Investigative Journalist in Houston, Texas
Matt Stiles, data guru at the Texas Tribune, wrote a great tipsheet with links to user-friendly Web tools for generating charts and maps. Stiles was one of the presenters at a Watchdog Workshop last weekend in Austin organized by Investigative Reporters and Editors. Related: Sign up for blog updates from John Tedesco These are handy …
The day after a large retaining wall collapsed at The Hills of Rivermist in San Antonio, Centex Homes held a private meeting with residents. Outsiders, including city officials, weren’t invited. We received a video of the entire meeting, which shows Centex claimed that the neighborhood was safe because city firefighters were leaving. That was news …
I’m working on this tipsheet for a presentation tomorrow at a Watchdog Workshop in Austin organized by Investigative Reporters and Editors. My boss and I are going to talk about some methods we use to fact-check stories. Check out the tipsheet and feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment if you have more …
The San Antonio Express-News published an investigative story Sunday that revealed how some local nursing homes consistently neglect the elderly but are allowed to stay in business with little or no penalty. Here are a few tips and resources we used for our story that might help you if you’re looking for a good nursing …
An interesting status report was posted online tonight by San Antonio officials who are examining the retaining wall collapse at the Hills of Rivermist. Officials met with local builders, who were told they must review all retaining walls built over the past three years that are more than four feet tall. The builders must make …
New documents offer more information about the retaining wall that collapsed at the Hills of Rivermist, a neighborhood in San Antonio built by Centex Homes. Comparing the wall’s engineering plans to a memo describing how the wall was actually built shows the retaining wall might have lacked crucial features: The original engineering plans for the …
What exactly is an investigative journalist? Is a journalist someone who does the tedious work of digging through records, analyzing data, and finding good human sources to ferret out the truth? Or is a journalist someone who dresses up like a pimp, straps on a hidden camera, and tricks workers at ACORN to say really …
Jen and I wrote a story that ran in Sunday’s paper and was posted online today about the lack of oversight of retaining walls in San Antonio. We looked at this issue after a retaining wall in The Hills of Rivermist, a neighborhood built by Centex Homes, split apart and jeopardized dozens of houses: Despite …
When you work a weekend shift at a newspaper, you never know what kind of story you’re going to cover. Some are kind of lame, but I liked this annual cattle drive on Houston Street in downtown San Antonio. Related:
Jen and I wrote a follow-up story today about the sinking neighborhood in San Antonio called the Hills of Rivermist: The retaining wall that collapsed last week and jeopardized a neighborhood built by Centex Homes was built with less mortar than what engineering plans called for, according to city officials who inspected the wall Friday. …