The IRE conference at the University of Alabama at Birmingham this past weekend was certainly eye opening, if nothing else. I made sure to take notes during the presentations to keep for future reference. Some of the stuff discussed, like tips on handling multiple investigative stories at once and how to go about filling out and submitting a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) form, was invaluable advice. I’m glad I took the time to attend the conference and learn from professionals working for other professionals. The conference was definitely a far better experience than many of the student-only meetings I have attended in the past with other organizations.

Scott Zamost, senior investigative producer for CNN’s Special Investigations Unit, gave a presentation about “breaking down walls,” centered on a story that he and a colleague had put together over a course of more than six months about the murder of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers. Key to the story were recordings of the army interrogations of the soldiers involved. However, despite repeated requests for the tapes, along with consulting all legal methods to obtain them, the army still refused to release them. However, after months of waiting and refusing to give up, copies of the tapes finally made their way to Zamost from an inside source.

Inside sources was how he found out about the newsworthiness of the story in the first place. The story was rather well-known overseas, where the trials were held, but not on American soil. One of the soldiers involved, who had broken the silence on the murders, was also the one who notified CNN’s office to what had gone on.

All sources have some sort of motivation for giving out information. Zamost said that the most important thing you can do as an investigative reporter is make new contacts and accrue sources wherever you go. When you leave somewhere, don’t leave your sources behind. Take them with you. Anyone and everyone can be a source. Don’t pass up office workers because they are usually the ones who know what is actually going on and can give you the information that you need.

When official gatekeepers, such as the government, give you a hard time about getting information, don’t give up. There are always many different ways to get the same information. Some examples are public court records, official forms and other seemingly unrelated documents. Where there is a will, there is a way. And always be transparent in your motives and actions. If people understand where you are coming from, and what you are doing, they are more trusting and willing to share information.

In the end, Zamost did get the tapes he needed and the story aired not only with footage of the trials, but with interviews of the soldiers involved, Iraqis who were from the area, and the families of the accused soldiers. It took many months to complete, but the reward was well worth it.

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So I heard IRE also hosts national conferences, with far more people and panels. If they are anything like this small gathering was, I would love to attend sometime in the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bp5b5C_SUE

Al.Com Features the Zelda Overworld Theme.

Hah, I’m such a nerd.

Anyway, since I’m here I might as well review a somewhat local news website, Al.com. This site hosts The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Mobile Press-Register. Combined, these three papers are the largest in the state, and cover a geographic area running from the Tennessee/Alabama border in the north, to the Gulf Coast in the south.

Through the years, I have seen this site grow from a somewhat questionable, plain white page website linking to the three separate papers with a hideous border that reminded one more of golf than news, to a content-laden site choc-full of local news and entertainment goodness.

Al.com is the definition of interactivity and the news. The site encourages people to sign up and submit their own photos, videos, news stories and blogs. This interactivity is so popular that it has its own “interact” section on the navigation bar, which takes the user to a page consisting entirely of user-generated content.

Also featured is an active forum in which users can discuss news, and the ability to comment on officially posted news stories. And people do take advantage of the comment feature, quite frequently, on controversial stories. It’s almost more entertaining to read the comments on a story, than the actual news story itself. It brings a whole new level of community involvement into local issues and politics.

Some plainer features of interactivity that the site features are RSS feeds, Twitter updates, video sharing and an interactive Facebook page. Also, a new feature allows users who sign up for the site to tailor the page to mirror their local news, instead of receiving all three newspaper feeds at once.

Al.com is also timely. News is updated throughout the day by the minute, and there is a constantly updating box that shows only the most recent news, along with when it was posted, regardless of the news content. Each article links back to the paper that the story originated from and the author of the story. Each contributor to the newspapers has his or her own webpage that states who they are, what they do, and who they work for.

In addition to news, the site features one of the largest classifieds in the state, as well as one of the largest job search engines in the state. The ads are from all three of the newspapers that are hosted on the site. Also, there are sections for real estate, automobiles, and a shopping locator for local businesses. I wonder how much the site makes from such listings, and whether or not locally placed classifieds automatically wind up on the website.

Anyway, there is just too much content on this site to sum it up in one quick review. It has all of the usual suspects that a regular print newspaper, and then some. The fact that it hosts not only one, but three newspapers turns it into a giant pile of information just waiting to be sifted through. However, the one drawback that Al.com has is that it does not host archives. After what appears to be six months, articles are cleared off of the site and are relegated back to the specific newspaper from whence they came, to reside in their archive systems for future searches.

In the end, I really do like this site and I visit it often. Especially to watch the videos.

I discovered http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ while browsing the internet the other day. It’s a website that hosts entertainment news, odd tidbits that make headlines and in general stuff that doesn’t get much attention, but is still weird anyway.

The site is a hassle to navigate. There, I said it. It infuriates me so much not to know what I’m clicking on, and by the time I get to the page that I was looking for, I’ve lost a way back to the page I was on. Also, there’s really no way to do a basic search of everything the site has because, despite it having a search bar, it has no keywords, no dates, no nothing available as a search reference. But… the site is still interesting. As a visitor, you don’t really have the choice to immediately go to a specific story, but instead are forced to either search the site for something you already know exists, or go directly to the featured article of each section for the day.

Articles featured have a lot to do with public records. This may not sound interesting, at first, but the site uses it to post crazy arrests, police chases, mug shots, and the like, as well as musician contracts with vendors. Anyone with a serious need for Hollywood entertainment can find mugshots of famous stars. Or just funny mugshots in general. I particularly enjoyed reading the backstage rider paperwork for the Foo Fighters. The document is almost dripping in sarcasm as a result of, what I assume is, playing at far too many bad venues with little accommodations for the band. It’s just a little interesting tidbit about the band that I never knew before, and would not have seen, had I not read it on this site.

The site features a newsletter and RSS feeds that keep fans of the site updated. They also have weekly contests, like this week’s game of match the woman’s mugshot with the blood alcohol level. It’s kind of, not a contest I’ve seen on a website before… But at least the prizes are intelligent (a free pick off the New York Times best selling book list).

Anyway, I’m not sure whether this site would be a real news site or not. On one hand, it does provide actual stories that are based on hard facts and evidence. On the other hand… does anything posted on this really matter? Also, the site in no way takes itself seriously, and does not update at any sort of regular pace. It’s also not conducive to any sort of social media, or networking, and lacks many of the features that other news sites have today, such as blogs and the ability to comment on stories. The site could benefit from a serious layout overhaul that would make it more user-friendly.

In the end, www.thesmokinggun.com is probably something I’ll only look at once, and then completely forget about the next day. It’s good for a few laughs and eyebrow raises, at least.

Finally done!

My sound slide presentation focuses on the Tuscaloosa housing market.

But I digress.

What I really love about the site is how it uses RSS feeds, widgets, and interactivity to allow users to comment on news stories and become involved in what they are reading. If you want to stay updated with that’s going on, you can simply add a widget to your facebook, google, and other formats, or you could just click on RSS feed and add it to your bookmarks. The site makes it very easy for users to come in and view stories.

Another interesting aspect is the fact that this website just isn’t very flashy. It looks similar to a newspaper in that the site breaks itself up into columns, avoids heavy graphics and is mainly text based. The interface is easy to use and click on, and graphics posted on pages are kept as small file sizes so they won’t overload slower internet users.

But, at the same time, the site isn’t without visual media. There’s a constant scrolling bar at the very top of the website that updates with the latest breaking news, and almost all stories have a short photo slide or video that accompanies them, available upon one simple click by the reader. Also, as a neat feature Reuters.com picks its favorite pictures each week and puts them together in photo slides for viewers to open in separate windows to browse through.

The only thing I wish Reuters.com did was a twitter feed. That’s the one thing I could not find on their interactivity options that I feel is sorely missing, despite the fact they offer active RSS feeds.  Still, in the end, this site is very user friendly and makes ample use of technology to convey all of the stories, pictures, videos and commentaries that it has to offer.