August 19, 2010

Understanding inmate health care

Calhoun County taxpayers shell out a lot of money each year to provide a range of medical services – from routine check-ups to prescription allergy medicine to more expensive treatments like pre-natal care and cancer medicine – for the more than 400 inmates at the local jail.

A lot of money but not that much money compared to what they used to pay and compared to what the average American spends on health care each year. ($2,976 according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Calhoun County commissioners and jail officials say they’ve been able to help local taxpayers save on jail medical costs for a number of reasons.

1) Seven years ago, the commission realized that it needed to have a better understanding of who was in the jail at all times.  So it appointed a court liaison – a person dedicated to knowing every inmate’s charge, bond situation and, most importantly, medical requirements. That way, officials could better monitor who was costing taxpayers the most in medical expenses and seek alternatives to incarceration if that person was a non-violent, non-repeat offender.

2) Around the same time, jail officials began requiring a $10 co-pay from all inmates who needed medical assistance.

3) Most recently, the head nurse at the jail received his nurse practitioner’s license. He passed the exam Monday, meaning the commission can cut doctor’s fees in half for fiscal year 2011.

In addition to these specific saving techniques, Calhoun County Administrator Ken Joiner said the commission has been diligent about seeking out reduced-cost contracts with local pharmacies for prescriptions and Regional Medical Hospital in Anniston for in-patient and emergency care.

But how are these cost-cutting measures affecting inmates? What’s being said by opponents of judges who allow non-violent and non-repeat offenders out of jail early based on medical costs? And what happens when one inmate – who absolutely must stay in jail – breaks the bank with a serious chronic illness or emergency health problem?

To learn more about what inmate health care costs Calhoun County taxpayers and how that cost is being further reduced for FY 2011, read my article, tentatively set to run in this Sunday’s Anniston Star.

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August 18, 2010

Hello from The Anniston Star crime beat

…actually, I really should change that headline to say, “Hello from The Anniston Star public safety beat, which includes three police departments, a sheriff’s office, a courthouse and an army installation the size of Manhattan.”

Does it sound exhausting?

It is.

Overwhelming?

Yep, check that one, too.

But here’s the thing about my first real journalism job. By “real” I mean full-time, post-college job. I wake up every day, and I am thrilled to come to work. As I told one of my Washington and Lee journalism professors in a recent Facebook message, Anniston is an awesome news town. Every day, I’m covering something new, something crazy, something I’ve never thought about before.

Just last Sunday, The Star ran a 2,800-word enterprise story I wrote about the area unsolved homicides and how local police here excel at clearing (solving) cases. But do you know what clearance really means and what factors play a part in it? I didn’t

Check out the story on my newly updated Clips page.

Yes, this job is exhausting, but – in the words of the crime reporter I recently replaced – it’s also exhilarating. Part of that is because each day on the job as a beat reporter is completely different from the day before it. Part of the holy-crap-this-is-so-cool feeling comes from working in a newsroom, surrounded by people who care about the community they are covering. Part of it comes from feeling like all those late nights reporting for the Rockbridge Report actually did prepare me for a “real” newsroom.

I never thought I’d end up in Alabama. I certainly never thought I’d end up Anniston, Alabama – covering drugs and unsolved homicides and army changes of command ceremonies. But at this point – more than two months in – I’m so glad I did.

It sounds cheesy, but I love my job.  OK, ending dorkiness now…if possible.

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March 25, 2010

Wednesday night news wrap-up

So I am posting this in bed from my (relatively) new Droid phone. It’s 12:21 a.m. I’m officially done with Rockbridge Report preparations for the show tomorrow. I should go to bed.

But the producer in me – the journalist in me – won’t shut off.

I keep thinking about all the big news headlines this sleepy little mountain town keeps churning out – school budget crises, drug busts, burglary problems, controversial noise ordinances, and of course we can’t forget our new Lexington police chief.

There’s such a desire to make it “big” in the news biz – to report on the national and international stories that impact the largest audiences. And for good reason – those are the stories that keep the job interesting, dynamic and challenging. But now more than ever I’ve been experiencing first-hand how local news coverage matters just as much. Need proof? Just check out the emotion that charges everything the school board members are saying right now.

Nerdy as it may be for a college senior to be blogging on her smartphone about how much she loves the news biz, that’s exactly what I want to be doing.

That’s exactly what producing the only local news station has made me want to be doing when I really should be catching some Z’s….err…I mean, partying.

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March 16, 2010

Power producers

For winter term, I have been producing Lexington, Virginia’s weekly newscast and Web site – The Rockbridge Report. I decided to take the class, thinking it would be the ultimate test of just how “converged” a journalist I actually was. Producing is the capstone class for broadcast majors at Washington and Lee, and as print major with a penchant for broadcast packages and tease writing, I thought I’d slip on those producing shoes, no problemo.

The Rockbridge Report Staff, winter 2010.

As I joke about with my journalism friends (and told a certain Atlanta Journal Constitution editor on a job interview), I like to think of myself as the greatest writer of my generation. Egotistical, I know, but a way to keep me motivated even when the news industry continues to look rough.

 But when it comes to teases, that playful exaggeration becomes a huge…er…lie. At the beginning of January, it took me an entire afternoon and evening write all the teases for our 20-minute, weekly show. Now, I can get it down in an hour or two. But you can bet I still lose a couple points on my grades each week because of teases.

Right now, my life is producing for the Rockbridge Report. On weekends, I am constantly checking e-mails from reporters and faculty advisors on story updates. Early in the week, I build the preliminary pages for the Web site or start organizing the rundown for the show. Wednesday nights are marathons of writing RDRS or Web blurbs, editing VO/SOTs and, of course, teases. And Thursdays, don’t expect to see me between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Thursdays are show time!

 It’s hard, especially in a liberal arts environment that requires concentration on three other classes a week in addition to producing.

Despite the late weeknights, anxious weekends and draining Thursday afternoons, I’ve really come to appreciate what this Rockbridge Report leadership role has helped me to accomplish as a journalist.

If I felt confident in my broadcast skills before winter 2010, I feel like now, after eight weeks as a producer, they are truly at the level of my print skills. As cheesy as it sounds, I think that I have earned the title “power producer.” Even if I still sweat the teases.

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December 11, 2009

Destined for the Red Carpet?

While I’ve neglected other journalistic duties for the past couple weeks as I prepared for Exam Week and Christmas Break, I still managed to find time to create a fun broadcast piece – one that I hope will take my colleague, Alicia Budich, and me to the Oscars as Red Carpet correspondents.

Here’s the video we just submitted to MTVu. Let me know what you think:

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November 20, 2009

Excessive drinking at W&L linked to sexual assault

A 2009 anonymous health survey given to Washington and Lee undergraduates shows that about 18 percent of female respondents have experienced rape or attempted rape. That’s two times the national college average for sexual assault, says Dr. Jane Horton, Washington and Lee’s director of student health.

The report shows that 39 percent of undergraduate women attending Washington and Lee responded to the survey- 341 women in total.

“We feel comfortable that our survey is representative of our students’ experience here,” said Horton.

I took an in-depth look at sexual assault at Washington and Lee as part of an on-going investigation about gender relations on local college campuses.

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November 13, 2009

Start small, read everything

For two days, criminal defense lawyers, sports journalists, law students and journalism majors gathered together at Washington and Lee University to discuss the intersection of sports, the law and the media.

Following on the heels of the much-publicized Journalism Ethics Institute which featured notorious former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, the 3rd annual Media, Courts and the Law Symposium brought its own media and legal powerhouses to the campus for panel discussions about  how the media and the law depend on each other when major sports stars get in trouble.

“When sports, the law and the media collide, they create a perfect storm, particularly in a celebrity-obsessed culture such as ours,” read the program bulletin that was distributed to the more than 60 people who attended the first of the two panels on Wednesday.

 That panel included Christopher Lyons, the lawyer who defended NFL player Donte Stallworth on a DUI manslaughter charge, Larry Woodward, the defense attorney in Michael Vick’s dog-fighting case, Jackie MacMullan, an ESPN columnist and correspondent, and Lee Hawkins, a Wall Street Journal reporter and on-air contributor for CNBC.

The panelists’ discussion was thought-provoking and honest about the ways in which journalists and criminal defense lawyers rely on each other to attain their goals.

“I’ve certainly used the press to my advantage at times,” said Woodward. MacMullan nodded, adding that as a journalist, its important to cultivate relationships with lawyers. That’s how you get the exclusive story, she said, by putting in the time.

But for me, the most rewarding part of the symposium experience was the dinner after Wednesday’s panel, where journalism and law students were able to spend one-on-one time with the panelists over drinks and dinner. Wall Street Journal reporter Lee Hawkins sat at my table and spent most of the night encouraging my fellow journalism majors and me about breaking into the news business.

I think it’s a time of great opportunity for young,ambitious journalists, Hawkins said. Hawkins pointed out that convergence is second nature to young reporters and encouraged us to develop our skills for all media – print, broadcast and online.

Really, when it comes down to is, Hawkins said, you’re all about your clips. Read everything, fact check everything, put in the extra time on the front end before you start writing – if you have good clips and multimedia skills, you’re going to find a job, he said.

But he also advised the “print” journalists at the table to focus on metropolitan papers rather than the “big guys” like the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Start small, read everything, he said.

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November 4, 2009

The new ‘J-team’: saviors of journalism

Caesar Andrews

Caesar Andrews (Courtesy of W&L Journalism Dept.)

Former Editor of the Detroit Free Press Caesar Andrews believes the journalism business will survive. And more than that, he thinks it will thrive.
At least that’s what Andrews, Washington and Lee University’s Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism, said in a speech to a crowd of about 50 people on Wednesday.

Andrews, whose Detroit Free Press newsroom won last year’s Pulitzer prize for local reporting, said he foresees a new class of journalists- the ‘J-Team’ – who will save the industry – much in the same way the ‘A-Team’ from the 1980s action television series saved the world.

“Instability seems to be the rule of the day,” Andrews said. “But I don’t think for one minute that the business of journalism is down for the count.”

Andrews pointed to three areas of journalism where he found hope, and more than that, growth: business opportunities provided by the Internet, audience opportunities provided by a growing national population and reporting opportunities provided by new, fresh talent in the newsroom.

“[Talent is] the strongest resource in the news media’s future,” he said. “Freshly minted talent free of the baggage of the way news used to be.”

Andrews called for journalism students to tackle the industry with creative, energetic optimism. He said there would always be a need for professionals – trained reporters who continually go beyond the masses, including citizen journalists and bloggers.

But Andrews warned that he no longer believed the fundamentals of great journalism would single-handedly float news organizations by themselves.
That’s where creative thinking about advertising, news delivery and the expanding population comes in, he said.

“The Internet is not delivering the money now, but it’s important to realize [the Internet] is a revolution.”

When questioned about what he thinks will happen to print newspapers and online news publications, Andrews said he didn’t have “any one answer.” But he said he thought the news business was about to go through “seasons of change” as organizations began to experiment with new business models.

“There’s an urgency to the conversation now. People are forced to be a lot bolder,” said Andrews. “It’s about the forward-looking commitment of ‘what are we going to do?’”

What they should do, Andrews’ speech seemed to imply, is look to the new crop of journalists to replace lost experience with new-found professional innovation.

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October 26, 2009

Gretchen Morgenson talks finance, business journalism

I got the chance to sit down with Gretchen Morgenson, the assistant business editor of the New York Times, while she visited Washington and Lee University.

To Morgenson, miscommunication between borrowers and lenders lies at the heart of the current financial crisis. The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, who began writing about the mortgage meltdown in early 2007, told me she knew irresponsible lending would lead to a crisis.

But she had no idea how bad it would be.

Now, in the aftermath of lending-gone-wrong, Morgenson says the biggest problem that faces the economy is resolving companies too big to fail.

“This is the crucial, central problem that our leaders in government have not yet dealt with,” she said.

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October 13, 2009

Can ad exchanges help news publishers make $$?

Publishers are getting ripped off, plain and simple.

At least that was the gist of Erich Wasserman’s speech at Washington and Lee University on Monday. Wasserman, the co-founder and vice president of an online media trading company, said there are three ways in which publishers sell display ads online. But most publishers know about only two ways: Directly sold inventory and indirectly sold inventory/third-party ad networks.

Directly sold inventory is when the publisher sells display ads on its site directly to the ad agency. For example: The New York Times sells a banner ad to Sony. Directly sold inventory guarantees that 100 percent of every dollar from the sale goes to the New York Times.

The downside? Usually, publishers can only sell about 30 to 40 percent of their display ad inventory directly.

Traditionally, this has been where ad networks and indirectly sold inventory step in. A third party ad network comes along and offers to buy the inventory the publisher hasn’t been able to sell. So everything our theoretical New York Times publisher couldn’t sell directly is bought up by an ad network, let’s say Traffic Marketplace.

Traffic Marketplace pays the New York Times, but only about 30 percent what they would be able to sell the inventory for directly. Then, Traffic Marketplace turns around and sells all that display ad space to agencies like Sony at full price.

The bitter end? The New York Times is only making 30 cents for every dollar that Traffic Marketplace makes. Publishers are getting ripped off, and they don’t think there’s another alternative.

But Wasserman says there is.

Enter ad exchanges. (DoubleClick, AdECN, Right Media are the big ones right now.)

(Copyright 2009 by Will Scully-Power)

(Copyright 2009 by Will Scully-Power)

Ad exchanges are ways for publishers (sellers of display ads) and agencies (the buyers) to plug into an open technology platform (provided by the ad exchange) in which ad prices are set in a constantly updating (real-time) auction.

This marketplace basically decides the value of a publisher’s users, which helps set the price for display ads on that publisher’s site. Ad exchanges help publishers to better monetize their Web-sites while improving returns for advertisers, said Wasserman.

He estimates that publishers will get back 85 percent of every dollar spent when they use ad exchanges. That’s a lot better than the 30 percent a publisher will receive for every dollar the ad network collects.

“Forget the ad network,” Wasserman said.

It’s important to remember that Wasserman stands to benefit from publishers turning to ad exchanges because his company partners with them so they can, in turn, partner with agencies.

Still, I think what he said makes a lot of sense. I think publishers don’t have a lot to lose. Why not give ad exchanges a chance? Or do they already?

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