“Padre, you just got to stay out of politics,” he recalled the speaker saying.

As I'm sure you all know, Paul Ryan fired the House's chaplain - a Roman Catholic priest, Father Conroy.

The title quote and quotes below come from a New York Times article that points to the prayer that is said to have caused Ryan's remark (in this post's title.)  Apparently he was miffed by this comment about the Republican tax plan that Ryan helped pushed through:

 “May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”

This focuses on a key difference between the Catholic interpretations of the bible and many Protestant interpretations which talk about work as being a divine calling and the importance of self reliance.

But as I read the quote, I couldn't help but think about what Ryan probably really meant by the word 'politics.'  I think he meant don't take positions that challenge my positions.  Surely, if the Father had spoken about saving fetuses from abortion (as political a topic as you could want, and one consistent with the Catholic church's beliefs) Ryan wouldn't have been upset at all.

 Merriam Webster's online dictionary's first definition of political is:

"of or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government" 

How could a Congressional chaplain say anything of relevance that would not be political?  Even if the chaplain's job is purely ceremonial, there's no way a chaplain can say anything without it being interpreted as political by someone.

The article goes on to discuss simmering tension between Catholics and Evangelical Christians in the House.

"The controversy was heightened when Representative Mark Walker, Republican of North Carolina and a Baptist minister, said Thursday in an interview with The Hill newspaper that he hoped the next chaplain of the House might come from a nondenominational church tradition who could relate to members with wives and children.
Catholic Democrats quickly called his remarks anti-Catholic, as Catholic priests are celibate . . ."

The Times article also offers another explanation for the firing - that the Chaplain wasn't carrying out his pastoral duties satisfactorily.  It also suggests this was one more Republican 'unforced error' that would help Democrats in the November election.  I don't know about that.  There are so many things that will influence whether and how voters vote.  Add this to the list.

A Serious Life And The Two Horses Of Genghis Kahn

I met Michael Sidney Welch a number of years ago when I taught a class at Olé on blogging.  I insisted that we have it in a computer lab and that everyone would get their own blog in the several weeks we met.  My expertise was just my own blogging experience, but I knew if I just talked and they didn't try it out themselves, it would be really boring.

Just about everyone - I think there were about 20 folks - got a blog up and several have kept those blogs going or got new ones up after that.

Michael is a philosopher.  I see him around town, usually he's with his wife, particularly at the Anchorage International Film Festival.  Recently his wife invited us to a group I can best describe as a movie club.  I mean that in the sense of a book club that watches movies rather than reads books.

This week we met to see "The Two Horses of Genghis Kahn" - a really beautiful Mongolian movie about a woman who travels around Inner and Outer Mongolia in search of the lost lyrics of a song her grandmother taught her.  She knows some of them, but there were more inscribed in a horse head violin that was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.  She still had the broken off horse head and sought someone to make a new violin for it while she went searching elders for the missing words.

The broad landscapes and the search for lost culture are familiar to Alaskans and it provoked a lot of discussion about cultural change, both natural and. . .   I'm sitting here thinking about the right word and I'm not succeeding - unnatural isn't right.  Forced comes to mind - as when one culture tries to wipeout another culture by banning the language and music and other ways the culture is transmitted from generation to generation.  And we could talk a long time by what 'natural' cultural change entails.  We talked about how younger generations live in different worlds than their parents' generation.  But is this really natural?  Or is it a product of the industrial revolution that fosters so much rapid change in the last few centuries?

I haven't found any serious reviews, but this one gives an introduction to the film and the director.
Anchorage's Loussac Library has a copy. Youtube has a tease that looks like the whole copy from Netflix, but it doesn't seem to be so.  It apparently has been on Netflix (couldn't find it today) and may be on Prime.   It has a much slower pace than US viewers are used to.  Here's a preview, though we watched it in the original (which I assume was Mongolian, but may have been a dialect) with English subtitles.



As we were leaving Michael told me he has his newish blog - A Serious Life - up now.  When I say he's a philosopher, I'm not joking.  This is not for the Tweet at Heart.  I'll also link it in the right column, since some of the bloggers I've had there have been, shall we say, preoccupied with other things than their blogs.

For those who make it this far, the title of the movie is also the title of the song Uma is seeking.

Zainol

Regular visitors to the blog already know Zainol's work.  Actually, anyone who's been here has seen his work.

Zainol is a Malaysian artist.  I bought three small paintings from him back in 2005 I think when I went to a conference in Malaysia.  I immediately fell in love with the pictures, but as a very light packer, didn't even consider buying them.  But the artist - it was an outdoor art fair in Kuala Lumpur - convinced me they were light and would survive the trip and they made it back to Anchorage.

When I began this blog in 2006, I figured out quickly that I wanted the pictures, somehow, into the banner on top.  It fit the idea of What Do I Know?   I finally got a picture I wanted and figured out how to add some writing.  But I couldn't figure out how to get it the right size to fit in the banner.  That didn't happen until May 2007 when I put up a brief post about the blog's new look.

I wanted to let Zainol know that I'd used the picture for my blog, but I couldn't contact him.  I couldn't find him on google.

Yesterday, as part of moving the upstairs downstairs as we get ready for painting, I took the three pictures off the wall.

[I had to put them back up so I could take the picture and I didn't check the alignment carefully.  I put them up with I on the left and III on the right.  They hung straighter before so I think I had them in a different order.]

So when I took them down, on the back was the name of the painting and the artist.  It was easy to google and I got Zainol Ariffin Mustafa Alfandi's Facebook page right away.  

Then I tried to find where I wrote about the picture I used for the blog header.  It wasn't in my personal information or on the right column.  I searched the blog for Zainol but Blogger hasn't been good about finding words in the older posts.  So I added something on the right sidebar near the top.  

But it bothered me and so yesterday I looked through the posts for 2006 and then 2007 until I found it in May 2007.  I didn't include a picture.  I guess I figured the banner was good enough.  

But now I can include Zainol's full name and his FB link in case anyone is interested in his art.  Thanks, Zainol.  The paintings are still fresh, beautiful, and thought provoking.  

So, people who visit here often have seen part of one of Zainol's painting often.  Now you can go to his FB page and learn a bit more about him.  And I can fully recognize him here.  

What Does It Mean To Live To 117?

The Anchorage Daily News had the following short piece in its collection of short stories on Monday:

"THE WORLD'S OLDEST PERSON DIES AT 117

At 117, Nabi Tajima was older than modern-day Australia, and everyone else known to live on the planet. 

Tajima, born Aug. 4, 1900, in Araki, Japan, and recognized as the world's oldest person, has passed on that mantle. She died Saturday, having been hospitalized since January, the Associated Press reported, and was the last known person born in the 19th century. 

She was living in the town of Kikai on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, the AP reported. 

The title of 'world's oldest living person' is a remarkable, if not fleeting, one. Tajima claimed the distinction in September, when fellow 117-year-old Violet Brown died in Jamaica. Brown was the oldest person in the world for about five months. 

Tajima straddled the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and is one of the few people who could recall a time before World War I.  Two days after her 45th birthday, the United States dropped the first of two atomic bombs northeast of her home island.
Tajima's secret to longevity was “eating delicious things and sleeping well,” the group said. She danced with her hands at the sound of a samisen, a traditional three-string instrument."

This is the kind of story the paper clips from elsewhere and so when I looked for it online, I found it in the Washington Post, with a few more paragraphs and some pictures.

My thoughts when I read this were about what was not in this piece.  What was her physical and mental condition when she died?  How long was she able to converse and recognize the people around her.  Did she still do the things she liked to do?  What did she eat and did she enjoy the food?  And how long has it been since she did those things?  What parts of her body were still functioning?   

I think about my own mom's two and a half year decline from going out, walking on her own, mental alertness.  The physical mobility went first.  She had some ailments which didn't bother her when she was in bed, so she started spending more time in bed.  That led to loss of her muscle strength and ability to walk.  For the last year or so getting into the car was a problem.  Eventually eating got difficult - things got caught in her throat and she'd start coughing.  Her mobility was via a wheel chair and someone to move it.  She sat out in the sun daily, reading, and I would walk her up the street and back.  Sometimes around the block, but the next street over was very steep and had terrible sidewalk breaks.  

While she had moments of confusion - particularly when she woke up in the morning and transitioned from her dreams to being awake - for the most part she was lucid and understood what people were saying and responded pretty normally.  She could answer our questions about the past as we found things in the garage whose history we didn't know.  My mom passed away at 93 after a vigorous life, which included working at a job she loved until she was 85.  

My father had a distant cousin who lived to 102.  The last time we saw him he was 101 I think and we picked him up at the assisted living home where he lived.  He was dressed in a suit - how he dressed himself every day - and we drove to a nearby Thai restaurant where we talked and he ate with relish.  I dropped him and J off and then parked the car.  But he walked, without a cane, the quarter mile or so back to the car.  At that point, I'd say he was in great condition and he helped fill me in on a lot of family history I hadn't known.  So living that long isn't necessarily a painful thing, though i don't know how the last year or so went.  

After watching my mom's decline, I read these stories about 'the oldest person on earth' with some skepticism.  I guess it's a remarkable thing to live that long, but is it something anyone would want to do?  The article says, 

Tajima claimed the distinction [of being the oldest in the world]  in September, when fellow 117-year-old Violet Brown died in Jamaica

I suspect people claimed it for her and I wonder what she thought about that title.  Our Guinness Book of Records Syndrome makes us note these oddities, and I realize that for medical researchers there is significance.  And if the title brought Tajima any joy, that's a good thing.

The Washington Post has a few more paragraphs the ADN left out as well as some pictures.

“She passed away as if falling asleep. As she had been a hard worker, I want to tell her 'rest well,'" said Tajima's 65-year-old grandson Hiroyuki, local media reported.Tajima was in the exclusive group of supercentenarians, people who have crossed the 110-year threshold. The U.S.-based Gerontology Research Group, which tracks certified people who become supercentenarians, reports 36 worldwide. All but one of them are women, and 18 of them are Japanese. Good diets and supportive family structure have been linked to Japan's world-leading life expectancy.
Her legacy is similarly expansive; she had nine children and 160 descendants, including great-great-great grandchildren, the Gerontology Research Group said.
Chiyo Miyako, also in Japan, has become the world's oldest person, according to the group. At 116 years and 355 days, she has about nine months to reach her countrywoman's mark of 117 years and 260 days.
Miyako would not have to travel far to visit her male compatriot. Japan's Masazo Nonaka, at 112 years and 271 days old, was confirmed to be the world's oldest man by Guinness World Records this month. The organization had been set to recognize Tajima before she died, the AP reported."

I'd add that as old as 117 might seem, the National Geographic notes:

 One study in the journal Aging Research Reviews notes a deep-sea sponge from the species Monorhaphis chuni lived to be 11,000 years old. 

"Ming, a quahog clam, died at the age of 507 when researchers tried to dredge the bivalve up from Icelandic waters."  

"As far as mammals go, bowhead whales seem to have the most candles on their cake—over 200. It makes sense, since the marine mammals live in chilly waters, says Don Moore, director of the Oregon Zoo in Portland. . . 

A cold environment causes a low body temperature, which in turn means slow metabolism—and thus less damage to tissues, Moore says.

I knew there was a good reason to move to Alaska.

"Currently the world's oldest known land animal is Jonathan, an 183-year-old Aldabra giant tortoise that lives on the grounds of the governor’s mansion in St. Helena, an island off West Africa." 

Here's a picture of the still living Jonathan taken in 1900 [!] that I found at a website called ODDEE.  (It also has picture of the oldest clam.)

 I'm afraid the title question was not answered in the passing note of Tajima's death.  The missing Washington Post does hint at the research interest in such people.  For the ADN,  it's just a newsy tidbit like the picture of Jonathan.

Alaskans Need To Prepare To Stop The Dunleavy For Governor Campaign

[What Do I Know?  tends to shy away from taking explicit partisan stances on political races, preferring to present facts and let the reader decide.  And technically, my objections to Sen. Dunleavy are not because of his party membership, but because of his individual actions.  The specific actions I saw that so disturbed me were in defiance of the vast majority of his party. This post is an early warning]


From a Walker/Mallot (for governor) campaign email:

"The Walker Mallott campaign released polling this morning that shows Governor Bill Walker and Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott leading a two-way race against potential opponents Mike Dunleavy and Kevin Meyer by 36% to 33%."

From my perspective, this is truly scary.  I watched Dunleavy up close in May of 2015, when he chaired a committee responsible for passing Erin's Law (which had overwhelming bi-partisan support) during a summer special session.  Here's a quick summary of my  impressions a year later as in a post where I wondered whether Mat-su shouldn't be allowed to be annexed by Texas.

I wrote about Sen. Dunleavy last summer when he tried to gut the proposed Erin's Law by filling it with his far-right wing national parents' rights nonsense.   I say 'nonsense' because it's only about parents' rights in a very twisted way.  One whole section, for example, is really about crippling Planned Parenthood.  He had language then, and it's back now in SB 191, to ban school districts from contracting with any abortion provider or anyone who has any contract with an abortion provider.  I wrote about all of this in detail last summer. This was all understood to be aimed at Planned Parenthood.  

During that special session, I coined the term "to dunleavy" which summarized my impression of what Sen. Dunleavy was doing to Erin's Law during that session.  (The link explains the poster.)

Note:  This is a warning about Mike Dunleavy and not an endorsement of Walker/Mallot.  There are still possibilities of other candidates to challenge them both from the Left and Right.  And I would add that I think the Kevin Meyer is a much more decent person, but he suffers from the fact that his full-time employer is Conoco-Phillips.  While that, inexplicably, is not a conflict of interest in the Alaska legislature, it would be seen as much by most people who study governmental ethics.

My New Hears

Choose your own opening:

Opening 1
My wife was an audiologist part of her career.  Her stories were about how hard it was for people to adjust to hearing aids.  Problems with background noise and lots of other issues.  I learned that putting on hearing aids doesn't magically improve your hearing the way glasses immediately improve your seeing.

Opening 2
Glasses aren't called Seeing Aids, so why don't we have a word for hearing aids that isn't so clunky and off-putting?

Opening 3
As I grow older, the people around me mumble more and more.  Some people speak clear as a bell.  Others sound a little fuzzy.  I can catch most of what they're saying, but key words stay sounds without meaning.

The Story

So I went to Costco to have my hearing tested.  Then the technician,  The higher frequencies weren't within normal range.  Aaron programmed a hearing aid, showed me where the ignition was, and let me take them for a ride around the warehouse.  Despite my expectations of annoying noises and difficulty pulling out the things I needed to hear, it was, in fact, like putting on glasses.  All the gauze that seemed to muffle some people's voices disappeared, and those high tones needed to interpret certain words or certain voices came through loud and clear.  (Not too loud, just loud enough.)  The technology is much better than it was.  The aids are programmed to boost the frequencies my ears have trouble with, they dampen the background sounds, adjust to different backgrounds, and they even boost soft voices.  We shopped and went back to the hearing center where he started taking the aids out.  I protested.  I can't keep them?  No, these are ours, yours should be here in two or three days.  I was really disappointed.  But they came soon and now it's been a little more than a week.

So, now I'm looking for a good name for these little guys who ride behind my earlobes, hooked into my ear canals by little clear tubes.  I narrowed it down to 'ears' and 'hears' and after a tiny sample sized opinion survey, I've decided to call them my 'hears.'  [I'm still open to better suggestions.]

And today I went to the doctor for a slightly longer ago than annual check up.  No serious issues and all the lab results came out in the normal range. (I didn't plan it, but I kind of like having 'out in' in a sentence.)  He did mention that lots of men won't get hearing aids.  I understand not wanting to display one's infirmities to the world.  But I figure every time I say, "Pardon?" or "What was that?" or "I didn't catch that" I'm doing that anyway.  And I can hear everything now.  Particularly noticeable is the alarm on my watch, which is in a high frequency.  I could hear it faintly under good conditions, but if it's covered by a sleeve or there's a lot of background noise, they only way I knew it was going off was when people told me it was.  Now it's really loud!  So are paper and plastic sounds.

The three rules I was given was NO swimming, showering, or sleeping with the hears in.

 I used to say that I didn't need hears because what I heard was much more interesting than what people actually said.  This picture is like that.  And it gives you a sense of what high frequency words and voices sounded like before I got my hears.  You get a lot of the info, but it's fuzzy.

Oh yes, one more cute feature - there's a red mark on the hears for the right ear and a blue one for the left.

FBI Names Kokayi Nosakere As Anchorage Community Leader

I got a text message from a friend with a link.  Being a troglodyte, I can't go to websites on my phone (but I do get texts!), so I checked on my computer.  It was ominous in that it had FBI in the url and Kokayi thinks of himself as something of a trouble maker.  Was he showing me that he was now on some FBI watch list?

Here's what it says:

"The Anchorage Division honors Mr. Kokayi Nosakhere. Mr. Nosakhere works to address teen violence and homicide by bringing together minority groups to get to know one another. Through employment resources and spiritual, educational, parenting, and leadership support, Mr. Nosakhere is motivating young men to put an end to violence."

Congratulations Kokayi!

Here's what their website says about these awards:

"Since 1990, the annual awards have been the principal means for the FBI to publicly acknowledge the achievements of those working to make a difference in their communities through the promotion of education and the prevention of crime and violence.
In his remarks to the group this morning, Director Christopher Wray thanked the honorees for their efforts to make the country safer and noted the similarities between community leaders and the FBI’s own workforce—both are dedicated to public service and “doing the right thing in the right way,” he said.
“We need the support, the understanding, and the trust of our community partners and the public. You’re out in your neighborhoods and your communities every day building that support and that trust and that understanding,” Wray added."

AK Press Club: Some Afternoon Highlights - Panels on Data and Anonymous Sources

I can't keep up the pace I started this morning.  Here are just some notes


Heather Bryant presented on Using Data.  A great quote went something like, "Data and Fact are synonyms in the dictionary only."

This is a topic I've scratched a number of times.  Heather reminded me of lots of things I've heard before but had forgotten.  Most useful for me was a list of links to resources.
Sorry, the light in the room was bad and even playing with contrast didn't help the image much, but I've listed a bunch below.

• Google Fusion Tables
• Open Refine
• Atom
• Overview or Tabula - convert pdf images to data HTML Table to CSV

DataViz Tools

• Community   (not sure this is the link she had)
• Data Drive Journalism Listserv
• NICAR-L Listserv
• OpenNews
• Data Journalism Handbook
• Codeful Data  Journalism  (couldn't find anything that seemed like this link)
• Command Line, SQL, Python, Github
• Codecademy Curriculum
• Automate the Boring stuff with Python

The Next Panel:

Anonymous Sources  - NPR - KTVA-TV News Director Janis Harper, Managing Editor Sara Goo, CoastAlaska's Ed Schoenfeld.

This really was a panel discussion.  I don't think any of the panelists actually made a presentation.  They just jumped into discussing the topic.  Here are some highlights.  Again, this is rough in the interest of getting this up quickly.  If I have time, I may come back to clean it up a bit.

Reasons people want to be anonymous:

• People had genuine story and good reason not be be identified
• People who didn't understand how journalism works 
• People who saw journalists on TV or movies - someone wanted to be paid for his story or wants something

Examples, of anonymous source

Goo:  I need to understand something even if I can't report it.  Situation where people are ok giving their names, but we think it's not a good idea, that they might not understand the impact.  Case where interviewed someone for print, but when it went online we decided not to put name up because not sure that person agreed to the online use.

Using actors to read out the words in the interview - in a video on drug addicts.
In small communities often hard to get someone that people can't figure out.

Remember the guideline "to do no harm."    

Panelists had already handed out the Fairness section of the NPR ethics code.

Take pressure off source by getting them to help you find a document that has the information in it.  

Examples of getting documents and hard drive data anonymously.  In one case, salacious, but no real wrong doing.  Confirming with others.  

Even in small towns where you think you know people, you can still get used by someone.  Be suspicious about another person and why they're telling me the story.  But if they have documentation, even if the person doesn't have honorable intentions.  Another person's intent was to positively impact someone else.  Or just ask, "Why are you telling me this?  Why me?"

Someone doesn't want to be on the record, you can refuse and say, "just don't tell me."  Because they really want to tell you.  Or someone tells you it's off the record thinking that means you can't report it.  Response:  No, I just need to find another source for the information and not attribute it to you.  

AK Press Club: Libby Casey - How To do Good Video

OK, this session by Washington Post on-air reporter Libby Casey is about using video as part of your news stories.  But she was a reporter in Alaska for many years.   She's talking about how and why to pull out your phone and video.  So here's some video of the speaker.




OK, the disadvantage of the video is that I couldn't track most of the session because I was editing the video and uploading it.  Youtube decided not to recognize my computer today and so I had to search for my password to upload to my Youtube account.  And I didn't listen to the audio because I'm in the session and I don't have earbuds.  I had to sort of just jump in at the beginning.

Since I've been using video on this blog since 2006, most of this is stuff I already know.

Going to drop into the session again now.  Some rules:

• Can't stage a scene.  
• But you can take control of an interview.  Tell interviewee where to look, etc.
• Horizontal or vertical?  Traditionally horizontal.  More complicated now because media like SNAP going vertical.  But still horizontal.  Some going square even.  Never shift partway through.  
• Need good audio.
• Keep shot steady - use a mono-pod.  Selfie stick works, table tripods.  Gorillapod.  Also can get stabilizer.  She's talking about things to use with your cell phone.
• Audio - lavelier mics, good, fit right into your phone.  Audio! website - Smartphone Lab $79.  The more connections you have, the more likely to screw something up.  If you have none of these tools can use headphone or earbuds as way to get the sound to make sure it's good

What makes you so special?  What is your experience that gives you creditability?  Take advantage of what you know, in your community.
Do's and Don'ts

• Don't worry about production perfection - it's ok raw.  
• Don't get overwhelmed

Do

• Authentic
• Journalism standards
• Be aware your video can travel - if you are talking trash about neighboring community, they will get that eventually.  

11:20 Questions?

Q:  Working with kids?
A:  Never work alone - work as a team.  Sign permission forms for kids.  Don't need to know more th

Q:  Why stop with FB Live?
A:  First had grant and it ran out, but that wasn't the reason.  Just not getting enough traction right now.  If at protest, that's compelling and people want to share.  Why?  Wish I was there.  Supporting you by sharing.  I want to show this crazy thing happening.  Using periscope more.  Hit and miss to see what works.  Using more watch pages on FB.

Q:  Comments - don't they become overwhelming?
A:  My ?? series not that popular, so not overwhelming.  Can be.  At the post have team of social media people.  Before that I had other pages at FB.  I ended up shutting down my fan page because it was all like, 'you looked good today."  I just didn't want to engage in that.
My FB page - how to be a journalist page.  Put up good stories that don't fit elsewhere.  NRA said media loves mass shootings.  Got to us.  Should we even mention the NRA?  We did, but not until minute 16, not a reaction to them, but it's mentioned.  Just can't keep up with it, I do it on my own. But we do delete mean and demeaning comments.

I had to take some breaks here but you get a sense of the session.

AK Press Club: Tim Evans Investigative Journalism

These are rough notes from my first session at the Alaska Press Club Conference at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Tim Evans - Indianapolis Star

[Tim Evans broke the US gymnastics sex scandal story.]

Your reputation is the most important thing you have.

Don't push things beyond what you can do.  If you don't have the facts, don't do it.  I've got editors who push for stronger language.   Don't cave to the editor.

Try to have no errors, be exactly right.  Little screwups - name misspelled - will be attacked "If you can't spell my name, how can we trust anything you write."  Can't be too careful.  Not going to have two years on a project generally.  Don't be afraid to think small.  Not everything has to be a home run.

When we started gymnastics, Nassar was not on our radar.  Narrowed things down to four coaches.  Looking for situation where someone had done something, then went on to harm someone else.  If gymnastics had not taken any action.  Found coaches who had been reported, no action, went on to harm someone else.  Get beyond hypotheticals, get actual examples.

Given a gun permit despite law where they shouldn't have, caused problem, then did it again.  Police already had four coaches, multiple warnings, did nothing.  Nassar, a doctor, wasn't on the list.  Did the four coaches, and someone saw the story, then started getting calls about Nassar.  The calls were so strikingly similar,  Things he said to them all the same, sounded coached, working together.  We actually backgrounded the victims to make sure they weren't working together.  Their stories were so similar.  Made sure they were on different teams, didn't know each other.  Got two victims to agree, third didn't want to be named (has since come out.)  Editors had strict rules for anonymous stories.

Nassar denied - never penetrated.  That caused response from victims
Got tip Aug 4, story ran Sept 12.  Biggest sports sex scandal in US maybe world history.

I don't have a beat any more - advantages because people know you and give you tips.  Now I helicopter in, don't know squat.  Beat contacts really helpful.  Going to meetings, see people every day.  Staffers.  Spend time with them, they know what's going on.  I don't have that luxury now - harder to develop sources.
Downside - if you're the only people in the meeting, if you skewer someone, you have to deal with them next week.  But if you do it with a little care.   Commissioners filed suit against each other over open meetings,  I knew something was going on.  You're going to ruin our reputation - it's going be on the first page, then it will be dismissed in 3 months and won't get covered.  And we did put it on the first page when it was dismissed.  That helped.  You have to report those kinds of things, be as fair as possible.
Don't pisss off a good source, or people you deal with day in and day out.

Beat - got to maintain good relations.

Investigation - more advocacy.  Have to give both sides, laying out a problem, identifying the causes, how to correct the problem.  Little difficult to shift in and out of that.  Have to stop and think about.  Easy to get more accusatory, but have to pull back.

Q:  At what point do you contact the person you're targeting?

A:  Final interview, wait nervously close to the end.  They could come up with something that blows your story out of the water.  Early, you might ask "what is your policy, I'm just trying to understand?"  I play dumb real well.  We wait to within a few days of publication.
First Start story on child abuse.  State agency lying about kid who died in forster care.  Hard to tell because kids are all anonymous.  Got an insider who gave us a list of kids who died.  20% more than in the report.  Did our investigation, they were short counting.  About a week before, on Thursday, governor said "We just discovered we miscounted."  But we were ready because we'd done our homework and could say they only reported that after we called them.  Can't give them too much time.

Try to get someone else to go with you.  They could have lawyers and others around them.  They'll try to intimidate you, keep you off your questions.  Have someone taking notes.  Two heads better than one.  Can say, "We'll get to that, but now I'm asking this question."  We rehearse our questions, try to anticipate their responses and not get caught off guard.  Worst thing is to ask your million dollar question and they have a good response you aren't ready for and throw you off.  Again, two heads better than none.  You may be there an hour, but really looking for their quick deflection.

Q:  Doing a story what are the factors you consider ,what effects do you want?
A:  1.  Who's going to care?  Gotta know your audience.  In Indiana, lots of gun owners, I am too, so not an issue.  But we began to notice lots of guns.  Laws say you have to be good character which is vague - sheriff can sign you off.  Don't have to have felony, just bad character.  Started looking at gun violence.  Tighter gun laws, not going to work.  But wanted to get them to enforce laws in effect.   Looked at people of 'bad character' who got concealed carry permits and committed crime.  We showed state not doing good job of enforcing law.  We felt good,   Indiana didn't fix the problem, they just hid it by concealing list of concealed permit holders.

All info about permit holders was online including addresses and phone numbers.  when we published in the newspaper they freaked out and cut back.

Q: Impacts of investigative reporting.
A:  We work with the net.  We have big commitment to investigations.  We may work for three weeks and come back and say, this really isn't a big story, won't make an impact, let's move on to something else.  I'm lucky in good newsroom with strong leaders.

Q:  How investigative stories are packaged, put on social media, what's the choreography for that?
A:  Big investigation roll out on Sunday, big headlines.  20, 10 years ago.  Don't think we do it that well at the Star.  Our first Nassar story, probably had 100 links in it.  That got us attention early on.  Highly sourced, well documented.  Can embed documents right into the story.  Had a social media plan for launch of USA gymnastic stuff, designer got faces and Olympic logo, facebook and twitter.  We have a long form template we have to use that isn't very good.  In gymnastic story got much more traffic online as in print.  Center was in Indianapolis, but it was a national story.  USA Today pushed it.  Readership far beyond print reach.
Copy editor because a visual producer, was great.  Digital more important than the print.  Print almost afterthought?

Q:  When did you think about the headline?
A:  Them was "out of balance".  On balance team they mark where they should get off, and Simone marked it with a dollar sign.  Started story in March, first published in August.  Theme came up in June.  Got people helping from USA Network.  First story read like everyone had an input - because they did.

Q:  How did online and print headline differ?
Online to get best SEO, best google search results, online people focused on that.  Might have twisted words a bit to boost search hits.

Q  ???
A:  8-5 shift in the past.  I take every phone call  Work 70 hours.    Roman Finnegan.  Source on child abuse in state system.  He was scattered.  Knew he had a story, but couldn't pin him down.  Said, send me one page email with five key points.  He sent 20 pages.  I finally gave up on him.  He got an attorney and eventually got $9 million settlement and I didn't get the story, pissed me off.  But at certain point you have to cut and run.

Q:  ???
A:  Got to watch it in small market.  I've asked to talk to all employees, and then people want to know what I'm looking at.

Q:  When you devote more resources to investigative project, you have to give something up.  How do you make that decision?
A:  I don't have to make that decision.  It is a huge investment.  We got a lot of clicks.  I could have been writing breaking stories every day and gotten more clicks.  Job is investigative reporter but also do consumer help line.  We got back $1 million through that.  I've done two investigations based on that.

One other thing I want to get to - fact checking is HUGE.  Get detail wrong, diminishes everything else you do.  Most of our stories, take the expert, he takes victims, 3rd person takes another view.  Everyone reads everything and everyone knows everything.  Then one would take lead on writing so one voice, print it out, project on screen and go through it line for line.  Any fact or assertion we  made, we got back make sure we know it's good.  Go back to documents.  Not that don't trust each other, but want to prove before it's out.    Reedited at the end, we go through it all again.  Every assertion, every name, claim in court document, we have to show the others.  Haven't had any corrections or lawsuits.  Credibility is everything you've got.
For print, we're there at night to watch the page proofs, that's an easy place for someone to insert an error.

Q:  How often seek out research grants for investigations?
A:  Not as often as we should.  But did use state law to get access to child abuse stats.  Kaiser reporters, got some travel money.  People dying after minor surgery.  For profit hospitals.  Great opportunity for smaller papers.  Fellowship for narrative investigative project on child welfare.  They're out there.  Will help convince an editor.

Q:
A:  Always start with high hope.  Sometimes just can't pin it down.  Used staff to substantiate charges against ??, got close but couldn't prove it, protected records.  Knew it was good story.  Don't give up on your sources.  People may eventually feel they can talk.  Gymnastics people feared career.  I'd just call back and ask if there was any change.  Once the dominoes started to fall, more people will talk.  Some blame victims for not speaking up early.  But that's such an intimate thing if they are victims themselves.  Some will never talk, others will come forward.  Victim shaming really pisses me off. People are ready at their own time.  Every do a rape case?  Questioning is discussing.  People ask how did you get the to talk?  When they are ready, they are happy to talk to someone who would listen.  Parents pushing their kids to say nothing so they don't jeopardize their sports careers.  Lots of remorse.

Q:  Star made a decision on that?
A:  Mixed feelings.  Easy to say if someone arrested or targeted in lawsuit, but this doctor with no malpractice, no complaints, icon in the sport, and we come out of the blue with two women saying he molested me.  Pillar of local and sports community, we had to nail it in the first story.
Just because someone tells you something, that doesn't release you from your liability.  Lawyers there too.

Q:  What are the metrics - official and
A:  Lucky don't have a click quota.  Some beat reporters do have quotas.  We're isolated ab it because of big story.  If  I don't know how they calibrate it.  Clicks are important.
Page views, volume.  Now shifted to time spent on page.  In and out quick hurts you.  Return readers.  Engage time.  Click to other stories from our site.
Investigations 50-100K readers first day.  
Q: What about impacts.  Impacts outside the clicks.  Beyond that change laws, change lives, survivors to say if it weren't for you, he'd still be molesting little girls.  Pulitzer.  Obit - should have one Pulitzer.  Not doing it to get rich or make friends.  WW II vet paid $9000 to fix wife's car, got ripped off, I wrote a story on this, and a couple weeks ago, got the Mustang back all restored, he's 96.  That's the power.  Little things that make it rewarding.


Again, these are rough notes, but should give you an idea of what happens in these sessions.