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Al's Morning Meeting

Home > Al's Morning Meeting
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Al Tompkins
Story ideas that you can localize and enterprise. Posted by 7:30 a.m. Mon-Fri.
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A dozen sites
I'm diggin'


*1. For anyone looking for a year-end project, consider this one from the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. The paper put a face on every person murdered in Rochester for the year. Stunning and simple use of multimedia.

*2. The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times produced a fascinating story that sheds light on how easy it was to defraud the banking system during the housing boom.

*3. Watch a simple but telling video essay about how immersed children can get while playing video games.

*4. The Rural Blog discusses what failing auto companies mean to rural communities.

5. Salon investigates "Friendly Fire" incident that leads to document shredding.

6. Seven key questions about a car company bailout.

7. The Flip Cam has gone HD with a customizable cover.

8. A fun video to help you with digital conversion.

*9. In a weird way, I dig this photo essay on abandoned Christmas trees.

10. Planet Money is a really good blog about money and finance.

11. You thought sub-prime lenders were gone? No way! They are making FHA loans.

12. You thought sub-prime lenders were gone? No way! They are making FHA loans.

All of my Diggin' sites are saved on Poynter's del.icio.us page.

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 on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.


Thursday Edition: National Missing Children's Day Tomorrow

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Tomorrow marks the 25th National Missing Children's Day. Here is some information from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children:


Putting Chips in Patients with Alzheimer's

A Florida adult-daycare facility is making plans to implant a computer chip that is about the size of a grain of rice into patients with Alzheimer's. The identity chip would be implanted into the patient's forearm, sort of like veterinarians implant chips in dogs and cats.

The patient's family or the patient himself/herself would have to approve. As you can imagine, there are already opponents.


Did Tons of Jobs Really Go Offshore?

Newsweek takes a look at where jobs really go when people lose them. Recently it has been tempting to blame everything on jobs going offshore. But Newsweek says the whole offshore boogeyman has been overblown.


Inmates Not Allowed to Keep Victims' Photos

In Georgia, the governor signed a new law that forbids inmates from keeping photos of their victims in their prison cells. It seems like common sense. Do other states have similar laws?


Al's Morning Multimedia: How to Show Numbers

I often tell journalists to describe big numbers as shapes. It is hard to imagine what a billion of anything means. Here is an outstanding example of how this kind of thinking looks.

Photographer Chris Jordan tries to help us understand how many cell phones Americans retire every day (426,000). He shows how many Americans show up at emergency rooms because of drug misuse by displaying 213,000 Vicodin pills. And wait until you see how many plastic bottles Americans use every five minutes (2 million).


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.

Posted by Al Tompkins 12:54 AM
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