But in a victory for open-records advocates, the Texas Attorney General ruled last week that the contract is a public record.

The San Antonio Express-News published the contract’s details Friday in a story by City Hall reporter Josh Baugh. Readers learned for the first time that the San Antonio Tricentennial Commission, a nonprofit entity set up by the city of San Antonio, paid REO Speedwagon $232,500.

Why, you might ask, was obtaining this contract so difficult? Why did it take months to see the light of day?

After all, the Texas Public Information Act clearly states that contracts with government agencies are public records. No tax dollars went to REO Speedwagon, but the Tricentennial Commission serves as an arm of the city. For years, contracts between companies and government agencies were routinely released to the public.

But a June 19, 2015 ruling by the Texas Supreme Court changed all that.

Boeing vs. the Attorney General

In a San Antonio court case involving Boeing and the Port Authority of San Antonio, Boeing was trying to stymie the release of its rental contract with the port authority to a former Boeing employee.

Boeing argued that it had standing to challenge the release of the contract, and that its public release would provide an advantage to competitors. Over the span of a decade, trial and appellate courts had ruled against Boeing.

But the company appealed to the Texas Supreme Court and the justices agreed with Boeing — opening the door for groups such as REO Speedwagon to try the same strategy to keep government contracts out of the public eye.

“Everything from school bus finances to power plant construction costs to a university’s beer marketing agreement have been kept off limits because of the Boeing ruling,” wrote Kelley Shannon, the executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, in a November 2017 post decrying the court decision.

Read more: Open records quiz: Can officials question your motives when you file an open records request?

Companies and agencies trying to censor records under the Boeing decision have cited the court ruling 1,500 times, Shannon wrote:

The city of Austin recently used the ruling in an effort to keep secret the names of finalists in its city manager search, saying it didn’t want to give competing cities a hiring advantage. After public pressure and a lawsuit by the Austin American-Statesman, the city said it would soon release the finalists’ names. The Statesman has already figured out several candidates’ names and reported them.

In the Rio Grande Valley, the Agua Special Utility District attempted to use the Boeing ruling as a reason to keep secret nearly $500,000 in severance payments it made to two former employees.

The continuing poster child case for the Boeing problem is the city of McAllen’s refusal to say how much taxpayer money it paid to entertainer Enrique Iglesias to perform in a holiday festival.

Clearly, there’s deep erosion occurring in the Texas Public Information Act. Texas needs to re-examine its commitment to the people’s right to know.

So how did REO Speedwagon’s contract end up getting published?

REO Speedwagon’s contract in San Antonio

A company that wants to keep a contract secret still has to make its case with the Attorney General’s office. In this March 19 letter, the Texas Attorney General ruled that REO Speedwagon’s contract was a public document because Creative Artists Agency, the firm that represents the band, hadn’t made a strong argument to keep the contract out of the public realm:

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Download

“We find that CAA has failed to demonstrate the release of its information would result in substantial harm to its competitive position,” the letter states. A business must show “specific factual evidence that substantial competitive injury would result from release” of the sought records.

Until Texas lawmakers pass legislation to undo the damage from the Boeing decision, the REO Speedwagon case demonstrates there’s still a sliver of hope for anyone who hopes to learn how government agencies are spending their money. A company can still fail to sway the Attorney General’s office.

But it can easily go the other way.

Pat Benatar, another 1980s rocker who also performed at the New Year’s Eve gala, signed a contract with the Tricentennial Commission, just like REO Speedwagon. But we still don’t know how much money she received.

Benatar’s people made a more compelling argument to withhold the contract, according to the Attorney General’s letter, and her contract didn’t have to be released.

Total heartbreaker.

The post REO Speedwagon can’t fight you reading this $232,500 contract anymore appeared first on John Tedesco.

But what stood out for me was a talk by investigative reporter Jason Leopold of Vice News about using the Freedom of Information Act to get your hands on that data in the first place.

“The Freedom of Information Act has become a very important tool for me,” said Leopold, who writes about the secretive world of national security where few people are willing to speak on the record.

To bypass those road blocks, Leopold began relying on FOIA to dig up public records and unearth good stories. Over the years he’s learned about the intricacies and pitfalls of FOIA. He’s been so prolific, a federal bureaucrat referred to him in an email as a FOIA terrorist. Leopold liked it and the nickname stuck.

“I file FOIA requests probably several times a week,” Leopold told several hundred journalists who packed a conference room at the Denver Marriott City Center on March 10.

Here’s what Leopold learned about FOIA, a law written nearly a half century ago that has its flaws — but can still be a powerful tool:

Speed up the FOIA process

One downside of FOIA is the backlog of open records requests at many federal agencies. It can take months, even years, to get anything.

To speed up the process, Leopold said it’s important to explicitly explain in your FOIA request not only what you’re looking for, but where it’s located at the agency.

“It’s crucial for reporters to build a template — a template that describes exactly where you want these agencies to search,” Leopold said.

Every federal agency has “systems of records” that are usually public and list where they are keeping certain databases and documents in their vast bureaucracy.

Let’s say you’re looking for emails about the German auto manufacturer Volkswagen and how it rigged emissions tests. You send a FOIA request. “The EPA is a large organization, obviously,” Leopold said. “So just sending it to the EPA would not necessarily get you the info you’re seeking in a timely manner.” Leopold said you could speed up the process, potentially trimming off months of delays, if you tell the EPA where to search.

This tip is also a bit empowering. Once the agency notices you know what you’re doing, it’s harder for it to blow you off.

For the FOIA analysts handling your requests, “if you’re not telling them what to do, they have to figure it out,” Leopold said.

Leopold also singled out the FBI.

“The FBI is the worst agency in the government when it comes to responding to FOIA,” Leopold said. The FBI has a 100 million records, and how it searches those records matters.

“Whenever you file a request with the FBI, you should always ask them to conduct a cross-reference search,” Leopold said. “That’s a separate filing system. And an ELSUR search — electronic surveillance database search. And oftentimes, the FBI will have documents in cross-reference files.”

For example, after Maya Angelou died, Leopold filed a FOIA request to see what files the FBI had about her. “They responded by saying, ‘We didn’t find any records.'” Leopold said. “So I appealed and said, ‘You guys did not conduct a cross-reference search.’

“And they went back, the did a cross-reference search, and the gave me these cross-reference files, which were actually really fascinating because these cross-reference files had to do with an investigation into communist activities in the ’60s. And there was Maya Angelou in this file.

“So it really sort of helps to get those documents and get that type of material,” Leopold said. “It will really also help, if you’re reporting on a story, to gain a wider knowledge of how the FBI conducts its activities.”

Appeal everything

FOIA has an appeals process, and Leopold uses it all the time.

“I cannot stress enough how important it is to appeal every response that you get,” Leopold said. “Even if the agency turns over everything you want. There may actually be more. I appeal everything.”

An example: For a story about the Obama administration scuttling FOIA, Leopold heard rumors about the Federal Trade Commission being involved. He filed a FOIA request and they sent about 30 pages.

“I appealed it. They said, ‘Oh, we found 900 more pages.'”

When you appeal, you don’t need to make a compelling legal argument. Simply write, “I appeal the integrity of the search.” It’s also very important to appeal any and all redactions. “You will really be surprised by some of these responses,” Leopold said.

The meta FOIA

File a FOIA request for the processing notes to see how the government agency is handling your initial FOIA request. It’s a way to gain a great understanding about how the FOIA process works.

Leopold said there’s a paper trail from the moment your request lands on an analyst’s desk that shows how your request is being handled. Processing notes sometimes have names of databases that are undisclosed, which could be valuable to your reporting.

“You get a good understanding of what’s going on behind the scenes,” Leopold said.

Leopold advised to wait about three or four weeks after receiving your FOIA case number to file this “meta” FOIA request. “I think those processing notes are hugely valuable,” said Leopold, especially for reporters who cover national security where it’s so difficult to obtain information.

A great resource

One thing that frustrates Leopold is that many reporters don’t know about a great resource: OGIS, the Office of Government Information Services.

This office is the “federal FOIA ombudsman” that provides mediation services for citizens dealing with federal bureaucracies. They can help you if an agency is stonewalling.

“They’re waiting for that phone call,” Leopold said of OGIS. But all too often, journalists aren’t picking up the phone.

“It’s not used as often as it should be,” Leopold said. “It does not cost anything. I’ve used their services before suing. They’ve actually been able to get documents for me.”

Expedited processing

Under FOIA, the burden is on the requester to prove there is a need for the information to be released immediately.

“Each agency is different with regard to expedited processing,” Leopold said. “The easiest office to be granted expedited processing is the Justice Department, even though they suck at FOIA,” Leopold said.

It doesn’t always work out the way you want. For one request, Leopold was granted expedited processing but still had to wait two years to receive what he asked for.

“So much for expedited processing,” Leopold joked. But he said it’s always a good idea to ask for expedited processing and figure out how to make that case. What is that pressing need? How would the public be harmed if that information was not out immediately?

Do your homework

FOIA logs: Read them regularly. Most agencies post their FOIA logs of past requests and responses on their website. You can actually see what other people are asking for, get ideas, and save yourself some time.

You can also check a website called FOIA online, which allows you to conduct keyword searches of multiple agencies and read any documents that were released.

It’s OK to sue

Leopold said there’s a myth that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to sue the government to resolve a FOIA dispute.

“If you are looking for a highly classified document, yes, be prepared for a fight that’s going to take many years,” he said. But otherwise, it’s not so bad. You or your news organization file a suit, and then life gets better. The litigation helps speed up the FOIA process if the agency is dragging its feet.

“Basically what happens after filing a lawsuit, you kind of go to the top of the pile,” Leopold said. “You end up working with a government attorney, and you come up with a production schedule.”

Leopold said FOIA litigation doesn’t cost as much as some people might think.

“The costs are really minimal,” he said. “I mean, four digits. It’s a sad reality about FOIA. It remains broken. We’re left having to litigate for documents that belong to the public.”

Fee waivers

To save money in open records costs, you need to ask for a fee waiver and make an argument as to why you’re entitled to it. You can write: “I’m a reporter. I publish regularly. I am going to use these documents to write a news story about this issue. I should be entitled to a fee waiver because it is in the public interest.”

When writing your request, be sure to use the phrase “any and all records relating or referring to …” That’s very important language, Leopold said. Don’t say you want documents “about” something. Agencies can deny your request, claiming they don’t know what you mean.

Related: How to contact an investigative reporter

By law, every agency also has to provide you with an estimated date of completion. You can request that, and if they fail to provide it, that can help your cause if you need to later appeal or file a lawsuit.

Keeping track of it all

“I have more than a thousand outstanding (FOIA) requests,” Leopold said. He makes sense of the chaos by using a “very simple” spreadsheet that includes the date of the request and when responses are due.

What’s Leopold’s success rate?

“You know, I’m not patting myself on the back here,” Leopold said. “I’m really successful. I turn all of this into news.”

What’s amazing about getting records through FOIA, Leopold said, is that sources are suddenly willing to talk once documents are unclassified and released publicly. It’s tedious work — but it pays off.

“It has become a very important tool for me,” Leopold said. “But yeah, I have a very good success rate.”

The post Insightful FOIA tips from ‘FOIA terrorist’ Jason Leopold at NICAR 2016 appeared first on John Tedesco.

The good news is, there’s a statewide system in Texas to track how often people die in police custody. The bad news is, no one is taking responsibility to make sure the reports are accurate or even filed at all.

When I started working at the Express-News eons ago in 1997, one thing I learned as a cops reporter is that Texas law requires police departments to file a report with the Attorney General’s office every time someone dies in police custody.

The reports are available to anyone who asks, and under the law, the definition of “custody” includes police shootings.

Those “custodial death” reports came to mind this summer after two Bexar County deputies fatally shot a combative suspect, Gilbert Flores, moments after he raised his hands above his head in an apparent attempt to surrender. A bystander, Michael Thomas, recorded the shooting on his cell phone, sold the video footage to KSAT-TV, and it became a national news story.

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office and the Bexar County district attorney refused to release any records about the shooting. Since custodial death reports are filed with the Attorney General’s office, I bypassed the sheriff’s office and filed an open records request with the AG for the custodial death report for the Flores shooting.

Missing information

When the AG’s office emailed me a copy of the report, there was a gaping hole. At no point did it mention that Flores had his hands raised when he was shot. The sparsely worded narrative stated:

Officers were dispatched to 24414 Walnut Pass for a family violence call. Suspect attacked the officers with a knife and was shot by the officers after the suspect refused to drop the knife. Suspect resisted arrest.

Maybe it’s not surprising the sheriff’s office didn’t include that pertinent fact. But the omission raised a basic question: What exactly is required of a law enforcement agency when it files a custodial death report, and is anyone making sure the information is accurate?

Police accountability

A few Google searches and phone calls taught me a lot more about the law and the history of custodial death reports. For example, Texas law requires a “good faith effort to obtain all facts relevant to the death and include those facts in the report.” It’s a misdemeanor if the agency files the report but fails to include “facts known or discovered in the investigation.”

Related: Web tools and apps to track weather emergencies in Texas

Using the eminently valuable website of the Texas Legislative Reference Library, I tracked down who wrote the law and learned it was a former Bexar County lawmaker named Walter Martinez, who filed his bill in 1983 to help the public learn more about custodial deaths.

“At the time, a pretty energetic prison reform movement was going on in the state,” Martinez told me. “We really didn’t know what the record was with regard to deaths while in custody.”

When Martinez’s bill became law, it set up a potentially useful resource for anyone researching police use of force in Texas. But how well did law enforcement agencies actually follow the statute, and did they ever face any repercussions for failing to follow it?

Those questions led to this news story:

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office failed to file at least five state-mandated reports about people who died in police shootings since 2005, was late in filing a dozen more fatality reports and left out key details about two deadly shootings involving deputies.

The missing details include how one suspect had his hands raised above his head when two deputies opened fire. In another case, a report didn’t quote a deputy who can be heard on dash-camera video saying, “He started attacking me and I shot him.” The deputy then swears, saying either “Fuck him” or “Fuck it.”

Sheriff’s spokesman James Keith noted that the five missing reports of fatal shootings all occurred before Sheriff Susan Pamerleau took office Jan. 1, 2013. During her tenure, four custodial death reports were late. Keith blamed that on a misunderstanding that’s been cleared up.

“The investigator didn’t have a clear understanding of the law and the requirement that these had to be submitted within 30 days,” Keith said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office doesn’t take any steps to make sure law enforcement agencies are being diligent in filing the reports.

“We are simply a repository for this information,” spokeswoman Katherine Wise wrote in an email when asked if the attorney general’s office has any system in place to flag late reports.

While the AG doesn’t check how often reports are filed past the 30-day deadline, there’s a simple way to find out by using the agency’s own data.

You can request a copy of a large spreadsheet the AG compiles from the custodial death reports submitted by law enforcement agencies. This is a lot more detailed than what the AG posts on its website. Out of 4,250 death reports filed in Texas since 2005, the records show that law enforcement agencies filed nearly 700 reports — 16 percent — after the 30-day deadline. Some reports were more than two years late. Here are some examples:

Late custodial death reports in Texas

Late report

In Bexar County, a report that was more than a year late was filed with the attorney general’s office Nov. 26, 2013. It described how Sgt. Frank Bellino had responded to a call Oct. 14, 2012, for a possibly intoxicated man who was walking along Culebra Road and creating a hazard for passing drivers.

The report says the unarmed man, Joe Guerra, 19, became aggravated and refused to obey instructions. “He charged at me,” Bellino was quoted as saying, and Bellino opened fire. Guerra later died at a hospital.

I learned a lot about this case from a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against Bellino and the sheriff’s office by Guerra’s family. Their lawyers unearthed dash-camera footage from a patrol car that recorded Bellino moments after the shooting explaining what happened.

“He just went fucking nuts on me,” Bellino told a fellow deputy. “He started attacking me and I shot him.” Bellino then can be heard swearing, saying either “Fuck him” or “Fuck it.”

Sean Lyons, a lawyer representing the Guerra family, told me there’s no question that Guerra was inebriated, but he disputed claims that Guerra was in any condition to fight. The custodial death report in Guerra’s case was not only a year late, he said, but paints an inaccurate picture of what happened.

“You’re basically learning the opposite of what went wrong,” Lyons said of the report. “Because the report goes out of its way to make it sound like Bellino did all he could to de-escalate the situation and that Guerra was the aggressor, when in fact, Bellino immediately threatened Guerra’s life, threatened to fucking shoot his ass, and used escalating language.”

Keith declined to answer most questions about the case, citing the litigation against the sheriff’s office. But he did say the office believes that the custodial death reports are supposed to be a general account of what happened.

“The thought is, the investigation is still ongoing, you’re not going to know every single answer, every specific detail within that 30-day time period,” Keith said.

Martinez, who served as a state representative from 1983 to 1985, said the law governing custodial death reports might need to be revised and strengthened to clearly show who’s responsible for making sure the records are accurate and filed on time for the public to review.

“If no one’s following up or taking responsibility for ensuring that it’s done, then there’s a break in the chain,” Martinez said.

The post Police reports about people who die in custody are late, missing in Texas appeared first on John Tedesco.

Last week it happened again. Firefighters rescued 14 people, including two children, who were trapped inside a stalled elevator. This time they were only 50 feet high. But on a hot summer day they had no air conditioning for part of their two-hour ordeal.

If all these incidents are making you wonder about the safety record of elevators at the tower or your office building, there’s a quick way to find answers in Texas.

An obscure state agency, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, oversees a hodgepodge of industries such as barbers, boilermakers and tow-truck companies to name a few.

Elevators and escalators are also under TDLR’s purview. State law requires elevator and escalator owners to hire a licensed inspector annually to check the machinery. Many owners also hire contractors to conduct routine maintenance and repairs.

The results of the annual inspections are sent to TDLR, which has been posting them all online since 2001. The first time I worked on a story about a stuck elevator at the Tower of the Americas in 2006, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that TDLR offered a quick way access those annual inspection reports and other documents online.

Not every agency makes this kind of thing so easy, even in 2015.

Searching for records

On the search page, you can type parameters such as owner name or building address:

Click on the search result you want — in this case, the Tower of the Americas — and the next page shows how many elevators and escalators are in the building. Clicking on the “show documents” button takes you to a list of downloadable inspection reports and correspondence.

It’s a timely, useful resource. But it’s not perfect.

Past tragedy

While TDLR offers easy access to individual inspection reports, the agency doesn’t plug in the results of those inspections into any kind of database that could be analyzed and show just how often major problems are found.

And a tragedy at the Crockett Hotel in San Antonio revealed weaknesses in Texas’ regulatory system on Dec. 28, 2011, when a 65-year-old housekeeper named Gloria Rodriguez fell six stories to her death down an elevator shaft.

Past inspections for the elevator looked relatively benign. But after the fatal accident, TDLR’s chief inspector, Lawrence Taylor, scrutinized the elevator and found a litany of problems. In tests, Taylor saw the elevator car stop at a landing, then move upward of its own accord with no signal to run.

Taylor called that a “matter of grave concern.”

“Someone with special knowledge of the elevator control system knew that there was a problem with the brake and intentionally installed a jumper and moved wires in an attempt to overcome the problem(s),” Taylor wrote in his report. “However, no one actually did anything meaningful or effective to uncover the real problem(s) and embark on a course of action that would have solved the problem and prevented this tragic event.

“This tragedy was preventable,” Taylor wrote, “and was a direct result of the failure to have the elevator inspected as required and inadequate maintenance.”

TDLR fined the owner of the Crockett Hotel and its contractor, Otis Elevator Co., nearly $86,000 for Rodriguez’s death.

Over the years I’ve spoken with TDLR employees about the valuable service the agency provides by making so much information available on its website for so many years. But given the tragedy at the Crockett Hotel, just how reliable are the state-mandated annual inspections?

“When you consider how many elevators there are in the state and that they’re working every day, I think overall they are effective,” said Susan Stanford, a spokeswoman for TDLR.

Customers can help keep each other safe by checking certificates that are supposed to be posted near every elevator and see whether it’s overdue for an annual inspection, Stanford said. And she emphasized that elevator accidents are rare. Even at the Tower of the Americas, where elevators routinely get stuck, the incidents are usually a sign that safety mechanisms worked.

Related: Web tools and apps to track weather emergencies in Texas

“Instances involving a major violation don’t happen often, but they do happen,” Stanford added in an email she sent me today. “Inspectors identifying ‘reportable conditions’ are required to notify TDLR and must request the owner’s cooperation in shutting down the equipment until it is repaired or brought into compliance.”

Escalator danger

While it’s unnerving to be trapped inside an elevator at the 622-foot-tall tower, mundane escalators harm more people. Escalator and elevator owners have to report injuries to TDLR, and in San Antonio the injuries usually stem from escalator accidents. In 2010, a 3-year-old child trying to go up an escalator at Rolling Oaks Mall fell and got two fingers stuck. They were amputated.

I didn’t find much fodder in the most recent elevator inspection records posted for the Tower of the Americas. But after an earlier incident at the tower on Dec. 28, 2012, the search was more productive and led to this news story:

All three elevators at the Tower of the Americas, where several employees were trapped early Friday in one of the cars about 400 feet in the air, were behind schedule on state-mandated annual inspections, records show.

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation sent notices in May to Landry’s Inc., the company that operates the city-owned landmark, warning that inspections due in April were late. The licensing department oversees elevator safety.

Landry’s later told the agency it completed the inspections in September and October. But the company hasn’t yet filed the results of the inspections for at least one of the elevators, according to a Dec. 27 notice the agency sent to Landry’s.

Past inspections at the Tower of the Americas uncovered rusted brackets that came loose from the tower structure. Inspectors also recommended adjusting safety mechanisms for all three elevators. The mechanisms, called “governors,” control speed. One of the elevators flunked a safety test for its governor.

So these inspection reports can be interesting reading. Just remember the Crockett Hotel and keep in mind you might not be seeing a complete picture of an elevator’s safety record.

The post How to check safety inspections for any elevator or escalator in Texas appeared first on John Tedesco.

But what are the details of those sponsorship agreements? How much does each company spend? And what do they get in return?

Related: How to research a property’s history using Bexar County’s free records search

Thanks to the Texas Public Information Act and some persistent digging, UT Sports Writer Mike Finger obtained copies of 19 major sponsorship agreements that answer those questions. UT fought the release of the contracts but the Texas attorney general ruled they’re generally subject to open records laws.

You can check out our story and view an interactive table with links to the actual agreements (I helped make requests to other schools such as Texas Tech and Texas A&M).

The records show companies such as Nike, MillerCoors and AT&T have pledged to pay $98 million through 2021 as UT tries to return to on-field glory.

The post Check out the sponsorship agreements that raise millions for UT Austin athletics appeared first on John Tedesco.

Natural gas is cheap. Pipelines are expensive. So instead of collecting the fossil fuel, many oil and gas operators build tall, metallic spires called flare stacks to burn the gas and release it into the Texas sky.

For years, no one could say with any certainty how much natural gas was going to waste. Everyone knew flaring in shale country was a problem. But officials at the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state agency that oversees the oil and gas industry, had never released figures showing how much was being burned in the Eagle Ford.

Instead, the agency released only statewide figures showing the overall volume of flaring was low compared to overall production — about one percent.

Whenever a government agency touts rosy statistics, there’s probably a database behind those numbers. And if you obtain that raw data, you might be able to figure out what’s really going on.

Today’s Express-News story about flares burning 20 billion cubic feet of natural gas so far in 2014 is a good reminder of the value of public databases — and why journalists need to get their hands on them to analyze the records for themselves.

There’s no question analyzing data can be a lot of work. We filed an open records request with the Railroad Commission for a copy of the flaring data in the spring of 2013. It’s a huge database of monthly reports showing how much oil and gas is produced in Texas and where those hydrocarbons go. Flaring and venting are one of the “disposition” categories in the data.

I drove to the agency’s Austin headquarters with a flash drive that could handle the enormous database. It was a beast — more than 25 gigabytes of 85 million records. All that summer we used software to convert the Railroad Commission’s archaic data to CSV files, a format we could use in the newsroom. After that, it took weeks to crunch the numbers and uncover the hidden pitfalls.

Read more: Workers dying on the Eagle Ford Shale

Why go through the hassle? Why should frazzled journalists take the time to learn how to analyze data? Don’t we have enough to do?

The answers is, journalists need to know a lot of skills — how to interview people, how to write clearly, how to find information. Analyzing public data should be a part of that skill set. It opens doors to stories that couldn’t otherwise be told. This is what journalism is all about.

When we were finished reviewing the flaring data, our analysis showed that the volume of flared gas in Texas had increased by 400 percent since 2009. And most of that gas came from the Eagle Ford Shale near San Antonio. This chart essentially told the story of flaring in the shale that no one had figured out — not even state officials:

Quantifying the volume of flared gas opened up new questions and possibilities. When Projects Editor David Sheppard asked how much air pollution was created by all this flaring, we found out there was a way to calculate an estimate. We obtained emails from the state’s environmental agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, that showed how to estimate levels of air pollution created by gas flares. Those formulas were based on the volume of flared gas – which we had. So we plugged those numbers into Excel spreadsheets to come up with the amounts of sulfur, volatile organic compounds and other pollutants that came from flaring in the region.

In August, the Express-News published the results of our investigation, Up in Flames. The total volume of wasted gas in the shale from 2009 to 2012 was almost 39 billion cubic feet — enough to meet the annual heating and cooking needs for all 335,700 residential customers who relied on gas last year in CPS Energy’s service area, which includes San Antonio.

Sunday’s story is based on a fresh batch of flaring figures obtained by Express-News Data Editor Joseph Kokenge, who scraped the data directly from the Railroad Commission’s website.

The new numbers for 2013 and 2014 show that flares burned and wasted even more of the fossil fuel. In the first seven months of 2014, more than 20 billion cubic feet of gas went up in smoke — enough to fuel CPS Energy’s 800 megawatt Rio Nogales power plant during the same time frame.

The post Up in Flames: Flares wasting natural gas in the Eagle Ford Shale appeared first on John Tedesco.

Last night Jen and I enjoyed a rare date night at one of our favorite restaurants downtown, Bohanan’s, a swanky oasis of cocktails, jazz — and no screaming Tedesco children.

If you’ve ever wondered exactly how much money your favorite haunt makes in alcohol sales, there’s now an easy way to find out.

Joe Kokenge, the Express-News’ database editor, put together this interactive data viz that shows total alcohol sales for San Antonio bars and restaurants last year. Some of these numbers are mind-blowing.

Related: How to create maps and charts with Google Fusion Tables

The top seller in San Antonio was the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa — the same project that sparked years of controversy for seeking exemptions from city taxes and for building on the environmentally sensitive Edwards Aquifer recharge zone.

The resort raked in more than $11 million in alcohol sales in 2013. That’s more than the second-place venue, the AT&T Center, home of the San Antonio Spurs and overpriced macro brews.

The sales data comes from the Texas Comptroller’s office, which doesn’t offer the information in a very user-friendly format. Joe combined a year’s worth of data and put together an interactive, easy-to-use table that you can sort and search.

It doesn’t show who sold the most alcohol, only how much revenue was generated in alcohol sales. So expensive drinks might move a company up in the rankings.

Out of curiosity, I checked Bohanan’s and learned it generated a whopping $2.2 million in alcohol sales in 2013.

That’s a lot of fancy cocktails.

The post Check out the San Antonio bars and restaurants that raked in the most money in alcohol sales appeared first on John Tedesco.

Check out some of my favorite research tips, strategies and resources from this year’s Investigative Reporters and Editors conference, where about 1,100 incredibly talented journalists are meeting in San Antonio. These conferences are geared for journalists, but really anyone who’s interested in research tools will find many of these tips handy.

Jul 1, 2013: 8:32 am

More awesome search tips from Google expert Daniel Russell, with real-world examples.

Jun 24, 2013: 12:07 pm

Creative ways to find sources:

Perhaps the best tip sheet at #IRE13 – http://t.co/gY0bLhOqKj on building sources from @mattapuzzo

— Nick Penzenstadler (@npenzenstadler) June 22, 2013

Jun 24, 2013: 10:27 am

How to find America’s worst charities: Excellent tips by Kendall Taggart at the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Jun 24, 2013: 7:40 am

Tips and tweets:

Compliments to @IRE_NICAR staff, led by @markhorvit for a great conference. Leaving San Antonio totally jazzed #IRE2013 #IRE13

— Mark Katches (@markkatches) June 23, 2013

SearchReSearch: TipSheet for IRE 2013 ( #IRE13 ) http://t.co/So9pCxVDTm great resource for maximizing your Google search capabilities

— Kenneth Olson (@ken_v_olson) June 23, 2013

MT @gijn: Getting past NO when govt pushes back. Presentation by David Jackson (Chicago Tribune) #transparency http://t.co/UtZKsd5BCS #IRE13

— Melissa Nann Burke (@nannburke) June 23, 2013

New blog post | "Beyond the written word – visual data in journalism – presentation and links from #IRE13 http://t.co/OOsFQix6Ht

— Ben Jones (@DataRemixed) June 23, 2013

Retention schedules kept on Web sites are like a "menu of documents" at an agency or government. (@jaimidowdell, #ire13)

— Becky Yerak (@beckyyerak) June 23, 2013

.@SunFoundation's @bill_allison and Jacob Fenton demonstrating great tools to follow influence in government: http://t.co/X7rcMiBK09 #ire13

— Joe Yerardi (@JoeYerardi) June 22, 2013

Jun 23, 2013: 1:22 pm

Investigating the wealthy sounds like a daunting task, but there’s actually a vast amount of historical resources available to the reporter who wants to try.

Investigative reporter Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle once visited a probate court clerk’s office to check out a tip that lawyers were making themselves rich at the expense of the estate of a wealthy but incapacited man. The clerk asked how many boxes she wanted to get in the case — there were 30.

In other words, probate courts are a gold mine. Olsen suggested looking at fee schedules and reports filed by court-appointed guardians.

It helps that wealthy Texans are chatty and often more approachable than their East and West-coast counterparts, said Mimi Swartz, an executive editor at Texas Monthly. In many cases, the only people who crave more attention than rich Texans are their lawyers. You can learn a lot about how the real world works by simply listening to their stories.

“One way to pay kickbacks to judges is to play poker and lose,” Swartz said.

Ancestry.com can help you find genealogical records. For a modest fee, you can find an actual picture of the ship that ferried specific European immigrants across the Atlantic.

A curious mind can always lead you to a good story. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Bill Dedman stumbled across the unusual case of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark while he was house hunting and checked the most expensive mansions that were for sale. It launched him on a story that started out as a feature about Clark, whose father was a wealthy copper-mine baron and disgraced lawmaker. But the story morphed into an investigation of Clark’s current whereabouts — she hadn’t lived in any of her mansions for years, and Dedman’s reporting raised questions about the people overseeing her vast fortune.

The bizarre tale struck a chord with readers. It went viral and Dedman ended up writing a book about it called “Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune.”

Dedman relied on cemetery records, depositions in court cases and old newspaper clippings. He obtained pictures of Clark’s estates and the artwork she painted. He wanted to do a good job describing them, so he talked to experts.

Botanical consultants told him precisely what kind of unique plants were on the estate grounds.

A professor of fashion history described the kind of apparel Clark wore as a young woman.

An art expert told Dedman that in the old days, women usually painted with pastels. Oil painting was considered a manly art form. Yet Clark chose to be an oil painter. It showed an intriguing snippet of her character — which Dedman would not have discovered if he hadn’t gone to the trouble of talking to a knowledgeable expert.

Jun 22, 2013: 7:57 pm

Tips on Twitter:

Not able to be at #ire13? Check out tipsheets http://t.co/nQEbHouZCR More will be added.

— Jaimi Dowdell (@JaimiDowdell) June 22, 2013

If you want my slides on tracking government contracting, you can view them here: http://t.co/zj1oG2WVCM #IRE13

— Danielle Ivory (@danielle_ivory) June 22, 2013

From the #IRE13 session on investigating the oil and gas industry, here's a link to a fracking chemical database: http://t.co/dx8Pca83YJ

— Cezary Podkul (@Cezary) June 22, 2013

There are nine exemptions in FOIA. The 10th one they don't tell you about. It's "We don't want to give it to you." @wcochran #ire13

— Cherrill Crosby (@cherrill_crosby) June 22, 2013

Tipsheet from our #IRE13 panel about how to win open-records battles with uncooperative agencies: http://t.co/LgHp6aiph2

— John Tedesco (@John_Tedesco) June 23, 2013

Investigating trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border: http://t.co/OkiN0l7yGU #IRE13

— IRE and NICAR (@IRE_NICAR) June 22, 2013

Take a look at @writerbarton's groundbreaking story about a man's death in police custody http://t.co/X10inL9szw #IRE13

— Lauren Gilger (@laurengilger) June 22, 2013

Yes! The link from the "Search Rodeo" session at #IRE13 is now live, compliments of @BarbGray – check it out here: http://t.co/IH25yQCBOP

— Cezary Podkul (@Cezary) June 22, 2013

Download a PDF of my "Digging Deeper with Social Media" talk at #IRE13 | links, examples, tools | http://t.co/S1SqcfABfa #kipcamp

— DougHaddix (@DougHaddix) June 22, 2013

Slides from my #IRE13 demo of @TabulaPDF: https://t.co/Mf4OCREjq4

— mike tigas (@mtigas) June 22, 2013

https://twitter.com/sgoldstein/status/348548832109416448

Jun 21, 2013: 4:35 pm

Tips on Twitter:

Stalking a billionaire with a boat? NPR's Margot Williams: http://t.co/vf2IFVpfcl #IRE2013 #IRE13 pic.twitter.com/k4CfiW3qmv

— Amy Pyle (@amy_pyle) June 21, 2013

New text searchable database of IRS 990 nonprofit forms from past 10 years via @LukeRosiak http://t.co/qAj4sBSViT #IRE13 #kipcamp

— DougHaddix (@DougHaddix) June 21, 2013

Getting skeptical sources to talk: "Sometimes people are more afraid of looking dumb than giving away sensitive information". So true #IRE13

— Aisha Dow (@aishamae) June 21, 2013

Enterprise on the ed beat handout here. #ire13 http://t.co/0i9GQRm7JX

— Mc Nelly Torres (@WatchdogDiva) June 21, 2013

#IRE13 Center for Investigative Reporting offers lots of reporters tools http://t.co/ClEWp47NCZ

— Bennett Loudon (@BennettLoudon) June 21, 2013

.@DavidBarstow: You need to spend a lot of time w the documents, reading everything and "marinate yourself in the information" #ire13

— Kelsey Ryan (@kelsey_ryan) June 21, 2013

Whatever you can't wait to tell a friend, don't leave it out of the story: advice from Jerry Mitchell, journalist. #IRE13 #GannettConnects

— Britt Kennerly (@bybrittkennerly) June 21, 2013

Jun 21, 2013: 4:11 pm

Check out interesting panels you missed at the IRE conference by reading the IRE Conference blog and Gannett’s IRE 2013 tumblr. Armies of reporters and journalism students are posting good stuff, including:

Delving into crime data and finding flaws

Transparency: Getting past “No”

Tips for environmental investigations

Jun 21, 2013: 11:40 am

Tips on Twitter about investigating charities:

https://twitter.com/melcrowe/status/348116910254198785

Investigating #nonprofits tip sheet #ire13 https://t.co/O9oWxFTz1j

— Kelsey Ryan (@kelsey_ryan) June 21, 2013

#IRE13: @CIRonline database of 8000 state regulatory actions against charities & solicitors: http://t.co/OjdYiUHgKo #IRE2013

— Douglas Lucas (@DouglasLucas) June 21, 2013

Jun 21, 2013: 11:23 am

So much information at IRE conferences is about how and where to find documents and information. It’s always interesting to hear what you should do after you amass that giant mountain of data and documents.

During yesterday’s Business Investigations panel, Reporter David Heath of the Center for Public Integrity talked about “the magic of simply sorting by date” when you take all your documents from a variety of sources and plug the information into a spreadsheet to make a timeline.

“It’s a very simple process,” Heath said. “It sounds too basic to talk about.” Heath includes everything he finds in the timeline early on in the reporting process because at first you don’t know what’s important. As the chronology grows, patterns, connections and narratives begin to emerge.

While investigating a shady company, Heath found a corporate filing signed by a man who claimed to lead the firm. But during that same time period, the same person also signed a different document in which he claimed to have nothing to do with the company. Heath later learned one of the government disclosures had been forged.

“Timelines are essential,” Heath said.

Other interesting tidbits at the panel:

Not many people know about LinkedIn’s advanced search page, which can help you find current and former employees of companies.

Journalists can get LinkedIn premium accounts for free, which allows you to email people on LinkedIn without being in their network. Very handy for finding sources.

Annual reports filed by companies with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission can be daunting. But be sure to check out sections titled “risk factors” and “legal proceedings.” These are where companies are usually at their most honest. They lay out things that could go wrong and major litigation. For companies that are very skilled at polishing their image, these sections help you find “chinks in their armor,” Heath said.

Jun 20, 2013: 3:31 pm

Best #IRE13 tweets so far:

#IRE13 slides from "Compared to What…" with @JsavageCaller available here http://t.co/BXnmfQ8IqE Hit us up if you have questions.

— Coulter Jones (@coulterjones) June 20, 2013

If you missed our kickoff session for #IRE13, all the resources are here: http://t.co/UHQvlptmv2 #BizJ

— Reynolds Center (@BizJournalism) June 20, 2013

If, like me, you missed the session on cheap data wrangling tools, get the presentation and tip sheet here: http://t.co/jwJ0g3EbjA #IRE13

— Tyler Dukes (@mtdukes) June 20, 2013

Here's Google Drive link to spreadsheet of tipsheet from this am's session #IRE13 Apps Reporters Can Use.xlsx – https://t.co/FDNJcdv7vl

— Stephen Stock (@StephenStockTV) June 20, 2013

We're happy to announce free Tableau Desktop for journalists: http://t.co/qcA82sT6M3 @tableau #IRE13

— Ellie Fields (@eleanorpd) June 20, 2013

How #IRE13 comes together, in pictures. http://t.co/b7Rd5hXwli

— IRE and NICAR (@IRE_NICAR) June 20, 2013

My hotel at #IRE13 welcomes guests by explaining why things could get punch-drunk crazy after the Spurs game. pic.twitter.com/s4bC13QOVx

— Ben Giles (@ben_giles) June 20, 2013

Jun 20, 2013: 2:55 pm

Even before the 2013 IRE Conference officially started, the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism hosted a free seminar Wednesday about finding interesting news stories in seemingly dry economic data.

One cool thing about this panel was how they showcased actual news stories, then worked backwards and revealed how the kernel of the story idea was found in the data.

For this article about the Eagle Ford Shale boom that ran in the San Antonio Express-News, the reporters did the following:

• Visited the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis website;
• Clicked on the “interactive” tab;
• Sifted through a series of menus that took them down to the county level;
• Checked how much per-capita personal income had increased in the Eagle Ford Shale counties. Once you get the data you can look at it in a variety of formats, such as tables or charts:

This story and other articles used as examples all relied on economic data — but the stories were also filled with the voices of real people to bring those numbers to life.

All the resources and presentations discussed in the seminar are available here.

Jun 20, 2013: 2:50 pm

Naturally, the 2013 IRE Conference is on Guidebook. You can check the conference schedule on your phone, save the events you want to attend and get reminders. I also like how you can view a map of the hotel, read about the speakers and check the #IRE13 feeds on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Yet another cool resource I learned from IRE.

Jun 29, 2012: 2:13 pm

Missed a panel at the IRE 2012 Conference in Boston? Tipsheets for members are available at IRE’s website. Yet another reason to join IRE.

Next year’s conference is in San Antonio, and we’re already talking about upcoming panels, speakers and events. Contact me if you have any ideas.

Thanks for a great time in Boston and hope to see you next year.

Jun 22, 2012: 10:39 am

How to attract an online audience for your investigation: http://t.co/beSA1th5 Awesome tips by @jessicaplautz from #IRE12

— ICIJ (@ICIJorg) June 21, 2012

Jun 21, 2012: 7:53 am

How to solve impossible problems: Daniel Russell’s awesome Google search techniques.

Jun 17, 2012: 9:09 pm

Tips on Twitter (via Katie Foody’s awesome Storify collection of tips from the IRE conference):

Need help cleaning up data? Mr. Data Converter, Mr. People, Google Refine. #IRE12 #irefree

— Lindsey Rogers Cook (@Lindzcook) June 14, 2012

The walkthrough of my Refine class, with sample data & slides. Arm yourself for the monkey apocalypse: http://t.co/GuCsIkEO #IRE12

— Tom Meagher (@ultracasual) June 15, 2012

Mapping & location-based data a big untapped resource for journalists. Guardian tutorial on Google Fusion: http://t.co/RIuCrpyW. #IRE2012

— Bill Mitchell (@bmitch) June 16, 2012

So many great Web tools coming out of Sunday #IRE12 session. Try www [dot] cometdocs [dot] com to convert PDF data to Excel. So cool.

— Lindsay VanHulle (@LindsayVanHulle) June 17, 2012

This. RT @willcarless: Great tip: use http://t.co/Fote8Hch to search for photos and see if they are fake #IRE12

— Tyler Dukes (@mtdukes) June 16, 2012

Gem of “Tracking Private Parts of Public Officials” Gov’t firewalls that log outbound web requests. Where are your officials surfing? #IRE12

— Saul Tannenbaum (@stannenb) June 16, 2012

Jun 17, 2012: 5:08 am

Fellow #ire12 conference goers. Try the app camscaner to scan and make PDF documents with your smartphone. Best app EVER.

— jeremyjojola (@jeremyjojola) June 17, 2012

Jun 16, 2012: 9:25 pm

https://twitter.com/willhuntsberry/status/214163754848485376/

Jun 16, 2012: 4:23 pm

One “downside” about IRE conferences is you wind up amassing more great ideas and tipsheets than you know what to do with. How do you keep track of everything, and not forget an insight that might be useful months from now?

You might want to create your own tip sheet, or handbook, that you can use throughout your journalism career.

Use Google Docs, Word, a spreadsheet, or whatever format that’s easiest for you.

Organize it by topic, such as “People Finders” or “Campaign Finance.”

Under each topic, link to useful websites, and plug in your notes of the insights you learned at the conference.

My handbook is old and needs to be pruned. But you can see how it works. If I want to do a thorough job backgrounding someone, I go to the “Backgrounding” section of my handbook and start going down the list of things to check — licensing files, marriage licenses, etc.

Any time you come across a resource you think might come in handy, add it to your handbook. You might need it tomorrow — or a year from now.

Jun 16, 2012: 3:38 pm

Full link for #IRE12 #IRE2012 presentations on social media and backgrounding: http://t.co/T72BIbcc

— DougHaddix (@DougHaddix) June 16, 2012

Jun 16, 2012: 1:28 pm

Panel videos: IRE is posting videos of some panels at its latakoo page. Panels include tips for investigating businesses and a conversation about the state of the media after the News Corp. phone hacking scandal.

Jun 16, 2012: 9:16 am

Archives and historical documents can be powerful tools for journalists, even on deadline.

“It’s been my secret weapon,” said James Neff, investigations editor at the Seattle Times.

Some cool resources:

Sanborn fire insurance maps: These old maps offer rich historical details about buildings and neighborhoods. “They were like Google Streetview back in the day,” said Alison Young of USA Today, who relied on the maps for her project, “Ghost Factories.”

Regional collections of the maps are often available at local libraries, historical societies and universities.

Online Public Archives: A sweeping search of presidential archives and other holdings of the U.S. National Archives. “This is what I would consider one of the top tools,” Neff said.

Finding guides: Used to find pertinent material, finding guides are sometimes posted online, or archives will send them to you. Check out WorldCat, a library catalogue that includes 50,000 finding guides. “It’s the largest online library catalogue in the world,” Neff said.

Jun 16, 2012: 7:20 am

Check out the story behind the story of Craig Harris’ investigation of Arizona pension funds. Great stuff.

Jun 15, 2012: 4:46 pm

Resources used by Duff Wilson of Reuters for his investigation of the food industry and its lobbying against stricter health standards for children.

Influence Explorer: An overview of campaign finance, lobbying, earmark, contractor misconduct and federal spending data.

Open Secrets: Campaign-finance data broken down by industry.

National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Federal Election Commission: For contributions at the federal level.

Secretary of the Senate: For lobbying reports.

Jun 15, 2012: 11:44 am

Tips from Sara Ganim, reporter for the Patriot-News, who broke the Jerry Sandusky scandal:

When looking for a job ask: “What kind of journalists are you going to be working for?” Is this a newsroom that will allow you to spend a lot of time on investigative stories? When the Patriot-News hired her, Ganim’s bosses recognized they had a big story on their hands, cut her loose from her beat duties, and encouraged her to do what she had to do.
“You wouldn’t find that in every newsroom,” Ganim said.

Social media was NO help at first for the Sandusky story. Ganim had to rely on the old-school methods of knocking on doors. But when Sandusky was arrested, the newspaper “did a 180” and started using Twitter all the time.

“Twitter is a really great way to stay in touch with your readers,” Ganim said. At Joe Paterno’s public memorial service, people on Twitter were asking her questions, guiding her to things to look for. “I found it incredibly helpful,” she said. “It’s a good gauge of what your readers want to know.”

Try to give readers what no one else is giving them. When the news about the sexual assault charges broke, “AP was kicking our butt. They were getting all this great information, what Penn State was doing. My boss was freaking out.”

Ganim didn’t want to rehash what the Associated Press was reporting — she argued with her boss that they needed to go back to their sources, the parents of the victims, to get their reaction. No one else could do that.

“That’s really how we were able to stay ahead,” Ganim said.

Jun 15, 2012: 11:09 am

Investigating Power: A vast video archive of interviews with investigative journalists — several of whom are speaking right now at the IRE Conference.

Jun 15, 2012: 10:18 am

Tips on Twitter:

Ira Rosen of 60 Minutes: “Dead space is your friend. You ask a question and you let it lay there and people fill up that dead space.” #IRE12

— Taylor Dobbs (@taylordobbs) June 15, 2012

Pulitzer winner James Grimaldi: "Showing the quid is easy. The quo is easy. It's the pro that's tough. How did connection happen?" #IRE12

— John Russell (@JohnRussell99) June 15, 2012

Don't settle for interviews with PR people. Insist on talking to the real source. The Art of the Interview at #IRE12

— Amy Karon (@amykaron) June 15, 2012

Berens: When hunting for data on investigative pieces, remember that these stories are really about people. This is why we do it. #IRE12

— Tyler Dukes (@mtdukes) June 15, 2012

"Every investigative story begins w/a timeline. It will pay gold" in showing patterns, narrative writing. M. Berens, Seattle Times #IRE12

— John Russell (@JohnRussell99) June 15, 2012

Jun 15, 2012: 8:33 am

Local communities are spending billions of dollars in tax subsidies to lure companies in the hope of getting more jobs and economic development. But the subsidies are often based on dubious claims and consultants’ studies that reporters should be checking.

The irony is that corporate subsidies erode the tax base for public schools — one of the things that actually does bolster economic development.

A few tips offered by panelists Daniel Connolly, Jim Heaney, Greg LeRoy and David Cay Johnston:

Don’t rely solely on claims made by the company, the government agency, or their economic studies, which are often paid for by the people who want the subsidy. Figure out the true cost of the subsidy.

“Develop data,” said Heaney. “This is absolutely essential. You’ve got to go to the agency and ferret out all the costs. And most projects get multiple subsidies.”

Subsidy Tracker: Search a database of companies that receive government subsidies.

Is the subsidy for a retail store? It’s probably not necessary. The jobs are usually low-paying; there’s a glut of retail space in the United States; and these companies are often simply moving from on location to another in the same region.

Read the enabling legislation and the fine print. Connolly found a one-sided deal in which the government agency agreed not to enforce a clawback provision to get the subsidy back if the company failed to provide all the promised jobs.

Delve into the job numbers. Are these full-time or part-time jobs? Low-income jobs?

Figure out the benchmarks. What is the cost of the subsidy per job? Some deals, such as a data center for Verizon, came out to a couple million dollars per job. People relate to that kind of comparison.

Jun 15, 2012: 6:31 am

Data on deadline: Keli Rabon and Stephen Brock put together this list of handy databases you can use for breaking-news stories. “Be ready before breaking news hits,” Brock said at the panel “CAR under pressure.” “Practice the data.”

interesting websites from the presentation:

Geofeedia: Type in a location and get pictures and social media posts from people in that area. Great for breaking news.

Open Status Search: Search public Facebook updates without logging into Facebook.

Safer Products: Search consumer complaints and government recalls regarding thousands of consumer products on this website published by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Jun 14, 2012: 4:07 pm

Demystifying Web scraping: Ted Han and Sean Sposito’s Google Docs presentation. Nifty.

Jun 14, 2012: 3:47 pm

Tips on Twitter:

Lots of great tips flying around #IRE12. A good one: Readers don't care abt work you did to analyze data, just findings (via @Coloradoan_TH)

— Brian M. Rosenthal (@brianmrosenthal) June 14, 2012

Does your city participate in the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)? A gold mine of data on crime statistics. #IRE12

— Lindsay VanHulle (@LindsayVanHulle) June 14, 2012

Reading the #IRE2012 feed made me look up @alisonannyoung's Ghost Factories http://t.co/QlIt5HOL True multimedia. Nice video.

— Robin J Phillips (@RobinJP) June 14, 2012

#IRE12 blog post by @chelsbk How to get data from government agencies for any beat http://t.co/4U8XNxyX

— IRE and NICAR (@IRE_NICAR) June 14, 2012

Is anyone else who went to that privacy panel feeling a little paranoid now? #IRE2012

— Jordan Culver (@JordanCulver) June 14, 2012

Jun 14, 2012: 3:15 pm

Google Doc presentation of free computer-assisted reporting tools: Download a list of free resources discussed by Anthony DeBarros of USA Today and Matt Stiles of NPR.

Jun 14, 2012: 3:04 pm

Gannett Tumblr: Gannett journalists are covering the conference at “Gannett @ IRE. Great posts, pictures and videos.

Jun 14, 2012: 2:56 pm

Interactive wind map: Amazing map of wind patterns in the United States. “We hadn’t visualized wind before and hadn’t realized its power,” said Google’s Martin Wattenberg, who helped create the map by marshaling government data.

Jun 14, 2012: 12:38 pm

Panel tip: Get the records retention schedule.

From the Department of Things Reporters Should Really Be Doing A Whole Lot More Often, this tip comes from Ellen Gabler.

“I love teaching people about asking for data,” said Gabler this morning at “The ask: Requesting and negotiating for data.” To know what to ask for, you have to know what exists.

“Ask agencies for their records retention schedule,” Gabler said. This gives you a complete list of every type of document kept by the agency, which can point you to interesting records and databases.

Jun 14, 2012: 12:13 pm

Panel Tip: Create a data log.

Steve Doig and Elizabeth Lucas offered this gem at the “Taming monstrous datasets” panel.

When you analyze data, the queries can get really complicated. You might be doing some queries, crunch some numbers, and move on to the next part of the story. Then, weeks or months later when it’s time to publish and you’re bulletproofing those figures, an editor is going to ask how you came up with them. “You need to be able to answer that,” Doig said.

The solution is keeping a log of your work. It’s tedious, Lucas said, but it’s worth the trouble. When you turn in numbers for a story, attach a log documenting your process.

“An audit trail is absolutely essential,” Doig said.

Jun 14, 2012: 11:59 am

Muckety: Maps relationships between powerful people and organizations.

Muse: Useful tool for analyzing email archives.

30 free tools for data visualizations and analysis: Handy, sortable chart of free tools.

Jun 14, 2012: 10:37 am

Aviation Wildlife Strikes Database: Federal Aviation Administration data that tracks incidents involving birds and even deer that are struck by aircraft.

NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System: Tracks reports of safety concerns raised anonymously by pilots.

Jun 14, 2012: 10:00 am

Scout from the Sunlight Foundation: Get alerts emailed to you whenever Congress or state lawmakers discuss an issue you care about. It’s like Google alerts based on official government records. Free.

Follow the Money: Free workshop from the Reynolds Center about tracking companies’ influence on politics.

The post Live-blogging the IRE 2013 Conference in San Antonio: Resources that will help you be a better journalist appeared first on John Tedesco.

The Eagle Ford Shale boom is pumping billions of dollars into South Texas. But it carries a steep cost. Our story tomorrow is about the workers who have suffered horrific, preventable deaths at drilling sites. You can see where employees have died and read the federal inspection records about the accidents in this interactive map.

If you work in the industry and want to share tips or concerns, all my contact info is here, thanks.

The post Workers dying on the Eagle Ford Shale appeared first on John Tedesco.

Last week, Hidalgo County District Attorney René Guerra asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to temporarily suspend its practice of using airborne snipers to fire at fleeing vehicles. Guerra made the request after DPS trooper Miguel Avila, riding in a helicopter, fired at a pickup truck he thought was carrying a drug shipment. Actually, the truck was full of immigrants suspected of entering the U.S. illegally. Two Guatemalan immigrants were killed.

One of the most difficult and controversial challenges for police officers is chasing a fleeing vehicle. Police are supposed to catch criminals. But a lot can go wrong in a high-speed chase — especially in the deadly cat-and-mouse game DPS troopers play with drug smugglers in Texas border counties.

DPS Director Mike McCraw has asked the FBI to investigate the shooting. But there are already resources available to the public that show why an incident like this near the border was probably bound to happen.

We received data for nearly 5,000 chases that occurred from January 2005 to July 2010. The database was packed with details about every DPS pursuit in Texas, showing factors like how each chase started, how it ended, and how many people were injured or killed.

One thing that jumped out at us was the high number of pursuits in Hidalgo County on the Mexican border. Between 2005 and July 2010, troopers in other Texas counties chased vehicles, on average, about 20 times. In Hidalgo County, DPS troopers chased vehicles about 30 times more often — 656 pursuits. That’s far and away the most in Texas:

You can view and download the raw data here if you want to crunch the numbers yourself.

Brandi and videographer Callie Richmond went for a ride-along with troopers who said the high number of pursuits was easy to explain. Troopers often chase drug smugglers who are growing more brazen. During pursuits, some smugglers throw homemade caltrops made of welded nails on the road to puncture the tires of police cruisers. They drive on caliche roads to kick up dust to blind troopers. And they often drive into the Rio Grande River, where smugglers wait in rafts to recover the bundles of drugs.

For our story, we also found DPS policies allowed troopers to engage in riskier chase tactics than other large Texas police and sheriff’s departments:

Troopers can set up rolling and stationary roadblocks to end a chase, a strategy they used 68 times from 2005 to 2009. Troopers also can shoot out a suspect’s tires if other methods, such as deploying spike strips, fail to stop the pursuit. Troopers fired their guns during chases nearly 90 times over the last five years, with 14 of those incidents occurring during pursuits in urban areas.

The agency had admitted in the past that it didn’t do a very good job training troopers for vehicle pursuits:

In 2007 the department acknowledged it needed to do a better job giving officers hands-on training after crashes involving troopers increased by 30 percent. “We fall short in providing the necessary practical driver training to our officers,” said a February 2007 newsletter published by the department’s public information office. At the time, troopers practiced their driving skills at a parking lot around a football field in Austin.

Use-of-force expert Geoffrey Alpert questioned the wisdom of shooting at vehicles:

Alpert says there’s no good rationale for firing a weapon at a fleeing vehicle. “What if there are passengers in the car?” he asks. “How do they know who else is in the car? How can you use deadly force for a traffic offense?” He says most state highway patrol departments have “very aggressive, loose policies,” perhaps because troopers often operate in sparsely populated communities. Half of all DPS pursuits occurred in rural areas; the other half were in urban areas or a mix of the two.

DPS officials pointed out that troopers often operate in the “middle of nowhere.” And they can call off a chase if troopers believe the situation is veering out of control. But the database showed that rarely happened. Out of the 5,000 chases, only 142, less than 3 percent, were terminated voluntarily by DPS.

This year, my colleague Jason Buch went back to the Rio Grande Valley to write another story about DPS’ efforts to stop smugglers. He found DPS’ presence on the border had grown into a small army and Jason flew with troopers in a DPS helicopter:

The Legislature has provided more than $600 million for border security since 2007, with most of the money given to DPS to target drug and human smugglers. The border operation today represents a small army, with specialized Ranger Reconnaissance Teams, new intelligence centers, patrol boats, helicopters and surveillance cameras watching for traffickers.

Even a high-altitude spy plane soon will be deployed.

It’s a departure from DPS’ traditional roles as highway patrolmen and a support service to local law enforcement agencies.

News organizations have provided a wealth of context that explains the recent controversy involving DPS. Yet the practice of shooting rifles from DPS helicopters was news to San Antonio’s Allan Polunsky, a member of the Public Safety Commission that oversees DPS. Polunsky told the Austin American-Statesman “he was unaware of any prior incidents involving DPS troopers shooting from helicopters in pursuit of fleeing suspects.”

The post Everything you need to know about DPS, police pursuits and why troopers shoot at vehicles appeared first on John Tedesco.