SPJ Blogs

A Web site, ratemycop.com, started a year ago, allows anyone to anonymously rate individual police officers in their communities. You can find all sorts of interesting comments, such as, "Swaggers like John Wayne but has the muscle of Olive Oil. Causes...

by Leo E. Laurence; Member: S-P-J National Committee on Diversity       NBC Sports has denied even being aware of any controversy over its coverage of the only openly gay Olympian, Australian diver Mathew Mitcham. ...

Every fall when a new crop of student leaders start meeting at universities we run into violations of open meeting laws, usually out of ignorance not arrogance, and it's up to student journalists to help educate student leaders to the law. The Daily Campus...

Congratulations to journalism students at Eastern Kentucky University for getting access to more complete university police reports. The Kentucky attorney general issued an opinion siding with the student newspaper, the Progress, saying the university...

Kudos to journalism students at Quinnipiac University for standing against a heavy-handed administration by leaving the school paper and starting their own independent news Web site, the Quad News, as reported through SPJ member news this week. Here's...

Let’s be frank here: I’m a little upset Mr. Leadingham beat me to the punch on this blogging business. How did he manage to write up a blog entry amid all his Leads-writing and Convention-plugging and Inbox-filling, and I, sitting here researching and...

It's not often that we feature stories about funerals on News Gems, but Mike White's "Funeral for a Teen Whose Bravery Touched So Many" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette grabbed my heart. White does an amazing job of using simple words to richly describe the...

The Arkansas Times writes about the state's Department of Human Services keeping secret basic details about the death of four children kept in foster care under the agency's responsibility. The agency hides behind a state law that says information regarding...

Remember how Cyclone Nargis devastated much of Burma (Myanmar) in early May, killing perhaps more than one hundred thousand people? The story has disappeared from the headlines because few American journalists have ventured into the totalitarian country...

If you haven’t checked out what C-Span is doing with the Democratic Convention, you’re missing some exciting journalism. The convention hub includes not only the videos you’d expect, but also blogs from nearly every state and Twitter feeds...

As Hurricane Gustav strengthens and heads toward the Gulf of Mexico, "New Orleans Repeating Deadly Levee Mistakes" by AP's Cain Burdeau raises alarming issues. Signs are emerging that history is repeating itself in the Big Easy, still healing from Katrina:...

Wow, this one rates in my top three wacky denials. According to an Argus-Press (Owosso, Mich.) story, the county sheriff denied the newspaper's public records request and then included a bill for $10 to mail the one-page denial letter. Zoinks! Like...

by Leo E. Laurence; Member, S-P-J National Committee on Diversity       Diversity seems to be missing in much of the massive coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Yet, it IS there, big time!       For...

The New York Times' The Quad is down to its four final schools for its annual college football preview.  For the past several weeks the blog has been counting down the top teams that will take the field this week.  Yesterday's featured...

I like columnists who go out of their way to do their own original reporting. Few do it better than the Los Angeles Times' Steve Lopez, who has a knack for finding compelling stories in places far from the corridors of power. For this column...

Filed under the "No Surprises Here" drawer, top Bush officials are recommending that the president veto the federal shield law if passed by the Senate this fall. The Free Flow of Information Act may come up for a vote following the current recess, and...

NABJ President Barbara Ciara:When I was an aspiring journalist back in the 1970s, a college professor taught a lesson that has shaped the kind of journalist I try to be today. He instructed our class to use three questions when approaching a story. Before...

The city of Richland, Miss., is gouging the public for public records copies and fortunately the Clarion Ledger called them on it in a recent story. The news story lists the outrageous charges for copies, including $20 for a copy of a police incident...

by Leo E. Laurence; Member, S-P-J National Committee on Diversity       As democrats convene in Denver to formally nominate Sen. Barrack Obama for president and Sen. Joseph Biden for vice president, journalists need to look...

It’s been two weeks since my introduction to SPJ. I’m still alive, so that’s a promising sign.   To say it’s been a whirlwind tour is an understatement.   The adjustment is going well, all things considered (although noticeably absent...

by Leo E. Laurence; Member, National Committee on Diversity       A university scholar in Barcelona, Spain was surprised by the strong and often hostile reactions to my earlier blog postings discouraging the use of the phrase...

"Broken Trust" by Eileen Kelley and Dan Horn of The Cincinnati Enquirer shows how city and state inspection systems designed to protect mentally ill nursing home residents broke down at two facilities. Cincinnati police Officer Aaron Layton was hunting...

Amy’s Blog woe about articles that garner pay checks, but never get published, sparked my own bad memories of squelched, portfolio dreams. Most painful, thinking back, was the thoroughly researched, painstakingly written, and -- I thought, and still...

As we head into the convention season, two Web sites are covering politics in fun ways. PolitiFact.com, sponsored by the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, checks the accuracy of statements made in the presidential candidates' speeches...

In 2001-2005, Milwaukee Public Schools spent $102 million building new classrooms, science labs and libraries to revamp neighborhood schools and thus reduce the costs of busing by convincing parents to choose nearby schools. In an excellent series, "Subtraction...