It’s SPJ’s Day of Giving!
There’s no better day than today to make a donation in support of ethical journalism.
There’s no better day than today to make a donation in support of ethical journalism.
“I am a journalist because my community needs someone to tell its stories.”
Freelance Writer, Editor and Publisher
“I’m a journalist because there’s no substitute for a well-informed public.”
Morning Edition Host / Producer, Maine Public Radio
“I am a journalist because helping people learn more about their community — the good, the bad, the flawed, the inspiring, etc. — helps us all to make better decisions and hold each other accountable.”
Homepage producer, Washington Post
“I am a journalist because my job gives me the opportunity to share stories that inform, educate and sometimes even inspire.”
Group Editor-in-Chief, Virginia, NC and SC Lawyers Weekly
“I am a journalist because I want to make a difference.”
Investigative Reporter, Indianapolis Star
“I am a journalist because I am compelled to be; because I am a storyteller and an educator; because we must be an informed people in order to preserve our country, our ideals and our way of life; because truth in story matters; and because no other career could ever be as satisfying.”
Director of Student Media at University of Tennessee Knoxville, Publisher Daily Beacon student newspaper
“I am a journalist because I want my country and its people to be healthy, educated and just.”
Assistant Professor of Journalism at Indiana State University
“I was a journalism professor because nothing is more important to a democracy than a free press and reporters who pursue truth.”
Professor Emeritus, Executive Associate Dean Emeritus, Indiana University School of Journalism
“I am a journalist because truth matters. It informs citizens to make decisions and protects our democracy. Truth is what I teach my children and so it is what I owe them.”
Broadcasting Professor, University of Cincinnati
“I am a journalist because I love seeking the truth almost as much as I love telling stories.”
Senior Editor, SagaCity Media
“I became a journalist because I believe in being a truth-teller, which is very important to my family's Cherokee heritage. Combine that with my very strong sense of fairness and a deep love of writing, and I was just born to be a journalist.”
Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Media, University of Idaho
“I'm a journalist because the public depends on truthful accounts about decisions by those in power.”
SPJ Region 2 Director
“I am a journalist because I believe greater connectivity and information leads to a better world.”
Senior, Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland College Park
“I am a journalist because I wanted to write about rock'n'roll and ended up rocking the First Amendment.”
Projects Editor, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Seafood from Slaves, an Associated Press investigation, discovers fish purchased in grocery stories in the United States may have been caught by slaves.
The Brothel Next Door, by student journalists working for the Capital News Service in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, looks at human trafficking in Maryland. They found that while human trafficking abounds in their state, very few are convicted.
BALTIMORE — These women’s stories, told in a variety of Maryland courtrooms, are similar. And chilling.
R, an immigrant in her early 20s with no papers, a third-grade education and a baby girl, entrusted her life to a man she met at a restaurant in Prince George’s County who told her he’d take care of them. Instead, he beat her and threatened to harm her daughter to force her into prostitution.
S, 23, took a bus from St. Louis to Baltimore to work for a man who promised he’d give her a job in his “webcam business.” Arriving on the ticket he paid for, she learned the man was actually a pimp — who told her she’d have to work as a prostitute to pay him back, including a stint in a hotel near Baltimore Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport.
C, a 14-year-old runaway, was walking down the street when a man offered her a ride and a place to stay in Clinton. He pampered her, fed her and took her shopping. Then on the third day, he revealed he ran a prostitution business and expected her to work for him. When she messaged friends on Facebook that she wanted out, he became violent.
Their stories, taken from court records, sketch out a common theme: Traffickers find vulnerable young women, seduce them with promises of security, then force them into the sex trade.
Read more: http://cnsmaryland.org/human-trafficking/
American Survivors, by The Washington Post, tells three timely and brutally honest stories about the effects of mass shootings, single fatherhood, and racial disharmony in America.
MILWAUKEE — The last student to arrive for fatherhood class was the only one holding a baby, and a dozen men looked up from their desks to stare. Paul Gayle, 19, had a pink diaper bag hanging off a shoulder decorated with tattoos of marijuana leaves, and a crying 7-month-old in his arms. “Come on, girl, chill out,” Paul said, carrying the baby to a seat in the corner. He offered her a rattle, and she swatted it away. He gave her a bottle, and she only cried louder. Finally, he reached into the diaper bag and took out a pacifier for her and a shot of Goody’s Headache Relief for himself.
“Sorry for the noise, y’all,” he said. “We’re both a little mad at the world today.”
“No problem,” the teacher said. “I’m up here talking about being a dad, and you’re doing it.”
“I’m trying,” Paul said. “But damn.”
Read more: http://www.spjnetwork.org/sdx/sdx15/feature-reporting-101.pdf
The staff of the Las Vegas Review-Journal was told by a representative of their mysterious new owner that the Review-Journal had been purchased by a hidden entity. The journalists were told: “Don’t worry about who they are. Just do your jobs.”
Upon hearing the news, the team of journalists uncovered and reported the truth: Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, known for his fortune and powerful connections to political and business interests, particularly gaming, had bought the paper, under the cover of a shell company.
LAS VEGAS — Thursday’s sale of the Las Vegas Review-Journal left staffers, and readers, with a lot of questions.
Perhaps foremost among them: Who now owns Nevada’s largest newspaper.
Answers remain unclear.
What is known: News + Media Capital Group LLC — a newly formed Delaware-domiciled company backed by “undisclosed financial backers with expertise in the media industry” — paid $140 million for the Review-Journal and its sister publications.
That’s around $38 million more than New Media Investment Group paid for the all of Stephens Media LLC, a national chain of newspapers that included the Review-Journal, eight other dailies and 65 weekly newspapers. The amount points to investors with deep pockets and a perhaps even deeper desire to own Nevada’s biggest newspaper even though the paper’s revenues, like those of all print publications, have been in decline.
Read more: https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/unidentified-buyer-paid-140-million-for-las-vegas-review-journal/
Want to run drugs, smuggle migrants and get away with it? The Texas Observer and The Investigative Fund discover that joining America’s biggest law enforcement agency might be the best way to do so.
Special Agent Gus Gonzalez leaned back in the front seat of his truck to get a better angle with his camera. It was December 5, 2011, a chilly day for a stakeout in subtropical South Texas. He’d been waiting for hours in the parking lot of an Academy sporting goods store in Brownsville. A few miles away, across the river in Mexico, a war over drugs and money raged. U.S. residents, paid by the cartels, were supplying most of the guns and ammunition.
Gonzalez and his partner, both agents with a federal law enforcement division called Homeland Security Investigations, had gotten a tip that two men they had been investigating would be buying bulk ammunition that day at the store, so they had staked out the parking lot to take photos and gather evidence. The day dragged on and the suspects still hadn’t shown. But now, Gonzalez couldn’t believe what he was seeing through the viewfinder of his camera. It was Manny Peña, a career U.S. Customs inspector. Back in Gonzalez’s days at U.S. Customs, he had worked side by side with Peña at one of Brownsville’s international bridges. He watched as the stocky 38-year-old with close-cropped hair rolled a shopping cart over to a white Chevy truck, then dropped a new Remington rifle into the bed and walked away. It didn’t look right.
Read more: http://www.spjnetwork.org/sdx/sdx15/mag-writing-r.pdf
An IndyStar investigation found that at least 368 athletes alleged some form of sexual abuse in gymnastics in the last two decades.
IndyStar has undertaken the first-ever attempt to quantify the scope of sexual abuse in the sport of gymnastics. Reporters also looked into what is behind the abuse — and what can be done to combat it.
IndyStar's investigation — titled Out of Balance — began with a story in August that examined USA Gymnastics' failures to report many allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement or child welfare agencies. In the second installment published in September, IndyStar uncovered allegations of sexual assault against longtime USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who was charged in November with three counts of criminal sexual assault of a person under 13 years old.
Read more: http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2016/12/16/indystars-investigation-sexual-abuse-gymnastics-what-we-know/95469994/
The Counted is a project by the Guardian that counts the number of people killed by police and other law enforcement agencies in the United States throughout 2015 and 2016, to monitor their demographics and tell the stories of how they died.
A new US government program to count killings by police, which draws on data collected by the Guardian, has recorded a sharply higher number of deaths than previous official efforts.
Homicides by police were logged by the Department of Justice’s new system at more than twice the rate previously reported by the FBI, according to new data that was published by the department on Thursday.
Officials said their new method for counting “arrest-related deaths” should improve the “reliability, validity and comprehensiveness” of information on killings by police, after the weakness of previous efforts was exposed.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/15/us-police-killings-department-of-justice-program
