A breaking news tip: For help with ongoing coverage of Tuesday's bomb attacks in Mumbai, see
these resources assembled by the South Asian Journalists Association.
The Miami Herald this morning published the third part of its nine-month investigation into the air cargo industry. Each installment includes multi-media presentations. The paper found:
- Amid lax regulation, air cargo has evolved into the deadliest form of commercial flight in the U.S., with nearly a fatal crash a month. Story
- The NTSB usually blames the pilot for air cargo's fatal crashes, but a Herald investigation found other contributing factors were downplayed or ignored.
- Many cargo pilots earn scant pay and log long hours in a quest to move up the ladder. But their industry is fraught with risks not encountered by passenger pilots.
I really like it when journalists do as The Herald did in this story and include original documents that were the basis for the story.
How Tall is Too Tall for a Small Town?
I love this issue, I wonder if other towns face it. Palm Springs, California near the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains has long limited the height of buildings that could block the sun and the view of the scenery. But the restrictions also stop development and growth. So the question becomes, how tall is too tall, even in a growing town?
Read the story in the The Desert Sun newspaper. What, if any height restrictions does your town impose? Why? Who get variances and why?
Lock Law Mostly Ignored
This is one of those stories that I suspect would play just about anywhere. First, The Wisconsin State Journal gives a little background-then I will tell you about what they discovered:
In Madison, the door-lock rule, approved by the council in December 2004, applies to any building with two or more units and a common entrance. Landlords also must install a doorbell, buzzer or intercom system at the main entrance.
The impetus came from a June 2004 sexual assault at an apartment building near Camp Randall Stadium. A female tenant was raped and nearly killed by a male intruder when she went to the basement to get her bicycle.
Residents of the building had previously asked the landlord to install locks on the exterior doors. The rape victim sued the landlord and settled for $50,000.
The Wisconsin State Journal reports:
One year after Madison began requiring landlords to install exterior door locks on all multiunit residences, the Wisconsin State Journal has found nearly 1 in 4 buildings not in compliance with the law.
A spot check of 100 multiunit dwellings found 23 without working locks on common entrance doors.
In each case, a reporter was able to walk in off the street and gain access to hallways and stairwells - exactly what the law is designed to prevent.
"I do think we should have locks on the doors to keep the bad people out," said tenant Darlene Mastin, who lives in a four-unit building on Mayfair Avenue that was part of the random survey and doesn't have front door locks.
review of city records found inspectors have responded to 46 complaints since the law took effect July 5, 2005. Additional violations were found by city workers during routine inspections of housing stock, although the city doesn't track the precise number, said George Hank, director of the city's inspection unit.
In each case, inspectors issued a notice to the landlords. In only one case did the landlord fail to install locks within 60 to 90 days, leading to a $166 fine.
When told that 23 percent of landlords in the random survey weren't in compliance, Hank said, "I would have hoped that you would have told me 10 to 15 percent. I would have been very happy with that. I'm a little disappointed (with 23 percent)."
Eileen Bruskewitz, a Downtown landlord and co-founder of the Madison Landlord Council, said cost and a soft rental market may be slowing some landlords.
Often, the paper found, it is the tenants who are thwarting the law by propping open doors or by not monitoring people who slip in when the door swings open to an approved guest.
Quitting Smoking-Adding Weight
A new study says the average person who quits smoking gains 21 pounds in the process, not 12 pounds as has been commonly reported for years. But that is no reason to keep puffing. HealthDay News said:
Former smokers may gain more than 20 pounds after they kick the habit, instead of the five to 15 pounds commonly cited, new research suggests.
But that's no reason not to quit, the study's authors added. It may be a reason to add weight-control to the mix after quitting, however.
"The (new) findings highlight the need to provide effective dietary and physical activity counseling along with smoking cessation programs," the study authors advised in the current issue of Health Services Research.
The team, from the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley, re-analyzed data from the 1998 Lung Health Study of 5,887 American smokers. That study found that those who quit smoking gained an average of nearly 12 pounds.
The new analysis concluded that the average weight gain among quitters was actually about 21 pounds.
Stories From the Front
The Columbia Journalism Review has a piece about one of the most remarkable journalists dispatching from the front lines in Iraq, The New York Times’ Dexter Filkins. This is worth a read. In the 2005 edition of Best Newspaper Writing, I interviewed Filkins about his reporting from Iraq. My Poynter colleague Roy Peter Clark and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Tom French do in-depth analysis of what makes Filkins’ stories so remarkable.
Here are three of Filkins’ most impressive works. These are excellent teaching tools and make for good brown bag lunch fodder for newsrooms that want to talka bout what makes stories work. Filkins told me he wrote the stories zipped up in a sleeping bag so snipers could not see the glow of his computer screen. He charged his laptop from the batteries of cars left abandoned on Iraqi streets.
The Streets: Urban Warfare Deals Harsh Challenge to Troops
The Insurgents: Hard Lesson: 150 Marines Face 1 Sniper
The Marines: Black Flags are Deadly Signals as Cornered Rebels Fight Back
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
