Investigative Journalist in Houston, Texas
Last week the New York Times ran a story about Internet companies selling imaginary things: These so-called virtual goods, like a $1 illustration of a Champagne bottle on Facebook or the $2.50 Halloween costume in the online game Sorority Life, are no more than a collection of pixels on a Web page. But it is …
The Texas Tribune came up with a new way to fact-check and add context to political speeches. Called “Stump Interrupted,” the Trib is adding VH1-style pop-up bubbles in videos of speechifying public officials, such as U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry. There’s factual information mixed in with humor — I laughed at …
Scott Huddleston covered the shootings at Fort Hood last week and helped write an amazing profile of Kimberly Munley, the police sergeant who, along with Sgt. Mark Todd, opened fire on Nidal Malik Hasan and stopped the rampage. Scott talked to one of Munley’s neighbors and learned a revealing anecdote about Munley’s no-nonsense attitude: As …
The shootings at Fort Hood sparked a lot of traffic on Twitter. I came across some interesting tweets from Joe Ruiz and Jordan Ghawi in San Antonio: The link takes you to RadioReference.com, and it lets you listen to scanner traffic in jurisdictions all over the country — including police departments near Fort Hood. Very …
If you’re voting today, Josh Baugh explains what Proposition 1 is really about: In spring 2008, local lobbyist David Earl began touting a plan that he said would simultaneously curtail encroachment on Camp Bullis and relieve gridlock on the far North Side. Estimated to cost as much as $190 million, the project called for the …
Tomorrow marks the maiden voyage of the Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news organization that covers state politics and issues. The Tribune might revolutionize the media landscape. Or, as founder John Thornton told Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, it might suck. But there’s certainly something the Texas Tribune offers that mainstream newspapers, TV and radio …
Reporter Karisa King wrote a story published Sunday that revealed state Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, is accused of defaulting on $5.5 million in debt. Aside from being an interesting read (Leibowitz denies owing that much money), the story is a good example of the power of public documents. Related: Different ways to contact a …
What others are saying about watchdog journalism: Editor & Publisher: Joe Strupp examines the growing trend of nonprofit, investigative organizations helping mainstream newspapers produce watchdog journalism. The Austin Chronicle and the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz profiled one of those nonprofits, the Texas Tribune. Columbia Journalism Review: A funny yet poignant profile of Kery Murakami, founder …
Express-News reader Jamie Blount might have shown us the future of newspapers in this letter to the editor today: While I don’t like the dismal news about how newspapers have fallen on hard times, I like the way the San Antonio Express-News has confronted the problem. I read the complete edition of the SAEN online …
Helen Zhang at Mediaite points out the sudden interest in the Texas death penalty case of Cameron Todd Willingham was prompted by a ginormous, 16,000-word article by the New Yorker magazine. The story is long — but it’s hard to stop reading it: The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in …