Fantastic reporters' resource: Al's Morning Meeting

If you don't spend lots of time at the Poynter Institute's website, you should. Al's Morning Meeting is just one reason -- check him out. I especially like his "Diggin'" posts, because I am a document junkie. As the editor's note on www.poynter.org says:

"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."

This is just from today -- there are loads on his blog, including tips and sources for covering Obama's decision to fight release of the detainee torture photos, and "Covering the Recession's Effect on Social Security, Medicare." L


Al Tompkins
Story ideas that you can localize and enterprise. Posted by 7:30 a.m. Mon-Fri.
Planting Trees on West, South Sides of Houses Can Cut Energy Costs
Posted by Al Tompkins at 3:31 PM on May. 14, 2009
My old friend Jim Sweeney spotted this and sent it to me for Al's Morning Meeting. The idea, which is about how trees can help lower the cost of summer electric bills, comes from the National Institute of Standards and Technology:

"Trees positioned to shade the west and south sides of a house may decrease summertime electric bills by 5 percent on average, according to a recent study of California homes by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)."

Read on for the study's findings.


CHECK AL's TWITTER FEED for nonstop story ideas throughout the day.

A dozen sites
I'm diggin'

*1. Do jockeys matter in a big horse race like this weekend's Preakness?

*2. Poynter's Steve Myers reports on the health of journalism organizations.

*3. Is the honeybee shortage a myth?

*4. Watch these multimedia projects by college students. They'll give you hope that lots of good things are to come for journalism.

5. Check out the newly released Census of Agriculture, "a complete count of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them."

6. The Journalism Center on Children & Families' resource page for journalists covering child sex abuse cases.

*7. The future of fashion electronics is in clothing. Cute Circuit's "Hug Shirt," for instance, lets you "send and feel hugs to and from other Hug Shirt owning friends." There are also jackets with embedded mini-disc players, dresses that sense pollution and body scanners that help design the perfect fitting jeans.

*8. CNET has a resource page tracking the developments of Windows 7, which is to be released this year.

9. This site lets you set up an e-mail address that expires after 15 minutes.

10. Cool widgets from the government that you can use online.

11. The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma offers tips for journalists covering the Swine flu.

12. Subsidy Scope, a searchable database of TARP transactions, links to a list of banks participating in the FDIC's Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.


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





May. 14, 2009
Covering the Recession's Effect on Social Security, Medicare
Posted by Al Tompkins at 6:48 AM on May. 14, 2009
Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare funds said this week that the recession has played hell with their finances and that both programs are heading for insolvency. We can see this problem on the horizon, but are we willing to do something about it?

Social Security will start paying out more than it takes in by 2016 -- a mere seven years from now. The program is now projected to be out of money by 2037, which is four years earlier than last predicted.

Medicare is in "much worse" shape, the trustees said. It is already paying out more than it takes in, and Medicare funds are expected to be gone by 2017, which is two years earlier than the last report forecast.

Trustees said an economic recovery won't fix things. In fact, a recovery is already built in to the bleak outlook.



May. 13, 2009
President Obama Shifts Position on Releasing Military Abuse Photos
Posted by Al Tompkins at 3:06 PM on May. 13, 2009
President Barack Obama promised a new openness in government. But Wednesday, he said he opposes the release of dozens and possibly hundreds of military photos that reportedly show prisoner abuse in facilities other than Abu Ghraib. The photos were taken in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The American Civil Liberties Union fought to have the photos released and this week, the Defense Department agreed to stop fighting the release.

Now, the White House said the president "strongly believes that the release of these photos, particularly at this time, would only serve the purpose of inflaming the theaters of war, jeopardizing U.S. forces, and making our job more difficult in places like Iraq and Afghanistan."

Read on to find out about the criticisms Obama received earlier this week for going along with the release of the photos.