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When a Navy helicopter crashed off the coast of Virginia in January 2014, Jason Paladino lost one of his childhood friends - Petty Officer Third Class Brian Collins. But instead of grieving the loss and moving on, Paladino, a journalism grad student at UC-Berkeley, decided to investigate. Working with The Virginian-Pilot and NBC News he helped expose serious problems with the MH-53E Sea Dragon, the Navy’s oldest and most crash-prone helicopter.
On this episode of the podcast we’re going behind the investigation with Paladino, Mike Hixenbaugh of The Virginian-Pilot and Anna Schecter of NBC News.
Find more episodes on our podcast page and on iTunes.
Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.
Read some of the follow-up stories:
Want to know how some of the biggest names in journalism got where they are today? We did. So we asked some of our 2015 CAR Conference Knight Scholars to interview conference attendees and share pieces of their conversations for our blog.
Rikke Østergård Hansen, Danish Broadcasting Corporation
Before Rikke Østergård Hansen began working as a live reporter for the Danish Broadcast Company, she was a freelancer in Syria. Reporting overseas was a job she'd dreamed about since she was 15 years old.
Personal experience drew her to attention to the Middle East. She attended a public school and ended up in a class with a large number of foreign students from the region.
"At the time in Denmark, there was this debate about forced marriages," she said. "I had these girls in my class that had met these guys one or two times and were going to be happy and they were just so overly in love. I thought, this is a side of the story that you don't see."
Concerned for her safety in Syria, however, she knew she had to find a different job.
Working as a journalist in Denmark has had its ups and downs. Østergård Hansen is safe working in the capital, but said the public's view of journalists there makes her job difficult. In fact, Østergård Hansen said a survey of Danes found that they trusted journalists about as much as they do politicians.
"They don't trust journalists," Østergård Hansen said. "I get that a lot, I'll walk into a party and everyone will be like, there goes the journalist. You know you have to watch what you say."
For Østergård Hansen, the conference has been way more than networking and an overseas trip. She said she picked up some tools she plans to use back in Denmark.
"I've come to believe that Excel is way more important than I thought it was," she said. "It's very inspiring as well because we have open databases in Denmark too, so I know there must be a lot of material to find out."
– Taylor Harris
Ron Nixon, The New York Times
From college music major to New York Times Washington correspondent, Ron Nixon has had an exciting, multi-dimensional career.
Nixon wrote a novel while in college, and the arduous experience sparked a career in journalism that has lasted three decades.
Throughout his career, Nixon has focused on topics such as agriculture, government and electric utility. In 2012 he reported a story on faulty bed rails that had been causing injuries and deaths.
Nixon encourages young journalists to take their time and understand the importance of the journey.
"You can't start flying; you have to start walking, and then you can advance to [flying]," Nixon said.
Success doesn't happen overnight, he said.
"Map out your career, choose what you want to do, and then take the steps to get there," Nixon said.
– Ashley McDonough
Andy Boyle, NBC Breaking News
Andy Boyle found his love for story telling accidently. He was studying vocal music performance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln when someone suggested he write for the college paper.
After graduating in 2009, he worked for several news organizations, including the Boston Globe, New York Times and Chicago Tribune. Today he's a full-stack web developer at NBC Breaking News.
Boyle boasts a diverse skillset, but he said his tenacity, creativity and ability to network got him where he is today.
"Ask questions, get to know the path to where they got in their career and create a path of your own," Boyle said.
– Ashley McDonough
Corey Johnson, The Marshall Project
Marshall Project investigative reporter Corey Johnson has focused on earning justice for people across the country.
Because of his dedication to educate readers on the flaws of the criminal justice system, Johnson has seen the gamut of corruption, injustice and fraud. He's investigated the wrongly convicted, female prison sterilization and inadequate school earthquake safety.
Born and raised in Atlanta, Johnson credits the civil rights movement for developing his passion for righting injustice. He considers journalism his outlet for taking action.
"I'm not an activist," he said, "but if I can give people information, they can take that information to create change."
Johnson believes a key to successful journalism is to always be reading.
"As a journalist, the public is looking for you to point them in the direction of what is true versus what is false," he said. "You can't do that unless you've done your homework, and doing your homework is reading."
– Ashley McDonough
Paula Lavigne, ESPN
Working as an investigative reporter has resulted in plenty of excitement for ESPN's Paula Lavigne. In South Florida, Lavigne spent nine months investigating adults gambling on little league football. Because of Lavigne and her producer's reporting, new rules were implemented, a coach was suspended, and law enforcement stepped in.
"That story took about nine months because we had to work around the schedule of the season," Lavigne said. "It did make a difference. I don't think it solved all the problems, but it did change things."
The Nebraska native started working in news, but her computer-assisted reporting skills eventually earned her a job at ESPN headquarters in Connecticut. Knowledge of sports is a requirement, but Lavigne thinks there is something else young journalists need to learn in order to break into the field today.
"Knowing how to mine social media, it's huge," Lavigne said. "Data tools and techniques are constantly changing, so that's the unique thing about this conference."
– Taylor Harris
Taylor Harris and Ashley McDonough are 2015 CAR Conference Knight Scholars and journalism students at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
By Glynn A. Hill
Four journalists discussed tips for reporting out a data story at the 2015 CAR Conference in Atlanta. Steve Myers, visiting professor at Texas Christian University and special projects editor at The Lens, facilitated the panel. Speakers included James Ball, a special projects editor at The Guardian; Andy Lehren, a reporter for The New York Times; and Kendall Taggart, a reporter on the investigative team at BuzzFeed News.
So you have that data set. Now what? The next step, they said, is understanding what you have, which demands the following:
Lehren talked about the potential pitfalls of data. He suggested determining its internal and external validity. The former involves looking inside the data set and asking what makes sense. Do codes match? Is the basic information accurate?
The latter involves asking whether the Government Accountability Office or top researchers have ever looked at the data set. He said you should think outside the box and find experts, reports, and documents that support the information. It’s important to cross-check the data.
Lehren suggested looking to any of the following for corroboration:
Furthermore, you should check the data against other public sources. Look for rates in a data set and figure out how the math was done, keeping in mind the world at large and how things look more broadly. To corroborate data against published sources, you should examine the following:
Glynn A. Hill is a 2015 CAR Conference Knight Scholar and budding multimedia journalist from Howard University in Washington, D.C. He's worked with The New York Times Student Journalism Institute and interned for the USA TODAY, and most recently, The Washington Informer.
This week is Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of open government and access to public information. To honor the occasion, we're unveiling a special video series on the NSA files.
We talked with James Ball, special projects editor at the Guardian, about reporting one of the most high-stakes stories in the last decade.
He discusses the delicate balance between moving quickly and getting the story right. He talks about Edward Snowden's skepticism that the media would be willing to publish the material, and about winning him over and earning more of the documents. The complexity and classified nature of the files made accuracy as challenging as it was essential.
Ball also gets practical during the video series, discussing how building glossaries helped readers understand the NSA stories. He offers suggestions journalists can use to keep their own materials private, and provides pointers for young journalists to succeed in an industry increasingly turning to data-supported stories.
The series is up on YouTube now. We’ll be posting videos on our Twitter and Facebook accounts over the next few days.
Happy Sunshine Week!
Following the April 29th execution of Clayton Lockett, the Tulsa World, along with legal representation from The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed a lawsuit against the state of Oklahoma. On Friday, more than 5,000 pages of interview transcripts and other records were released.
The transcripts include about 100 interviews the Department of Public Safety conducted with witnesses during its investigation into Lockett's execution. However, some of the records are heavily redacted without explanation from the DPS.
A hearing in the World's lawsuit is set for March 27 in Oklahoma County District Court.
Read the three-part series from the Tulsa World following the April 29th execution.
By Kasia Kovacs
Ask anyone the biggest news story of the past year, and chances are you’ll hear some variation of "Ferguson" or "police shootings."
It’s a hot topic, and not without reason. After the shooting of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo., the police chokehold that killed Eric Garner in New York, and the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was killed while playing with a fake gun in Cleveland, Ohio, the ensuing protests and public outcry were palpable around the world.
As reporters, we have a responsibility to hold those who abuse power accountable. One of our best tools? Data.
But how should we use that data? "Policing the police" panelists Ben Poston of the Los Angeles Times, Topher Sanders of the Florida-Times Union and Rob Barry of the Wall Street Journal shared advice on how to uncover law-breaking law enforcement.
Ask for police reports and legal settlements from police departments. Find out if there have been wrongful arrest settlements and, if so, how many. Are there any trends? And if police departments dance around releasing the information, really press those departments to release all of the data, Barry said, instead of partial databases.
Don’t stop at police departments, either. Find state and district attorneys and request data on drug crimes. Head to your state’s juvenile justice department and ask for juvenile crime data to look at sentences for young offenders. Ask for salary data for prosecutors in your local office. Some of these elected officials can control their own budgets; keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.
The data might be dirty, which is what Poston found in his investigation of the Los Angeles Police Department. He was doubtful of reports that crime in Los Angeles had been steadily decreasing for twelve years, and he decided to check it out.
As it turned out, police had misclassified numerous crimes, labeling "burglary" as "trespassing" and "theft" as simply "lost items," among other misclassifications. When Poston cleaned up the data, he got quite a different story. Crime hadn’t been steadily decreasing after all. After cleaning the data, the numbers shot back up.
Sanders recommends dropping by the homes of police officers and citizens —without telling them first. Be straightforward and get right to your questions. If your source is not at home, write a handwritten note and leave it in her door or mailbox.
It’s equally important to stay in contact with your sources, even if you think they hate you.
By Keytron Hill
Three questions for Madison Feller, a journalism student at the University of Missouri and volunteer at the 2015 CAR Conference.
Q: What do you love about journalism?
A: I'm not a hard news reporter, it's just not for me, but I love feature stories and longer stories. I just love sharing people's lives.
Q: What's your dream job?
A: I want to be a features editor for a women's magazine. A lot of people underestimate women magazines, but I think they're going in a great direction and I want to be a part of that.
Q: Do you feel like women's voices are heard enough in journalism? Do you feel like women get enough credit?
A: It definitely has been lacking. I feel like our voice is just as important. As a woman, I feel that it can be more equal.
Keytron Hill is a 2015 CAR Conference Knight Scholar and broadcast journalism student at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
By Tierra Smith
As a first-timer to the CAR Conference and someone previously unfamiliar with data journalism, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by Saturday of NICAR15.
I was dropped into a whole new world where everyone was speaking a totally different language. I felt myself constantly clutching my notepad and scribbling down "new words" like "D3." I was determined to figure out what everything meant.
Then I found "Create your own interactive newsgame without coding." The hands-on class was prefect for someone interested in data journalism, but who doesn’t know a lot of HTML or other programming languages.
Rebekah Monson, cofounder of The New Tropic, walked us through how to create text-based web games, similar to the choose-your-own-adventure books we read as kids. Text-based games are about narrative and choice. The games usually present a problem and, based on players' responses, it walks them through an adventure.
There are several types of interactive games. Some are news-based while others highlight a problem with society. Monson suggested a few for us to try: Depression Quest, A Dark Room and Howling Dogs.
To build our games, we used the application Twine 2. I was surprised by how little coding was necessary to create something interactive. The creation process met you at your level — from beginner to the most advanced data junkie.
The possibilities were limitless. The best part was that Twine was so user-friendly that it sparked my desire to learn more. Monson provided a link to the Twine 2 Syntax Guide, which is a resource for more codes and tools. You can resize fonts, add images or design elements and use other tools to enhance your narrative.
I decided to make a game about the decisions facing college freshmen. Would they live on or off campus? What about a meal plan? Would they study or party? At the end, their choices would determine if they survived their first year or ended up in their parents' basement. I think my game will help incoming freshman with decision-making and planning.
I am still working on my game, but I am excited to see how it turns out.
Tierra Smith is a 2015 CAR Conference Knight Scholar and a senior at Grambling State University. She is studying mass communication with a concentration in sports journalism. She is also the editor-in-chief of The Gramblinite at GSU.
By Kasia Kovacs
View presentations from Joanna Lin and Cezary Podkul.
Journalists didn’t have to look far to prove that Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock was using taxpayer money to pay for surfing in Waikiki, parasailing in Argentina and renovating his office with Downtown Abbey flair.
All the reporters had to do? Check Schock’s Instagram account.
The account was chock-full of selfies, some posing with celebrities like Ariana Grande, and others taken from the far corners of the world. According to the Washington Post, quite a bit of the funding for those trips came from campaign and taxpayer money.
But politicians’ illegal spending habits can’t always be found simply by scrolling through social media.
During the “Watchdogging public spending” panel, Mike Maciag from Governing Magazine, Joanna Lin from the Center of Investigative Reporting and Cezary Podkul from ProPublica began by playing a Daily Show clip blasting Schock’s spending habits. But the speakers spent the majority of the time giving advice to fellow journalists on how to keep an eye on public spending when Instagram isn’t enough.
Maciag emphasized the importance of public employment and payroll spending. After all, a huge chunk of the workforce is employed by the public sector.
If you ask the right questions, data about public employment and salaries can provide inspiration for substantive stories and investigations. For instance, reporters should:
Reporters have several resources for finding this data:
Lin also spoke about payroll, but she focused on public employees who give themselves hefty salaries made possible by, say, impossibly high property taxes and voter fraud (Robert Rizzo, anyone?).
How can you tell if a public employee is making an outrageous amount of money at the expense of taxpayers? Good question. Find data that answers the following:
Doing this can be tricky. In some instances, you may have to contact local agencies directly to find that salary data. Another thing to keep in mind is the different socioeconomic realities of various towns and cities.
If you’re a statistician, you’ll need to do some linear regression analysis to detect whether that salary that seems like an outlier is really an outlier based on the municipality’s socioeconomic makeup.
(If you’re not a statistician, now would be a good time befriend one and add her to your team.)
And finally, Podkul asked the question: Where do governments get the money in the first place?
Well, a lot of that money comes from the municipal bond market, which can be used to build infrastructure and support other essential government programs. But some of those municipal bonds can also be abused and run cities or states into debt.
The five most common bonds that drive governments and school districts down into a deep debtor’s valley?
If you see your government borrowing from the bond market, that idea light bulb hovering above your head should immediately start glowing. You might find that, hey, maybe your city or state isn’t in great fiscal shape. Dig further to find out why.
By Bianca Brown
One day. Sometimes that's all the time you have to sift through data and turn around an accurate story.
During the "Broadcast: Viz, quick hits and the data you need" panel, Jamie Grey, an assistant professor of radio and television journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism; Andy Pierrotti, an investigative reporter with KVUE News in Austin; and Tisha Thompson, an investigative reporter at WRC-TV NBC4 in Washington, offered some easy ways to turn spreadsheets of data into a 90-second package.
There are some spreadsheets we should all have on hand. Keep a folder with all of the salaries of government officials in your area. That way, the next time your local official misuses taxpayer dollars, you can show the difference between how much he is making and how much he is spending. Have the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) websites bookmarked on your computer. If there is ever a plane crash in your area, the sites have easy search tools that allow you to see plane crashes that have happened in your state in the past.
We all have times when a story just doesn't work out. You made the right calls and put in the right FOIA requests, but your story just doesn't come together in time. That's why it's a good idea to have some easy stories saved for that rainy day. Every TV station has some stories in common. Journalists receive hundreds of calls about lemon cars and bad apartments. Look up some quick statistics about certain makes or models of cars. Do lemon cars frequently come from a certain dealership in your area? Find ways to make a unique story out of this issue. For a quick story on bad apartments, request some data on city code violations in your area.
Look at the stories of people in your area and find data on them. Does your area have a large immigrant community? If there's a big car crash, see if wrecks are common at that intersection. If you look in the right places, you'll find data to strengthen any story.
Bianca Brown is a 2015 CAR Conference Knight Scholar and a senior broadcast journalism major at Howard University. She is an Emma Bowen Foundation scholar and current intern for CBS News in Washington, D.C.
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