Ziva and I just returned from a trip to Philadelphia for the annual conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors.
The conference is an amazing gathering of watchdog journalists and an opportunity to learn from our peers’ expertise and innovation in journalism.
One of the coolest projects I learned about was the Center for Investigative Reporting‘s project, Subsidized Squalor.
The CIR investigation, produced in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED, examined failures of the housing authority in Richmond, Calif.
In one of the most unique storytelling tools I’ve seen, they recruited poets from a local nonprofit to work with CIR reporter Amy Julia Harris. The result is a video that’s a moving hybrid of spoken word, documentary and reporting.
We also had the privilege of hearing James Risen speak about the threats he’s endured as a result of his hard-hitting reporting on national security issues.
It was especially poignant to think about in the city where our Founding Fathers debated the exact wording of our Constitution.
We took some time to check out Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, and because Ziva lived in Philadelphia for a while, we also had to have cheesesteaks from Jim’s.
A cheesesteak from Jim’s South Street in Philadelphia.
Aside from all that fun, we’ve had an important victory for Open Records in Oklahoma over the past two days. Today, an Oklahoma County judge ruled that a stay will be lifted, regarding whether the records should be released while waiting for a ruling.
So we’re waiting to see what records we get from the Lockett execution that we originally request, the records we sued for, in conjunction with our friends at Tulsa World and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
In the meantime, this we feel this GIF accurately represents how Ziva & I feel when we win a public records battle.
