Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson refuses to comply with a Texas attorney general’s ruling that ordered him to release e-mails in his private accounts that contain public information. This week he instructed the Bexar County district attorney’s office to sue the AG.

The San Antonio Express-News submitted an open-records request under the Texas Public Information Act on Feb. 17, seeking all e-mails between Adkisson and grass-roots toll opponent Terri Hall regarding business of Bexar County and the Metropolitan Planning Organization, of which Adkisson is chairman.

The request sought e-mail correspondence from Adkisson’s county-provided e-mail address as well as from two private accounts he maintains. The newspaper is seeking the e-mails because they would offer insight into Adkisson’s management style at the MPO.

The story raises two issues that ought to trouble open-records advocates:

One is that public officials are keenly aware that their government e-mails are public documents, and they are turning to private e-mail accounts to conduct government business.

Related: How to find and analyze tax records of charities: The IRS 990 form explained

The other is Adkisson’s explanation for seeking to withhold his e-mails from the newspaper: He believes the Express-News is biased and has a pro-toll road agenda.

Even if Adkisson’s claim were true, the point is irrelevant when it comes to public information. In Texas, a government record is either public, or it isn’t. In order for an agency to withhold a record, it must cite a legal exemption. For example, a section of the Texas Public Information Act says investigative files of law enforcement agencies don’t have to be made public.

The motives of the person requesting the information has no bearing on whether a document is public. In fact, under the law, officials aren’t even supposed to ask why someone wants the information. Otherwise, government officials could withhold everything from the public simply by saying they don’t trust the people asking for the information. Or they could play favorites and give information to preferred journalists and bloggers.

So now the county is going to spend taxpayer money on a legal effort to withhold information from taxpayers. Maybe Josh can find out how much money the county will spend on the case — assuming no one questions his motives for asking.

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The first thing you need to do today is read this story by New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers. It’s about a boy in Afghanistan who was bitten by a viper and faced certain death if he didn’t receive medical treatment from U.S. troops.

Go ahead, read the whole thing. Chances are, you won’t be able to stop.

All done? Did you notice how Chivers piqued your curiosity?

He didn’t give away the ending.

Chivers began the tale by telling us about the boy and the snake bite, and the father who knew his son could die.

Related: Top five books every student journalist should own right now

But then Chivers left us hanging. He didn’t immediately tell us if the boy lived. And that suspense is a good thing.

Not all news articles can be told in a simple but compelling chronology. But many stories that could be, aren’t. Imagine how the story about the viper bite would have been handled by most writers. The first two sentences are Chivers’; the last one is mine:

KHAN NESHIN, Afghanistan — Five-year-old Sadiq was not a casualty of war. He was simply unlucky. The boy had opened a sack of grain at his home early on Wednesday morning, and a pit viper coiled inside lashed up and bit him above the lip.

His father, Kashmir, knew his son was sure to die. With no hospital anywhere nearby, he rushed the boy to an American outpost to plead for help. By midafternoon, Sadiq’s breathing was labored. Respiratory failure was not long off.

But after a harrowing night, U.S. troops saved the boy, who is alive and well today.

Most readers would have scanned the beginning of that story and said, “That’s nice.” Then they’d turn the page to scan the top paragraphs of the next inverted-pyramid-style news article.

Chivers took a different approach. The engine of his story, the thing that drives readers all the way through it, is the question: What happens to the boy?

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To find out, you have to sit down and invest yourself in the whole the story. And along the way, you get lost in the article and forget you need to pack lunch for the kids before they go to school. You’re half a world away in Afghanistan, hoping the snake-bitten boy survives.

(Photo credit: Nic’s events on Flickr)

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Scott talked to one of Munley’s neighbors and learned a revealing anecdote about Munley’s no-nonsense attitude:

As military wives on Munley’s street cared for families while their husbands were deployed, Munley would keep an eye out for them and let them know of any criminal activity, said Erin Houston, a neighbor.

One night, Munley shooed away a couple of men trying to break into her house, telling them, “If you try to come in, I’m going to shoot you,” Houston said. “After they went away, she walked the neighborhood — by herself — to make sure they were nowhere around.”

Interviewing neighbors is something reporters always do, and many times the effort doesn’t turn up gems like Scott found. We’ve all read about neighbors who have no clue they’ve been living next door to a serial killer. There’s always a neighbor who says, “He seemed like such a nice boy.” Even the Onion poked fun at these interviews with the classic article: “Neighbors remember serial killer as serial killer.”

Read more about journalism: Telling stories with data: Police chases and drug smugglers on the Texas-Mexico border

But talking to neighbors can sometimes pay off. Last week Joey Estrada Jr., the young man accused of killing restaurateur Viola Barrios, was in the news because his trial is going to be held in Victoria instead of San Antonio.

Lomi Kriel and I profiled Estrada last year and the first thing we did was talk to neighbors. Most of the people we talked to didn’t know much about Estrada. But we found someone who had heard that Estrada used to work at Hollister Co., a clothing store at the Shops at La Cantera. Thanks to that tip, we were able to learn Estrada had been accused of rifling through employees’ purses and even stealing a car. It was part of a pattern of alleged thefts leading up to the burglary and arson of Barrios’ home.

So talk to the neighbors. Even if they don’t know much information, maybe they can lead you to people who do.

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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 a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas. Flames spread along the walls, bursting through doorways, blistering paint and tiles and furniture. Smoke pressed against the ceiling, then banked downward, seeping into each room and through crevices in the windows, staining the morning sky.

Buffie Barbee, who was eleven years old and lived two houses down, was playing in her back yard when she smelled the smoke. She ran inside and told her mother, Diane, and they hurried up the street; that’s when they saw the smoldering house and Cameron Todd Willingham standing on the front porch, wearing only a pair of jeans, his chest blackened with soot, his hair and eyelids singed. He was screaming, “My babies are burning up!” His children—Karmon and Kameron, who were one-year-old twin girls, and two-year-old Amber—were trapped inside.

Related: How to spark readers’ interest and tell a hell of a story they won’t forget

Here’s a valuable lesson for newspapers trying to give readers a reason to fork out the cost of a subscription. One reason why the New Yorker story made such an impact is its length. We’re used to the inverted pyramid and short, snarky blog posts. It’s refreshing when an article like this comes along that simply tells a story — a sequential series of events, as my pal Brian Chasnoff puts it. Reporter David Grann never even wrote a nut graph summarizing up high what the story was about. He simply told a story. And readers responded.

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One of the interesting things about journalism is you learn something new every day. And this odd story definitely qualifies.

Jarrette Schule found what appears to be an anti-tank missile launcher on his rural property in the Hill Country. When I visited Jarrette and saw the missile launcher, I realized I would have to try to confirm if this thing was actually real. So I started taking a ton of pictures of it — especially of this decal on the side:

When I got home I studied that photo. I keyed in on the “NSN” term. I had never heard of it before but it seemed kind of like a social security number for military hardware. It turned out “NSN” stands for “National Stock Number” and it’s used to identify military equipment. Stock numbers are widely used and have even been fictionalized. The pulse rifles in “Aliens” have stock numbers, which makes Aliens even more awesome.

I looked for official government Web sites to learn more about this particular stock number and found this searchable database maintained by the U.S. Defense Logistics Information Service. The URL of the Web page ends in a “.mil,” meaning it’s a military site. As a reporter, that’s the kind of thing I look for — authentic sources of information.

Related: Top five books every student journalist should own right now

This site allows you to plug in a stock number and I typed in the 13-digit number from the decal. The query returned a match. I got a report stating this number is for launchers that fire Dragon surface-to-surface missiles. It didn’t prove conclusively that this launcher was real, but it was a piece of the puzzle, and I was more comfortable writing a story about the discovery.

Thanks to Jarrette for being a good sport and letting me learn something new about the arcane world of military stock numbers and anti-tank missile launchers.

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The article stirred up ancient memories. My very first news story was published in the Logos in 1994, and it was about high cafeteria prices.

The topic might sound trivial. But it certainly mattered to the 3,000 students who attended Incarnate Word. And what I learned about the high cafeteria prices at Incarnate Word got me hooked on journalism.

New to journalism

At the time, I was a sophomore majoring in English and really had no clue what I wanted to do in life. Then my friend Gabby, who was in my “Intro to Mass Communications” class taught by Valerie Greenberg, asked if I wanted to write for the student newspaper. I shrugged. Sure. I had never even considered journalism before. But it sounded kinda interesting.

The Logos was a small paper published every few weeks. Its office was the size of a dorm room. It was cluttered with paper and filing cabinets, old wooden chairs, and heavy metal desks with tiny Macs. Alex Garcia, the Logos editor, was in dire need of student journalists and took me under his desperate wing.

Related: Top five books every journalism student should own

I can’t remember who came up with the story idea to write about Incarnate Word’s cafeteria prices. “I think somebody on the staff — and I can’t remember who it was — went to summer school on another campus,” said Alex, who kept in touch with me over the years. The price of food at that school was way cheaper, Alex said. Somehow we came up with the idea to compare Incarnate Word’s cafeteria prices to other schools.

Students make a discovery

Gabby and Alex had cars. Over the next few days in our spare time we drove around San Antonio to other college campuses — St. Mary’s University, Trinity University, Our Lady of the Lake University.

I distinctly remember walking into Trinity University’s cafeteria and being awestruck at its decadent size. While Incarnate Word offered the basics like hamburgers and pizza, Trinity had Asian food, healthy food — all kinds of food. And the offerings were cheaper! I couldn’t believe it.

We visited other campuses and found the same thing. They had more offerings than Incarnate Word and better prices. And it turned out the same company ran all the cafeterias: ARAMark, a corporation that sold food at the Alamodome during Spurs games.

I felt an overwhelming need to shout our discovery from Incarnate Word’s administration building. The front page of the student newspaper offered me a way to do that.

My story was published on Feb. 24, 1994. The headline and my writing sucked. But it was the top story on the front page and I was instantly hooked on journalism. I thought it was so cool to dig up information other people didn’t want me to know, and to share it with the world.

That’s what journalism is all about.

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Thompson offered key tips for reporters, who are often told to go forth and blog but don’t receive much guidance about what makes a good blog. Many journalists, who have spent their whole careers striving to be fair and factual, are legitimately concerned about their opinions seeping into blog posts about topics they cover in the newspaper.

Thompson offered one solution: Give blog readers the inside scoop of what’s going on in the beat.

Related: Telling stories with data: Police chases and drug smugglers on the Texas-Mexico border

As an example, Thompson pointed to a post by the Dallas ISD blog at the Dallas Morning News. The post by reporter Tawnell Hobbs starts out:

DISD trustee Ron Price just told me that he was notified today that all 8th graders at Lang Middle School will have to retake the math portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills — this summer — because of a discrepancy. Price said the Texas Education Agency looked into the matter and made the recommendation.

This is a different approach from Hobbs’ news story based on the same information. Both versions are accurate and interesting. The blog post simply puts readers in the reporter’s shoes.

“Same information, totally different tone,” Thompson said. “The blog post, it’s letting you into the story. ‘Hey, Ron Price just told me this.’ That can really hook folks in.”

News University offers a bunch of online courses, some of which are free. You can check out Thompson’s entire Webinar here — the registration fee is $24.95.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhenriquez)

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Angela Grant, the video guru at the San Antonio Express-News, shared an excellent post about video projects published on YouTube by a class of Texas State University journalism students taught by David Nolan.

Angela taught me everything I knew about shooting and editing video.

One of her lessons is promising: Anyone can do this. Most students in Nolan’s class had never used a video camera or worked with editing software. But check out their final product. It’s pretty great.

The post Texas State University students learn to tell stories with video appeared first on John Tedesco.

Inner-city Councilwoman Mary Alice Cisneros was put on the defensive this week after revelations that she’s pushing the sale of two downtown cultural icons, Market Square and La Villita, to the politically connected Cortez family.

The proposal was presented Thursday in a closed-door City Council session and was greeted with strenuous objections by Cisneros’ colleagues, several said.

“We had a presentation of an interested party looking to purchase the square and La Villita, and a majority of us said, ‘No way,’” Councilwoman Lourdes Galvan said. “The gem of our history and culture is simply not for sale.”

Related: A tough year for the mainstream media. But is watchdog journalism really dead?

The story put Cisneros on the hot seat and she later said the deal was dead.

I found one of her comments interesting:

Cisneros acknowledged Friday that she had discussed a project with representatives of the Cortez family, but said only: “Whatever you are telling me I heard, if I heard it, was in executive session and should not be up for public discussion.”

This comment leaves the impression that public officials are barred from discussing what happens at government meetings when they go behind closed doors to discuss legal matters and other sensitive topics.

Actually, Cisneros and other officials are perfectly free to talk about what happens in executive session. That’s according to a 1989 opinion from then-Attorney General Jim Mattox.

Mattox had been asked whether the Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits public officials from publicly talking about closed-door meetings. State Sen. Kent A. Caperton feared that prohibiting that kind of talk would be a violation of free speech.

Related: How to share news tips with an investigative reporter

Mattox determined that the law only prevents officials from releasing documents related to the topics discussed in executive sessions. “It does not prohibit persons who are present at the executive session from afterwards talking about the subject matter of the session,” Mattox wrote in the opinion.

So if you want answers about a topic that interests you, wave a copy of this AG opinion anytime a public official tries to tell you she can’t talk about closed-door meetings.

The post La Villita for sale: Can Texas officials talk about closed-door meetings? appeared first on John Tedesco.

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,” by William E. Blundell.

Organizing and writing long, in-depth stories in a way that keeps readers engaged is a challenge. And it’s a challenge writers of the Wall Street Journal consistently overcome.

Blundell, who worked at the journal, shows you how they do it. He breaks down compelling stories to their raw elements like a scientist, analyzing what approaches work and don’t work. It’s a great how-to manual.

“The Word,” by Rene J. Cappon.

Find telling details … weed clutter from your prose … grab readers and never let go … these are the simple messages preached by Cappon, a retired editor for the Associated Press. Students should read this wonderful book to learn how to get a story right. Journalists should read this book as a refresher course to break any bad habits they’ve picked up.

“On Writing Well,” by William Zinsser.

Similar to Cappon, Zinsser preaches the value of the concise sentence and the precise word. Zinsser is a nonfiction author but his message still rings true for all writers: Make the reader’s job easy, or lose the reader.

“Super Searchers in the News,” by Paula J. Hane.

A great book for journalists in the Internet age. Hane interviews journalists who adeptly navigate the Web to find sources, information and documents to strengthen their stories. It’s a Q&A format with tons of references to useful sites.

It’s a little dated for today’s readers, but this book influenced me as a young reporter and helped me see the potential of online journalism. You can still find some gems of wisdom in there.

“The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook“

When I was cutting my teeth at the school newspaper in college, I got to know the education writer at the daily newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News, and he suggested this book. He said it helped him learn about digging up records and finding sources.

Man, was he right.

I can’t think of any other book that affected the way I approach news stories. “The Reporter’s Handbook” is a lesson in the power of documents — where to find them, how to get them, and what to do with them. Public documents help you circumvent the many spin doctors you’ll encounter throughout your career. They help you find out what’s really going on.

Right after I devoured this book, we got a tip that laboratories in the Science Building on campus were in such disarray, the San Antonio bomb squad had been called in a few times to clean up some dangerous chemicals — the kind of stuff that goes boom if bumped.

Instead of calling up a dean and asking whether this was true, I sought out former employees, police reports and other records to write an in-depth story about a hidden problem almost no one on campus knew about — all thanks to “The Reporter’s Handbook.” By the time I called the dean, I already knew the tip was true. I just needed his comment for a fully documented story.

Those are my picks for the best journalism books. What are yours?

Sometimes I blog about stuff that helps journalists. I pay for all the products I review on my blog. To help defray those costs, I use Google ads and Amazon’s affiliate advertising program, which provides a way for sites to earn commissions by linking to Amazon.com. There’s no extra cost to you, and I’ll never link to stuff I don’t like or try to make you buy something that sucks. These reviews are my honest opinions. Thanks for reading.

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