Tag Archives: jacksonville.com

Florida Times-Union piece brings change — before it runs

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A Florida Times-Union investigation of Jacksonville Transportation Authority bus drivers led to three employees losing their jobs and four bus drivers being suspended. Three of those drivers have been reinstated, though they could still face some punishment.

Newspaper investigations into public agencies result in firings and changes, but in this case, the moves happened in the week before the piece was even published.

Transportation reporter Larry Hannan wrote in Sunday’s piece:

JTA Executive Director Michael Blaylock said he was unaware of the background problems until the Times-Union investigation began. He promised major changes.

“I have to accept full responsibility for this,” Blaylock said. “And the [JTA] board expects me to fix it.”

What there is to fix: The Times-Union investigation found there were JTA drivers who were cited for driving with suspended licenses while continuing to drive buses. Additionally, 258 of 330 drivers had a total of 1,276 criminal and driving violations, including domestic battery, child abuse, driving without a valid license and writing bad checks.

The newspaper’s investigation began after a passenger was run over and killed downtown by a JTA bus in October.

Here’s how the story was played in this past Sunday’s Times-Union. Click for a larger view.

 

Larry Hannan and Florida Times-Union investigation of Jacksonville Transportation Authority bus drivers

 

On the inside:

 

Larry Hannan and Florida Times-Union investigation of Jacksonville Transportation Authority bus drivers

The main Jedi behind this investigation is Larry Hannan, the Florida Times-Union’s transportation reporter. He previously worked at News-Herald in Ohio and the Naples Daily News in Florida.

Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville.com Valentine’s project

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I’m always interested to see how the online version of a project ties in with the print version. Particularly when the online version includes more than the print version, or includes things that you couldn’t put in the paper (like, video and audio).

My friends and former colleagues at The Florida Times-Union recently launched a series online and in print, called (extra)ordinary Love. The description from the main page:

Love is an emotion that propels, from the moment you know you’ve found it through the trials you endure to sustain it. Whether romantic, platonic or familial, there is extraordinary power in ordinary love.

Three stories ran in the paper, starting this past Sunday with a story about Jaguars lineman Terrance “Pot Roast” Knighton:

I never knew his nickname was “Pot Roast,” but now I want that moniker, too. Here’s the page from Monday:

Tuesday:

I’m told these pages were designed by Jennifer Bradford.

Each day featured promos to the web package, which included three additional stories, with pictures and audio:

In addition to Jennifer Bradford on page design, this project had reporting and videos by Kate Howard and Tracy Jones; photography by Bruce Lipsky, Kelly Jordan and Bob mack; and web design by Derek Hembd, whom I put on par with MacGyver in being able to figure things out.

The design for both print and the web is clean, and the packages have the unifying package sig while being distinct from each other.

I always love being able to show what my friends and former colleagues have been working on in Jacksonville. Good work, friends.

The Florida Times-Union’s coverage of Shahid Khan’s mustache, the Jaguars being sold and Del Rio being dropped

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By now you know that the Jacksonville Jaguars were sold to Shahid Khan and that coach Jack Del Rio was fired.

My friends and former colleagues at The Florida Times-Union have been busy covering all those stories. I’ve got a sampling of what they’ve been doing, but I know there’s a lot more. Feel free to send it and I’ll share it.

Today’s Life section has a story about Shahid Khan’s signature mustache. If you haven’t seen the ‘stache yet:

Yes.

In addition to a Jacksonville.com gallery of famous mustaches, there’s a fun quiz by my friend and former colleague, Kyle Bentle.

To see Kyle’s Mighty Mustache Quiz, go here.

Additionally, you can download a mustache to cut out so you can be like Shahid Khan.

Fun, eh?

Of course, it’s not all mustaches. Last week’s coverage was pretty strong. Here are some of the pages from last week.

The first day coverage
Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011

Florida Times-Union coverage of the Jaguars being sold and Jack Del Rio being fired

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Florida Times-Union coverage of the Jaguars being sold and Jack Del Rio being fired

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Florida Times-Union coverage of the Jaguars being sold and Jack Del Rio being fired

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Florida Times-Union coverage of the Jaguars being sold and Jack Del Rio being fired

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One of the inside pages had a great graphic by my aforementioned friend and former colleague, Kyle Bentle.

Florida Times-Union coverage of the Jaguars being sold and Jack Del Rio being fired

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Here’s a close-up of that graphic. Click on it for a larger view.

Florida Times-Union coverage of the Jaguars being sold and Jack Del Rio being fired

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Again, this is only a sampling of what they’ve been doing, but I know there’s a lot more. Feel free to send it and I’ll share it.

Florida Times-Union’s National Coming Out Day coverage

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Today, Oct. 11th, is National Coming Out Day in the U.S. The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, my former paper, featured three vignettes on local people and their coming out stories.

The piece, written by reporter Mary Kelli Palka, begins with this:

Throughout the United States today, people will openly support equality to mark National Coming Out Day. Others will first share that they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. But people don’t just come out one day of the year. They tell people all the time – family members, co-workers, new people they meet. Sometimes they’re met with support and love. Sometimes they’re not.

Here’s how the package started on A1:

And here’s an inset of that package:

Photographer Bruce Lipsky shot that photo of Charlas “Charlee” Dehling, the first person profiled in today’s piece. Dehling has a great quote:

“[Staying in the closet was] fueled by fear of being ridiculed, rejected, passed over, being held back in my ambitions and self-preservation,” she said.

Later, Mary Kelli writes:

Dehling said she’s telling her story not as a rally cry to get others to come out. Instead, it’s a rally cry for normalcy. She just wants to be treated like everyone else, with the same rights as people who are heterosexual.

To read the full piece, go here. To read Florida Times-Union reporter Kate Howard’s piece for Coming Out Day in 2010, go here.

Did your publication do something for Coming Out Day? Feel free to send it. I’ll gladly post it up here.

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RELATED

MORE POSTS ABOUT THE FLORIDA TIMES-UNION

Great 9/11 work from Jacksonville.com, The Florida-Times Union

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This week has had a lot of good coverage of the anniversary of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Charles Apple has had updates almost every day, showing some of the fine work newspapers and their websites have done in anticipation of today’s milestone. He wrote about The Boston Globe’s coverage on Wednesday.

My former paper, The Florida Times-Union, has also been busy with its coverage. They’ve done a lot of things, and I won’t mention all of it today, but it’s been good.

What I want to point out is the great web presence for the 9/11 packages. Check out the main page for the Times-Union’s coverage:

Florida Times-Union 9/11 coverage

See those cool illustrations in the background? Those are from Kyle Bentle.

At the bottom is a neat timeline:

Florida Times-Union 9/11 coverage

There’s also a piece called, “The Fallen,” looking at the servicemen, servicewomen and civilian contractors with ties to Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia have died.

Florida Times-Union 9/11 coverage

Tracy Jones and Kate Howard worked on “The Fallen” and the timeline at the bottom. Kate says,

The goal of each: to be as comprehensive as possible about the impact of 9/11 locally, in the context of how our country has changed. Both pieces were part of the larger project we called “Since 9/11,” which included 8 days of stories and a user project asking readers to share their stories. That generated more than a hundred reader-submitted memories.

As you can imagine, this project was no small task. They worked on it off and on for about two months.

Tracy writes:

For the military piece, we tasked ourselves with finding any member of any branch of the military who died since 9/11. Our criteria was they had to be currently enlisted (including reserves). Some died in combat, others in accidents and some suicides, but the last thing we wanted to do was forget anybody.

Gathering the list was a task. Kate and I went to our memorial wall, but found there were errors there. We made many phone calls to families, branches and other sources, and we were able to track down information on all of the soldiers, which turned out to be 108 of them. Finding the photos wasn’t too easy either, because none of the military branches keep the photos on file, we basically had to dig for each one we didn’t have in our system.

To organize all the information, we kept an excel doc, which was later imported into a script that generated the information boxes for each soldier.

The photos are based on a jpeg we created of all the faces. We made one in black and white and also in color so it would change when their faces were clicked on.

Again, I urge you to check out the main page for the Times-Union’s coverage. I’m proud of my friends and former colleagues. If there’s any T-U work I missed, send it my way and I’ll post it.

How the Florida Times-Union covered historic victory

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This past week, the people of Jacksonville, Fla., elected its first black mayor in the history of the city. Democrat Alvin Brown beat Republican Mike Hogan in a runoff on May 17. The runoff followed the March election in which the two garnered the most votes.

Many of my former colleagues at The Florida Times-Union did great work this week. Here’s some — but not all — of that work.

By the time Wednesday’s paper went to bed, the two were 603 votes apart. Brown photo shot by Bruce Lipsky, Hogan shot by Bob Self. But by Wednesday afternoon…

…Alvin Brown was declared the victor. The victory shot from Thursday’s paper by Don Burk.

Reporter Matt Galnor explained the historic win’s statistics and graphic artist Annie Liao made this graphic showing the precinct-by-precinct results. Click for a larger view.

Annie Liao infographic Jacksonville mayor's race precincts

And Sunday, Tim Gibbons wrote a piece analyzing Alvin Brown’s campaign and how he won.

Jacksonville was my home for four and a half years, and because of the time I spent there with such great friends and colleagues, I will always think of Jacksonville as one of my homes. Thus, even though I no longer live there, this mayoral race was pretty interesting to me. And it reminded me of a few graphics I did that can now be updated.

In January 2009, I researched and put together this graphic in time for Obama’s inauguration. This timeline-chart hybrid shows which party was in control of the presidency, U.S. Senate and House, Florida Governorship, Senate and House, and the Jacksonville mayor’s office and city council from 1960 to 2009.

A month later, I researched and put together this graphic showing how long it took for black men and women to be elected into various political offices, from the White House down to Jacksonville positions. Jacksonville’s first black city council members post-Reconstruction were Sallye Mathis, Mary Singleton and Earl Johnson. Nat Glover became the first black sheriff in 1995. He ran for mayor in 2003, but lost to John Peyton. Jackie Brown, a black woman, ran for mayor in 2007, but also lost to Peyton. She died shortly after the election.

I’m looking forward to the possible graphics that can come from this election. Between Brown’s victory, Peyton’s administration coming to an end and the shift of influence in the city, there will be no shortage of graphics.

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UPDATE

Denise M. Reagan, AME for Visuals at The Florida Times-Union, writes:

The blogs on election night and all the next day during the count of provisional and absentee ballots were well done and featured a lot of participation from the community.

Additionally, on Monday, #AlvinBrownVictorySongs was a hashtag on Twitter for — you guessed it — potential victory songs for Alvin Brown.

The effects of bullying, and how school could be

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The Boston Globe today ran its fourth story in its series of occasional articles on bullying and its impact on children, adults, and institutions. In this piece, several adults recounted the torment they experienced as adolescents. For many of those adolescents, the memories are vivid even now, decades later.

…while many of those bullied as children move past it and thrive in adulthood, a surprising number say they have been unable to leave the humiliating memories behind. Their accounts are supported by a growing body of research suggesting that the bullying experience stays with many victims into young adulthood, middle age, and even retirement, shaping their decisions and hindering them in nearly every aspect of life: education and career choices; social interactions and emotional well-being; even attitudes about having children.

For example, one of the adults — Anthony Testaverde — feels his path in life could have been greatly different if not for the effects of his bullying:

Testaverde was an honor roll student who dreamed of a career in technology or engineering. But he also suffered from a spinal deformity, and said he was ostracized as a “freak’’ and “hunchback’’ throughout his high school years. He never went to college, largely because he feared being bullied again. A self-taught electrical technician, he said he might have done better for himself if it weren’t for the bullying. Deeply self-critical and preoccupied with what others think of him, he said he cannot be at ease in large groups and has found it hard to stay at one job, because even minor workplace conflicts trigger fears and the urge to flee.

“A part of my life has been robbed,’’ he said. “It’s like the show ‘Lost,’ where there are two storylines — one on the island, and one if the plane never crashed. Sometimes I think about what would have happened, if I hadn’t been as depressed, if I could have taken more risks.’’

In my experiences, many adults are remorseful for how they acted in high school, even if they weren’t bullies. I’ve seen people reach out to old classmates to apologize for perceived slights, even if the bullied student doesn’t remember the incidents. But for people like Testaverde, the damage was more severe than being made fun of for liking Marilyn Manson, Charles Bukowski and fine art. For him, the damage had life-changing effects.

By the time many of these bullies become wiser with age and maturity, the damage is done. They realize a fraction of the pain they caused, and now can’t do anything but apologize.

Another piece in Sunday’s Globe explores the effects of bullying on the teenage brain:

A new wave of research into bullying’s effects, however, is now suggesting something more than that — that in fact, bullying can leave an indelible imprint on a teen’s brain at a time when it is still growing and developing. Being ostracized by one’s peers, it seems, can throw adolescent hormones even further out of whack, lead to reduced connectivity in the brain, and even sabotage the growth of new neurons.

These neurological scars, it turns out, closely resemble those borne by children who are physically and sexually abused in early childhood. Neuroscientists now know that the human brain continues to grow and change long after the first few years of life. By revealing the internal physiological damage that bullying can do, researchers are recasting it not as merely an unfortunate rite of passage but as a serious form of childhood trauma.

I think that bears repeating: the brains of kids who are bullied in school can resemble the brains of kids who are physically and sexually abused. Chilling, eh?

Both are sobering reads, but eye-opening.

Another Sunday read shows how high school could be. In today’s Florida Times-Union, Mark Woods tells the story of Cara Stieglitz, a high school student with Down syndrome who was voted homecoming queen in a landslide. When Cara was a freshman at Fletcher High School, her parents Dave and Melanie Stieglitz prayed that God “send a friend to Cara. One friend. Someone to sit with her at lunch.”

“As a parent, that pulls at your heart,” Melanie Stieglitz said of picturing her daughter sitting alone.

So every Tuesday, she went to school and ate lunch with Cara. And on Sundays, they prayed that someone else would join her.

Of course, the story ends happily. Not just for the Stieglitz family, but for the school. Cara could have been the prime target for bullies, but she ended up being their homecoming queen. How she, her family and her classmates persevered for this to happen is a great bookend to the Globe pieces mentioned above. The story reminds us that the stories of the outcast students don’t have to end with misery and tragedy.
These stories can end with a different kind of tears: the tears of joy that a parent can experience watching his daughter with Down syndrome become homecoming queen. The tears that teachers at her school can have, knowing their students rose above the nature of bullying and became heroes. The tears of strangers reading her story, miles away in Cambridge.  Because however out of place one might feel, there’s Cara, who became an emblematic example that bullying doesn’t have to be the norm in our high schools.

August 22: In case you missed it…

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I’ve been on vacation in Boston for the last few days, so I’m sure I’ve missed some goodies the last few days. That being said, here are a few goodies I did NOT miss, nor should you…

In case you missed these graphics and interactives in the last few days:

Support for Same-Sex Marriage, State by State [New York Times]

Graphic showing select states and their residents’ views on same-sex marriage now versus the mid ’90s. Goes along with…

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Support for Same-Sex Marriage interactive [New York Times]

This interactive lets you examine each state’s support (or non-support) for same-sex marriage back to 1994. From Week In Review.

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Ax Handle Saturday, 1960: A day of defiance in black and white [Florida Times-Union]

Deirdre Conner’s thorough look back at a  day 50 years ago in Jacksonville when black youth, attempting to sit down at a whites-only lunch counter, were accosted by an angry mob wielding ax handles. Graphic artist, colleague and good friend of mine Kyle Bentle worked with Deirdre to recreate Jacksonville’s downtown circa 1960 and show the timeline of events. Kyle’s work is always thorough, and pieces like this reiterate his attention to detail.

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Crackdown on Indecency [Detroit Free Press via I Love Charts]

It’s a crime to wear saggy pants in Flint, Mich., so to show you the various warnings and fines you could get, Moses Harris of the Detroit Free Press put together this graphic. In the years I’ve been making graphics, I’ve never been able to draw a buttocks. Not for a graphic explicitly about the buttocks, that is.

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Kyle Bentle’s Portfolio/Website [KyleBentle.com]

As I mentioned earlier, Kyle Bentle is a colleague and good friend of mine. He’s been working on his portfolio for a while now, and has recently gone live. It showcases his talent, but my favorite part is…

…this placeholder he had on his site for a while. I was worried it would go away when he launched the site, but THANK GOD it stayed up there. Take a look and enjoy the site.

In case you missed it…

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In case you missed these stories and interactives in the last few days:

  • Bedrooms of the dead: Preserving the memories of slain loved ones [Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com]
    Reporter Jim Schoettler and photographer Jon M. Fletcher tell the stories of families of four Jacksonville murder victims who have chosen to remember their children by maintaining their bedrooms. Jon’s portraits of the rooms uses a technique I’m not sure I’ve seen in a newspaper before: the pictures from various perspectives have been pieced together to form a panoramic view.
  • To be continued: Real stories with StoryCorps [Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com]
    Columnist Mark Woods reflects on StoryCorps, a project which archives personal stories told by the interviewee not to a journalist but to a loved one such a spouse, a child, a friend.
  • Video of suspended Nassau County administrators now public, in sheriff’s hands [Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com]
    A video showing a Nassau County administrator stumbling naked on a balcony and some poolside partying at a South Florida hotel has thrust Sheriff Tommy Seagraves to the epicenter of the county’s notoriously contentious politics. Roughly 90 minutes of surveillance footage is now in the sheriff’s hands as he contemplates whether criminal charges are warranted against four top administrators. The county is investigating whether the four cheated taxpayers by skipping sessions they’d signed up for at a hurricane preparedness conference in May and billing the county $3,850 for lodging, food and vehicle mileage.
  • Homecoming for Herzog [St. Louis Post-Dispatch/stltoday.com]
    Hall of Famer and former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog had his number 24 retired at Busch Stadium Saturday before the Pirates game. Players from the 1985 season were there, including one of my favorite all-time players: Ozzie Smith.
  • Celebrity Mug Shots Trivia Quiz [stltoday.com]
    This quiz shows blurry mug shots and asks you to guess who they are. If you follow Perez Hilton, Gawker, Huffington Post or The Smoking Gun, then you should be fine. I got 10 out of 10.
  • How long will the Blagojevich jury deliberate? [stltoday.com]
    What a cool interactive graphic. This compares the length of the Blagojevich trial to other well-known jury trials. The chart allows you to compare how many days these trials lasted to how long (or short) the deliberation process was. There are so many layers to this graphic. Another home run by the stltoday.com staff.