Daily Diversion: Bracken Bat Cave
Bracken Bat Cave, home to the largest concentration of mammals on the planet with 20 million Mexican free-tail bats, is opening up to the general public for a brief period. This is awesome. Related:
Watchdog blog roundup for 8-29-11
What others are saying about watchdog journalism … How ProPublica blends news that wins Pulitzers with news that wins followers | Nieman Journalism Lab “Aggregation in the public interest.” Has investigative journalism found its feet online? | Online Journalism Blog How investigative journalism is finding a home on the Internet. TV news station wins big …
Mexico in Crisis: Q&A with John MacCormack
Known as “Johnny Mac” in the newsroom, John MacCormack is a talented, colorful reporter. He likes telling a good yarn, both in person and on the front pages of the San Antonio Express-News. One time I heard him on the phone telling a source: “What are you going to give me so I don’t write …
More retaining wall problems discovered in a San Antonio subdivision
After a towering retaining wall collapsed and threatened scores of homes last year in the San Antonio neighborhood of Rivermist, an obvious question arose: How safe were the untold number of other residential retaining walls in the city? Under city code, walls in San Antonio over four feet tall were supposed to go through a …
How to use time-lapse photography to take viewers on a journey
When Reporter Jennifer Hiller visited New York to write about San Antonio’s ties to High Line park, she called me and wondered if it’d be a good idea to make a time lapse-video of a walk through the mile-long urban park. Abso-freakin-lutely. Time-lapse videos are full of awesome sauce. Most I’ve seen involve the placement …
Watchdog blog roundup for 8-8-11
What others are saying about watchdog journalism … The New City Watchdogs | City Journal Can the Web drive investigative journalism in a post-newspaper era? To feed or not feed the digital beast | Chicago Reader How do investigative outlets like ProPublica and the Voice of San Diego keep Web traffic flowing? ProPublica’s outreach a …
Just how bad is the Texas drought? View San Antonio’s precipitation data from 1900 to 2011
All this dutiful work helps us compare this year’s drought to past dry spells.
Transform a dull spreadsheet into a compelling, interactive map for readers
Check out this amazing presentation at Google I/O 2011 about Google Fusion Tables.
WOAI story about towing company’s aggressive tactics leads to $62,000 fine
State regulators have responded to this outrageous, informative and entertaining story by WOAI Trouble Shooter Jaei Avila.
How two Pulitzer finalists used public data and the Internet to connect with readers
The reporters used reader-friendly multimedia presentations to make the data come alive.