I was completely blown away by Chris Davis's presentation. The level of commitment him and his staff have to their jobs is inspiring. As soon as he started speaking, it was obvious he loved what he did. Which is exactly what all of us in class, one way or another, are trying to do. The amount of time and money the paper is willing to put into investigations shows what they are all about. It doesn't seem to be about money, but more about the actual facts or news of every day life.
The investigation by his staff at the Herald Tribune on house flipping and how it crippled the banks was interesting to learn about. I had heard about house flipping in the past, but never the extent he presented. Even though, as he said, the maps were not completely accurate, it still said a great deal about where the flipping was happening.
It taught me much about the proper way to obtain records for an investigation. They searched through almost 18 million home purchases over the span of 10 years to look through some of the more suspicious purchases. Their criteria for a "suspicious purchase" was within 90 days or a 30% increase in value.
That being said, with all the time spent searching through the records, it was how they presented the information that caught my attention. The Internet database that showed the web of connections to the flippers was presented perfectly. They way you could move the mouse over a picture/name, and see exactly who they were connected to really drive home the point. This showed just how shady the business of flipping homes was.
When Chris showed us the links about these house flippers, I immediately thought about pending lawsuits. I assumed most of them would sue for libel and force the paper to take their investigation off their website. He explained however that they are protected because they didn't show reckless disregard for the truth.
Overall this was an interesting presentation by Chris. The teacher investigation called "Broken Trust," was scary. He found teachers exposing themselves to students and not being fired. The teachers would just go to another school. This doesn't make parents feel at ease about sending their children to public schools. Something needs to be done about this situation. All the Herald Tribune can do is present the cases to the public and hope out-cry comes about. I think if a teacher gets consistent complaints, they should have their teaching certificates revoked indefinitely. There should be some investigating done into all complaints filed.
Finally on a seperate issue, he taught us about Barbara Peterson, who is apart of the first rights foundation. She got something passed that gave reporters access to social security numbers. It would have helped Chris if it were passed earlier. He tried to find out the teacher's test scores before recieving teaching certificates. They had a list of teacher's scores but it didn't have the names next to them, rather the social security numbers. Chris may want to go back and look into this.
Knowing how well the teachers did on their tests I feel is the public and parent's rights.
How does everyone else feel about this issue? How about the house flipping, should they be in jail?
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Chris I must agree with you that his passion for his job was quite admirable.
ReplyDeleteAs an avid reader of the Herald Tribune, I can agree that most of the stories they publish seem so right on the money. It makes me proud to see that their are newspapers dedicated to providing truth regardless of time restraints, and use every known database to accurately depict a story.
I also enjoyed Chris's lecture and hope that it has given our class hope in chasing stories that at first may seem hard to get.
Chris I think that your blog communicates very well with your readers. I like the questions on the end. They made me think about the issues in a personal prospective. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteChris, you did a great job in communicating all that was discussed while Chris Davis was here. I do think you could have gone a bit more into explaining what house flipping was so that anyone reading this blog would get a better understanding of the topic. Other than that you covered a lot. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the information about a teacher's test results being public. I think it would cause more controversy than good and sometimes tests are an actual reflection of how well a teacher is in the classroom. Great blog overview of the presentation given.
ReplyDeleteI think that the blog is very informative. It's like if you weren't there, you could get the main idea of the presentation from this. I like how it uses different examples of how Davis used technology to show the public what the story is truely about.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big proponent of asking questions in personal blogs and getting people to think on their own. Also, no information was left out and this gives the reader a central idea of what was talked about in class. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteChris, I thought your greatest point made was when you talked about all the work that was being done sorting through these records, but it was the presentation that made the story. Nice job on the blog, I would like to see a better headline.
ReplyDeleteGood job storytelling and providing exact details to identify the standard of cases within Davis's report. I like how you named a person of importance, Peterson, as well. She has contributed largely to help reporters. The questions at the end are a nice tag.
ReplyDeleteI like how you asked a question at the end of the post and I also liked how you used some stats in your post about house flipping. You covered everything Davis mentioned, even the tiny bit about Barbara Peterson. Overall, a thorough post.
ReplyDeleteChris definitely engaged the class speaking about the crimes he uncovered through his reporting with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The broken trust peice really sheds light on the current trend with teachers abusing students. Good job of covering all the information presented in the lecture!!
ReplyDeleteI really like how you told the story in a way that even someone who wasn't there could get a good understanding of what was discussed! I particulalry liked the questions at the end. It made the blog feel more interactive and encouraged me to comment! I think the people should be in jail! There is too much money at stake and this is obviously illegal. I bet this case will get larger and larger!
ReplyDeleteChris Davis was really on top of his game, and you could definitely tell with the flipping story and multimedia to go with it.
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