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Al's Morning Meeting

Home > Reporting, Writing & Editing > 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. You thought sub-prime lenders were gone? No way! They are making FHA loans.

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

*3. Just in time for Thanksgiving, PETA posts a video of turkey abuse on a poultry farm.

*4. Seven key questions about a car company bailout.

*5. The Flip Cam has gone HD with a customizable cover.

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

7. ProPublica's investigation into air marshals gone bad.

8. An awesome storm chaser photo blog

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

10. ESPN's "The Journey of Richard Jensen" -- the comeback of a wrestler -- is an extra good video.

11. You can lay subtitles or text bubbles on video -- any video. I will be using this to teach about storytelling.

12. I now use Utterz to file audio reports. You can use your computer's mic or any phone. It's simple and would be a great reporter's tool.

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.


Rural Areas Still Fertile Ground for Military Recruiters
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has produced a database showing where U.S. Army recruits call home. The paper said its research shows that rural communities are still fertile ground for military recruiters.

The paper said:

Four of the top 10 counties in the United States were home to large Army posts.

Residents of such areas tend to have more familiarity and interaction with the military and are more receptive to the idea of military service, the Army says. Installations host activities open to the public and are active in civic life. In addition, many military retirees and families congregate in such areas.

You can search the database
by state, county, the number of recruits and the recruiting rate by population.

The three major stories the paper produced are:

bullet Answering the call to serve
bullet Pride, tradition entice recruits
bullet Not much to keep these teens home
Posted by Al Tompkins 11:30 AM
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