Investigative Journalist in Houston, Texas
Kelly Guckian, the database editor for the San Antonio Express-News, produced this handy interactive map showing low-water crossings in San Antonio. During this week’s downpours in South Texas, Kelly’s map is a potentially life-saving resource for people who want to zoom in on their neighborhoods or other parts of town to check out dangerous, flood-prone … Read more
Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo. The same week the San Antonio Express-News cut nearly a third of its newsroom, one of Denver’s daily newspapers, the Rocky Mountain News, closed its doors forever. You might ask, as some readers have, so what? Newspapers are far from perfect. But I’ll let Laura Frank, an investigative … Read more
Today was a bad day. But some of our readers did a better job than I could ever do to sum it up. One wrote: Sadly, this is happening all over the country. The newspaper community hasn’t figured out a way to be paid for their internet access. I surely would prefer to read what … Read more
When Rob Huesca saw me last night at Liberty Bar, where I had just finished my weekly dose of tasty lamb burger for the evening, he announced he had figured out this whole “how to save newspapers” quandary that has gripped the media industry for the last few decades or so. By the end of … Read more
Journalists vacuum up all kinds of information when they work on a story. Many times the interesting documents we’ve gathered end up in filing cabinets, forgotten, as we move on to the next thing. In his guide Journalism 2.0, Mark Briggs argues that the modern age of the Internet emphasizes sharing — not hiding — … Read more
A fire that engulfed the San Pedro Apartments on Tuesday was probably caused by an overloaded electrical outlet. But tenants complained the old building wasn’t well maintained, which raised questions about any past Code Compliance violations issued by city inspectors. San Antonio’s Code Compliance Department has a Web site where you can plug in the … Read more
Reporter Greg Jefferson wrote a story in today’s paper that examined how taxpayer money is being spent on salaries and overtime for San Antonio’s 10,000 city employees. The story looks at the city’s highest-paid employees, and explains why $13 million in overtime went to the Fire Department and many of its dispatchers. This information was … Read more
Photo courtesy of GeoEye The company GeoEye released a cool gallery of satellite images showing the crowds in Washington on Inauguration Day. The company’s press release says of one of the featured pictures: The image was taken by GeoEye’s newest satellite, GeoEye-1, as it moved from north to south along the eastern seaboard of the … Read more
Photo courtesy of eyewitness Janis Krums from TwitPic If you want to find official reports about plane crashes and other accidents, the National Transportation Safety Board has a searchable database of incident reports on its Web site. Related: Adrift: Hot-air balloon pilots face little scrutiny from FAA despite higher crash rates The nice thing about … Read more
The Legislative session in Texas officially starts today, which means lawmakers will be filing thousands of bills dealing with topics ranging from the trivial to the profound. This year, bills have been filed that prohibit human cloning; expand the definition of college hazing; and encourage more “green” jobs in Texas, just to name a few … Read more