Multiple levels of truth

It's not simply just the truth anymore.  Farhad Manjoo's book True Enough dances upon the subject of truth in the media.  What is the truth anymore?  Who do we believe?  The news networks?  The Internet?  Can we even believe them anymore? 

Manjoo's book is a series of examples of why there really is no such thing as truth in the media anymore.  My professor deems this book as "very relevant to today's shift in media."  Now what does he mean by that? 

With the drastic change in technology over the recent years, it is incredibly difficult to deem what is true and what isn't.   The Internet makes the playing field even for everyone, making journalists' jobs even harder than they were before.  It does make things easier in terms of finding information fast, but the biggest problem with that advantage is that the credibility of that information is uncertain with the Internet.

Joe Shmoe can write a story and put it on the Internet.  Reporters for the newspaper and TV stations can also write the same story and put it on the Internet.  Naturally, we would read the story from the newspaper or TV station's website before reading Shmoe's story, but what if Shmoe's story contradicts the story the media wrote?  Which one is true?  Joe Shmoe claims he was there but we gravitate to the media's story because they're the professionals, but does that mean they reported the truth?  Or is Shmoe lying?
 Manjoo explains in his book how truth can be altered no matter what way it is reported in the media.  People lie, photos can be photoshopped, video can be edited, people have different sides to the story - all of these are the obstacles and, according to Manjoo, also benefits of not just the journalist, but the journalist's audience, too. 

How can they be both?  Well, it's very simple if you read the book, but I'll break it down for you.  In True Enough, there is an example of each of these obstacles and benefits. 

Photos can be photoshopped.  Manjoo talks about the incident where a photo of an American soldier standing next to a young Iraqi boy that's holding a sign that says "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my dad then knocked up my sister" ends up in an Islamic man's email inbox.  The way Manjoo wrote about this made it sound like it was really true until several pages later he revealed that the picture had been photoshopped.  The sign really said, "Lcpl Boudreaux saved my dad then rescued my sister." 

But during that time I was reading before I read what it was supposed to say, I really thought so lowly of this Boudreaux guy.  I thought he was absolute scum to write the sign and have the little Iraqi boy smile and hold it.  But it was all fake.  Someone photoshopped it and emailed it to the communications director for the civil rights group called Council on American-Islamic Relations.  Needless to say, he was outraged and it caused a big scandal in the media.  But who knows if that was the real picture?  I'll let you decide.  You can see it here.

Video can be edited.  Not only can video be cut up into pieces like it usually is, it can be slowed down and sped up, it can be with or without audio, and just those simple changes can drastically change the message of that video. 

For example, Manjoo talks about his interview with a man that believes that the incident on 9/11 was a conspiracy and swears that the twin towers were hit with missiles instead of the plane.  Manjoo says this guy points out when the video is slowed down and zoomed in, you can see a hint of orange right at the belly of the plane just before it hits the building.  Manjoo doesn't believe him, but that isn't changing that guy's mind.  He will believe it until the day he dies because that is what he sees.  Manjoo says that others have argued that the orange is the reflection of the sun on the plane's belly. 

There's a good bit of Manjoo's book that talks about selective exposure, where we select the messages we consume and avoid the ones that we disagree with.   For example, people with right-wing ideologies might prefer to watch Fox News instead of CNN, or listen to Rush Limbaugh instead of watch Anderson Cooper. 


I think this selective exposure concept is fascinating.  The different types of messages and the way we accept them is even more fascinating.  There is weak and strong dissonance, and there is weak and strong consonance.  Dissonant messages are messages that we don't particularly agree with.  Whether it is strong or weak is determined by its arguability.  If the message is easily proven wrong, it is a weak message.  If the message is supported by facts and evidence, then the message is likely to be considered strong.


Manjoo says "weak dissonance is the engine of cable talk."  I agree wholeheartedly.  He uses Bill O'Reilly's show as an example.  He is not the only show that thrives off of weak consonance.  It's every political show I've seen.  Bill Maher, Anderson Cooper, Rush Linbaugh, Glenn Beck; they all live and breath pointing out their enemy party's mistakes.  It makes them look good and the other guys bad.


In spite of all these ideas on how we view, learn and process the messages we see in the media, it all boils down to whose version of the truth you're going to like the best.  Do you like what Bill Maher says?  Watch his show some more.  Do you think Joe Shmoe was right?  Manjoo predicts that with technology making every form of media more accessible and more available, people are going to watch what they agree with.  We have the choice to do so, and we'll always take advantage of it as long as we have the access to it.

Nothing Like Pink Floyd

Trials are far more boring than I expected.  They weren't calling for them to tear down the wall or anything like that. 

But I got to see a couple of trials done the way they're always done in the real world.  The judge and the commanding presence that comes with him called the courtroom to order, one of the three cops sits down the delinquent, and the other two stand guard. 

Both cases involved violation of probation.  I know a lot of people on probation, too.  It sucks because they can't ever really party with me, but it's not that hard to not violate probation.  One of the men on trial was Lorenzo Rubio.  According to his probation agreement, Rubio is not allowed to drink alcohol or have weapons on him or in his house. 

When the police came to his house (as part of a gang bust operation, the police pick a few random people on probation as well as the listed gang suspects), Rubio smelled of alcohol and had a scuba knife in his house that he claims he uses for fishing. 

Now even if he just uses his knife for fishing, he should know that cops are going to be ass holes about things like that.  Police do not take kindly to people violating probation. 

I remember one of the hoes at work being carried out of the club because she violated probation.  I found her record on the sheriff's office website.  Her bond was $10,000 and she had previously been arrested several times for dealing drugs.  But a $10,000 bond over some stinkin' pills.  I know it's pills that ruin young girls' lives, but she ended up going to prison for a couple of years at least. 

With that in mind, I think how stupid is this Rubio guy?  It's not like the probation officers don't tell their crooks what's going to happen when they violate probation.  He shouldn't have taken his chances keeping a fishing knife in his house.  If I was on probation, you bet your ass I would not take any chances.  I bet he knew that having a knife in his home was risky. 

I didn't stay to see what the ruling was, but I don't really care either way.  I can see how he can be completely innocent and maybe it was just a silly fishing knife.  I mean, seriously?  Was he going to filet his wife?  Of course not.  But he shouldn't be so stupid to end up in court in the first place, so I really wish him the best of luck and all the intelligence in the world. 

Planning Commission Experience

“The Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission is an independent community action agency, led by appointed citizens, which serves all citizens of Hillsborough County by providing a vision for improving the quality of life.”

That’s what one of the big signs on the wall said.

I’ve never been to a planning commission meeting before, so this was a big learning experience. 

This meeting was very formal, very standard, and very intense.  Well, maybe not intense for what was going on, but the people on the planning commission’s board have a lot of homework. 

I had a very hard time figuring out what was going on when they were talking about the comprehensive plans for Plant City.  I was happy to see that they were working on “improving the quality of life” for Plant City, my hometown.  Well, my mom lives there, so Plant City has a bit of importance in my life.

During the public hearing, it seems like you have to have read the plans in detail before voting in favor or against it because I couldn’t have decided on that plan with the amount of time given to the board to vote.  They obviously did their homework and read the plans over and came to a decision. 

There were four comprehensive plans presented at the hearing and the only people to show up to this hearing were the people speaking about the plans.  No regular citizens showed up.

And this meeting is so structured.  The board had copies of their agenda for the public (so I grabbed one).  On the agenda, which they followed, they had a call to order, purpose and order of meeting and roll call.  I thought that was a bit silly but it’s just procedure.  They’re covering themselves.

They had at least four cameras along the top parts of the walls and a small camera on the podium.  There was a producer sitting in a small desk with a laptop switching camera views to the big screens for us to see who was talking.

The way the hearing went was the presenter would give a brief overview of what the plan was, and I still couldn’t quite understand the full impact of it because I didn’t read the whole plan like the board members did. 

After the presenter refreshes the board on what the plan will do, the presenter opens the floor to the board to ask the presenter any questions.  After the board asks questions they open up the floor to the public for questions.  Once they finish questions they vote on it. 

The board unanimously voted for each plan. 

I think for the next time, if I were ever to go to a planning commission meeting, I would do my homework.  The agendas are printed in advance to let the public know what the board will be voting on. 

To start, I would look up the comprehensive plan amendments.  The codes of the plan amendments are printed on the agenda so they are easier to find.  For example, the meeting I attended discussed four Plant City comprehensive plan amendments, two were map amendments and two were text amendments. 

One of the codes was displayed as:

PLANT CITY: COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AMENDMENT PC/CPA 10-01 – MAP AMENDMENT (ALABAMA AND HITCHCOCK STREETS)

So I would go to the planning commission’s website at theplanningcommission.org and look for PC/CPA 10-01 to read it.  And to make it easy for you, I found the page for it here.

 Overall, I learned a lot about board meetings.  I learned that hardly any citizens show up for them (it seems), the board makes frequent decisions on what to do with the millions of dollars in budget money, records it, actively asks the public (if they show up) what it thinks, and casts the vote. 

I also learned that I need to do my homework, as always.

Trigg strikes back!

Preston Trigg came to see us again today.  He gave a quick rundown on how to read a budget.  It was surprising to see how fast I learned in that hour. 

He made it clear that a budget is really quite simple, not as complicated as it may look.  He told us a budget is simply money in and money out.  He even stressed his quote from his last visit, "follow the money."  Since it's very important for a reporter to understand a budget, we kept that simple lesson in our head that it's really just money in and money out.  All the rest falls into place.

Well, at least it should.  So if it isn't falling into place, that's where we journalists come in. 

Trigg reassured us that the law requires every government agency to have a public budget.  Private businesses don't have to make their budgets public, though. 

We also learned that it's okay to ask the budget officials questions if something is unclear to us.  Trigg said budget officials are often a journalist's best ally if the journalist stays on their good side. 

Trigg also said that the summary (at the top of the budget) may make it easier to see the big things to look for but the summaries only contain what they want us to see.  They may leave some big (perhaps unpopular) changes out of that summary that could affect a lot of people. 

Other than that, a budget is pretty cut and dry.  The thing journalists need to look for is the major increases and decreases from the previous fiscal year (that I learned starts from Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30). 

Election Day 2010

I can't believe how much I actually paid attention to the election!  I'm so proud of myself for checking news websites and learning more about politics.

This video from The Associated Press is a very helpful guide to this past election.  If you missed something in the news around the nation, this video will tell you what elections were hot.

So it all started when I decided to go vote around 6 p.m. yesterday.  Now, why would I wait that long to decide to just vote?  Well, I just couldn't decide who to vote for.  I didn't like any of the gubernatorial candidates.  I liked Charlie Crist, though.  Even though I'm a registered republican, I liked what Crist said in his campaign messages.

I rode, fighting traffic for 30 minutes on a 20 minute ride to the polls, (and Plant City drivers are MEAN!) got off my motorcycle and walked inside the church where the precinct was set up.  The nice lady standing at the door said I could drop off my stuff and she'd watch it for me.  She was referring to my stuff as my backpack and helmet.  It was a good 25 pounds off my shoulders.

One thing I didn't like was the line.  I always seem to get stuck behind the ones that always have a huge problem that takes forever.  So I stood in line for a good 8 minutes waiting on this stupid bitch.  The lady finally moves on and the woman at the table takes my ID and checks it.  I forgot my address had changed since I was using my mom's address, so while she's checking that, I'm thinking, "omg hurry up."  

She finally gave me the ballot and I went behind the little cardboard props to fill it out.  I read every question and voted as best as I could for the right person.  That was what took me so long to vote. 

I then put the ballot into the machine, which gets better every year.  I think it's so funny that ten years ago, Florida was the retard of the nation with figuring out the ballots.  I once saw a picture of the ballot and saw how confusing it was.  How stupid of Florida's ballot designers.  They should know that Florida is the land of stupid drivers, including stupid voters!  Anyway, I'm glad to see that the technology is improving in Florida, good for this state!

I then left the polls to go see my mom and chat with her, then I went back home and logged on my computer to see the election results.  I probably wouldn't have done this if I didn't vote.  Even though I could care less who becomes governor, I also forgot that I was voting for more than just the governor.  I was voting to change laws and commissioners' jobs. 

I'm glad I voted, even though I'm not happy with the outcome of this election.  I think the republicans need to get their heads out of their asses and just do what the people ask them to do.  And to stop lying, it's really annoying.

Trip to the Medical Examiner’s Office

I got to visit the Medical Examiner’s Office.  That place is the source of death records and other evidence if you get there in time.  I say that because after ten days, claimed bodies get cremated.

I’ll just get right to it and say it now.  I saw a corpse after its autopsy.  The head and chest was cut wide open.  The brains and the chest organs were gone.  It was incredibly disgusting.  Many of my classmates said the body looked fake, but that was a real corpse.  In the flesh… lol the ripped open flesh. 

The more exciting part of this trip was definitely the morgue and the toxicology lab.  The more important part of the trip would probably be in the records room, which was coincidentally room 119.  Each file is color-coded by cause of death.  I thought that was pretty neat.  I think the homicide victims had a red tab on the folder, yellow was suicide, etc.  There were others but I don’t remember which color went to what type of death.

When we visited the toxicology lab where they test to see how someone died, there wasn’t really anything going on.  I just saw a lot of big, high-tech machines built to test the flesh.  I even heard that the lab has small amounts of every drug, including the illegal ones.  The drugs are only there to test the overdose corpses to see what kind of drug it died from.

The juicy part of the trip was obviously the morgue.  We got to see a dead body, yay.  My class was stoked to see it.  I’ve heard this advice in just about every journalism course I’ve taken and it goes along the lines of, “You’re gonna see a lot of blood.  You better have a stomach for it.”

I was very proud of all my classmates.  Only one was about to throw up after being in the morgue but it wasn’t at the sight of the corpse but it was the smell of what I like to call the “meat cooler.”  After we saw the corpse a bunch of classmates wanted to see where the rest of the dead bodies are kept.  I thought it wasn’t necessary.  We just saw an explicitly grotesque corpse with its chest cut wide open.  But we humans, are never satisfied. 

I was still staring at the corpse when the rest of the class went over to the meat cooler.  As soon as they opened the door, the smell of death just filled the room.  Ugh, it was so nasty.  It smelled like rotten chicken that has been in the trash for days (I’ll never make that mistake again).  It just stunk!  I decided not to go into the cooler because I wasn’t that desperate to see a whole bunch of dead bodies.  The smell was so pungent I just walked out of the morgue without the rest of the class along with another student covering his mouth and nose obviously about to toss his cookies.  I’ve been having some bad morning sickness (no, I’m not pregnant) over the past week and I just didn’t want to take any chances with my weak stomach.  I hope the poor guy didn’t throw up, though. 

The lesson I learned is obviously I need to have a strong stomach as a journalist and if I wanna know more about how a person died, I have to go to the Medical Examiner’s Office.

Public Meeting

I went to a county public meeting concerning the future construction on Dale Mabry Highway.

County meetings are always so plain and simple.  They hold these meetings to ask the public what they think on an issue.  The sad part is that only a handful of citizens attend these meetings.  I would say only about 50 people showed up to this meeting that pertained to much more than that.

At the meeting, the county proposed spending a total of $4.8 million on improving the Dale Mabry intersections at Lakeview Drive and Northdale Boulevard.  So the county is going to spend all those tax monies on construction.  This meeting is their way of showing the public they really do care about what their citizens think.

The county played a video explaining the construction options in a very simple and clear way.  There were four different ways to rebuild the Lakeview Drive intersection and three different ways to fix up Northdale Boulevard.

In the video, there were maps and lots of labels and color coding explaining how the end result of each project should be.  I thought it was a really good way to explain what the county is considering how to spend those tax dollars.

After the video, we got to look at the maps closer to refresh our memories on the specifics, but there wasn’t really much more to the meeting after that.

On the way out, we were on Northdale Boulevard getting ready to turn onto Dale Mabry: the exact location of the future construction project.  There was a sign announcing this public meeting.  It read something along the lines of “public meeting at 6:30 Oct. 26.”

What struck me about that sign is that the people that ride through this intersection dealing with bad traffic knew about this meeting and are the ones affected by this the most.  I don’t find myself in Carrollwood much but I still showed up to this meeting to witness how the county wants to spend $4.8 million of our tax dollars.  The commuters that travel through this intersection are also the people that would best know how to improve the intersection and would be most effective in making the right choice.

APME Convention visit

Because of my what my job demands, I was able to catch the tail end of the convention.  At the convention, I got to see some really important people get awards and had lunch with a few of my classmates, my professor and Brian Boyer from the Chicago Tribune. 

The awards were so boring.  I walked in on the end of that and what I saw was just utterly boring acceptance speeches.  Randy Lovely, News Editor for The Arizona Republic, and Bill Church, Executive Editor for The Statesman Journal, received the Robert McGruder for Diversity Leadership award.  Good for them for practicing diversity in the newsroom. 

One more thing about the awards is there was a quote from McGruder (he's dead now) that said, "I am the messenger and the message of diversity.  I represent the African-Americans, Latinos, Arab-Americans, Asians, Native Americans, gays and lesbians, women and all the others we must see represented in our business offices, newsrooms and our newspapers if we truly want to meet the challenge of serving our communities."

The real fun was with my professor and Brian Boyer.  We got to eat lunch served by the convention (rather tasty salad however I could throw the chicken at the window and watch the window break because it was so hard) and we just talked about all the cool online resources used for news gathering. 

Boyer's main advice for making it in this industry is to find our niche.  Find out what we're good at and market that.  I think I knew that before, but his reinforcement of that statement just reminds me to keep being good at what I'm good at.

Trip to WFLA

Steve Andrews, what a character!  This man has really exposed some people in the most sinister ways.  The reactions to his stories range from getting people fired to getting people killed. 

Andrews has been an investigative reporter for News Channel 8 for 25 years, exposing government waste and crime.  He said he has always made an effort to make it fun and interesting despite being driven by public records.

A point he made was that most of his big stories came from phone calls.  He then told his story about his exposure of former state attorney Harry Lee Coe of abusing his power to feed his gambling addiction.  It all started from a simple phone call.

Andrews got to the bottom of it by digging through public records, dealing with Coe destroying evidence on the computer, and filtering through lots of lies.

After his story aired, Coe ended up killing himself.  An ironic fact: Andrews was the one who found Coe's corpse.  Andrews quickly got his camera to film - though the producer told him not to film anything at all - the scene of the suicide before the cops showed up to prove a rather powerful point: "How would this look in court?"

It was a good lesson in journalist etiquette.  He made a point that it is much more professional to a jury to film the subject walking away from the camera saying "no comment" instead of chasing the subject while badgering for a response.

Another good lesson he taught us was that we should make a checklist of follow-up questions we want answered.  That way we can still stick to the story in case someone answers a question and starts going down a tangent from the original story.

Andrews was a great presenter, he is definitely a role model for aspiring journalists.  He simply told the story and told the truth.

Trip to the Courthouse

I got to meet Pat Frank, Hillsborough County Clerk of Circuit Court. Click here to see what she looks like!

Pat gave a lovely monotone speech about the cool things she gets to do and all the cool things that have been happening around the court. She couldn't stick around to give us the tour but she had her helpers Dana Caranante and Doug Bakke to do that for her. Dana and Doug are pretty important people in the courthouse, too. 

Pat did spend some time talking about how big of a deal she really is.  She started serving on the school board, then the state senate, then the board of county commission.  She is the CFO for the county, responsible for a $1.8 billion budget.

Pat also stated a few fun facts.  She talked about how the courthouse receives 9,000-10,000 calls per day, how the dwindling economy caused budget cuts, eliminating jobs within the courthouse, causing her much stress in restructuring the responsibility to fewer people.  She also said tax deed sales are up (shocking!) and marriage licenses are down.  

Pat then went on to explain how the court knows it's important to have upgraded technology and an easy to use system (I know she didn't say it, but basically make the website easy to use for the dumb people, since it's dumb people that usually end up having to go to court in some way anyway).  They're trying to use less paper, improve customer service and all that jazz.

Pat had to leave and go to her meeting so she turned it over to Doug and Doug walked us through the website, showed us all the obvious stuff.  I was really bored by that, but he was just spelling it out for all the people that don't know how to figure out what the link meant.  Like "Online Forms" is pretty self-explanatory.  

Doug was more fun to pay attention to when we actually got up to tour the courthouse.  I love going places where people aren't used to being seen by strangers.  We went through a lot of "employees only" zones and we even got to see the evidence room.

Tour time!  We passed by the mental health records (confidential, of course) office, the appeals office, and the mediation room (where people try to resolve their cases themselves without lawyers and a judge).  We then went to the mortgage case filing room.  Wanna know how many foreclosure and mortgage cases there are in Tampa?  A LOT!  I saw a whole office room with shelf after shelf of file folders containing mortgage and foreclosure cases.  The people processing those cases get about 5 or 6 boxes full of cases per day.

We then got on the elevator (that I farted in) to go see the traffic and family law section.  Both places were not cool places to be.  The line for the traffic court was so long!  And many of the people standing in line looked pretty dirty and nasty and/or had little annoying children with them.  Family law didn't have as many of them, but that place reminded me of the jail.  There were lots of trashy looking people there.  I tried to imagine a situation where I would end up here and the only thing I could think of was if my boyfriend and I had a child and we broke up and had to fight over the kid.  So basically, it's where daddy has to pay child support or mommy is looking for daddy to get that child support.  It could also be vice versa.  But "single moms" are much more common than "single dads."  And I mean that as the person that's taking care of the kid.  Obviously a male parent is still a dad, but I don't call him a single dad if he's not taking care of the kid.

We eventually made our way to the evidence room and to our disappointment, nothing gruesome was in there at the time.  Mel and I'm sure other classmates were looking forward to see some severed fingers in the mason jars.  

So what did I learn?  Court is not a fun place to be... ok seriously.  All public records end up at the courthouse.  As a reporter, I will be spending much time at the courthouse while doing background research on someone.  Many records can be found online but for some of the older records and more personal records, a trip to the courthouse is a must.  So it would be a good idea to have a list of the records needed before going down there, of course.  Just trying to think ahead here.  More at 11.

Preston Trigg lecture

Preston Trigg, Director of Administration and Special Projects for the Hillsborough County Tax Collector (take a breath; he said long titles in government are supposedly a good thing), visited the class today to talk about what reporters should look for within the tax collector's system.

He said that the state of Florida decided to make everything a public record then just write exemption laws to protect citizens’ privacy.  He even dedicated a slide to his quite helpful powerpoint presentation to tell exactly what a public record is.

“All documents, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, recordings, software… regardless of physical form… make or received pursuant to law or in connection with transaction of official business.”  --Florida statutes Section 119.011 (11)

But specifically within the tax collector’s office, reporters can find property tax, business tax, and motor vehicle (to an extent because of the Driver Privacy Protection Act of 1994) records.  Anyone who owns a property, business or a motor vehicle can show up on the tax collector’s website.

One topic Trigg stressed the most was the property taxes.  He told us reporters can find so much about a person just through the person’s property tax records.  Property tax records include transaction records that contain the amount the person bought it for, sold it for, whom they sold to or bought from, title transfers, whether they paid their property taxes, and how late their payments were.

Near the economic downturn, reporters opened the doors to several real estate fraud cases all because of public property tax records.  Neal Mohammed Husani and Micheal Tringali, two of the more notorious property flip scammers were busted after being exposed from tax records.

This article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune is a great example of the true power of using tax records to uncover some shady deals going on with property.

Trigg also showed an example of what a person’s property tax information looks like on the hillstax.org website.  The most important things that show up are whether or not the owner has paid the taxes on that property, the assessed value and the just value of the property.

The assessed value is the amount the tax collector charges taxes on and the just value is the actual value of the property.  These two values should be the same in normal cases.  Usually when the values are different, something fishy is going on.  It can either be a piece of property used in a property flip scam, or there is an environmental issue with that property.

The property appraiser is the person in charge of judging values of property each year. 

Trigg said one way people try to get away with property flip scam is to try to get the appraiser to say a property is worth more than what it really is.  If the appraiser agrees to lie about it, he or she could be in for some serious trouble if caught, which the likelihood is obviously great, since it’s all public record.

Property is probably the most expensive thing to buy in a person’s life.  When people started to see that it’s profitable to buy a house and sell it for more (because it’s so damn expensive), people wanted in on the business.  When it started getting out of control (when the scams started running rampant), that’s when the economy started to fall. 

Trigg’s lecture wasn’t just great for reporters, it would be good for any homeowners, past, present or future. 
These records should be seen before buying a home.  With real estate being so low now, people are starting to get the hint that once the economy starts improving, real estate value will increase. 

This information would be extremely helpful for not just journalism students, but for anyone interested in buying a home.  Not many people have enough cash to buy a home.  It’s usually an investment over many many years.  So before making that investment, do the research.  It’s always worth it and it’s only a few clicks away.

Trip to the Orient Rd. Jail

"Getting in is easy, it's getting out that's the hard part."  -Lieutenant Allen

I actually took notes this time.  I'd like to just talk about my journey through the jail; it's a good enough story.

I got to see the booking area, the records office, the confinement rooms, the general rooms, the common area for inmates, the room with 29 screens showing every security camera view, and the long corridor with some passing inmates.

I actually stated those events backwards because the cops said they would give us a backwards tour.

The first thing I saw once we got into the locked area was a single file line of inmates wearing orange jumpsuits walking down the very open hall.  They were walking along the wall furthest from my group and this one inmate stood out to me.  He was staring at all of us, which I can't blame him, we're a bunch of attractive college students, but he was staring at us like a jackass.  I can't explain it any better, he just looked like a total fool.  The expression on his face was like "ooh who are these people?"  And I wasn't even thinking when I blurted out "the hell you lookin' at, inmate?"  I don't think I said it loud enough for him to hear, but I know I wasn't the only one in my group who wanted to see an inmate do something stupid.  We all wanna see some action happen.  We're journalists.

The first room we got to see was the security camera room.  There were tons of montiors, as I said, 29 screens.  Some of them were showing multiple camera views, just a second from one camera, then it would flash to another camera view.  Real neat stuff.  There were big maps of the jail of each floor on the walls.

Allen told us that 70,000 people get booked in the Orient Road Jail per year.  He said that the average amount of time spent in jail is 28 days, but since the judge started hearing cases within 7 days of an inmate's time in jail, the average lowered to 22 days.

Even though inmates are people who committed crimes, they're still people.  Allen talked about in case of a hurricane, the inmates would be moved to the upper floors of the jail.  With the jail being only 14 feet above sea level, I'm sure one could imagine that place flooding pretty easily.  The jail stays stocked with 3 days of food and water at all times.

We then went to the inmate common area where inmates can watch TV, play cards, twiddle their thumbs, etc.  It's basically where the inmates get come out of their cells and play.  Needless to say, there wasn't much else because if there was any more, people would be like "what's so bad about jail if they have all these things to pass time?"

When the inmates are bad, they go into solitary confinement; the cell for those who don't get along with others.  That place looks terrible.  The inmates in solitary confinement spend 22 hours of the day there.  This is where people go crazy if they aren't already.  The cops had stories of people mutilating themselves in all kinds of disgusting ways that I really don't wish to share (but I will anyway).  One of the cops told us that one guy asphyixiated himself by shoving his bed sheet down his throat.  Another story was about how a man took out one of his family jewels (with his own hands), another about this woman who doesn't bathe, ugh.  I'm already cringing as I type this.

We next visited the inmate courthouse.  I was wondering how the inmates made it down to the courthouse downtown but the one in the jail has two big cameras that feed the footage of the criminal trials to journalists.  It makes it easier so reporters from 7 different stations aren't all trying to film the same trial.  But the inmate courthouse is basically an assembly line trial because as Allen said, there are 70,000 bookings per year.  If the judge worked every single day of the year, he would hear more than 190 cases per day.  And the judge is also a regular human being and has weekends and vacations, so he really sees more than that.

The booking office is where there were no barriers between my class and I and the inmates.  These inmates were looking at us like we were literally dinner.  Pieces of meat.  Some of the girls in my class (including me) were not exactly dressed for the jail.  Many girls were wearing shorts, I think another girl had a dress on, but yeah, a couple of them got some rude remarks from the inmates sitting in the booking office.  So we made a beeline away from them to explore the different aspects of the booking room.  There was the intake section, I guess the first checkpoint for the inmate, then there were the medical, fingerprinting, classification, and property sections.  The medical section is where the inmates medical records are handled in case an inmate is diabetic or needs special care.  The fingerprinting section, well, obviously that's where the inmates get to put some ink on their hands and touch things.  Probably the only place in jail where they can do that.  Classification is basically where the jail staff declares the inmate's case as a high-profile or not. Property is where they take away all the inmate's stuff: clothes, jewelry, possessions, everything.  They strip you down and give it back when the inmate gets out (except the illegal stuff).

Then the public records office, the only place where we learned something we probably would have heard in class.  Verlin Compton (not sure if that's how it's spelled, can't find her information on the internet anywhere) told us what parts of an inmate record is not public record.  She listed off social security numbers, juvenile information, medical records, high profile inmate records, and witness and victim information.

When I left the jail, I had a new nickname: Helmet.  I tried to carpool it there but I didn't try hard enough so I ended up having to take my motorcycle and I had to let the jail's front office staff hang on to my helmet and backpack since we couldn't bring anything into the area inmates have access to.  I wish I could've left my shit in the car.  I don't like being called Helmet. 

HCSO visit

I never thought I'd be taking the trip downtown but good thing it was via my own motorcycle.  Today I had the opportunity (like every other student who takes this class) to meet with J.D. Callaway, Director of Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office's Community Affairs Office (that is a LONG title!), and Cristal Bermudez Nuñez from the HCSO Community Affairs Office.  I was pleased to hear them talk about the do's and don'ts of reporter-police relationships involving what information can and cannot be released, what parts of the scene a reporter can and cannot be on, and the proper way of obtaining archives.

There are all kinds of obvious investigative information that can be released such as the location, date, time, type of incident and all that jazz.  The one type of information that could be released that stood out to me was the "amount and type of property taken, including value when known or estimated to the nearest hundred dollars.  (Exception: monies taken in a robbery or embezzlement.)"  I agree with that because they can release the amount of what something other than money is worth but not the amount of cash taken.  I can imagine the news showing a story about a robber taking $1 million in cash from a bank, then a crook sees it on TV, finds the robber and takes the money and then it disappears because the crook spent it all as if it was his while the cops are busy with the original robber.  Also, if the robber robs $1 million worth of necklaces from a jewelry store, the necklaces are easier to recover because everyone will know an expensive necklace when they see it.  Also, if the money gets recovered, other crooks will know how much that establishment is holding, which could make it a hot spot for future robberies.

When it comes to crime scenes, how close can the reporter really get?  I've always been curious about that if I ever got to be a TV reporter, what do I do when I'm covering a crime scene?  One thing I learned was that in "hostage or barricade situations, the deputy in charge shall designate a preliminary press perimeter upon arrival at the scene."  I did not know that!  How fascinating and how privileged a reporter is to the police!  I always thought there was a slight animosity between the press and the police but maybe the police do that because it makes their job easier when they don't have to deal with us nosy reporters.

While touring the station, I passed by the public records office.  That's where the public goes to the station to get records.  One thing that confused me was if it's public record, why the hell isn't it online already?  Some people are still bound to hard copies, and they have a reason to be.  The procedure HCSO follows said something that stood out to me: "Any member who does not know the facts shall assist by referring the inquiry to the proper authority providing the name and telephone number of the individual to be contacted, if necessary.  Vague referrals such as "the sergeant," "detectives," "Sheriff's Office," or "P.I.O.," shall be avoided."  I thought that was a good bit of information at the end of that where the vague referrals shall be avoided.  Even though it's pretty obvious who the sergeant is sometimes, not everyone knows who the sergeant is or how to contact the sergeant.

Well, that was the most interesting stuff that I remember about the visit.  We did get to see the 911 call center, that was cool, a job I'd probably like to do, but at the same time, is that what I really want to do?  I wanna be famous and have people listen to my problems, not listen to other people's problems.

(All quotes came from the HCSO's Standard Operating Procedure when dealing with media.)

Matt Doig lecture

Matt Doig visited the class today to share some advice on using public records.  Doig is an investigative reporter for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and was the force behind exposing the real estate fraud "flip" scheme in Florida.  So he had some good words to share.

One of the points he mentioned was the importance of getting people to talk.  Getting the story isn't only about digging through records and finding the hard evidence.  It's also about talking to people, the subject, the subject's close ones, relatives and co-workers.  When a reporter goes to a source for information, every detail could be important from the decorations of the room to the way his subject's secretary looks at him.

Someone in the class asked him how a reporter would get someone to talk, and I really just wanted to answer that one myself, but Doig answered it pretty much the same way I would have.  Doig told him he just needs to talk to people, establish a common ground, or what sales people would call build rapport.  The person isn't going to talk if they're not comfortable.  It's up to the reporter to make their interviewee feel like they can tell them anything.  I fortunately have a knack for getting people to open up to me.  It probably comes from a lot of practice talking to strangers.

After class was over, I approached Doig with the same question in mind to see if there could be anything I could improve upon when it comes to getting people to talk.  I don't have much experience talking to people as a reporter but as a regular schoolgirl with no title or news organization.  So I asked him what else gets people to talk to him.  He said, "Be a good listener."  He also told me he was actually antisocial which surprised me because I am too, yet I'm very good at one-on-one conversations.  

What I learned from Doig's lecture today was that good investigative reporting includes not only finding the records and going through the databases, but also talking to the people involved in the story.  As my professor called it the "yin yang of interviewing and researching," there really needs to be a balance of those two aspects in a good investigative report.

I'll leave this with a link to one of Doig's responses to his hate mail.  It's pretty good reading if you ask me.

http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=9175

Tim Nickens lecture

Last Tuesday, Tim Nickens, an editor for the St. Pete Times, visited the class to talk about his experience using public records.  He had lots of fascinating stories about how public records can be really important for writing stories.  He had a story about how public records brought down a politician who was using his government money to pay for his $6M private plane hangar.  I thought it was hilarious!  It made me think more about how journalists have to be sadistic in this profession. 
As journalists, we are the ones catching corrupt politicians with their asses up.  It's up to us to let the public know what these scumbags are doing with our hard-earned tax dollars.  All we need to do is find the evidence.  If it wasn't for public records, this dirty politician would still be in control, wasting your money.  They try to cover their tracks well, but all it takes is to find something out of the ordinary in someone's budget or their other public records, ask them about it, if they say something that doesn't match up or make sense to what that record says, go find the dissonance, catch them lying, and boom, their career in public office is no more.  Their career.  For us to be the one to expose them of their shady and otherwise unknown wrongs, and have their source of income taken away from them, affecting their personal lives and families, we have to have no heart sometimes, or a good way of justifying it within ourselves.  But it's pretty simple to justify exposing a politician.  If Joe Politician broke the law, the law he probably MADE, then he doesn't deserve to be a politician.  If Joe Politician is wasting your tax money on his new jet, I think you would want to know about it, and I think you would not want him to do that.  Public records are great for catching politicians with their ass up!

Introducing...

ME!  I'm Carol Lovell and this blog is for one of my journalism classes.  I'm ready to write my weird ideas about the experience I have in this class.  Much more is to come in the next few months!