Manjoo

    Let me start off by saying, I am always skeptical about what I hear on the news or read in the paper. Everyone has their own opinion even if they say they don’t. There is always two sides to a story, his-hers-and the truth. To form your own opinion you would have to look at both sides and then decide on your own what the truth is. With technology today it is getting a lot harder to do this. So-called journalist can post anything on the web and if you want to believe you can but is it the truth?

     Farhad Manjoo wrote “True Enough”, and explored why hardnosed journalism is no more.  Manjoo gave examples of Kathy Dopp and the presidential mistake, the Swift Boat Veterans, “truthiness” and peripheral processing.

    I found the Swift Boat Veterans story to be quite entertaining. These veterans believed that John Kerry had not done half of what he said. Even though they were not reporters or journalist they were able to spread their views and thoughts. They were able to get backing finically which allowed them to reach national levels. This furthers proves the point that anybody can reach the mass public. I believe the same tactic was used during the 2008 election. Many people were distraught over Obama possibly being president. They tried every trick in the book to attempt to get the America population to vote against him.

     The Kathy Dopp story emphasized the power one person can have. Dopp, a mathematician who is an election observer, noticed an irregularity in the Florida results. It ultimately turned out that there was not an irregularity, but it showed what power one person can have when they notice something wrong. Dopp posted all of her findings to the web and even had charts that prompted the question, “Is it possible to rig op-scan voting systems?” The web was able to make Dopp, essentially, an amateur reporter; she told us what she thought the experts weren’t.

    This brings me to my next point, Experts. Experts are no longer experts in a field they are experts in delivering a message. In a sense this is good and bad for news reporters. The good way is for the power hungry reporters who think they can say whatever they want and the public will believe them…the bad part is that people who know this trick will not tune in and instead go somewhere where they can get more “expert” news.

    This goes into peripheral processing. This is where people who may be lazy at the time or don’t know anything about a subject will turn to “Consumer Reports”. The book said, “How often are Consumer Reports wrong about some product endorsement?” This is where it gets confusing in my eyes. Think about how many times an average person might look for advice on everyday items. What is they can’t find a Consumer Report on the item they are looking for? What if the Consumer Report they find differs from a blog they read? These are the questions that could alter someone’s peripheral processing.

    “Truthiness” is what is known as two parts one is those who “think with their head” and the others are those who “know with their heart.” This occurs everywhere. A part of truthiness is that people may believe a story just because it may feel right even though there is lack of evidence to prove it. “Truthiness” took off, a person of expertise was able to come up with this term and let it ride.  It’s the power people have over the public. If they say it with confidence and meaning and people have to same views they will accept it.

    The future is coming and with that journalism is changing and it may not be for the good. We are all going to have to adjust to the new age of journalism. It is our job to sort through the junk and deliver the actual facts to the public. The biggest challenge is to not get sucked into the technology that is toxic to journalism. 

Trial Post

   I arrived to the courtroom of Judge Manuel A. Lopez and noticed three officers. One of them was escorting an inmate and the other two were standing alone, I assumed incase anything gets out of hand.

   The case that struck me the most was this 16 years old. His last name is Terrance Oliver and was facing the judge for resisting arrest, obstructing an officer without violence and misdemeanor allegations. He was already on probation.

    The reason this case stuck to me out of the other ones is because he is only 16 years old. Even though I am only a mere 5 years older than him I feel like he is just a kid. I listen to the news and hear about kids his age getting arrested, being involved in gang activity and the list goes on. I just think about what could have gone wrong in this young man’s life to land him in front of the judge.

    Oliver lives with his grandma because his mom recently died. Doing his part to speak he tried to use his mother’s death as an excuse for what he did.  I couldn’t believe that he was trying to use that as an excuse. My girlfriend lost her dad when she younger and isn’t out committing crimes and getting arrest. I know that people handle the death of a parent differently but using that as an excuse for his mistakes is ridiculously.

     The youth today seems to always find something to blame on their behavior. I believe this is what Oliver is trying to do. Instead of being a kid and staying out of trouble he is acting out and thinking that using his mom’s death as an excuse will get him off the hook.

    He was found guilty and sentenced to 39.5 months in a state prison. I hope for his sake that his sentence with be a wakeup call and he will be able to straighten his life out.

Politics

      After listening to William March I have decided that I would not be suited to be a political reporter. Although finding out about the spending in political parties is interesting I’m not sure I would want to do it.

     The most interesting aspect of March’s presentation was that people have found ways to beat the system on contributing to political parties. So how it works is that the max limit for a U.S. citizen is one thousand dollars. What a person might do, such as the person March talked about, is have people who work for their company donates to the party with their money. This is the part that is illegal.

       March walked us through some websites that allowed him to research the donations to the Clinton party in 1996. By using this website he was able to find that Mark Jimenez had contributed around three hundred thousand dollars to the Clinton administration. By using the website for Florida Corporate records, sunbiz.org,                          March was able to connect Jimenez’s company and his employers to donating rough five hundred thousand dollars to the Clinton administration.

       Being able to have this type of public record is crucial for a political reporter. Without this information March would not have been able to connect the dots. This is the part of political reporting that I find most interesting.

        I  always love a good scandal and the Jimenez case was exactly that. March was able to present hard evidence against the employees of Jimenez’s company. Some of the employees had not even voted since they registered. Many of them were even republicans which throws a red flag instantly. All of the evidence was gathered together and made into a story and ended up ruining Jimenez’s company and ultimately forcing Jimenez to serve jail time and pay fines. 

Budgets!!!!

        Money in, money out, proposed, adopted, all things budget and all things that do not tickle my fancy. That’s right I learned more about a budget than I would have liked but am glad I did. As Preston Trigg told us, budgets are the least taught subject in schools, and for good reason. Listening to the ins and outs of a budget bore me but I am aware that budgets are important to know.

        I guess the most important thing about budgets is not knowing every single detail but knowing how to navigate around one. Trigg mentioned that those who propose the budgets also put out an executive summary. At first I thought GREAT! that means I do not have to read everything else. Then he had to go and burst my bubble and say that is what they want you to read. With all things there is a fine print and putting out an executive summary they are trying to make us not see the fine print.

       I found this quite interesting, why wouldn’t they want us to dig deeper into their budget. Well I learned that in the summary they might say there is going to be a 2 cent increase on salaries, which may not seem like a lot. But if you look harder at those 2 cents  that could mean a 45 percent increase overall. Now that is something to look at. I know that if I was covering that government agency I would want to know why there is such a high percentage increase. On the flip side it is also important to look at decreases. They may decrease one item and raise another to make it seem like everything is even but in reality someone is getting taken for a ride.

       What makes my job as a journalist even harder is trying to find a story out of these increases and decreases. Sure a tax increase is a no brainer but what it there is an increase in the computer equipment budget. On the surface it may look like they are replacing old equipment but it could mean that their current equipment is magically appearing in employees houses.

     All things considered I’m glad I learned how to look at a budget and what to look for but hopefully I will not have to deal with them. 

Public Meeting 2

           I arrived at today’s public meeting about intersections expecting the same thing I experienced my last public meeting. What I found was that even though this meeting was a lot smaller than the recognition meeting I attended before it was a lot more lively and interesting.

          Unlike the other meeting this one was about tax payer’s money and construction in their backyard. The crowd was pretty diverse, politicians, heads of neighborhood associations and just everyday folk wanting to know what’s going on.

          I walked into the rec center off of North Dale Mabry and Northdale Blvd, which is one of the intersections they are talking about redoing, and noticed poster boards with Google image type pictures depicting what the roads would look like. I thought this was a great idea to have the resident’s visual the changes instead of just telling them about it. The other intersection in question was North Lakeview Drive South and North Dale Mabry. There were also poster boards of this intersection next to the other ones. 

          This particular meeting was in what they call the Preliminary Design and Engineering Study, which in laymen’s terms means that they are proposing this to the public and trying to convince them to vote on it. The first intersection had 4 choices and the second had 3. The country and contracting company is trying to figure out which choice the residents would prefer over the other.

         The contracting team put on a video for the residents at the meeting. I thought this video was top notch and made me feel like doing this construction was a great idea….I DON’T EVEN LIVE HERE. That’s how convincing I felt this video was. It had great graphics and details, it told exactly what was going to be done and how much it would cost. At least that is what I thought…I’ve been around enough politics to know not everything will be disclosed.

        After the video, the head of the contract team offered the attendees of the meeting to get up and look at the poster boards and ask questions to any of the staff located at the boards.

        Although some might not agree I thought this meeting was very interesting. It made me think towards the future and if I would be attending a meeting towards such a topic. Being forced to attend public meetings, it made me realize that these are important and informative meetings that someday I will want to go to.  

          

         Quote of the meeting: “There will be a no construction option.” That was replied with clapping from the attending residents.

Public Meeting 2

           I arrived at today’s public meeting about intersections expecting the same thing I experienced my last public meeting. What I found was that even though this meeting was a lot smaller than the recognition meeting I attended before it was a lot more lively and interesting.

          Unlike the other meeting this one was about tax payer’s money and construction in their backyard. The crowd was pretty diverse, politicians, heads of neighborhood associations and just everyday folk wanting to know what’s going on.

          I walked into the rec center off of North Dale Mabry and Northdale Blvd, which is one of the intersections they are talking about redoing, and noticed poster boards with Google image type pictures depicting what the roads would look like. I thought this was a great idea to have the resident’s visual the changes instead of just telling them about it. The other intersection in question was North Lakeview Drive South and North Dale Mabry. There were also poster boards of this intersection next to the other ones. 

          This particular meeting was in what they call the Preliminary Design and Engineering Study, which in laymen’s terms means that they are proposing this to the public and trying to convince them to vote on it. The first intersection had 4 choices and the second had 3. The country and contracting company is trying to figure out which choice the residents would prefer over the other.

         The contracting team put on a video for the residents at the meeting. I thought this video was top notch and made me feel like doing this construction was a great idea….I DON’T EVEN LIVE HERE. That’s how convincing I felt this video was. It had great graphics and details, it told exactly what was going to be done and how much it would cost. At least that is what I thought…I’ve been around enough politics to know not everything will be disclosed.

        After the video, the head of the contract team offered the attendees of the meeting to get up and look at the poster boards and ask questions to any of the staff located at the boards.

        Although some might not agree I thought this meeting was very interesting. It made me think towards the future and if I would be attending a meeting towards such a topic. Being forced to attend public meetings, it made me realize that these are important and informative meetings that someday I will want to go to.  

          

         Quote of the meeting: “There will be a no construction options.” That was replied with clapping from the attending residents.

Not a T.V. body

      I am a big fan of violent, investigative, no holds bar kind of shows. In those types of shows you see a lot of dead bodies and wounds that make you desensitized to that stuff, if you are into that. All of the shows in the world could not have prepared be for what I saw and heard from the Hillsborough Medical Examiner’s office.

     Vernard Adams, MD Chief Medical Examiner spoke to my class for roughly 20-30 minutes, telling us the legal stuff about his line of work. A couple of interesting things Dr. Adams told us were about, who would want the public record, what their missions are and how they dispose of bodies.

      I was intrigued to learn that their missions were to investigate deaths that are unnatural and dispose of unwanted bodies. I just thought that an M.E. just autopsied the body and wrote a report. Dr. Adams told us that they have switched to cremating unwanted bodies instead of burying. I found this interesting until I heard later that it is because cremating cost about ¼ less. Some of the people that I didn’t think would want to have the public record were life insurance policy, state attorney and public defender. After Dr. Adams explained why, it made a lot my sense.

      Finally we get to the good part, so we get the tour around the three buildings and end up at the autopsy room/coolers.  Now I have to admit the way Dr. Adams talked about dead people amazed me, I’m thinking to myself “geez this guy has probably seen it all and it just doesn’t affect him anymore.” So we’re standing in the lobby and he tells us that there is an autopsy going on and he doesn’t think we can go in there room. Then all of a sudden the door to the room opens and BAM there is one our my classmates and a dead body.

       I got to tell you seeing a lifeless body just laying there with practically nothing inside was gut wrenching. Those T.V. shows don’t do anything to prepare you for the real thing. I am glad I experienced a body in that state. I’ve been to funerals and even though they were sad, the body was put together. I’m going to stick to journalism and public records.

Live Blogging APME

      I arrived just in time to hear the conversation from Debra Adams Simmons, Editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, about LeBron James and his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers. Patrick Stiegman, VP/Executive Editor and Producer of ESPN.com, discussed the coverage ESPN will provide of the Heat because of LeBron James’ decision to leave for Miami.

      Topic changed to an NHL team, New Jersey Devils, whom hired writers along with other professional hockey teams to cover their team and provide those stories to news papers. Hollis Towns. Executive Editor or Asbury Park Press discussed the issue. The New York Times cried fouled and proposed that the Asbury Park Press was letting the New Jersey Devils write their own stories instead of having actual journalist do it. Towns responded to the claim by saying that a lot of organizations are looking to make an extra buck.  By them hiring a writer and using their stories they would get money from that. Towns went on to say that it was an experiment that they no long do and only did about 3 times. However, he did say that they did read over and edited the stories provided by the team writer.

       In a way Patrick Stiegman said Twitter is devaluing  breaking news. Reporters and writers are more frequently posting their breaking news on Twitter.  Even though Twitter may be making breaking news less important it also serves as a boost to writers. Stiegman talked about Bill Simmons who is the most followed ESPN writer on their website.

       The conversation went on to if writers should have an objective or subjective view. Stiegman felt that sometimes it is good to be transparent and have a bias while Simmons disagreed. Simmons referred back to when LeBron James made the decision to go to the Miami Heat, one of her writers posted on their Twitter that they were very displeased with James’ decision.  She would have rather him not say any of that and stay objective.

            Towns talked about how his audience rather read about local sports than having to read about other sports team. He mentioned that his market is more about high school and recreation sports. The feedback he gets from his readers is that they rather focus on their own local sports instead of teams in other markets.
           Topic went back to LeBron James for a little bit and the Q&A ended with a woman asking about investigative sports journalism. All of the panelist agreed that, that type of writing style is important and needed in sports journalism.

Andrews and Dempsey

    It seems to me that investigative reporting is where it’s at. A couple weeks ago I listened to Matt Doig, of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, talk about investigative reporting. Yesterday I was able to listen to both Steve Andrews, Senior Investigative Reporter, and Gordon Dempsey, Producer, discuss some of their investigative stories.

     By far the best story I heard from them was about the State Attorney, Harry Lee Coe, who was betting on horse races at work and “borrowing” money from employees.  I could barely wrap my head around the idea that Andrews story that led to the investigation of Coe’s financial records led to Coe’s suicide.  I kept thinking to myself that to be in this business you must have thick skin. Both Andrews and Dempsey revealed that they received death threats among other things after the suicide.

 “When I am doing an investigative report, I know everything about you. I know where you live, where you have lunch, the car you drive, even where you take your dry cleaning.”

    

    That statement alone from Andrews left an impact on me. It seems that to able to be an investigative reporter you have to get in deep with the person you are reporting on. Even though Coe lived in an apartment and his address was not listed Dempsey was still able to find out where he lived. Dempsey told us that he waited outside of Coe’s work and waited for him to leave and then followed him. Dempsey joked about how Coe drove like a mad man and it took him several tries to finally find Coe’s apartment.

      The story itself was an ethic decision to pursue because once Andrews requested Coe’s computer records, there was word that those files were being deleted. Instead of reporting on the files being deleted and giving up the newsroom decided to report the crime to law enforcement. Once that was set in motion it was all downhill for Coe.

      The main thing I took away for this experience was to be a great investigative reporter you have to stick with the story and sometimes make ethical decisions as a citizen of the community and not a reporter.

CourtHouse

          I still get taken back by the amount of information that can be obtained on almost everyone. After going through, what seemed like airport security, I looked around and was amazing at how nice the Courthouse looked and also how big it was. I envisioned a courthouse like the one in “My cousin Vinny” and was completely wrong. After hearing about all of the public record readily available to me, I just wanted to go back and spend the whole day looking up everyone I know.

         I found it fascinating that some people will go down to the Courthouse and create database from the information and then sell it. At first I didn’t believe Douglas Bakke, director of; family law, domestic violence, collections, sealing and expungement unit. But wouldn’t you know it that while I was on level 5 of the courthouse there was a women sitting there on her laptop doing exactly that. Personally I would drive myself crazy sitting there all day and typing all that data.

          When I went back to the first floor I noticed the extremely long line at the traffic desk.  The people could have been there to pay citations or if they had a problem paying online they would come in and pay them.  I kept thinking to myself how annoyed those people would be when they reached that counter because if I was in their shoes I wouldn’t be a happy camper.

            I went into the Family Law office where I saw some people looking over documents. I learned that this would be the office to go to if I wanted to learn about custody battles. Lucky for me, Doug Belden (the person I am profiling) has gone through a divorce and custody battle. So while I was there I looked up all of the cases file numbers through the computer and wrote them down so I can go in at a later date with them.

        I’ve tried to use the www.hillsclerk.com website but find it kind of difficult to find information. I think for any information I need I’m just going to take the trip down to the Courthouse. 

Public Meeting 1

     I’m going to start off by saying the School Board Recognition meeting was nothing like the public meeting I attended last year about the budget. When I arrived to the meeting I learned I had to pay for meter parking which was a little frustrating because I only had 2 quarters and 5 dimes which got me roughly an hour and twelve minutes.

     I soon as I walked into the lobby I was consumed by a crowd. My initial thought was this is going to be a big mess with no order. I went into the room where the meeting was being held and notice that all of the chairs were reserved for guest receiving awards. I found this very inconvenient because I was forced to stand along with about 50 other patrons. It made me feel that even though this was a public meeting they did not accommodate everyone.

    I found a nice spot near the back in front of a flat screen T.V. where I was able to watch the meeting with better ease. School Board Chair Susan Valdez led the meeting and promptly started at 5:30.  The meeting started out by thanking everyone for coming and congratulating all of the kids for participating and attending.

     For someone, like me, who had to relation to these kids or to the topics it was not very exciting. However, it was nice to see young people being involved in academics and getting recognized by the School Board.

      While I was standing in the back taking notes, I couldn’t help but listen to the chatter of two men who were standing near me. They were cracking jokes about certain awards and not so much making fun of one of the kids but playing jawing about one of the winners. Ironically one of the guys started to leave and told the other guy he had to go up to get recognized for something. I found that quite comical that he was acting like a disgruntle parent who did want to be there but in reality he was there for the same reason the kids were.

     The public meeting was the same throughout the hour and twelve minutes I was there—they announced the award, the kids came up, parents took pictures and they moved on. 

      In the future I’m going to pick a public meeting that I think will be more interesting but all in all it was a good experience. 

Are you paying your taxes?

        I’m going to make the assumption that  most people my age are not too familiarly with property tax, assessed value, just value and all that jazz. Preston Trigg , Director of Administration and Special Projects, for the most part broke down what was important to know.

I never thought to check property tax for a public official until I heard Trigg say it is one of the first things to look for. If a public official is not paying their taxes and turning around and telling everyone else to it raises a red flag.

       I loved the fact he told us the “tricks of the trade”.  Some of the things Triggs mentioned were putting the request in writing for a personal record. However, he made sure to warn that once we submit a request in writing that too becomes public record and a competitor could find out what we are trying to request.  Also asking for the any costs up front is important. If you put a request in not knowing the cost you could be stuck with an expensive bill in the end.

       I’ll be honest after the presentation I promptly went home and looked up by parents and Doug Belden’s (my profile assignment) property tax.  I was a little disappointed to find that both of their taxes were in check. The fact that it was so easy to look up someone’s property tax amazed me. I just want to drive around and write down addresses just to check on them.

       Knowing about this particular public record can be very useful for future reporting.  Even though this record could be irrelevant in most cases involving Joe Schmo, I learned that anytime a story involves a public official or someone of importance it is vital to use this public record.

      Trigg’s presentation was very helpful to further my knowledge on public records and I am looking forward to future visits to learn more.

Locked Up RAW

          I often watch shows on MSNBC that have to do with prison. Shows like “lockup” go into various prison around the country and show what goes on inside. So naturally, my view on imprisonment was tainted. After going through security, walking through multiple doors and staying on the colored path we arrived in the control room of the Orient Jail. Not much went on in there although it was great to see.

         What really got me interested was seeing the “pod”, pretty much a large room with a bunch of cells. I’ll use the term cells loosely for this room because they weren’t solid steel bars and toilets like I’m use to seeing on T.V. They had wooden doors, bunk beds, wooden desks and what looked like comfortable porcelains.  I later learned that this type of pod is used for people either waiting for a court date or who have a “low-risk level”.  As I’m standing there surrounded by my peers, I couldn’t help but look around to the cells and see the inmates watching us.

         As I was standing there looking at these inmates behind their doors, I wondered what they were in for and what was going through their head.  I imagined myself behind the door and looking out and wondered what I would be thinking about….but I digress.

         Afterward walking through booking--where the inmates weren’t behind bars-- we headed to the records office. For the most part, I already knew from my previous visit what public records I can get.

         What I did learn was that all the video footage in the jail and the dui drunk tank is public record, as long as it’s not an open investigation.  One of the offices made sure to make a point of mentioning that video footage doesn’t always tell the whole story. It goes back to being a good reporter and getting every side of a story.

          All and All I’m glad I haven’t had to look at 40 college kids behind a wooden door and hopefully I never will. 

Sheriff's Office

Wow! Is all I have to say after visiting the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office. Listening to J.D. Callaway and Cristal Bermudez shed a new light on how I see public records. I already knew about being able to look up arrest inquiries (fellow classmates who went down the wrong path) but finding out about search and arrest warrants among other things astonished me. Of course I’ve been listening about how all of this is public record but being able to actually see a hard copy was great.                   

Another interesting point I heard was that Callaway and Bermudez have rapport with the beat reporters. If a reporter pisses them off and is always nagging they can choose to not deal with them or make it so that reporter is the last one to know. It’s like they have the news reporter by the throat and can either squeeze or let go. Even though technically they can’t refuse a reporter the Sunshine Laws they can request to deal with another reporter. Callaway made sure to mention that the Sheriff’s department often goes above and beyond what the Sunshine Laws require.

In my head I envisioned getting a public record would be a tedious process. After seeing the public records office and knowing I can just walk in there and ask to get a record made it seem so simple. I guess you could say I’m more of a visual person; I have to see it to believe it.

The most important document I received from the duo was their SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). The SOP lets reporters know what information they can and cannot get.  For a reporter right out of school this is a great tool. It gives great detail for specific scenarios where a news reporter may not know what they are allowed access too.

Over all I had a great time at the department and learned a lot more than I was expecting.

Technology

A decade ago using technology during an investigate piece would have been ahead of the time. Now it is an absolute essential to be tech savvy.  Like most of my generation, we grew up with technology and as the years go by it becomes more advanced.  Investigative reporter Matt Doig of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune discussed some of the importance in using technology such as excel.

                Combing through public records can be time consuming. Doig provided a great tip-LEARN HOW TO USE EXCEL.  He went on to discuss that for the most part public records are all electronic. Being able to plug that data into a computer program and having it sort through the data makes everyone have less of a headache.  

                The biggest example Doig provided with this technique was a housing fraud scam in Florida. When his investigative team received the public records of all the housing sales in Florida there was over 19 million transactions. By using excel they were able to input the data and set parameters to narrow the search down to 55,000 transactions.  One of the parameters they used were, the same house being sold within 90 days of the original transaction. Without excel and other computer programs that sort data, combing through those files would have taken a lot longer than it did.

                I’ve heard that an argument has three sides yours, theirs and the truth. By using databases with public records all you have is the truth. Being a well rounded reporter means using all of the resources available. Being an investigative reporter it is essential to use databases because the person you are investigating will not want to talk to you. If they do want to tell their side of the story that’s all it will be—their side. Use your access to public records and hopefully you’ll never be wrong. 

Tim Nickens

The biggest thing I learned from Tim Nickens involved public officials and the use of public records. I learned that when public officials are running for office, except state legislature, reporters use public records to “check” on the officials.

 One of the stories that Mr. Nickens talked that I from interesting involved one official who switched parties and didn’t vote as much as she should of. However, the main story Mr. Nickens discussed about the Tallahassee reporter and the man running for Speaker of the House was the most intriguing. I found that by the reporter digging deeper and deeper he was unable to uncover a ton of money, which the official and the Community College President were trying to cover up.

        I learned many things from this story, two of them are, officials have found loop holes in the Sunshine Laws pertaining to meetings and you can’t deny public records. The loop hole in the meeting was when the public official made all of the legal steps towards having a meeting, but did it 90 miles away in a private suite. Hearing Mr. Nickens say that opened my eyes to how laws can be twisted by officials who know how to get around them.

The second important thing I learned was that public records do not lie. By using the public records that are available to reporters the reporting done can be accurate and not disputed. The reporter was able to use the public records to find out what all the money was used for.           

By having public records at our disposal we are able to look up almost anything on anyone. This allows us to double check want public official may tell us, it also allows reporters to report to the community what they deserve to hear.