Category: journalism

Good News

So I’m planning a few big trips this year. For the past year, with two weeks of vacation, I was fairly limited on what I could do for big reporting adventures. I got to go to Iraq because I had arranged it when I took my job at the Sun, but it was kind of a one time thing. Now, however, I’ve proven myself at the paper and have permission to do things like that more often.

Not all of them will be to war zones, mind you. I’m working now on putting together a proposal for a travel article for the Boston Globe. That will hopefully be on climbing the largest piece of granite in the United States, El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. And then I’m putting together another project to South America to report on the impact the eroding glaciers have had on the tourism industry.

I’m also looking at going to Southern Sudan for the one year anniversary of their declaration of independence, but that is a bit more touchy (Islamist militants and such). But I have the green light to get out there and freelance a bit more aggressively, something I’ve been having a hard time finding the time to do.

And best of all, I don’t have to leave the job I love. It’s awesome when this stuff works out.

Primary Flop

This post’s title is not meant to reflect any of the candidates in yesterday’s G.O.P. primary. It is a commentary on how that primary wound up in the Mount Washington Valley. Since mid-December not one candidate came to the Mount Washington Valley. The national media made New Hampshire sound like a madhouse, where you couldn’t go two steps without running into a presidential hopeful. Well I’m here to say that wasn’t the case in Conway, Jackson, Bartlett, Madison or any of the towns I cover. The closest a candidate got was the Mount Washington Hotel, in Coös County,  on the other side of Crawford Notch.

It’s interesting to reflect on that wall to wall coverage with that in mind. I read several stories today about how there were more reporters at candidate events than New Hampshire voters. It certainly felt that way here. I spent the afternoon covering a death on Mount Washington instead of covering politics because, as far as I could tell, there were no politics to cover.

Oh well, the next race is only four years away.

Decisions, Decisions

We got the judge’s order in our Right to Know case today. Apparently I was convincing enough that the judge felt the need for an in camera review of the documents, meaning he gets to look at them and decide if they are of a private or public nature. Others in the office were taking it as a win, but I am a bit more cautious. To me it means neither side won handily, and the judge needs to peek at the cliff notes to make his decision. It does, however, prolong the matter. So we didn’t lose, which was the big thing.

On a similar note, the 26-year-old son of a police commissioner was arrested in November for stealing a truck, and it will be on tomorrow’s front page (below the fold). It in no way reflects on the performance of the elected official, but it was a significant enough crime we just couldn’t ignore it. The result is her name and that of her son will be taken to task because of their relationship. If it wasn’t for his mother’s position on the police commission we wouldn’t report this crime. And yet there is no way to ignore it, because if we don’t put it out there people start wondering if we are colluding with the “powers that be” to keep the commissioner’s son out of the paper.

It’s kind of too bad, but the decision had to be made that way. There wasn’t much we could do after we learned the story — it’s just a newsworthy event. And what’s more, the young man was the victim of an armed robbery two weeks before he allegedly stole the truck, an incident I agreed he didn’t need to be named in because he was the victim. It was again newsworthy that it was a family member of the commissioner who was robbed, but I didn’t think which family member it was was relavant.

Fast forward two months, however, and I can’t leave out that detail. It all ties together. In some ways these stories write themselves. I couldn’t have imagined two months about the person I was trying to protect from undue scrutiny after he’d just had a gun in his face would be looking at a year in jail himself. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like you have any decisions to make when you write a story — this one is one of those instances.

2011

It’s the time of year everyone is doing their “Year In Review.” I’m no different — at work I started writing up 2011 today, and I hope to be finished by tomorrow. For the Sun my year was two things: Dittmeyer murder and Irene. For LPJ, however, it starts a few months earlier:

Iraq — It seems that would obviously be the seminal experience of any year, but in a year like 2011 three weeks in Iraq and Kuwait quickly falls into the background. Looking back, however, it still amazes me I got on that first flight out of Boston, made it to the Iran/Iraq border and made it home. It was one incredible trip.

Dittmeyer — She was killed on a Saturday night, and by Monday the Mount Washington Valley was seething with reporters. We were able to beat all of them, however; probably one of the coolest experiences of the year.

Drugs — I’ve said this before, but sometime in August I wrote what was probably the best story I’ve done so far about how drugs and crime are intertwined in the Mount Washington Valley, and how the problem is only getting bigger. It was a great narrative, something I read today and am still surprised I wrote.

Investigations — There were really two, both involving the police department. One was into how they spend their money, and the other was into money stolen from the evidence room. Both of them wound up being one-off stories in a sense, but they proved that the Sun knows what it means to be a watchdog newspaper.

Irene — This was a big one. When the storm hit we were out of town, and the Saco and Rocky Branch flooded, blocking us from getting home. We slept in Portland, Maine, and when I got dropped off at the paper in the morning I went right to it. That week was all about telling people’s stories, stories that most people didn’t realize had happened. It was a blur, much like the week of Dittmeyer, but it was one where the paper made a difference in how people saw their experience. Again, that’s why I got into this job.

Candidates — From Newt to Mitt, Santorum to Paul, nothing is more interesting than getting to sit down with the people vying to sit in the presidential seat. I’ve been able to argue with and push several of these perspective contenders, something few people get to do. It only happens once every four years, and I’m sure glad I was there for it.

Court — This is the latest in a string: arguing before a judge about the public’s right to know about the actions of elected officials. I still don’t know the outcome, but it was still an experience to be going to the courts to fight for transparency.

There have been dozens of other notables, from producing videos to my first NPR paycheck and being named employee of the year, but that’s the highest highs. Hopefully 2012 will burn even brighter, but I’m not sure how it can.

Happy New Year.

The Holiday Season

December has a way of ripping by. Between endorsements, court battles and employee parties it’s nearly January, and I have barely kept up with LPJ.

So it’s time to update.

Endorsements: The Conway Daily Sun endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 G.O.P. nomination, although without enthusiasm. He is essentially the best of a poor field, the endorsement said, and so he’s the one we’d go with. Huntsman was good, but he seemed to me to be working out the bugs for a 2016 presidential run. Everyone else was severely lacking in some way. So we went with Mitt. It was an uninspiring choice, but overall the experience was a painstaking one. Buddy Roemer, in fact, was an office favorite, but you can’t endorse someone no one has even heard of. As a protest vote it would fall flat because people wouldn’t even know what we were saying. So we went bland but reliable — Mitt 2012. I look forward to similar discussions around the general election.

Court: We had our day in court with the Conway School Board over whether they had the right to deny our request for documents under the Right To Know law. I got to argue the paper’s position in front of a Superior Court judge, while two attorneys, two school board members and the superintendent took the opposing position. It was a ton of fun. I laid out the paper’s points as well as I could, and then laid out arguments against each point the two lawyers made. I’m not sure how we/I did yet, but if we lose we have the right to appeal. And regardless it was a fantastic experience.

And lastly, I was named the Sun’s employee of the year. I got the award at the paper’s Christmas party. It’s all glass and weighs as much as a brick. I have a photo somewhere, I’ll have to put it up here…

A lot happens in a couple weeks, even in a slow news month like December…

The Story

This is the big story we did. In print it actually said by Lloyd Jones and Erik Eisele, but because I uploaded it to the system it only says my name online. It certainly was not just mine.

The most interesting thing has been the fallout—very little. The only things we’ve received are more tips of things to look at and more reports like those in the story. I expected to hear a lot more criticism, but maybe it’s just a question of not yet.

So that story is done for now, but we still have to fire court paperwork to challenge the refusal of our right to know request under RSA 91-A. I’m interested to hear what a judge says about their attorney’s position.

Defending the Public’s Right to Know

I’ve got a good story coming out tomorrow, written in collaboration with one of my colleagues at the Sun. It’s about a school board member who gets out of control at sports events and school administration’s unwillingness to release information about it. We were able to get people who were familiar with the documents do go on the record, however, and do almost the exact same story as we would have done otherwise. The only difference was an added portion about the school’s refusal and basing the stories on quotes instead of documents. We confirmed with five different people the school received complaints, however, so we know the information is good. And they all went on the record to confirm it.

Then today I got to call the school board members to get their comments. I pushed hard for explanations as to why information about a public official was being kept from the public, and in at least on instance a board member felt I was too aggressive, even hostile. That sucks, since I was only looking for information, but luckily one of my colleagues was able to speak to her later and let her know I hadn’t intended to come off that way.

It is hard to sit by, however, while a board denies the public their right to information. The unfortunate point in this instance is that it was administrators, not board officials, who made the decision. The board members didn’t know anything about what was going on, even though the administration was ostensibly acting in the board’s name. I pushed the board because they should have been made aware of what was going on. They weren’t, and that stinks.

But it has made for a good story, and at the end of the day we did good work. Despite efforts to keep potentially embarrassing information about  a public official private we were able to get it out there. That’s what it’s all about, and it’s nice to be able to finish the day knowing that’s just what we did.

Underground

I caught this program online the other night and was blown away (click here to watch the entire program):

 

Watch Syria Undercover on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

I was impressed by the dedication of the reporter and the level of risk she was willing to take to get the story out, and I told her as much on Twitter.

Any report like this, of course, is only a small part of the story, but when the coverage is so restricted it is wonderful to have someone willing to go where others aren’t. PBS’ Frontline, like NPR’s Poisoned Places series, is an example of excellent investigative reporting in broadcast form. Too rare these days, but stunning when it’s done well. Bravo PBS, eye opening coverage.

Simply the Best

This is the best story I’ve every written. If I can do this sort of story once a year I’ll be psyched. If I could pull it off every three months I’d be cleaning house. I went back and read it the other day before I sent it to the John Jay College Center on Media, Crime and Justice for consideration for one of their annual awards. I reread it and was doubly impressed that I’d pulled it off. I just put it up on the stories section, and I figured I’d put it in here too. Hopefully I’ll hear good news about the award. It’s $1,000 cash prize. That’d be cool…