Oct. 3, 2008

Wichita Watchdogs talk FOI

In Kansas, reporters often must wait for public records to be extracted from a salt mine. After a few years, records required to be retained are stored deep underground at a giant salt mine complex in Hutchinson. That's one of the many tidbits we learned last weekend during a Watchdog Workshop at Wichita State University. More than 50 print and TV journalists attended the event, which also included hands-on training in using Excel spreadsheets.

Here are a few tips from the workshop that you might find useful:

• Nothing in Kansas state law prevents someone in a closed meeting from later discussing it with a reporter. That may be true in your state, too.


• The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) typically cannot be used by police, fire departments, funeral homes and others to deny releasing certain information. The law applies only to specific health-care providers. Full details are available at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.pdf.


• Broadcast journalists who juggle multiple assignments can make their mark with watchdog stories that focus on consumer issues. Remember: Everyone is a consumer.


• For better results in tracking down people and profiling them, try Pipl.com. It looks through "deep Web" sites that other search engines miss, such as MySpace, Flickr and Friendster.


• Comprehensive information and data about federal spending and contracts is online at USAspending.gov.

Many thanks to our new friends at Wichita State and The Wichita Eagle. Special thanks to our guest speakers: reporter David Heath from the The Seattle Times, attorney Michael W. Merriam from Topeka and reporter Jennifer Strathman from KHSB-TV in Kansas City.

— Doug Haddix, IRE training director,

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IRE Member Updates

Pat Stith retires from The News & Observer

Veteran investigative reporter and longtime IRE member Pat Stith retires today from the The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. John Sullivan, who worked with Pat in as a young reporter, recalls getting hired by the legendary reporter and reflects on Stith's influence on his career in a new post online now at www.ire.org.

"How much experience you got?" he asked, his drawl so thick, I began to panic, fearing that my Midwestern ears would somehow misunderstand his questions.

I eagerly told him about the story I'd broken as an intern at the Chicago Reporter, and the two years I'd spent at NICAR learning computer-assisted reporting. I laid out a few slick programming tricks I'd learned, mentioned my graduate-level mapping class and sat back awaiting his reply.

Silence.

"You don't have any experience, do you?" he asked.

Appreciating that I was talking to Pat Stith, the Pulitzer-Prize winning CAR pioneer who'd cut down corrupt politicians when I was still sucking on a bottle, I replied:

"No sir, I don't."

Read the whole post If you'd like to share a favorite memory of your own from his career, you can leave a comment on the blog.

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