Investigative Journalist in Houston, Texas
What others are saying about watchdog journalism: The Chris Mathews Show: A panel of journalists including Bob Woodward debate the future of journalism. David Olive: Newspapers are boring themselves to death. Old Media, New Tricks: It doesn’t have to be a battle to the death between old and new media. Related: How to contact an … Read more
What others are saying about watchdog journalism: Austin American Statesman: A new Web page of investigative reports. Scottberkun.com: How to detect bullshit. Long post but there’s good information here. One of the best questions you can ask anyone making a claim is, how do you know that? Associated Press: How to do watchdog journalism.
What others are saying about watchdog journalism: Knight Foundation: 25 nonprofit organizations formed an investigative news network, and EveryBlock’s source code is released. Safety Net: Watchdog journalism is suffering as thousands of journalists lose their jobs. Publish or Perish: Now that Twitter is writing the first draft of history, where does that leave journalists? Read … Read more
Nice to see Brooks Egerton at the Dallas Morning News used our new database of amusement ride injuries to check the safety record of the Texas Giant rollercoaster at Six Flags Over Texas. In his blog post today, Egerton discussed how the Texas Giant is closed and he was quickly able to check whether people … Read more
I just got off the phone with Tammy Haby, who I interviewed for this story about the safety record of Kiddie Park. Haby’s son, Holden, had his teeth knocked out in a roller coaster accident at the old park. “Thank you for bringing this all to light and sharing it with everybody,” Tammy said. “We … Read more
This archived story was posted online for our recent investigation of the thrill ride industry, and it links to internal documents at Fiesta Texas. The documents reveal how park officials were still working out the kinks of the flagship wooden rollercoaster, the Rattler, after the park’s grand opening in 1992. They tracked hundreds of injuries … Read more
Ten years ago (wow, I’m getting old) I wrote a series of stories about the safety record of San Antonio’s major theme parks — Six Flags Fiesta Texas, SeaWorld San Antonio, and Splashtown. I learned state officials keep a little-known database that tracks amusement-ride injuries in Texas. The database isn’t perfect. The injuries are self-reported … Read more
It seemed like every section of today’s paper had a story that grabbed me and surprised me and told me something about the world I didn’t know before. Brian Chasnoff wrote about unregulated dog breeders selling sick puppies to unsuspecting buyers. Ariel Barkhurst checked the background of a funeral home administrator who was accused of … Read more
Not that I’m biased or anything, but my girlfriend Jennifer Hiller won two awards for a story she wrote about the Texas Residential Construction Commission, a state agency ostensibly created to help homeowners resolve disputes with homebuilders. In reality, the agency was often powerless to help consumers and it’s going to be dissolved. Jennifer spent … Read more
You can check the safety record of Texas theme parks and carnivals by searching a unique database of 1,800 reports detailing broken bones, chipped teeth and other injuries. Officials at the Texas Department of Insurance collect injury reports from amusement ride owners and type the information into a database. We obtained a copy of the … Read more