Investigative Journalist in Houston, Texas
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
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
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is unveiling a new Web site where you can soon look up the “990” tax forms of nonprofit organizations in Texas. The 990 is a good starting point when you want to know more about a tax-exempt charity and what it does with its money. You can find out how … Read more
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the sister-paper of the Hearst-owned San Antonio Express-News, where I work, is going up for sale after hemorrhaging money for years: The Seattle P-I is being put up for sale, and if after 60 days it has not sold, it will either be turned into a Web-only publication or discontinued entirely. “One … Read more
After retired state Sen. Frank Madla and members of his family died in a fire in November 2006, the tragedy raised an obvious question: Are San Antonio firefighters doing a good job arriving to fires quickly and keeping residents safe? Express-News Projects Editor David Sheppard asked us to find out. At this point, what would … Read more
An article about false claims of military service is today’s most viewed, e-mailed, and commented-upon story on the San Antonio Express-News’ Web site. But it’s a story that very easily could have gone untold. There were no press conferences announcing it. There were no photo ops for television crews to get their images and soundbites. … Read more
The best way to learn journalism is by doing it. But some journalism books so deftly explain the nuts and bolts of the craft, they should be read by every journalism student, and re-read every few years when those students become working journalists. Here are my top picks: “The Art and Craft of Feature Writing,” … Read more
If you’re a journalism student, the best way to learn the craft is by doing it. But the next best way is to voraciously read the best of the best. Look at how the pros handle complex, difficult stories. How did they get the information? What approach did they take in presenting the story to … Read more
Meet Stumpy. This pale zombie was the subject of a video I shot during a daylong class at the San Antonio Express-News offered by Angela Grant, our online media producer. Angela gave us tips about how to shoot video. Then she sent us out to film whatever we wanted for a few hours. After that, … Read more
Our paper’s web guru, Fernando Ortiz, designed this new web page to showcase some of the best journalism at the San Antonio Express-News. The page offers a list of links to online forums where readers can talk about the stories, and it highlights the most recent project by Todd Bensman about gunrunning in Mexico. At … Read more