GREATEST HITS
By
Christopher J. Feola
Christopher J. Feola is vice president/technology for Belo Interactive, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Belo Corporation that specializes in building interactive versions of Belo properties.
Small- and medium-sized papers are using computers to dig up stories that were once nearly impossible to cover: • At the Belleville News-Democrat in Illinois, reporter Carolyn Tuft, now with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, sifted through 175,000 traffic tickets to support what she had heard off-the-record: Police were routinely stopping blacks who drove into Belleville from East St. Louis. • At the Independent Florida Alligator at the University of Florida, editors downloaded more than 34 megabytes of police files for a series of stories on Danny Rolling after he was indicted for the 1990 mutilation slayings of five Gainesville college students. • At the Regina Leader Post in Canada, Bill Doskoch analyzed election records dating back to 1905 to show which parties had nominated women for office and which ones only talked about doing so. • At the Evansville Courier, Gregory Weaver, now at the Indianapolis Star, did a series of stories showing that more than two-thirds of Indiana lawmakers accepted improper contributions in a single year. • At the Lewiston Sun-Journal Sunday, Craig Doremus documented $85 million in overpaid welfare benefits in Maine. • At the Albuquerque Tribune, reporters Ed Asher and Lynn Bartels used computers to do a series that showed New Mexico leads the nation in per capita drunk-driving deaths. The average fine for DWI was $17, and the average sentence was 7.5 days. • At the weekly Independent in Durham, North Carolina, reporter Barry Yeoman did a series called "Highway Robbery" that documented insider deals and political connections that shaped North Carolina's highway development program. It showed how highway department officials had steered millions to themselves and their friends. • At the Reno Gazette-Journal in Nevada, reporters Veda Morgan and Barbara Anderson did a series on school funding that found equal funding didn't add up to equal education. • At the Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Virginia, reporters Bob Gibson and Kevin Carmody did a series called "Separate Justice" that showed the criminal justice system treats racial minorities more harshly than whites when enforcing drug laws.
– C.F. ###
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