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December 2007 - Posts

Monday, December 31, 2007 10:00 AM

The Harder They Fall

Bloomberg's Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry and Kathleen M. Howley have produced an outstanding series on the over-the-top characters behind the rise and fall of the subprime mortgage market. It all started with a Chinese dinner: Representatives of five of Wall
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Friday, December 21, 2007 8:30 AM

Protecting Their Own

In a fine example of investigative journalism, "Shielded From the Truth," Sam Roe, David Heinzmann and Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune show that the Chicago Police Department routinely clears officers who shoot innocent, unarmed civilians. The examples
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Thursday, December 20, 2007 9:34 AM

When Soldiers Cheat

In "Army Knew of Cheating on Tests for Eight Years," Bryan Bender and Kevin Baron of the Boston Globe continue their groundbreaking investigation into soldiers' cheating on the online exams that award points toward promotions. The cheating is rampant
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007 6:30 AM

My Friends' Killer Is My Friend

While many news organizations are cutting their foreign bureaus, the Associated Press has been bolstering its international coverage. As a result, the AP is offering interesting stories that no one else is. Chris Tomlinson's "Rwanda Genocide
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007 8:30 AM

Crossings

Two mid-sized newspapers have produced outstanding narrative series on Mexican laborers traveling to and from the United States. Each series helps us to better understand the people who make these perilous journeys. In "The Road Home to Mexico," by Amanda
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Monday, December 17, 2007 7:29 AM

Special Delivery

Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times has written a heart-warming little story, "He's the Mowing Mailman," about letter carrier Eric Wills, who discovers that the elderly people on his route need some help. Here's the turning point: Iron banisters
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Friday, December 14, 2007 8:30 AM

A Fragile Strength

In "Autistic Powerlifter's Quest," Rex W. Huppke of the Chicago Tribune does a fine job in maintaining dramatic tension to the very end of this moving narrative. The story follows Jamie Smith, 24, as he prepares to compete at the Special Olympics World
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Thursday, December 13, 2007 9:00 AM

Drugs and War

ABC News' investigative team, led by Brian Ross, worked with six graduate journalism students to discover whether troops returning home after serving in Iraq are facing the same battles with drug addiction as soldiers did when they came
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007 8:45 AM

Power to the People

This year The Philadelphia Inquirer not only covered the candidates running to become the city's next mayor, it also reached out to Philadelphia's citizens to ask them what they want their new leader to accomplish. The result is the intriguing "Great
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Tuesday, December 11, 2007 8:30 AM

A Story that Isn't a Story

Nearly all writers face instances when they can't figure out how to organize their stories. J.R. Moehringer takes this writers block and uses it to his advantage with "23 Reasons Why a Profile of Pete Carroll Does Not Appear in this
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Monday, December 10, 2007 5:00 AM

Songs From the Heart

"Not the Same Old Song, Dance," by Doyle Murphy of the Times Herald-Record, is a nice little story about an 86-year-old man named Joe who, after losing his wife of 57 years, fights his grief and loneliness by trying his hand at karaoke in local bars.
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Friday, December 07, 2007 8:45 AM

Pumping Pills

In an excellent special report, "Broken College System Lets Drug Cheats Slip Through the Cracks," Michael C. Lewis and Nate Carlisle of The Salt Lake Tribune show that college athletes can go their entire careers without being tested for steroids and
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Thursday, December 06, 2007 8:30 AM

Flim-Flam Land

To track the global surge in fake goods, The Columbus Dispatch sent reporter Jeffrey Sheban and photographer Jeff Hinckley to the source of most knockoffs, China, and to its main distributors, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand. Their report, "Fighting Fakes,"
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Wednesday, December 05, 2007 9:00 AM

Approaching Absurdity

Sometimes a story is so well written that it seems to tell itself. A fine example is "Out on a Limb Over Trimming Fiasco," by columnist Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times. Lopez grabs the reader with his first sentence. Everybody's got a horror story
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Monday, December 03, 2007 11:11 PM

Hear Their Voices

With a simple, yet revealing lede, Haley Edwards of the Seattle Times introduces the main characters in "For Classmates Fighting Cancer, Life Isn't Over -- Just Different": Three 12-year-old girls stand in the hallway outside their seventh-grade classroom.
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Sunday, December 02, 2007 11:15 PM

The Rock Comes to a Hard Place

Can one man save the poorest place in Texas' richest county? In "The Fight for Sugar Hill,"  Paul Meyer of The Dallas Morning News offers a brilliant profile of Rock Carpenter, a struggling pastor who tries to rescue the desperate
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