LA Weekly report highlights power of long-form writing

The students of JRN203 have been on Spring Break for the last week. Before starting their vacation, the students explored the role and potential of long-form online writing. Well, an excellent example of what we talked about in class appeared last week in LA Weekly, an alternative news magazine that’s part of the Village Voice company. Reporter Gene Maddaus exposed a man who claimed to be making a $2.2 billion bid  for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Frank McCourt, current owner of the Major League Baseball team, has been in bankruptcy and holding an ongoing auction to sell the Dodgers under tremendous pressure from the league and LA fans. Josh Macciello came seemingly out of nowhere in early January to say on ESPN Radio that he was joining the competition to own one of America’s most storied sports teams. While generally viewed as a long shot, Maddaus reports Macciello was taken seriously by most media because he showed some documents that appeared to say he owned one or more gold mines and had access to money from other investors.

But Maddaus decided not to just take Macciello at his word (which other media did) and extensively researched Macciello’s background and the strength of his financial backing. Maddaus found Macciello has sought to put together any number of multi-million dollar deals over the years, but never seems to pull them off. In this situation, Macciello’s “gold mines” turn out to be spectulative mineral claims that could be worth billions or worth nothing, depending on what actual mining would discover. Macciello apparently believed he also had access to a $100 billion fund set up by a Korean businessman. But Macciello reports the businessman set up the fund to invest in new energy research and did not have any interest in using some of the money for buying the Dodgers.

After threatening the news magazine with legal action, Macciello admitted he would have to drop his “bid” but blamed the reporter and LA Weekly for causing the deal to fall apart.

I encourage the JRN203 students, and anyone else interested in quality long-form journalism, to read the full-story and tell me what you think in the comments section.

PVCC students explore breaking news about Sheriff Babeu

Students in the JRN203 class are rushing to write breaking news tonight about Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and recent allegations of threatening to have an ex-boyfriend deported to Mexico.

The students at Paradise Valley Community College are researching media reports about the accusations against the sheriff that started with an exclusive story posted online Thursday, Feb. 16, by Monica Alonzo with the Phoenix News Times. Ms. Alonzo reported a Mexican immigrant says he had a two-year relationship with Mr. Babeu, a Republican known nationally for his tough-0n-the-border positions. When the relationship ended, the ex-boyfriend identified only as Jose said the sheriff made threats about potential deportation unless Jose stayed silent about their time together.

Sheriff Paul Babeu, as provided by the Pinal County Sheriff's Office website

Mr. Babeu was not widely known to be gay before the Phoenix New Times story appeared, and he is currently campaigning for a congressional seat in a new, largely rural district in Arizona that tilts heavily toward Republican voters.

The sheriff held a news conference on Saturday, Feb. 18, at which he acknowledged his sexual orientation and the relationship with Jose. But Mr. Babeu strongly denied he made any threats. Instead, Mr. Babeu said he was the real victim because Jose had accessed the congressional campaign’s website and social media accounts without approval and left inappropriate comments. Jose had previously been a campaign worker who had helped to manage the website and social media.

While the Phoenix New Times said it would not disclose Jose’s full name or other identification, KTVK-TV reported on Monday night that it had his full name and a photo of the man. The Phoenix TV news station did not disclose its source for the name or the photo, which hopefully will prompt the students in JRN203 to ask if the report was ethical.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Babeu announced he has asked the Gila County Attorney’s Office to conduct an independent investigation to determine if he or Jose is telling the truth, the Arizona Republic reported. However, the Associated Press reported that Attorney General Tom Horne will conduct the investigation instead.

The story has received significant national attention as well with stories in The Daily Beast and multiple posts in the Huffington Post.

Update: On Monday, Feb. 27, ABC15 television reporter David Biscobing had a story with different allegations for Babeu. ABC15 reported that Babeu previously had been headmaster for an alternative school in Massachusetts, and lived with one of the students — a 17-year-old boy.  On Tuesday, Babeu’s lawyer demanded that ABC15 and other news outlets retract this story, providing a letter supposedly from the student saying he knows Babeu but never lived with him.

Check out this great list of blogging tips

This week in JRN203, we discussed blogging as a platform for writing and publishing. One resource that I didn’t mention in class is 33 Must Read Tips & Tutorials for Bloggers. This standing page was actually is a list of links to other sites that offer specific tips and hints about blogging.

This collection was gathered and displayed on a blog about Internet marketing for real estate experts. So some of the links relate primarily to small business owners and professionals. But most of the choices have useful information for anyone interesting in learing more about blogging. The tips cover how to get started, basic writing advice, and building an audience. My favorites include:

• How to Write an Article in 20 Minutes, with good ideas for just about any working journalist,
• 5 Ways to Build Your Voice, recognizing that a strong and consistent point of view is critical to successful blogging, and;
• How to get traffic for your blog, which of course is the main reason journalists want to blog.

Check out the complete list and tell me your favorite in the comments below.

Welcome students of Spring 2012!

A new class for JRN-203, Writing for Online Media, is now underway at Paradise Valley Community College. Greetings to this class and previous students as we pick up this class blog once again. My goal will be to post tidbits and updates throughout the semester. If you have any ideas that you would like for me to write about, please post your suggestions in comments or send me an email at william.templar@pvmail.maricopa.edu.

Investigative intern uncovers more money given to highly paid university administrators

Robby Soave was an investigative reporting intern in the Fall 2010 with the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix (Full disclosure: Le Templar works as communication director at the Goldwater Institute). Soave’s final project was a research story into salaries and benefits for employees of Arizona State University and the University of Arizona.

Soave reported that professors and other university employees have received few pay increases for a couple of years because of budget cuts and a looming state budget crisis. But select administrators and professors who already were among the best-paid employees have seen their salaries go even higher.

In fact, Soave found that one of every three employees already making more than $150,000 a year had received pay raises since 2007. Of all university employees, only one of every 14 have seen any kind of pay increase in the past four years.

The story, “Higher Ed, Higher Pay: Salary Increases at ASU and UA Go to Highest Paid Administrators and Professors,” was published as Watchdog Report, a feature of the Goldwater Institute to hold government officials accountable through journalism stories.

Soave graduated from the University of Michigan in the spring of 2010 and is a former editorial page editor for The Michigan Daily. He currently is assistant editor for Student Free Press.

Get your hashtags here!

All aspiring journalists should gather a list of websites devoted to the industry to follow. This includes the official blog for the Society of Professional Journalists, the world’s oldest and largest association of people committed to telling the news (Full disclosure: I’m a longtime member of SPJ).

The blog will offer various useful tools and ideas to help journalists do their job better. For those of you already active on Twitter, SPJ has gathered a comprehensive list of hashtags related to journalism. Take a look and pick those hashtags that you want to follow to keep up with the latest news about the news business!

Hello world!

We are just getting started. Expect this blog to blossom in the coming weeks as JRN-203 gets rolling in the Spring of 2011.