how American values are attention with your hand over your It is in these many pivotal mo- perceived.” He went on to observe that heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, ments of decision making that power the “egalitarian language of our Dec- while they pick your pocket!” goes unchecked. And as Moyers aptly laration of Independence is shredded On the economic front, Moyers warns, power unchecked threatens by sloganeers who speak of the ‘death speaks to concentration of wealth— democracy. tax,’ the ‘ownership society,’ the ‘culture and the gains being made by wealthier “There are fewer pages, shorter sto- of life,’ ‘compassionate conservatism,’ people in our nation. Citing Norton ries, and notably fewer editors checking ‘weak on terrorism,’ the ‘end of his- Garfinkle, writing in “The American copy for errors. Most topics, not just tory,’ the ‘clash of civilizations,’ and Dream vs. the Gospel of Wealth,” foreign and national news, are getting ‘no child left behind.’” Moyers noted in his 2007 speech to less space and resources and are con- By now, campaigns by sound bite the National Conference for Media sidered less important than three years (and with attendant demagoguery) are Reform that in the past quarter cen- ago. Stand-alone business sections are accepted as the norm by young voters. tury, the top one percent of households

64 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Books captured more than 50 percent of all acknowledges, but not hopeless. Roberts, whose investigative reach gains in financial wealth. He goes on “Organized people have always had was legendary. Today, it’s all about to cite economist Jeffrey Madrick in to take on organized money,” he said “breaking” news, but it’s really all of reminding us that “equitable access in a February 2006 lecture series what oozes undetected that threatens to public resources is the lifeblood called “Money and Politics.” “If they the health of our democracy. It is these of democracy.” had not, blacks would still be slaves, stories-in-waiting that seem ever more It is true, as Moyers points out, women wouldn’t have the vote, work- difficult to report at a time when those that in politics there are no victim- ers couldn’t organize, and children who own the news organizations have less crimes. “The cost of corruption is would still be working in mines. Our cut staff and slashed resources. passed on to you. When the government democracy is more inclusive than in If the greatest sedition we can of the United States falls under the the days of the founders because time commit would be, as Moyers says, thumb of the powerful and privileged, and again, the people have organized to remain silent, then it seems the regular folks get squashed.” Yet the themselves to insist that America be- contemporary economic stranglehold American press is losing ground in its come a ‘more perfect union.’” on the press is choking us into that responsibility to keep its watchful eye His book is a worthy call to take quiet sedition.  focused on the process of democracy. that fight once again to Washington. And when some do try to check these There, sensational stories still emerge Gerald B. Jordan, a 1982 Nieman Fel- distortions, they get bullied into silence about scandal and corruption, but only low, is an associate professor of jour- by charges that they are unpatriotic a relative few surface anymore about nalism in the Walter J. Lemke Depart- and un-American. problems that “ooze,” a term favored ment of Journalism at the University The landscape is bleak, Moyers by former newspaper editor Gene of Arkansas.

The Internet: How It Changes Everything About Journalism ‘What was once an important role—making editorial choices—starts to feel more like a bottleneck in the system.’

BY JOSHUA BENTON

Here Comes Everybody: The Power a competitor in the 1990’s. How could of Organizing Without Organiza- a geeky computer network render tions obsolete something as fundamental Clay Shirky as a newspaper? It must have seemed Penguin. 327 Pages. absurd—as if the world’s demand for socks was suddenly replaced en masse with licorice. Clay Shirky’s uncle was a newspaper- Shirky’s terrific new book, “Here man in small-town Missouri. When Comes Everybody: The Power of USA Today debuted in 1982, Uncle Organizing Without Organizations,” Howard didn’t like it one bit—he is an excellent primer for those called it “TV on paper” and thought journalists who feel confused by the it degraded the business. But the up- impact technology is having on their start was still words and pictures on industry—those who, at some funda- paper—just designed and distributed mental level, feel they don’t get the in a new way. It was familiar enough Internet. Only a fraction of the book that Howard could quickly size up its is directly about the news business; potential impact on his business. It his narrative sweeps from Belarusian was a threat to the status quo, but a political movements to a case of New recognizable one. York cell phone theft. But all of Shirky’s Old newspaper hands had a lot more ideas echo against the established trouble understanding the Internet as paths of human communication. His

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 65 Words & Reflections

book is fundamentally one of theory: and what gets cut for space. But space particularly smart on how professions How does technology change the ways isn’t a limited resource anymore; there’s function—on how their members prefer human beings interact? And what are no shortage of electrons. Instead of approval from within the profession the implications for those institutions trusting the local paper’s brain trust to than from society at large or on their built around the old models? judge what’s important, any Internet natural reaction against new outside His central argument is that the user can get their news through the competition for their work. Internet makes organizing groups filter of their choice—a favorite blog- Shirky isn’t a techno-utopian. He trivially simple. A mass e-mail, a ger, the machine-generated Google acknowledges that previous tech- Facebook group, or an online peti- News, or the Most E-Mailed list on nological shifts engendered periods tion can be created in seconds and at some news site. Or they can find of chaos and unrest before society essentially no cost. Collaboration on news about the near-infinite number coalesced around a new set of rules. any significant scale used to But he seems optimistic that require the power of institu- the work journalists do will tions and organizations. Now survive and thrive in the new they require only a good idea environment. As for journalists and the right tools. Instead of trusting the local paper’s themselves—or their hopes for Shirky—a professor at New brain trust to judge what’s important, a decent paycheck—well, that’s York University and a consul- another matter. tant on Internet issues—asks any Internet user can get their news He writes several times of the you to define “group” broadly. role of scribes in the 1400’s—the It could be something conven- through the filter of their choice—a few literate monks who hand- tional, like a Kiwanis Club or favorite blogger, the machine-generated copied books for centuries. They a bowling league. But a group were critical for the preserva- could also be more abstract, like Google News, or the Most E-Mailed list tion of civilization. Then along “fans of Thai surf-rock bands comes a fellow named Guten- from the 1960’s.” Or “people who on some news site. Or they can find berg. Suddenly, scribes were no are interested in the Milwaukee news about the near-infinite number of longer a necessary link between city council.” knowledge and learner. History Traditional news organiza- subjects American newspapers find too records the dislocating impact tions profited from making the of Gutenberg’s invention—the connections that create and uninteresting to cover at all. Protestant Reformation among connect these groups. Those them. But what happened to people interested in the Mil- the poor scribes? waukee city council needed a Shirky quotes an apologia way to find the information they called “In Praise of Scribes,” wanted, and newspapers made that of subjects American newspapers find written by a German abbot in 1492. connection. Department stores wanted too uninteresting to cover at all. Instead of citing the benefits scribes to be able to reach people who needed What was once an important brought society, the author cited the clothes and appliances—and newspa- role—making editorial choices—starts benefits all that bookcopying brought pers made that connection, too. to feel more like a bottleneck in the the scribes. (“His understanding is But with the Internet, retailers system. enlightened as he writes,” for one.) don’t need newspapers to connect Shirky argues these changes are Before too long, scribes devolved into with their customers; they can set up enormously freeing. The news busi- calligraphers, and a role once critical their own Web sites and mailing lists. ness, like any profession, has evolved to human knowledge was reduced to Milwaukee’s civic-minded can start a its own set of rules about what gets decoration. blog and post leaked documents to covered and what gets ignored. Those “In Praise of Scribes,” Shirky notes their hearts’ content. It’s the same rules get thrown out the window when dryly, wasn’t produced by the monks antimiddleman trend that lets Amazon the flow of information slips out of it lauded. It was made on a printing cut retail stores out of the chain from the control of a few village elders. press.  supplier to buyer. And that means that a new, smarter Another middleman job Shirky grammar of news gets the chance to Joshua Benton, a 2008 Nieman Fel- identifies: Deciding what combination evolve from scratch. low, is editor of the Nieman Journal- of news was the most important for Even though Shirky is in one sense ism Lab. the public to know. Traditionally, that’s dancing on the graves of traditional been a job for newspaper editors, the organizations, some of his best material ones who decide what makes Page One is his analysis of how they operate. He’s

66 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Books

Correcting the Errors of Our Ways ‘By ignoring readers’ pleas for accuracy and accountability, journalists are losing the most valuable asset: their credibility.’

BY GREG BROCK

Regret the Error: How Media Mis- who continue to brushoff readers’ com- takes Pollute the Press and Imperil plaints or issue terse “we stand by our Free Speech story” statements will no doubt find the Craig Silverman subtitle of Silverman’s book a bit over- Union Square Press. 366 Pages. dramatic. That’s unfortunate because the book, which includes more than 300 funny and shocking corrections, Just after seven on a Sunday morn- is on target with its broader message ing, a message from a young woman and could not be more timely. who was to be married within hours Newspapers, and other media as landed in the readers’ e-mail box at well, are losing more than their stock The New York Times. Subject: You value these days. By ignoring readers’ Ruined My Wedding Day! pleas for accuracy and accountability, In its weddings pages that morning, journalists are losing the most valu- the Times had misspelled the surname able asset: their credibility. Silverman of the woman’s husband-to-be. “At says it best: “It is accurate news that least you were consistent,” she wrote. matters most to society. The desire for “It was misspelled in the headline and factual information is an inseparable in the announcement.” As I read her component of news and has emerged note, I kept thinking: Please let this be as the foundation of modern journal- a parody of the parody that “Sex and ism .… Accuracy is at the core of how the City” did of the Times’s wedding line? “McCain Claims Victory as the media builds trust.” announcements—the episode in which Democrats Duel in Iowa and Texas.” Charlotte opens the Sunday paper to Is it proverbial parochialism that Digital Media: Accuracy and find that an ink splotch on her wed- prevents you from knowing the dif- Accountability ding photograph makes it appear that ference between Iowa and Ohio?” she has a moustache. • How could someone born in 1915 Silverman observes in his book that The But in this case, we had a real- be 81 years old in 2007? Even my New York Times has led the way for life Charlotte, not a reader playing a second grader can subtract! several decades in striving for accuracy prank, as sometimes happens. As the and in setting the record straight. He editor who oversees corrections for At the Times, we ask tough ques- credits a former executive editor of the the Times, I apologized to the young tions, too: How could such an error Times, A.M. Rosenthal, with creating woman and assured her that we would happen? How did it happen? How in the 1970’s what many consider the promptly correct the error online and do we keep it from happening again? modern newspaper correction—at least in the print edition the next Sunday. Unfortunately, we must come up with in print. There are days we wish we I knew, of course, that the bride’s answers while publishing the Times had Rosenthal around so we could message was merely the first of hun- 24/7, but in doing this it’s our good say: Here, create a new model for dreds the Times would receive that fortune to have Craig Silverman on corrections to serve us for another 35 day and throughout the week. The our side—and watching us 24/7. Sil- years—this time with the new demands messages and telephone calls come verman is a journalist and founder of of digital media in mind. fast (and mostly furious): RegretTheError.com, a Web site that If Rosenthal were around to take up compiles media errors. And now he is that challenge, he would have plenty • How can the best paper in the coun- the author of “Regret the Error: How of help—from the outside. Each day try keep misspelling the attorney Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and brings another blogger or another Web general’s name? Imperil Free Speech.” site dedicated to correcting the Times’s • How could you write such a head- Journalists and news organizations errors. We welcome these, just as we

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 67 Words & Reflections

ask readers to let us know when they that we made the error. The Times does correct my wedding announcement in spot an error. And like many readers, this by adding a note at the bottom 1992. I am no longer married to that some bloggers are thorough in their of any article that has been corrected, sorry excuse for a husband.” (The an- research. But many post items before but other readers agree with Silver- nouncement was accurate at the time, they check, only to learn later that they man that we need a feature on our so no correction is warranted.) were wrong about the Times making Web site that lists, in one place, all Now, every time I receive another an error. This lack of fact checking of the online articles that have been request to correct the status of a extends to Web sites that monitor corrected. We’re working on it. marriage—there are many—I wonder if media errors. Few ask for an explana- Of course, the Times compounded I will hear again from the young bride tion or response from us before telling its online problems when it opened who wrote us that Sunday morning. (Of the world that the Times was wrong. its archives, dating from 1851, to the course, I hope I don’t.) I did hear from Media Matters for America is one that public. Every day brings several e- her father later that Sunday afternoon. does do its reporting first. This adds mail messages from readers asking He wrote: “It seems that my daughter to its credibility—and reduces the for a correction. Some are simple: “I was so upset this morning about the odds that it will have to acknowledge thought I would look through your misspelling of her fiancé’s name that its own error. archives today to see if you ever mis- she did not notice that you referred to But bloggers overall are increas- spelled Pervez Musharraf. It has been me as her ‘late father.’ I just wanted ingly correcting their own errors, as “Musharaff” seven times since 2002. you to know that I am indeed alive Silverman notes, and they are finding Please correct.” (We invoke our arbi- and attended the wedding. It was a innovative ways to do so. At the Times, trary statute of limitations on ones great day—in spite of the Times.” we have struggled for more than a year like this. No correction.) We sent the couple a belated to develop a system for correcting and Other errors that will live for wedding gift: corrected page proofs, acknowledging online errors. From a eternity—thanks to Google—are more both full-size ones on newsprint and practical standpoint, correcting every serious. “You wrote in 1987 that I was smaller glossy ones. This gesture cost error that flashes on our Web site for charged with a bank robbery. The us almost nothing, but it earned us a even five minutes is a logistical night- charges were dropped. Please correct great deal of goodwill—and hopefully mare. But Silverman, rightly, cuts the this. You are ruining my life! I can’t get restored their trust in us.  print media and their online sites no a job!” (With official documentation, slack for using “the lack of resources” the Times now appends a note to the Greg Brock, a 1994 Nieman Fellow as an excuse for not doing what we article if a case we reported involved and senior editor at The New York manage to do each day in print. felony charges that were dropped.) Times, has made his share of errors— Nor does merely correcting what Still other readers trolling the ar- including editing mistakes into three was wrong in a given article appease chives want us to correct what might corrections. (He ran corrections on readers. They want us to acknowledge be considered their mistakes: “Please all three.)

Public Service Pulitzers: How These Stories Were Told Reporters’ experiences ‘remind journalists why they are in their business and inform the rest of the world how the mission of the press fits into society.’

BY ELIZABETH MEHREN

Pulitzer’s Gold: Behind the Prize The city editor at the time, Selwyn ism’s most coveted award—the prize for Public-Service Journalism Pepper, was not much older when for Public Service Journalism—would !"#$%&$'())*+,$%)&$ he worked on a series on voter fraud go to Pepper on his 93rd birthday in -.*/0)+*1#$"2$3*++"4)*$5)0++&$677$5(80+& that won the paper the 1937 Pulitzer Overland Park, Kansas. Prize for Public Service Journalism. So Even on major stories like the it seemed fitting early this year that discovery of 40,000 “ghost residents” In the summer of 1966, when he took one of the first-off-the-press copies of on the St. Louis voter registration his first reporting job on the Metro “Pulitzer’s Gold: Behind the Prize for rolls, most newspapers in those days desk at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Public-Service Journalism,” Harris’s did not carry bylines. In a book that Roy Harris, Jr. was still a teenager. exhaustive history of print journal- is crammed with the kind of details

68 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Books that are like heroin for hard-core ing home and regaling his family with news addicts, Harris mentions this his latest acts of professional heroism. fact almost casually. Stop for a mo- He respected the senior Harris enough ment and consider the kind of egoless to follow him into the news business. camaraderie that had to have existed The younger Harris went on to work among the team of reporters, editors, at the Los Angeles Times, The Wall photographers and the paper’s editorial Street Journal and, most recently, CFO cartoonist that uncovered a scandal magazine, in Boston. (Selwyn Pepper’s that brought down the city’s election daughter Miriam Pepper also became board. Contrast that collaboration with a journalist and is the editorial page today’s star-studded newsrooms. My, editor of The Kansas City Star.) how times have changed. With a heavy note of nostalgia, Har- Not incidentally, Harris’s father ris adds, “I did love the paper.” was one of the unnamed reporters who broke the voter fraud story. Roy Small, Approachable Stories J. Harris, Sr. also took part in the reporting that brought this Pulitzer to In a conversation I had with Harris the Post-Dispatch in 1940 for a suc- about his book, he bristled slightly cessful campaign against the industrial when I said I thought “Pulitzer’s Gold” smoke that had made St. Louis one of might be described as encyclopedic. this country’s filthiest cities. In 1948, [See box for a description of the neigh- the senior Roy Harris—along, once borly connection between Mehren and again, with Selwyn Pepper—helped the Harris.] Far from a doorstop, one of Post-Dispatch earn another of these held “gravy train” jobs on the Illinois those books that people buy—or au- Pulitzers for its coverage of a mine state payroll. thors hope they buy—to gather dust explosion in a remote town in southern “It was a tribute to my dad, and to and look lofty on a coffee table, Harris Illinois. The eternal journalistic virtue the paper where I got my start, and prefers to think of his work as a col- of persistence is what paid off for the grew up reading,” Harris recalled. “I lection of small, approachable stories Post-Dispatch reporters who stayed worked there for five summers. I had that remind journalists why they are around the site of the Centralia coal my first front-page byline there—all of in their business and inform the rest mine catastrophe after all the other these things that mean so much to us of the world how the mission of the newspapers packed up. By lingering, as journalists.” press fits into society. Really, Harris the St. Louis reporters came across Harris loved his father, who—in protested, the text is only 488 pages. letters the dying miners had left for the fashion of a generation that sel- It’s all that tiny-type appendix that their loved ones. dom talked about its war experiences, makes it feel like a bicep-builder. either—did not make a practice of com- In fact there is something to his Dear Wife and Sons, Well, hon, it looks like the end. Please tell mom and dad I still love them. Please get the baby baptized and send [the name was withheld] to the Journalists and Neighbors: Mehren and Harris Catholic school…. Love to all of you. Now for a little truth-and-disclosure. occasionally bounced ideas off my Roy Harris is both a friend and a husband, Fox Butterfield, and me. In a way, it would not be inaccurate neighbor. He and I met 10 years We represented two newspapers to characterize “Pulitzer’s Gold” as a ago on a fundraising walk for our named Times, and Fox, after all, was sort of love letter in its own right. local wildlife rescue center. He spot- part of the investigative team that The book, reflecting five years of ted my Los Angeles Times T-shirt, helped The New York Times win the research and writing, evolved from a and I saw his hat from the Napa Pulitzer for Public Service in 1972, presentation Harris made for the Post- Valley. Good wine and printer’s ink: for publication of the Pentagon Pa- Dispatch in 2002 on the occasion of In a small colonial town in coastal pers. (Blessedly, the no-byline policy what would have been Roy J. Harris, Massachusetts, that made us instant was long since over by then.) Roy Sr.’s 100th birthday. Roy Harris, Sr. comrades. rewarded us with kind references also helped the Post-Dispatch share Throughout the arduous re- in his book. —E.M. the Public Service Pulitzer with the search and reporting process, Roy Chicago Daily News in 1950, in an exposé of 37 Illinois newsmen who

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remonstrations. “Pulitzer’s Gold” is called the head of the local Red Cross. his draft notice while working on a newshound’s “story behind the “Why are you asking these questions?” the Los Angeles Times metro staff in story.” It’s all about the people who the director snapped. “We don’t have 1968 has newsprint in his DNA. But made great news and who made the to tell you that.” one mission of any work of history news business great. It is loaded with Never say “No” to an investigative is to record the past and, sometimes, the Aha! moments that make us, as reporter. That’s all it took for Gaul to the passing of great movements and journalists, glad we passed up the start reporting the series that won the institutions. If all the major newspa- big-bucks MBA track to try to save Inquirer the public service Pulitzer in pers fold up and die, disappearing like the world instead. 1990 for disclosing how the American the dinosaurs that naysayers already There is the tale of a then-Philadel- blood industry operates with little gov- think print journalists have become, phia Inquirer reporter named Gilbert ernment regulation or supervision. this book will remind journalists of Gaul—cool byline, by the way. Gaul With the news industry changing so purpose-driven professionals whose made a habit of donating blood when- rapidly, Harris predicts developments goal was to right wrongs and, above ever the Red Cross came around. One in the Pulitzers, too. Before long, he all, to find and tell the truth. day, with his arm outstretched and a believes that blogs will be included in “I am not sure whether this book technician taking his blood, Gaul got the public service category, or perhaps is a eulogy or a call for action,” Har- to wondering: What happens to all the as an entry zone of their own. ris admitted. “But I hope it is the blood that is donated? Where does it For unrepentant journalism junk- latter.”  go? Who processes it and how? What ies, “Pulitzer’s Gold” is fun to read, kind of dollar value might be placed too. It’s history in digestible snip- Elizabeth Mehren, a professor of on all that blood? pets. Each entry comes with its own journalism at Boston University, was Thinking he might have a “fun little headline, proving that Harris just until 2007 a reporter at the Los Ange- business story” on his hands, Gaul can’t help himself: The man who got les Times.

The Missourian: A Unique Approach to Teaching Journalism ‘All journalism schools have trouble reconciling vocational goals and academic needs, and the conflict was felt first and most sharply at Missouri.’

BY PHILIP MEYER

A Journalism of Humanity: A the then-39-year-old newspaper war car backing out of a parking space. Candid History of the World’s First in Columbia, Missouri, between the Before the dust has settled, two young Journalism School journalism school’s Missourian and the men have gotten your name, birthplace Steve Weinberg privately owned Daily Tribune. and business, and you’ve apologized University of Missouri Press. for remaining intact. 314 Pages. You don’t have to be famous to meet the press in Columbia, Missouri. All Weinberg doesn’t mention that Col- you have to do is step off a train or lier’s moment of fame in his detailed Steve Weinberg’s excellent chronicle bus. account of the first 100 years of the took me back to the summer of 1947 “Help you with your bags, sir?” The Missouri J-School. Perhaps it was a when I was a rising high school senior young man or pretty girl who greets bit exaggerated. But that newspaper in Clay Center, Kansas. That’s when you so helpfully is not a porter, you war is still going on. And Missouri I first fell in love with the University find, but a reporter from the Columbia students still learn journalism by of Missouri School of Journalism. Missourian. actually doing journalism. The Mis- It was a long distance, unrequited A loud noise anywhere in town will souri method remains unique with relationship triggered by a magazine bring two or three of them on the gal- its newsroom directed by professional article. In that steamy July, Collier’s lop. On Broadway, driving up to your editors and staffed by students who published “City Without Secrets,” about hotel, your cab locks bumpers with a do the reporting, design, copyediting,

70 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Books information graphics, photography and Margaret Duffy, who developed links multimedia. Now we can see how it to the newspaper industry as it began happened. to appreciate the need for new knowl- The reason that it has not been edge. Thus began, Weinberg reports, widely copied is easy to understand. “a journey into the mostly unknown The journalism deans, from Walter reaches of the profession.” Williams to Dean Mills, must have had Despite being smitten by the school the hardest academic job in the world. when I was 16, I never made it to In addition to the usual need to keep Missouri. Family finances could get students, faculty, alumni, donors and me no closer than Kansas State in the the university administration happy, next county. But I lucked out. Smart the dean must also work to keep an young professors understood what increasingly complex (now multime- newspapers were for, and they left dia) business operation solvent. And, us free to experiment as we applied unlike most CEOs, deans have had our freshly gained knowledge to the to fight political battles against the college paper. privately owned competitors who in- And I started crossing paths with cessantly complain to state lawmakers members of the Missouri Mafia even that the university-owned media are before I graduated. Newton Townsend, unfair competition. who’d received his bachelor degree from This problem existed from the first Missouri in 1948 and his masters in day. Williams, the founding dean, journalism a year later, was my city had no models to emulate when he editor during a summer internship at organized the first journalism school, the Topeka Daily Capital in 1951 when and he faced considerable resistance its standing within the university, the I got my first Page One byline. He from skeptical editors and publishers school needed a PhD program and, rates a mention in the book because who thought that journalism was a in 1931, the faculty designed one that he returned to Columbia in 1957 to run craft that could be learned only on demonstrated academic rigor by re- a training program for foreign jour- the job. Williams himself lacked a col- quiring “evidence of ability to translate nalists. Newt’s brother Robert “Bear” lege degree and had learned the news French and German on sight.” Townsend, also a Missouri graduate, business through a long apprenticeship The advantage of having curious was The Topeka reporter who intro- like everyone else. PhDs and their graduate students duced me to “The Journalist’s Creed,” But building a working newspa- under the same administrative roof written by Williams and memorized per into the curriculum solved that as a grown-up newspaper could by students. “I believe,” it says in part, problem, and the genius of Williams have been seen as an opportunity to “that suppression of the news for any was that he was able to found a new use the paper as a weapons lab for consideration other than the welfare newspaper and a new journalism discovering applications and effects of society is indefensible.” school simultaneously. The first is- of new technology as it came along. Those words and a supportive sue of the paper coincided with the Weinberg’s account makes it clear that faculty helped sustain me when I ex- first day of class, September 14, 1908. the opportunity was there, because he perienced conflict with Kansas State The university expanded the Missouri shows how the paper kept up with administrators as a student editor in method into broadcasting with the the industry with conversions, from my senior year. I doubt that there creation of a TV station in 1953 and letterpress to offset and pagination. are many of us who have not been an FM station in 1971. More recently, But unlike professional schools in other influenced, in one way or another, by an online newspaper, MyMissourian. fields, it tended to follow, not lead, the the Missouri method. You didn’t have com, featuring citizen-provided con- profitable and self-confident industry to be there.  tent, was added to the package. that it served. There is no indication in All journalism schools have trouble Weinberg’s account of much commu- Philip Meyer, a 1967 Nieman Fellow, reconciling vocational goals and aca- nication between the research faculty is professor emeritus in the School of demic needs, and the conflict was felt and the Missourian management about Journalism and Mass Communica- first and most sharply at Missouri. studying the implications and effects tion at the University of North Caro- The model depended on faculty who of technological change. lina at Chapel Hill. His “Precision had learned on the job, not through That changed in the Mills ad- Journalism,” first published in 1973, study toward advanced degrees. And ministration with the creation of is in its fourth edition. He is working so the vocational tail kept wagging the Reynolds Journalism Institute on a memoir about the evolution of the academic dog. But to maintain and faculty like Esther Thorson and that work.

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The Life and Times of a Female Foreign Correspondent A British reporter writes about reporting from war zones and overseas assignments— and adds marriage and motherhood into the mix.

BY MARY JORDAN

Small Wars Permitting: Dispatches whom were male,” in the Iraqi consul- from Foreign Lands ate she was singled out, to the envy Christina Lamb of others, to proceed into an inner Harper Press. 390 Pages. office. But there a consular official, “far from stamping the precious visa into my passport, proceeded to invite When Christina Lamb, one of England’s me to dinner.” best known foreign correspondents, She accepted. Then the roses ar- started out in 1987, there were few rived at her hotel—along with the note women reporting from abroad. Her that he wished her to stay in Amman book, “Small Wars Permitting: Dis- forever. Lamb said she told him that patches from Foreign Lands,” which the Sunday Times, the paper she was recounts her adventures from Pakistan then working for, would pull her home to Zimbabwe to Iraq, is a reminder of immediately if she didn’t get a visa, how much that has changed. but if she did get into Iraq, she could After landing a summer intern job then come back to Amman. A problem at the Financial Times (FT) more nicely finessed. than two decades ago, Lamb said she More and more women are joining wanted more than anything to be part Lamb in reporting from war zones and of the “camel corps,” those foreign cor- on foreign assignments. Currently 10 respondents who “would waft in with of the 24 foreign correspondents at the smell of the desert or tang of the The Washington Post are female. The sea, dressed in crumpled linen suits, bigger issue now confronting our edi- their tanned faces making the people landed on my mat” and that, in turn, tors is how to deal with the challenges in the office look washed out and gray. prompted the FT to agree to “rent me that those of us who are married, and They covered wars, revolutions and a Tandy word processor and pay for especially those with children, face. It insurgencies, and they spoke on the whatever they published.” seems as though we are always jug- phone in exotic languages. Her editors, she said, let her know gling road trips with children’s first “They were all men and to me they that they were more interested “in steps, school concerts, soccer games, were all gods.” Russian occupied Afghanistan than and birthdays that somehow seem Her first assignment was in Pakistan Pakistan.” And, as she headed up to uncannily to coincide with a news writing about the wedding of Benazir Peshawar near the Afghan border, she event or must-do assignment. Lamb, Bhutto; many years later she would be said, “my first night there someone who married fellow journalist Paulo on the campaign bus when a bomb tried to sell me a multi-barrel rocket Anunciacao from Portugal in 1999 exploded killing many bystanders, launcher.” and has a son, continues to go abroad, narrowly missing Bhutto, and splat- Lamb was hooked. She didn’t mind often for weeks at a time. tering blood on Lamb. the “shiny born cockroaches” in the Yet despite the cost to her family Lamb’s career path, like so many hotel given the breathtaking “dark life, Lamb keeps getting on a plane of us in journalism, wasn’t shaped serrated ridges of the Khyber Pass.” to head to the next story, and she by intense planning. She was an Being a woman in the field can does her job so well that she keeps intern in the FT’s newsroom when lead to some odd situations, such as winning awards. Only one day after she got invited to a lunch and was one she recounted, which involved an being released from the hospital after seated beside a representative from often-maddening part of the job: ap- giving birth to her son, born 11 weeks Bhutto’s political party. He told her plying for a visa. She was in Amman, premature in an emergency Caesarean, Bhutto was in London if she wanted Jordan in the mid-1990’s, desperate Lamb was still “high on morphine” to interview her. That interview led to to get a visa to Iraq. While waiting when she went to interview General “a large gold-inscribed invitation that in a roomful of journalists, “most of Augusto Pinochet. It was 1999, and

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Pinochet was living in a luxury estate “One of the most important quali- workplace is a war zone. Whether south of London. Another time, while ties for a foreign correspondent is Lamb has found the right balance in other families wrapped Christmas managing to be in the right place at her life is for her—and her family— presents and attended holiday par- the right time, but now [that] I was to judge. For many of us in the field, ties, she was out on a long stint on a wife and mother I was starting to the bottom line is that Lamb is out the road, just making it back to her wish events wouldn’t keep following me there, bringing a woman’s critical eye son and husband on Christmas morn- around. Fortunately we were staying on world events to a field too long ing. And, in 2003, after two months in a beautiful old riad and Paulo felt dominated by men.  in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, he could survive a day alone loung- she decided to go with her husband ing in the courtyard by the turquoise Mary Jordan, a 1990 Nieman Fel- for his 40th birthday to Marrakesh, pool, reading and sipping gin and low, is co-bureau chief in London for while her mom stayed with their son. tonics, while I drove to Casablanca at The Washington Post, a position she The two flew out Friday. On Saturday top speed to wander round shattered shares with her husband, Kevin Sul- morning, a phone call woke her at nightclubs and hotels and interview livan. She and Sullivan have been dawn. There had been a series of al- bloodied survivors.” co-bureau chiefs in Tokyo and Mexico Qaeda attacks in hotels and clubs in Some will surely read Lamb’s book City. They shared the 2003 Pulitzer Casablanca, her editor told her, and and second-guess her choices. All work- Prize for International Reporting for since she was already there he asked ing mothers face difficult decisions, but their coverage of the Mexican criminal her to go check it out. these are amplified for women whose justice system.

TV News: When the Networks Were In Their Prime During the 1960’s and 1970’s, the CBS Washington bureau—including Roger Mudd, who now writes about it—led the way for broadcast journalism.

BY BILL WHEATLEY

The Place to Be: Washington, Bob Schieffer, Lesley Stahl, Fred Gra- CBS, and the Glory Days of Televi- ham, Eric Sevareid, and a long list sion News of other skilled news practitioners, Roger Mudd the bureau distinguished itself year PublicAffairs. 413 Pages. after year in a time when Washington news dominated the network evening newscasts. If a hall of fame for broadcast journal- In “The Place to Be: Washington, ists existed, Roger Mudd would almost CBS, and the Glory Days of Television certainly be voted into it on the first News,” Mudd, now 80, has combined ballot. A probing reporter, talented his story with the bureau’s to create writer, skilled questioner, and authori- an informed and candid memoir of tative newsreader, Mudd was among CBS Washington during these two the most respected journalists of an decades. It was a time that Mudd calls era when it was TV network news that simply the “Golden Age of Television brought the visual force of reporting News.” about the civil rights movement, the Presided over for much of the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination period by the dour and demanding of President Kennedy, the Vietnam Bill Small, the CBS bureau was a War, the moon landing, and Watergate journalistic juggernaut, as notable into American households. for its aggressiveness as it was for its And if an award could be given skills. Mudd tells us how, time and for the best bureau in the history of 1970’s would be an odds-on favorite again, its hard-charging staff put the television news, the powerhouse CBS to win it. Serving as home base for network out in front on major stories. Washington bureau of the 1960’s and Mudd, Dan Rather, Marvin Kalb, Acting on a Saturday morning tip, a

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 73 Words & Reflections

CBS producer runs blocks to the local ’70’s, Mudd claims, “set a standard at CBS were reluctant to compete for courthouse and the network breaks for thoroughness, balance, credibility, it. Mudd regards this as a good thing the story of the Watergate burglary. commitment and journalistic skill overall, but concedes that, inevitably, it When George Wallace is shot, a CBS that has not been equaled.” Integrity, led to tension, even personal animus. cameraman captures the incident ex- however, seems to have been an oc- He feels that the bureau’s pride in clusively, then commandeers a passing casional problem. Mudd chronicles its accomplishments was an effective truck to get his footage into position several examples of serious ethical antidote to this, but there must have for broadcast. Over time, these and lapses. In one, after the bureau failed been more than a few days when other superior efforts paid off: CBS to cover a hearing that turned out to be CBS Washington wasn’t a very happy passed the perennial leader, NBC, in newsworthy, a CBS reporter convinced place to be. the evening news ratings and stayed an all-too-willing House committee There was no greater competition on top for almost a generation. chairman to stage a same-day reenact- in the bureau, of course, than the one By any measure, Mudd, the net- ment of the hearing—Congressmen, between Mudd and Dan Rather as the work’s top Congressional and political witness and all; the television audience time approached to replace Cronkite. correspondent, was a big contributor apparently was not told that what it Mudd writes that he was “ambivalent” to CBS’s success, appearing often on was watching was not the real thing. about getting the post, fearing it would the evening news from Capitol Hill, In another, a CBS reporter made re- compromise his professional inde- anchoring special coverage of major peated, illegal contact with a member pendence and personal privacy. But events, reporting prime-time docu- of a sitting Watergate federal grand it’s clear that, deep down, he wanted mentaries, and filling in regularly for jury; wisely, higher-ups refused to the job badly, believing Rather to be Walter Cronkite at the anchor desk. air what he learned. Mudd gives no a less worthy heir, a man “calculating A perfectionist, he prized preparation indication that either reporter was and suspicious of mind” and lacking and accuracy and had little regard for ever punished. “personal believability.” When Rather those who didn’t. Mudd describes some conduct of got the job, Mudd was crushed and Never was Mudd’s penchant for his own that raises ethical questions. cleaned out his desk. Later, he went excellence more in play than in his Seemingly without qualm, he accepted on to do good work for NBC, the marathon coverage of the 67-day Senate an assignment to report a major “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” and the filibuster against the 1964 civil rights documentary on Senator Robert Ken- History Channel, but his professional bill. Filing morning, noon and night for nedy as the senator prepared to run life would never be quite as fulfilling, both television and radio, his pointed, for President; this, despite the fact it seems, as in “the glory days.” sometimes irreverent, reporting won that the Robert Kennedy and Mudd “The Place to Be” is filled with good him a national following. (Sensing the families were close socially. When reporting and compelling stories, but moment, CBS took out a full-page ad the documentary aired, the senator one wishes Mudd, a student of history, in The New York Times with pictures and his wife, Ethel, joined the Mudds had reflected more deeply on how well of Mudd reporting in good weather and for a celebratory dinner. Later, Mrs. he and his contemporaries served the bad, accompanied by the postman’s Kennedy has a falling out with Mudd nation’s needs. Was the huge amount motto, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor over his 1979 documentary “Teddy,” of time devoted to Washington news heat, nor gloom of night …”.) in which her brother-in-law, Senator appropriate? Or did it come at the Mudd concedes that all the attention Edward Kennedy, stumbled badly when expense of news about other important swelled his head and that his stubborn Mudd asked the simple, now famous, matters such as major social trends, insistence on high standards some- question, “Why do you want to be medicine and science, and consumer- times gave colleagues and superiors President?” At another point, Mudd ism? By placing so much emphasis “a pain in the neck and elsewhere.” eavesdropped repeatedly on closed- on White House coverage, did CBS He describes himself in his early years door Senate Democratic caucuses with News and its competitors help to cre- at CBS as “prickly, at times sardonic, the help of a Republican staffer who ate the Imperial Presidency? Was the slightly self-important, unnecessarily provided him with access to a closet television news “star system” of which unforgiving of others’ mistakes, reli- separated from the caucus room by a Mudd was a part a good or bad thing able, trustworthy, knowledgeable, and paper-thin wall. If he had any doubts for journalism and, by extension, the regularly infatuated with the absurdi- about the propriety of this or of doing country? ties of the Congress in particular and the documentary on Robert Kennedy, Let’s hope Mudd turns his attention the government in general.” Having he doesn’t mention them. to such matters in future writings, worked with Mudd years later, when As Mudd tells it and his colleagues expanding the contribution he has he came over to NBC, I find it hard to confirm, the correspondents at the made in “The Place to Be.”  quarrel with his self-description. For- CBS bureau sometimes seemed as tunately, his shortcomings were more competitive with each other as they Bill Wheatley, a 1977 Nieman Fellow, than matched by his strengths. were with their rivals at other net- is a former executive vice president of The CBS News of the ’60’s and works. Airtime was oxygen and few NBC News.

74 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Nieman Notes

The Rights and Responsibilities of Journalists In his new book, Anthony Lewis offers a ‘cogent, yet complete accounting of some of the most searing issues that have faced journalists over the past decade.’

BY JOEL KAPLAN

As the Nieman Foundation been dozens of Pulitzer Prize- Now Lewis, who retired approaches its 70th anniver- winning reporters and editors from the Times at the end of sary, it seems a fair question who have gone through the 2001, has done what many of to ask: Who involved in the Nieman program. And we his generation of journalists program has had the most shouldn’t forget our overseas are also contemplating—pen- influence transforming the colleagues—from South Africa ning a biography. But his is not Nieman idea from “a dubious to China to Russia—many of one of a great political figure experiment” to the premier whom have tried to practice or a prominent journalist. Nor fellowship opportunity that our craft in the most repres- is it an autobiography. Instead, has had such an overriding sive and autocratic environ- Lewis has written what its impact on American—and ments. subtitle calls, “A Biography worldwide—journalism? Still, my vote would have of the First Amendment.” It Certainly some of the wise to go to Anthony Lewis, the is entitled “Freedom for the and avuncular curators—from former reporter and columnist Thought That We Hate.” Louis Lyons to Howard Si- of The New York Times. Lewis, This relatively short First mons and Bill Kovach—could a member of the Nieman class Amendment treatise goes stake their claim. There have of 1957, won one Pulitzer beyond the issue of libel to Prize before his Nieman year discuss all of the legal issues and one after. But his influ- facing modern journalists, ence on the program stems from invasion of privacy to from his 15 years at Harvard journalistic privilege, from lecturing generations of Nie- prior restraints to copyright. man Fellows—and Harvard It is a cogent, yet complete Law School students—on the accounting of some of the First Amendment and the role most searing issues that have of the press in a democratic faced journalists over the past society. decade. Yet to Lewis, unlike Lewis’s understanding of The New York Times of the the courts, the legal process, Sullivan case or the Pentagon and constitutional law served Papers case, contemporary as a guide not only to those American journalism has come he taught or who read his col- up short. umns, but journalism students The beauty of this book and judges. His book about the resides in the realization watershed First Amendment that Lewis is neither a First case of our time, The New York Amendment absolutist nor is Times Co. v. Sullivan, “Make he a knee-jerk Pollyannaish No Law: The Sullivan Case defender of the press. In fact, and the First Amendment,” is Lewis chooses to level some perhaps the most important of his harshest criticism at account of the singular case journalists—several of whom that has transformed modern might actually have been Nie- Anthony Lewis is a 1957 Nieman Fellow. American journalism. man Fellows:

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 75 Nieman Notes

In the mid-twentieth century, American of legal opinions say such a privilege it to challenge official truth instead reporters began drinking white wine. is not absolute. Lewis shows why such of acting as a mere stenographer.” They had college, some even graduate a position is untenable, citing the case But some elements of the press also degrees. And their ambitions climbed. of Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, became reckless with these newfound They wanted to be in Washington, the who was accused of committing treason rights, which he thinks in part is center of the world. They wanted to go against the United States. Through what has led to the vulgarization of to dinner parties with the secretary leaks from government sources, various the public dialogue. More distressing of state. That is a bit of a caricature, press accounts detailed accusations to Lewis are court decisions that ex- but not much. Reporters used to be that Lee was a Chinese spy. The only panded the Sullivan protections from outsiders, badly paid. Now they, at any problem was that none of it was true, public officials to any news subject rate those in Washington and others forcing the federal judge handling the designated a public figure. This meant among the top in the profession, are case to apologize to him. Lee decided that businessmen and actors suddenly part of the establishment, upper-middle to sue the government for invading had to meet a much tougher—almost class in outlook. They call themselves his privacy via the press leaks. He impossible—standard to win a libel journalists rather than reporters. There subpoenaed reporters from five news action. Lewis writes: is a danger in all that: the danger of organizations, who refused to testify. becoming too close to power. It is a The news organizations eventually The press was pleased that more palpable danger in Washington. Writ- settled by paying Lee $750,000. As libel plaintiffs had to bear the heavy ing critically about a cabinet member Lewis writes: burden, but I was and remain un- is hard after sitting next to his or her persuaded. If a supermarket tabloid spouse at a dinner table. In settling the case, the news orga- prints a sensational story about a nizations made no apology for their movie actress, why should she have Lewis goes on to excoriate the press contemptible treatment of Wen Ho to meet the same test as a politician for its failures in covering the lead up Lee. They said they agreed to settle “to if she sues for libel? What does she to the Iraq War: protect our journalists from further have to do with what the Sullivan sanctions” and to protect their ability decision called “the central meaning Where was the press in that period? to obtain information that can come of the First Amendment,” the right to The kindest answer would be: out to “only from confidential sources.” In criticize government officials? lunch. When the government seized two other words: We don’t care what we American citizens and detained them did to Wen Ho Lee; we care only about Yet, despite his occasional criticism without trial as “enemy combatants,” our needs. of the modern press, this book is a there were brief newspaper stories— must-read for all journalists because with no sense of the constitutional Lewis goes on to point out how a it clearly and succinctly describes the stakes. federal shield law could turn out to be current state of communications law a pyrrhic victory for the press: that affects all of us in this age of the According to Lewis, it was only when Internet, blogs, online pornography, The New York Times finally published Suppose that a federal shield law and routine copyright infringements. its story disclosing that President Bush had existed when Wen Ho Lee sued As all newsrooms face the current had secretly ordered the wiretapping to seek some compensation for his economic uncertainty and the difficulty of U.S. citizens’ international phone nightmare ordeal. The journalists of covering important stories with calls without a warrant that this def- who wrote the damaging stories would fewer resources and fewer journalists, erential era ended. have had their subpoenas dismissed, Lewis’s book is an excellent primer and without the names of the leakers on where our rights came from, how Privilege and Privacy Lee would probably have had to give they have evolved, and what we must up his lawsuit. Is that what a decent do to keep them.  But while Lewis was willing to laud society should want? Would that have his former newspaper here, he was also really benefited the press? Or would it Joel Kaplan, a 1985 Nieman Fellow, is quite willing to criticize it, particularly have added to the evident public feeling associate dean for professional gradu- when the newspaper tried to assert the that the press is arrogant, demanding ate studies at the S.I. Newhouse School notion that journalists should have a special treatment? of Public Communications at Syra- constitutional privilege not to name cuse University. their confidential sources. Failing that, Lewis’s view of the First Amendment most news organizations continue to when it comes to journalistic privilege argue for a federal shield law. is the same nuanced approach that he Most journalists are absolutists takes when it comes to libel. He cor- when it comes to protecting their rectly points out that the Sullivan case sources even though nearly 40 years “emboldened the press, encouraging

76 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Nieman Notes

1968 Associated Press, The Washington Post, part-time, shoestring-budget origins and Newhouse Newspapers, where he to a full service, nationwide legal worked as a Supreme Court reporter. defense and advocacy organization Jacob (Jack) Landau died on In 1969 he briefly left the newspaper for journalists. August 9th of complications from industry to serve as press secretary “Jack was the right man for that emphysema in an Arlington, Virginia to Attorney General John Mitchell difficult time, with the Nixon Adminis- hospital. He was 74. at the start of the administration of tration pursuing an antipress agenda,” Known for his passionate advocacy President Richard M. Nixon and helped recalled Floyd McKay, NF ’68, who of legal rights for journalists—and promote legislation that prevented the wrote a 2004 journalism monograph sometimes criticized for his confronta- government from issuing subpoenas on the early days of the committee. tional approach—Landau was an early too easily to the news media. “Jack’s focused competitiveness and, leader of the Reporters Committee A year later, after federal prosecu- yes, his prickly personality, supported for Freedom of the Press and served tors ordered New York Times reporter working reporters during a very dif- as its first executive director for 11 Earl Caldwell to hand over notes from ficult time.” years. Along the way, he created the interviews with Black Panther mem- Landau is survived by a daughter, first free 24/7 hotline for journalists bers, a group of concerned journalists a son, a brother, and his former wife, dealing with First Amendment issues, formed the Reporters Committee for Brooksley E. Born. started the Press Censorship Newslet- Freedom of the Press. Landau left ter (now the quarterly magazine, The Mitchell in April 1970 and joined the 1977 News Media & The Law), and worked committee, becoming its first executive with other media groups to petition director in 1974. Under his leadership, for state and federal laws protecting the committee took on numerous pro Al Larkin, who recently retired journalists. He was inducted into the bono cases, fought subpoenas forcing from The Boston Globe, received the Freedom of Information Act Hall of reporters to testify about confidential Yankee Quill Award this fall for his Fame in 1996. sources, and successfully filed suit for contributions to the improvement of The self-proclaimed “First Amend- access to more than 40 million White journalism in the New England region. ment guerilla” was born in Englewood, House tapes and documents that the The judges honored Larkin for his New Jersey. He started his journalism Nixon administration had withheld “steadfast support for the people’s right career at The Bergen Evening Record a from the public domain. By the time to know and the First Amendment year after completing his undergradu- Landau resigned in 1985, he had in both the newsroom and the front ate studies and went on to work for The helped the committee grow from its Continued on page 79

The Morton Mintz Fund for Comparative Journalism: Established By a Gift to Columbia’s Graduate School Of Journalism

Columbia’s Graduate School of Jour- practices to address serious societal freelance writer and, increasingly, a nalism has established the Morton problems and then bring those ideas media critic. He is a senior adviser Mintz Fund for Comparative Journal- to a wider audience in the United to the Nieman Foundation’s Watch- ism. Meredith Berkman, a 1987 gradu- States and other countries,” Morton dog Project and, as a contributor to ate of the journalism school, and her Mintz said. Journalism School faculty niemanwatchdog.org, he has focused husband, Daniel Mintz, established members will select Mintz Fund win- on a wide range of issues that pro- the fund in honor of Daniel’s father, ners each autumn by screening master’s foundly affect the lives of Americans Morton Mintz, NF ’64. The endowed project proposals for the appropriate- but that he believes the mainstream fund will enable students, through their ness of the subject matter. press ignore or slight. masters’ projects, to look outside the In 1983 Mintz received the Columbia In addition to his newspaper re- United States and report about how Journalism Award, the highest award porting, Mintz has written four books, other countries might have devised given by the school to an individual for including “At Any Cost: Corporate better solutions for the many chal- professional achievement. He has been Greed, Women, and the Dalkon Shield,” lenges to good government. a journalist for more than 60 years, 1985, and has co-authored five books, “I hope that this program will en- including 30 years at The Washington including “America, Inc.: Who Owns courage students to look everywhere Post. Since leaving the Post in 1988, and Operates the United States,” in in the world for the best ideas and Mintz has continued to work as a 1971. 

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 77 Nieman Notes

Edwin O. Guthman, 1912-2008: Reporter, Editor and Civic Leader

Edwin O. Guthman, NF ’51, died the committee had confiscated ho- so far.” By 1973, it was revealed at his home in Los Angeles, at the tel registry pages that supported that Guthman’s dual roles—with age of 89, from complications of Rader’s claim that he was not in Kennedy and at the Times—had amyloidosis, a rare blood disorder New York at the time he was said placed him #3 on President Nixon’s involving the build-up of amyloid to be there—resulted in Rader’s enemies list. proteins in the body’s organs. career being saved, and it earned In 1977, Philadelphia Inquirer Guthman won the 1950 Pulitzer Guthman the Pulitzer Prize. editor Eugene L. Roberts, NF Prize for National Reporting as a During the next decade, Guth- ’62, hired Guthman to direct the 30-year old reporter at The Seattle man’s reporting focused on corrup- newspaper’s editorial pages. For a Times, served as national editor of tion in the International Brother- decade he served as that paper’s the Los Angeles Times from 1965 hood of Teamsters, spotlighting editorial and op-ed editor during to 1977, where he led its coverage suspicious activities of Seattle’s the time of the Three Mile Island of the Watergate break-in and po- Dave Beck, president of the Team- nuclear power crisis and the city’s litical consequences, and directed sters from 1952 to 1957. In 1956, confrontations with the radical The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial his reporting led him to meet with group MOVE. When he retired, pages from 1977 to 1987, developing Robert Kennedy, who was then Guthman returned to Los Angeles that newspaper’s editorial policy in- counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent to join the faculty of the University dependent of the news operation. Subcommittee on Investigations of Southern California’s Annenberg Guthman, who was born in Seattle and examining corruption in labor School for Communication, where in 1919, the son of a German grocer unions. (Beck was sent to prison for he taught journalism for 20 years. and a mother who had been raised misusing union funds.) When Ken- During those years, he also served in Canada, joined The Seattle Times nedy became U.S. Attorney General in several civic roles, including in in 1947 after a brief time working in his brother’s administration, he 1993 being named to an independent at the Seattle Star. He’d returned to hired Guthman as his press secretary panel reviewing the government’s Seattle after serving in the Army dur- at the justice department and worked role in the deadly raid on the Branch ing World War II, where he fought closely with him during the time of Davidian compound near Waco, in Italy and North Africa and was the civil rights movement. “Kennedy Texas and for six years, from 1991 awarded a Purple Heart and Silver admired Ed for his directness,” said to 1997, serving on Los Angeles’s Star. He was interviewed about his John Seigenthaler, Sr., NF ’59, a first ethics commission, created to wartime experience by former NBC journalist who also joined Kennedy’s be an independent watchdog agency. News anchor Tom Brokaw, author staff. “If you asked Ed a question, There he participated in the draft- of “The Greatest Generation,” who you were going to get an honest ing of new laws regarding lobbyists wrote of Guthman, “In any account- answer, unvarnished,” he said, in and spearheaded investigations of ing of the good guys of American Guthman’s obituary in The Phila- campaign money laundering in lo- journalism, Ed Guthman is on the delphia Inquirer. Guthman wrote or cal elections. front page.” edited four books about Kennedy, Jack Nelson, NF ’62, who worked At The Seattle Times, Guthman including a memoir entitled, “We with Guthman as a reporter on was assigned to cover Washington Band of Brothers.” the Watergate break-in story, said State’s Committee on Un-American In 1965, Guthman left that po- of his former editor, “You always Activities, a local entity formed to sition to oversee the Los Angeles knew whatever he told you could identify Communists during the Times’s national coverage. The re- be taken to the bank,” according to McCarthy era. In this assignment, porting he directed on the Watergate the Inquirer obituary. And John S. Guthman reported on the case scandal brought the paper national Carroll, NF ’72 and former editor being made against University of attention. The Times’ obituary of at the Times and the Inquirer, was Washington philosophy professor Guthman quotes David Halberstam, also quoted in that same obituary Melvin Rader. According to the author of “The Powers That Be,” as as saying, “If I wanted the public to charges against him, Rader had at- saying of the paper’s early ground- see how a journalist worked, I would tended a Communist training school breaking reporting that it “brought want them to see Ed Guthman.” in New York in 1938, a charge he Watergate right to the heart of the Guthman’s wife, JoAnn, died in denied. Guthman’s investigative Nixon reelection campaign in a more 1990, and he is survived by four chil- work—including his discovery that dramatic way than any other story dren and five grandchildren. 

78 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Nieman Notes office, and exemplary outreach efforts originally appeared in Los Angeles reporter and columnist. I wrote exten- to connect the Globe to the broad and magazine and was a finalist for the sively about New Hampshire’s double- diverse community it serves.” Larkin, 2008 National Magazine Award in barreled presidential primary, seeing who started at the Globe in 1972 as profile writing, tells the story of Corpo- many old friends on the campaign a police reporter, was executive vice ral Christopher Leon, a United States trail. Fresh from a John McCain town president at his retirement. Marine from California killed by sniper meeting, Ed Chen, NF ’85, and I had The Yankee Quill Award is pre- fire in Iraq. It examines his reasons enchiladas and cervezas on a snowy sented annually by the Academy of for joining the Corps and details the Concord night just after Christmas. New England Journalists with the impact of his death on his family, “With Meg Heckman, a Monitor support of the New England Society friends and comrades. Oney is a senior reporter, I did an eight-month series of Newspaper Editors and the New writer at Los Angeles magazine. of oral histories with veterans and England Society of Newspaper Edi- civilians of World War II. I covered tors Foundation. Along with Larkin, 1985 town meetings and a high school three other New England journalists graduation, interviewed authors, wrote were honored. a column on life after 60, and reported Mike Pride retired as editor of the a series on a rare 15th-century painted 1982 Concord Monitor in July. He writes, relief rescued from the basement of a “I had held—and loved—that job for Manchester art museum. In short, I 25 years, after 5½ years as the Moni- had a blast. Steve Oney’s article, “Casualties of tor’s managing editor and eight years “The best came last. This spring, War,” will appear in “The Best Ameri- at Florida newspapers. the Monitor won the Pulitzer Prize can Magazine Writing 2008” to be “My last year at the paper was a for Feature Photography, the first Pu- published in November by Columbia fairy tale. I was co-chairman of the litzer ever won by a New Hampshire University Press. The piece, which Pulitzer Prize board and worked as a paper. And in June, my colleagues at

First I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence Awarded to John Walcott for Pre-Iraq War Coverage

John Walcott, Washington bureau chief two of his reporters, Jonathan Landay justifications for the war that proved of the McClatchy Company, is the first and Warren Strobel, produced dozens to be false.” recipient of the I.F. Stone Medal for of stories that refuted the George W. John R. (Rick) MacArthur, chair Journalistic Independence. Walcott is Bush administration’s claims about the of the selection committee, said, “In being honored for leading his team need for war and exposed the serious recognizing Walcott, we wanted to of reporters—then the Knight Ridder reservations many intelligence, Foreign honor the spirit of Izzy Stone as much bureau—in their probing, skeptical Service, and military officers had about as the reporting done by the Knight coverage of events during the run- the rush to invade Iraq. In 2006 The Ridder team. And we wanted to em- up to the Iraq War at a time when Knight Ridder chain was sold to the phasize that the spirit of I.F. Stone most U.S. news organizations failed McClatchy Company. Walcott is now can still flourish in an institutional to question the motives and rationale McClatchy’s Washington bureau chief; setting—that you don’t necessarily for the invasion of Iraq. Landay and Strobel are senior cor- have to be out there all by yourself Established earlier this year, the respondents in the bureau. to do the right thing.” award recognizes journalistic indepen- In announcing the award, Nie- Along with MacArthur, who is dence and honors the life of Stone, man Curator Bob Giles said, “This president and publisher of Harper’s who published I.F. Stone’s Weekly is belated recognition of the powerful Magazine, the selection committee from 1953-1971. The award, adminis- work done by Walcott in directing included Roger Wilkins and Patricia tered by the Nieman Foundation and his colleagues in developing stories O’Brien, NF ’74. the Nieman Watchdog Project, will that were unappreciated and almost The I.F. Stone Medal will be pre- be presented annually to a journalist totally unnoticed at the time. Because sented in a ceremony at the Newseum whose work captures the spirit of in- so many journalists fell short in their in Washington, D.C., on October 7th. dependence, integrity and courage that pre-Iraq War coverage, there’s a real More information about Stone’s life characterized Stone’s publication. need to recognize this dogged editor and work and the medal created in In 2002, Walcott, then Knight Rid- who went about his business in a his honor can be found online at www. der Washington, D.C. bureau chief, and resolute way to challenge many of the ifstone.org. 

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 79 Nieman Notes

the Monitor and dozens of former staffers from all across the country Five Nieman Fellows Receive NABJ Awards gathered in Concord for a three-day retirement extravaganza. Among those The National Association of Black The awards “recognize exemplary celebrating were two Nieman Fellows, Journalists (NABJ) announced the coverage of the African and African- Michele McDonald, NF ’88, and Mark winners of the 2008 Salute to Excel- American experience by the nation’s Travis, NF ’03. lence National Media Awards in July, print and electronic media.” NABJ “Monique also had a moving re- and five Nieman Fellows received Vice President Ernie Suggs, NF ’09, tirement sendoff in June after nearly recognition. said, “As the media landscape moves 20 years as a teacher of French and closer to the Web, journalists are find- other languages and cultures at a local • Mary C. Curtis, NF ’06, Tommy ing extraordinary ways to tell stories middle school. Now we are settling Tomlinson, NF ’09, and Eric Frazier, of the black experience. My hope for into a new life together that, for me, The Charlotte Observer, “50 Years the nation’s newspapers, as layoffs includes many elements of my old After Integration,” newspapers with and buyouts become the norm, is that life. I am writing regularly for the over 150,000 circulation. the content of their stories not suffer Monitor and other publications, and • Derrick Z. Jackson, NF ’84, col- as a result but continue to show the Meg Heckman and I have turned our umnist, The Boston Globe, sports, extraordinary strength of investigative wartime oral histories into a book— newspapers with over 150,000 and feature reporting.” “We Went to War”—which should be circulation. NABJ, established in 1975 in Wash- out in October. I am also research- • Bryan Monroe, NF ’03, and Ebony ington, D.C., is the largest organization ing and writing a book about a New staff, Ebony, “The N-word,” magazine of journalists of color in the nation, Hampshire editor who served as the with over 1 million circulation. with more than 4,100 members, and Lincoln campaign’s secretary in 1860 • Ju-Don Roberts, NF ’04, Liz Heron provides educational, career develop- and have several other projects on and Nelson Hsu, The Washington ment, and support to black journalists the horizon.” Post, “Fixing D.C.’s Schools,” in the worldwide.  new media category. 1986

1987 Geneva Overholser has been January the rescue of 14 hostages who named director of the School of Jour- were being held by FARC (Revolu- nalism at the University of Southern tionary Armed Forces of Colombia), California’s (USC) Annenberg School Susan Dentzer was named editor a leftist insurgent force. Included in for Communication. She will succeed in chief of Health Affairs, the nation’s the rescue was Ingrid Betancourt, a Michael Parks, the former Los Angeles leading journal of health policy, effec- former Colombian presidential candi- Times editor who led the school from tive May 1, 2008. She also continues as date, who had been held in captivity 2001 to June 2008. an on-air analyst on health issues for for six years. In a CNN interview at “I am thrilled to join a community the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on the time of the release, Santos said that I believe is singularly well-situated PBS, where she has served as health that he hoped the rescue would be to lead at this critically important correspondent from 1998 to 2008. the first of many, indicating there time,” Overholser said in a USC press Health Affairs, based in Bethesda, might be as many as 700 hostages release. Maryland, is published bimonthly still being held. Overholser had been the Curtis B. in print, and additional papers and Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Report- articles are published weekly online. Will Sutton is director of com- ing for the Missouri School of Jour- Dentzer also was appointed chair of munications and strategic marketing nalism’s bureau in Washington D.C., the Global Health Council board of for Achieving the Dream: Community chairs the board for the Center for directors. The council is the world’s Colleges Count. The multiple-year Public Integrity, and serves in several largest membership organization of national initiative managed by MDC other journalism advisory groups. groups concerned about global health Inc. of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is a She has been recognized as “Edi- and, in particular, about improving nonprofit educational coalition focused tor of the Year” by the National Press health in developing countries. on strengthening community colleges Foundation and “Best in the Business” with a special emphasis on student by the American Journalism Review 1988 groups that have traditionally faced for her work as the editor of The Des significant barriers, especially students Moines Register from 1988 to 1995, of color and low-income students. when she led the Register to a Pulitzer Juan Manuel Santos, Minister of For three years, Sutton was a pro- Prize for Public Service in 1991. Defense for Colombia, announced in fessor at the Scripps Howard School

80 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Nieman Notes of Journalism and Communications at coming, and it would be inaccurate to effective in September. He succeeds Hampton University and director of its attribute it to any one event. I began Leonard Downie, Jr., who held the Academy of Writing Excellence. Under my editorship seven months before position for 17 years. The announce- his tutelage, several Scripps Howard 9/11, and in the seven years since ment came fewer than three months School students earned internships have become accustomed and even after Brauchli resigned as editor of with NBC, KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, comfortable with editing and managing The Wall Street Journal, which is The New York Times’s Washington through crisis and change. But profes- owned by Rupert Murdoch. “It’s both Bureau, the Detroit Free Press, The sionally, this position is not the fit it a privilege and possibly the most Kansas City Star, WNCN-TV (NBC 17) once was. Personally, my family and intimidating thing I’ve ever done to in Raleigh, The News & Observer in I believe it is time.” Lipinski started think about coming into an institution Raleigh, the Tribune Company’s Daily at the Tribune in 1978 as an intern with such deep and proud traditions Press in Newport News, the News & and became editor in 2001. In 1988 as the Post,” Brauchli said in a Post Record in Greensboro, the Roanoke she shared a Pulitzer Prize with two article. He continued, “It’s going to Times, and other media outlets. In other reporters from the Tribune for be a challenge, obviously, to adjust addition, some of his writers have “City Council: The Spoils of Power,” a to a new culture …. I’m anticipating worked for the Triangle United Way series about corruption. having to go through a steep learning in Raleigh, the National Association of curve at hyper-speed.” Brauchli, who Black Journalists (NABJ), and earned 1992 is the first executive editor chosen internships and scholarships through from outside of the Post company, will the Freedom Forum’s Chips Quinn not only head the newspaper but also program, the Dow Jones Newspaper Marcus Brauchli became execu- will supervise the editors of the Post’s Fund’s editing and business report- tive editor of The Washington Post, separately managed Web site. ing programs, and other prestigious internship programs. “Hampton is my alma mater, and I love my school,” Sutton told Nie- 70th Convocation to Celebrate the Old and New man Reports. “But driving nearly four hours, one way, from my home The Nieman Foundation’s 70th Nieman curator 1989-2000. in North Carolina to Hampton was Anniversary Convocation will take • The Moral and Ethical Obligations quite tiring after three years. Though place in Cambridge November 7-9, of Journalism in a Digital World: I love working with the students and offering fellows from all classes an A luncheon address by Leonard helping them be successful, I couldn’t opportunity to reconnect, to exam- Downie, Jr., former executive edi- resist the opportunity to help expand ine the dramatic shifts in the way tor, The Washington Post. a national initiative like Achieving the journalism is practiced today, and • Voices From the New World of Dream while having the chance to be to learn more about the challenges Journalism: Panel discussion mod- home each night.” and opportunities presented by erated by Geneva Overholser, Sutton is a former editor and vice new media. In celebrating 70 years NF ’86, director of the School of president and managing editor of the of Nieman Fellowships, the event Journalism at USC’s Annenberg Post-Tribune in Gary, Indiana, and a will look at how, despite the many School for Communication. former deputy managing editor at The changes in society and the profes- • The Press and the Presidency: News & Observer in Raleigh, North sion, the midcareer sabbatical has Dinner speech by Ellen Fitzpatrick, Carolina. He’s a cofounder of UNITY: offered fellows an experience that has American historian/scholar and Journalists of Color and a past NABJ remained fundamentally unchanged commentator on PBS’s “NewsHour president. for the past seven decades. with Jim Lehrer.” His new e-mail address is wsut- Centering on the theme “True Grit: • Press and Politics in the New [email protected]. His new telephone Advancing Journalism’s Covenant in Administration: Panel discussion number is 919-968-4531. the 21st Century” and coming on moderated by Tom Ashbrook, NF the heels of the U.S. presidential ’96, host of NPR’s “On Point.” 1990 election, the weekend will also take a close look at the intersection of The cost for the convocation press and politics. weekend is $250 per person and Ann Marie Lipinski resigned as Sessions include: includes all meals and events. For editor and senior vice president of more information and to register, the Chicago Tribune in July. In the • Preserving Nieman Values Through visit http://www.nieman.harvard. Tribune article about her resignation, the Years: A panel discussion mod- edu/events/70/.  Lipinski was quoted as saying, “… the erated by Bill Kovach, NF ’89, decision was difficult and a long time

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 81 Nieman Notes

For much of his career, Brauchli Smithsonian Books. Information about worked at Dow Jones, The Wall Street the Ellis Island project can be found A New Fellow Named Journal’s parent company, as a foreign at www.forgottenellisisland.com. correspondent. He has been based in to Class of 2009 Hong Kong, Stockholm, Tokyo and Katie King has moved to London Shanghai. In 1999 he was named to work with Microsoft’s MSN UK Russian journalist Fatima Tlisova national news editor, in 2003 global portal as creative and development has been added to the Nieman news editor, and in 2005 deputy man- editor. Her role is two-fold. She leads Class of 2009. Tlisova, an inde- aging editor. He became editor of the a specially created editorial team who pendent reporter from the North Journal in 2007. work on ad-funded content solutions. Caucasus, will join the 28 other The team is a division of the portal journalists whose names were an- Martin Gehlen, after many years advertising group that helps clients nounced earlier in the summer. living and working in Berlin, Germany communicate with their customers Tlisova has worked for 10 years as a reporter and editor at Der Tagess- and stakeholders by using the best of as a correspondent for a number piegel, has become the paper’s foreign digital publishing tools and editorial of independent Russian papers and correspondent in Cairo, Egypt, where practices. She also directs development international media, including The he expects to be working for the next and training programs for all of MSN Associated Press, Novaya Gazeta, five years. There he covers the Near UK’s editorial teams. She told Nieman Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Middle East, including Iran as well Reports that filling this newly created and the BBC. She also served as as the French influenced Arabic states role at MSN UK is challenging and chief of the North Caucasian bu- of the Maghreb region. He is accom- exciting. “The advertising industry is reau of the Russian news agency panied by his wife, Katharina Eglau, in as much upheaval and change as Regnum and makes regular con- a professional photographer, who for the journalism industry. Organiza- tributions to the Institute for War many years has specialized in visual tions, whether they are corporations, and Peace Reporting in London coverage of Islamic daily life, culture academia or government, are working and the Jamestown Foundation in and religion. Eglau’s photographs ap- to find new ways of connecting with Washington, D.C.. More informa- peared in the Summer 2007 issue of their stakeholders who are increasingly tion about the Nieman Class of Nieman Reports, which featured stories Internet—and social media—savvy. We 2009 is available online at www. about coverage of Islam. Her images help clients understand how creating nieman.harvard.edu.  can be seen at http://www.nieman. great content and robust communities harvard.edu/reports/07-2NRsummer/ online can do that.” eglau-slideshow/index.php. For the past few years King was di- Ann Marie Lipinski, NF ’90, chair of rector of digital strategy for the public the Lovejoy selection committee, said, 1994 relations agency Burson-Marsteller in “Anne is an extraordinary journalist, Washington, D.C. and London. Until one of the finest of her generation. She 2001 she was senior vice president of brings a level of detail and humanity Lorie Conway traveled to the general news for Reuters, where she to her stories that make them among Masai region of southern Tanzania had worked for 15 years. the most distinctive being published early this summer to produce a short anywhere. She is also a thoroughly film about the work of a local health 1995 engaging speaker and storyteller. The clinic supported by EngenderHealth, Lovejoy Committee is honored to bring a New York-based nonprofit. The her to Colby.” clinic focuses its work on issues such Anne Hull received the Elijah Parish as family planning, HIV prevention Lovejoy Award from Colby College in 1999 and treatment, and fistula care. While September during the annual Lovejoy filming at the clinics, Conway inter- Convocation, where she also received viewed some parents of the hundreds an honorary doctoral degree. Hull, a Yu Sun writes that she has been of children who were being treated, reporter for The Washington Post, won working as chief writer of the Chinese and said, “It quickly became clear that the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious magazine Environmental Protection family planning is both wanted and Public Service for a series about the since 2005. She is also a contribu- desperately needed in Africa.” mistreatment of wounded veterans at tor for The Women’s International Conway is an independent writer the Walter Reed Army Medical Center Perspective, a Web site for which she and documentary film producer for her in Washington, D.C.. She shared the has written on media bias towards the company, Boston Film and Video Pro- Pulitzer, and other honors that series Beijing Olympics, and for OOSKAnews, ductions. Her most recent film, “For- received, with Post reporter Dana Priest an international publisher of global gotten Ellis Island,” came out in 2007, and photographer Michel du Cille. Hull water industry news. (Yu Sun’s article with a companion book published by has been a Pulitzer finalist five times. on the Olympics can be found at http://

82 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 Nieman Notes thewip.net/contributors/2008/06/ Carolina newspapers. Hal Bernton shared the award for olympic_spirit_and_media_objec. their Seattle Times series “The Favor html.) 2001 Factory,” an exposé on congressional Sun previously worked for 12 years graft. The series details how members as reporter and editor of the Chinese of congress received heavy campaign and English editions of China Environ- Linda Robinson’s book, “Tell Me contributions in exchange for obtain- ment News. Since her Nieman year, How This Ends: General David Petra- ing funds for companies. (See Heath’s she was a 2004 international scholar eus and the Search for a Way Out of article about his work on this series at the Center for Science and Medi- Iraq,” has been published by PublicAf- on page 27.) cal Journalism at Boston University, fairs. Robinson is author in residence at The judges called the series “a spoke at the 2005 Global Investigative the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic groundbreaking blend of print and Journalism Conference, and attended Studies at the Johns Hopkins Paul H. online investigative journalism that the 2007 U.N. conference on climate Nitze School of Advanced International also features the first national online change. Studies. As a senior writer for U.S. searchable database linking Congres- News & World Report, she covered sional members to defense earmarks, 2000 national security issues, including campaign contributions, and company wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Latin spending on lobbyists.” The $10,000 America. She has also written the award is named after Mollenhoff, the Carol Eisenberg is a senior editor book, “Masters of Chaos: The Secret late Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at Muckety, an online site founded in History of the Special Forces,” in which whose landmark investigations of 2006 by three journalists, Laurie Ben- she was on the frontline with the organized crime in America in The nett, Gary Jacobson, and John Decker. Special Forces soldiers in El Salvador, Des Moines Register and Tribune led The name “Muckety” comes from the Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and during to successful crackdowns on corrupt phrase “muckety mucks.” The Web site Desert Storm. Robinson has received unions and racketeering. states: “Some follow the money. We a number of awards, including the Heath, a reporter for The Seattle follow the muckety, producing a daily Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting Times since 1999, has won a number news and information site based on on National Defense for 2004. of awards, including Harvard Univer- online databases (which we enlarge sity’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative daily), extensive research, and old- 2002 Reporting (with Duff Wilson), the fashioned journalism.” Among other George Polk Award for medical report- things, Eisenberg analyzed the Chicago ing, and UCLA’s Gerald Loeb Award networks likely to influence Barack Michel Marriott’s first novel, “The for financial and business reporting. Obama if he is elected president, in Skull Cage Key,” has been published He was previously the director of “Chicago’s Top 100: From the nation’s by Agate Bolden. The book is in the computer-assisted reporting at the St. heartland to Washington?” (http:// science-fiction genre, set in the year Louis Post-Dispatch. news.muckety.com/2008/05/22/ 2042. Marriott teaches journalism at chicagos-top-100-from-the-nations- Baruch College, The City University 2007 heartland-to-washington/2902). of New York. For 19 years he was a For 30 years Eisenberg was a re- reporter for The New York Times and porter and editor at Newsday, covering has also written for The Washington Dexter Filkins’ book, “The Forever homeland security, religion and health Post and Newsweek. His writing dur- War,” has been published by Alfred A. policy, among other beats, and was ing the past 10 years has focused on Knopf. The book tracks the rise of the a part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning digital technologies and “their influ- Taliban in the 1990’s, the attacks of teams at the paper. ence on the quickening evolution of 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and human culture,” according to his book’s Iraq, which Filkins has covered since Bill Krueger, who has been The publisher. 2001 as foreign correspondent for (Raleigh) News & Observer’s govern- The New York Times. Before moving ment editor, is now heading a new 2006 to the Times, Filkins was New Delhi McClatchy capital bureau that will bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. serve both his paper and The Charlotte From 1987–1995 he was a reporter at Observer. The bureau will be based in David Heath received the 2008 The Miami Herald. Filkins received a The News & Observer’s building, but Clark Mollenhoff Award for Excellence George Polk Award for his coverage will operate separately from its news- in Investigative Reporting from the of the assault on Falluja in 2004 and room. Krueger’s job change occurs as Institute on Political Journalism at its two Overseas Press Club awards. He the papers—both owned by McClatchy annual awards ceremony, held at the was a 2008 Fellow at the Carr Center since June 2006—undertake a merger National Press Club in Washington, for Human Rights Policy at Harvard of four departments at the two North D.C., in July. Heath and fellow reporter University. 

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 83 End Note Georgian Journalists Send Word of Their Fate ‘The situation is insane.… My friends—both journalists—were killed in Ossetia. Just confirmed that..am devastated..’

Since 2001, Karl Idsvoog, a 1983 Nieman Fel- journalists failed to aggressively question the low and professor of journalism at Kent State, administration as it marched to war. In Georgia, has trained student and professional journal- a high price is being paid for the government ists in the Republic of Georgia. He developed taking steps to all but eliminate the ability of the broadcast portion of the masters program an independent press to function in what was at the Caucasus School of Journalism and claimed by its leaders to be a democracy. How Media Management and returns there often different might the situation be today if Geor- to teach. gian journalists had been able to do a better job of questioning the Saakashvili government? he free press has been taking a real Government leaders may wage war, but it’s the beating in the Republic of Georgia. Last people of the country who must live with its November, amidst political protests, Geor- consequences. —Karl Idsvoog Tgian special forces stormed Imedi Television. One of my former students working there as What follows is e-mail correspondence that a videographer came down to greet them with Idsvoog has received from former students and a video camera and quickly found his camera friends in Georgia who are journalists as they confiscated, and have covered and observed what has happened he was ordered at to their country, its people, and their own abil- gunpoint to stay ity to report on these events during this war on the floor and with Russia. Punctuation and grammar have not move. Televi- been left in their original form. sion station Rusta- vi 2 used to be the hard-hitting in- vestigative station. Rusudan Panozishvili, student, Caucasus Since the Rose School of Journalism and Media Management, Revolution, it’s be- Tbilisi. come the voice of August 10, 12:54 p.m. the government; more than one Thank you Karl. I am OK. Who knows what of my students will be? I could never imagine I would hear who works or has bombing in Tbilisi. And why? Who cares this worked there tells South Ossetia if everyone would die? We have me that stories info. that very many, about 2-3 thousand Geor- critical of the gov- gians are dead. And the hospitals are filled. ernment, quite And the government today announces that simply, have been there are 92 dead! Everyone is laughing at our off limits. people, not only Russia. And here also everyone Bad things hap- is disappointed in the only formal dislikes of pen when jour- the international community about Russia’s nalism fails. In steps. We are alone here and our friends, boys, the United States, journalists are dead. As we know Russians are A restaurant in Tbilisi, Georgia. Photo by Karl we saw the high already at Gori, Tskhinvali is lost. It is not the Idsvoog. price paid when official info., but our boys, relations, who were

84 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 End Note

my residence, the sound of explosion was so great that windows were rattling at my home. People are in panic, refugees from various cit- ies, and especially from Gori and Tskhinvali, are coming every day and every hour. But you Rusudan Panozishvili, left, and Tsira Gvasalia, know what is the most horrible, that we’re in students at the Caucasus School of Journalism and an information vacuum. Our government until Media Management, Tbilisi. the very nick of time was saying that Georgian troops controlled the territory of Tskhinvali. in Gori say that. As you would know, Russia is But it turned out that we lost this region. also bombing the peaceful towns all over Geor- Gori and Tskhinvali are loaded with corpses gia. I have an impression that US and Europe of Georgian soldiers. But our media sources and people in the world do not have the right are reporting that death toll comprises just information, what’s happening here. up to 100 people. European media sources are reporting about 2000. It’s deceit! People are flocking to hospitals and searching for their lost relatives, friends, some of them just Kristina Tashkevich, reporter, Georgian news- disappeared, some of them are dead, and most paper The Messenger, 2002 graduate of the are seriously injured. Caucasus School of Journalism and Media By the way, according to Georgian TV Management. channels foreign journalists and one Georgian August 10, 4:23 p.m. journalist are dead. And what is the most concerning, how reacts international commu- Hi, nity, the U.S., all the time Bush is calling for The situation is insane. A territory near ceasefire, but there is no end to hostilities. the airport was bombed. We don’t know what happens tomorrow. Life has just changed into a nightmare. My friends—both journalists— were killed in Ossetia. Just confirmed that.. am devastated..

Eka Chitanava, masters student at the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Manage- ment. August 11, 4:19 a.m.

Hello Karl! Can u see what is happening? The war is raging in Georgia, Tbilisi also has been bombed last night. Two bombes struck near Kristina Tashkevich, reporter.

Photos by Karl Idsvoog.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 85 Eka Chitanava, right, and Temo Bardzimashvili, masters students at the Cauca- sus School of Journalism and Media Management, Tbilisi.

Eka Chitanava So it’s really difficult for journalists to pen- August 11, 6:02 a.m. etrate across the border. Rebels are looting those people who stay in Gori and spend nights We couldn’t enter Gori yesterday. 5 minutes in basements. earlier Georgian TV channel Imedi and Cana- I hope when Georgian policemen take control dian journalists were robbed of their cars and in Gori we will be able to cover the situation equipment. It is very hazardous for women to there, otherwise it’s very dangerous. go there. One woman was crying about her daughter who was raped in front of her by Ossetian and Kazak rebels. Policemen warned me not to go there because of high risk. I was Valeri Odikadze, former videographer/producer/ with Danish journalists, helping them with editor of Rustavi 2 Television, now journalism translation. trainer, Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management and owner and president, Videoscope, which supplies professional video equipment/systems. August 14, 3:01 a.m.

Russians went to a middle Georgia, terrorize resident people. Actually no russian make ter- ror but north caucasus/ossetia/cozacks bandits take things from houses, take young people, young girls. It is like 16th century.

Valeri Odikadze at a news conference. Photos by Karl Idsvoog.

86 Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 End Note

Tiko Tsomaia, left, an instructor at the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management, with past academic director David Bloss. Tbilisi.

Keti Beraia, reporter, Georgia Public Television, Yesterday our journalist was injured, while graduate Caucasus School of Journalism and she had a liveshot. Media Management, 2002. August 15, 5:36 a.m.

I’m back from Poti. It’s truth that our coast- Tiko Tsomaia, Instructor, Caucasus School of guard boats were blown up. I was covering Journalism and Media Management. conflict from the very beginning. I filmed how August 16 the Russian troops went to Senaki, to Poti. We were the only TV company covering Dear Karl, Russian troops in western Georgia. Others Thank you, I and my family are safe. run away. I filmed what was left after bomb- Situation is horrible. It is still tense, but I ing in Senaki. We saw hands, ears and other hope very much for better resolution. I hope parts of people after bombing. I saw dead for peace. soldiers—that was horrible. But I kept going Right now our forests are on fire and Russians without panic. don’t allow Georgian and Turkish firefighters to bring a fire under control. You can judge about the rest yourself.

Keti Beraia, reporter. Photos by Karl Idsvoog.

Nieman Reports | Fall 2008 87 End Note

Shorena Shaverdashvili, manager of a printing here in the presence of the Russian occupation company, Tbilisi. and dominance. If the international community August 19, 2008 falls short of stopping Russia and forcing them to withdraw their forces, and we don’t behave Dear Karl, like Chechens, fighting until all our men are Good to hear from you! dead, then Russians will stay here for good, Me and my family are safe and sound. We in which case I, and many other people, don’t came back to Tbilisi 2 days ago. There is so much see our future here. going on that I am having a hard time finding I wish Russia had shed its imperialistic words for what we are going through. complexes and grown out of the Cold War I am hoping this nightmare ends soon, this era paradigms, and was thinking and acting occupation ends soon, and this crisis does not adequately to the times, or to the goals of any escalate further, involving american or european modern nation. I wish we as Georgians had military activities here in Georgia. I don’t even means to stop this war and invasion from want to think of what will happen if Georgia happening. becomes the battleground for any kind of We are also having a hard time maintaining international confrontation. This is probably our sanity and figuring out what we can be less likely, but it’s a consideration. doing, or should be doing. Functioning on a I do not feel very hopeful, though. I expect daily basis is an effort when the country is fully that Russia will stay here for a long time to paralyzed, despite our President’s hypnotizing come. They have a lot to gain by their presence and reassuring speeches. Though I realize this here and not much to lose—in spite of the is no time to “prosecute” our government—now european dependency on Russian energy and we just have to help them stop this conflict. despite the international pressure on Russia. Before this war, we were planning to start They are completely paralyzing the country a weekly political magazine, with an internet and the time is on their side. portal. I was in the middle of starting fund- On the other hand, I cannot imagine my life raising for it. If this country is to continue its existence, it desperately needs a news source, not propaganda machines in the form of tele- visions or incompetent daily newspapers with very little influence on the public discourse. There has been a total information blackout. We receive our information mostly through international media. What we require is the local strong, independent media outlet, a watchdog, which grounds and analyzes news in a nonpartisan way and puts it in a wider prospective, so that we, as a nation, can start thinking critically again, come back to life again, act again, and find our voice again beyond what our government has to say in a constant monologue. Any ideas on where to look for funding? In case of peace, this will be our N1 priority. Thank you for your concern, Karl. 

Shorena

Shorena Shaverdashvili by one of her printing company’s Heidelberg presses, Tbilisi, Georgia. Photo by Karl Idsvoog.

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