Reporter's Notebook http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/ The Reporter's Notebook is a behind the scenes look at the producing and reporting of Where Doubt Remains, a series of investigative reports on wrongful convictions. en Copyright 2008 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:12:46 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Wrapping up
I plan to spend the day copy editing and adjusting a few things here and there, but for the most part -- I'm done. I emailed my committee last night to let them know and suggested a few dates for my defense and the public presentation. I also uploaded a brief tour of the site for some bloggers that I thought my be interested.

I'm happy with everything, I think. I always want more time with stories, and I always want more resources to report them. But you take what you can get and go with it. If there's one thing I'm sure about after living with these stories for almost a year, is that the public needs to understand what happened with these men.

Everyone needs to understand that if it can happen to these guys, it can happen to any one of us at any time.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/337/wrapping-up/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/337/wrapping-up/ Production committee production reporting Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:12:46 -0500 What about my privacy?
So, I went through the process to have it removed, but now that my directory information is marked confidential, I can't make phone calls or email requests to the various offices like financial aid and the registrar. Simply, it sucks.

Then, I got an email from a private company which has obviously received mass email, or "directory information," lists from WVU. The federal law that allows them to publish the information also allows them to give it to (or sell, I suppose) private companies to use in marketing.

That got me thinking. The whole Innocence Project flap and WVU's refusal to grant me access to the project's records is simply ridiculous and totally in violation of state law. After a threatened lawsuit, they attempted to settle, but the terms were, in a word -- unacceptable, but they didn't seem to care. I dropped the matter after every other Innocence Project I contacted jumped at the chance to work with me.

But what gets me, what really gets me, is that WVU knew it didn't have a solid legal argument to stand on, so they claimed that releasing the prisoners' names to me would be an unwarranted violation of the prisoner's privacy. The personal privacy exemption to the state's public records law is the only way they had a hope of defeating my FOIA request in court. But -- WVU had no trouble giving out the same information about me -- my name, email, home address and phone number -- to anyone who wanted it. I guess it's only a violation of privacy when you're not a student.

Hypocrisy.

I've enjoyed my work on this project and am glad for the time I've spent in the Journalism School here. But I'm growing weary of the arrogance of  WVU's administration. I'm ready to move on.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/258/what-about-my-privacy/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/258/what-about-my-privacy/ FOIA Requests Innocence Projects FOIA privacy WVU WVU Innocence Project WVU's arrogance Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:03:19 -0500 Surveillance?
I got up and went to the parking lot and (very obviously) looked around, spotting a red truck sitting about 50 feet away from the door. There was a man inside. I went back in and told my friends that we should leave, which we did. I went with my friend to his car and when we got inside, the red truck pulled out in front of us. Outside of the parking lot, it went in the opposite direction as we headed to meet other friends downtown.

Used to getting all kinds of weird phone calls when I worked as a newspaper reporter, I didn't think much of it at all. My friend, though, whom was driving, did. We were almost to the parking garage downtown when he said "there's another red truck behind us. It's been following us since the Mileground" -- which was about ten minutes before and less than five since we'd left the restaurant.

I started to regret telling them what had happened, thinking that we'd end up in a high speed chase to get away from any red truck that came near us from now. But I turned to look and noticed that not only was there a red truck behind us, but that it was the same red truck from the restaurant. I know because it had a vanity plate for a baseball on the front.

We turned right and the truck went straight. After that we were in the parking garage and I didn't notice anyone else around us, so I can't say what all that was about. My gut leans toward "coincidence" except for the phone calls beforehand.

I don't know, I was always taught that when you investigate law enforcement you expect to become a reverse target and then forget about it and move on. I figured from the beginning that if anyone wanted to follow me around they'd find out exactly how boring I am and that would be the end of it.

I think it freaked my friends out, a lot, though. At least no death threats have rolled in -- yet.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/256/surveillance/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/256/surveillance/ Misc. law enforcement surveillance weird phone calls Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:54:39 -0500 Myrtle Beach
I guess in the end it doesn't matter too much. Prosecutors there dropped their charges once Lee was convicted in West Virginia.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/156/myrtle-beach/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/156/myrtle-beach/ Lee Jones FOIA Lee Jones Myrtle Beach Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:08:12 -0500 Using javascript to hide announcements in MovableType
Announcement Box The easy part was making that disappear when the user clicked on the little X in the corner. I used some basic javascript -- but anytime the user reloads or visits another page, the announcement would come back. So I figured out how to use cookies to remember that the user closed the announcement box.

Now, like I said -- I'm really bad at this. I'm sure there's probably a more sophisticated, svelte way to do the same thing. If you have a degree in computer science go ahead, sit back and snicker -- in private. For the rest of us, you can find out how I did it below, in case you want to do the same on your own site.

Displaying the announcement
Let's start with Movabletype, since that's the content management system I'm using. Their category tags still confuse me a bit and with the roll out of version 4 recently, there might even be a better way to do this. But here's mine:

<!-- limit to top level categories only -->
<MTTopLevelCategories>
<!-- further limit to only the Announcements Category -->
<MTIfCategory label="Announcements">
<!--  make sure the Announcements category has entries in it -->
<MTIfNonZero tag="MTCategoryCount">
    <div id="announcementsBox" class="<MTVar name="announcementType">">
    <input type="image" src="http://wheredoubtremains.com/images/icons/sweetie/16-em-cross-b.png" value="Close me!" onClick="setAnnCookie()" style="float:right;" />
    <!-- display only the most recent entry -->
    <MTEntries lastn="1">
    <span class="announcementTitle"><MTEntryTitle></span>
    <MTEntryBody>
    </MTEntries>
    </div>
</MTIfNonZero>
</MTIfCategory>
</MTTopLevelCategories>
I skipped two sections, so I can over them more in detail below. The first one is the MTVar tag in the <div> that contains my announcement.

<div id="announcementsBox" class="<MTVar name="announcementType">">
This step can be skipped, but I envisioned wanting to style my announcement box differently, depending on the content of the announcement. So, by using <MTVar name="announcementType">, I told MT to fill in the class of my div with what ever the value of the "announcementType" variable was. But first, I had to generate code to create that variable. It's very similar to what I have generating the announcement, with some key differences.

<!-- tell MT that everything below should be the value of a variable named announcementType -->
<MTSetVarBlock name="announcementType">
<MTTopLevelCategories><MTIfCategory label="Announcements">
<MTIfNonZero tag="MTCategoryCount">
<MTEntries lastn="1">
<!-- instead of displaying the announcement content, I want just the announcement tag -->
<mt:EntryTags><$MTTagName$></mt:EntryTags></MTEntries><
</MTIfNonZero>
</MTIfCategory>
</MTTopLevelCategories>
</MTSetVarBlock>
So, when MT parses that section of my template, it gets a variable with the name of "annoucnementType" and the value of whatever I've tagged the announcement with in the entry screen. In my case, I've tagged my survey announcement as a-info, which I plan to use as my generic announcement style. Then, when MT generates the code to display the announcement, it fills the class section of my div with "a-info." I then use my style sheet to make it look pretty. I can create different styles, just by giving the announcement a different tag.

The next  unexplained part is the one element up there that contains javascript.

<input type="image" src="http://wheredoubtremains.com/images/icons/sweetie/16-em-cross-b.png" value="Close me!" onClick="setAnnCookie()" style="float:right;" />
This is the code that generates the little X that visitors will use to close the announcement. I use the <input> tag, but you could wrap it in an <a> tag, if you want. <input> is used to generate buttons, but I want it to be an image button, so I use "type='image'" then tell it where to find my image. I float this to the right using the style property to get it up in the corner and then use an event handler: onclick. This tells the web browser that when a user clicks on my X, to run the "setAnnCookie" function, which I've also included in my template.

<MTTopLevelCategories>
<MTIfCategory label="Announcements">
<MTIfNonZero tag="MTCategoryCount">
<MTEntries lastn="1">
// start my javascript
<script type="text/javascript">
// create a function to set a specific cookie for this announcement when the user clicks the X and make the box disappear
function setAnnCookie() {
document.cookie="Announce<MTEntryID>=hideannouncement<MTEntryID>";
// change the display of the announcements box so it disappears
document.getElementById("announcementsBox").style.display="none";
}

// create a function to check and see if the cookie has been set
function checkAnnCookie()
{
if (document.cookie.indexOf("hideannouncement<MTEntryID>")!=-1)
// if the cookie is set (meaning the user clicked on the X already), then don't display the announcement
{document.getElementById("announcementsBox").style.display="none";}
// if the cookie isn't set, then display the announcement
else
{document.getElementById("announcementsBox").style.display="block";}
}
</script>
</MTEntries>
</MTIfNonZero>
</MTIfCategory>
</MTTopLevelCategories>
Again, you'll notice I've used MT tags like <MTEntryID> in my javascript. That's so that each cookie will be specific to each announcement (<MTEntryID> prints the entry's unique id number). In my stylesheet, I use display=none; to make sure that the announcement is only displayed if that particular announcement's cookie isn't set. The javascript is what actually displays the announcement. But there's one  more step. Because my announcement is set to be invisible by default, I need the checkAnnCookie function to run when the page loads. Here's how:

<body onLoad="checkAnnCookie()">
So, that's it. Looking back, even now, I can seem some redundancies in the code that could probably be stripped out. If I have time, I plan to learn how to add a smoother transition when the user clicks the X -- right now, the announcement just kind of blinks out. I'd like to slide out, or something like that. Also, this cookie expires when the user closes their browser, so the announcement will reappear when the come back. I'll probably need to set an expiration date.

I also included my javascript in my MT Announcements template, instead of putting it in the head of my document or in an external file, because I needed MT to process the tags to get the specifics for that particular announcement. I plan to use a more global version of this code to let users expand and collapse some of the elements on the pages, and have their settings remembered.]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/155/using-javascript-to-hide-announcements-in-movabletype/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/155/using-javascript-to-hide-announcements-in-movabletype/ Beta Testing Production announcements coding design javascript web development Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:59:40 -0500 Progress
I had a few interviews last week -- one with an expert on false allegations and one with the former mayor of Gauley Bridge. I also had an interesting conversation with a convicted sex offender brought up -- but never investigated -- in the Joe Lavigne case. Despite all that, I called Joe's sister three times last week, with no response. I left messages and even a voicemail on her cell phone. She's not returning emails either. I've also been calling Gerald Proctor and leaving messages a lot. He's a friend of Lee Jones and Donna said yesterday that she'd try and make sure he gets touch with me.

It's been an interesting time with the FBI. Either they're not very bright in the public disclosure office, or they think I'm not. They insist they have no records to indicate they investigated a Kentucky rape case that they clearly -- very clearly were involved in.

Today, I should be receiving some documents from Myrtle Beach about Lee Jones. The city attorney there said he had a video tape to send me but that his VCR accidentally ate it. I asked how long it would take to get a copy and he told me he didn't know -- and that he had no power to hurry the police to get a copy made. My feeling was that the threat of a lawsuit for violating their state's open records law might encourage due speed, but I'll save that card for another day. They seem to be cooperating at this point. I'll stand back a bit until I see what they send me.

My office is drowning in documents, already, though. Last week I conned my roommate into organizing a bunch of them into files, but it hasn't really made me all that much more organized. There are just so many pages -- thousands of them -- it's difficult to keep track. Add to that hours of interviews and notes and to do lists, well...
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/154/progress/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/154/progress/ FOIA Requests Joe Lavigne Lee Jones Production documents FOIA interviews Joe Lavigne Lee Jones Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:45:42 -0500 WVU profs don't seem to want to be experts
Having worked in small markets I'm used to getting the brush-off from people who just don't care enough. But I never, never had a WVU professor turn me down when I was doing newspaper work. Being quoted as an expert in a news article just adds to their tenure file. But I think when people I contact now hear the words "graduate student working on a 'project'" their eyes gloss over and they refused to be bothered.

All around, I'm having better luck getting access to people and information outside of my own school. I think that says a lot.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/151/wvu-profs-dont-seem-to-want-to-be-experts/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/151/wvu-profs-dont-seem-to-want-to-be-experts/ Writing experts reporting sources WVU Tue, 30 Oct 2007 11:47:24 -0500 DNA testing
10 years ago a forensic serologist working at the State Police lab couldn't find any DNA to test in the rape kit he received from the hospital (and that's a whole other story) -- but now, I wonder, if new technology exists that could find something today he couldn't a decade ago. I don't know, but a biologist here at the university is looking over the serologist's testimony (I've been unsuccessful in getting the lab reports) to see if he can figure out what did or didn't happen, and maybe, what could be done with the evidence today.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/149/dna-testing/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/149/dna-testing/ Joe Lavigne dna testing Joe Lavigne State Police Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:06:16 -0500 Falling behind I'm falling behind. I spent most of last week sick and on top of that, I injured my back at the gym making it difficult to sit at a computer for any length of time. Losing a whole week (or more, as it's going right now) has put me behind schedule. The list of interviews I need to do just keeps growing. http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/210/falling-behind/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/210/falling-behind/ Writing schedule Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:27:44 -0500 West Virginia updates Lee Jones: I've known for a while that a screenwriter has been interested in Lee's story. He finally got in touch with Lee by letter late last week, and the family in general seems interested in working with him. I know he's also talked with several of the attorneys from both sides. I'm worried he'll scare the prosecutors a little bit and they'll be more hesitant than before to talk with me, but so far, that doesn't seem to be the case. I do want to know what it was about Lee's case that interested him, and how he heard about it.

Donna, Lee's wife, also managed to get some documents I was missing from the courthouse. They're proposed findings of law and conclusions of fact that both sides recently filed after the hearing in January. They should give me a good picture of the state's opposition to Lee's habeas petition. I'm hoping to wrap up writing on this case very soon, so I can move on to the next case.

Joe Lavigne: I finally received release forms from Joe, which will hopefully spur his public defender into talking to me. He's been reticent so far, and I get the impression they're more interested in using what I've found to bolster their case. I told them they could have access to anything I publish in December -- but beyond that I'm not going to be cooperative. I'm not going to turn into an investigator for any side.

The release forms will hopefully get Lee's trial attorney to talk, too. She said she would, but needed him to waive privilege first. That's on this week's agenda.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/238/west-virginia-updates/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/238/west-virginia-updates/ Joe Lavigne Lee Jones Writing attorneys Joseph Lavigne Lee Jones updates waivers writing Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:55:06 -0500 Courtesy titles
So to that end, I've decided to adapt the New York Times style on names -- particularly courtesy titles on second reference. I think it's jolting enough (at first) to set the copy apart from other things people are reading, because it's not often that you see courtesy titles in news copy. It also helps, even if in an only subconscious way, to buffer that name soup in stories that have lots of characters.

I don't know. It might not be the best strategy, but I think it's working at this point. We'll see what my committee thinks. They were handed first drafts of the stories yesterday.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/237/courtesy-titles/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/237/courtesy-titles/ Writing courtesy titles style web writing writing Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:48:52 -0500 More help from Donna Jones
I also spent an hour or so with her brother yesterday. As he wasn't a witness, he was able to attend the whole trial and give me a lot of details about what it was like in the courtroom. He described Kristen Keller's summation as "over the top," and said she "went in to high drive" as she delivered her speech to the jury. Her closing arguments are a sticking point in the defense's bid to overturn Lee's conviction.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/236/more-help-from-donna-jones/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/236/more-help-from-donna-jones/ Lee Jones closing arguments documents Donna Jones Kristen Keller Lee Jones tapes Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:06:14 -0500 What's in a name?
I think the issue is an idealogical one between the print and broadcast fields. Broadcasters use air names, even news broadcasters. They do it for a lot of reasons, but a common one, is that union rules prevent two union members from using the same air name. If someone already uses yours, well, then, you have to pick a new one. That doesn't happen in print. So, as mediums converge and journalists (like me) start moving freely between the two, it becomes an issue.

My problem with going back is that, well, my name is out there as "McLachlan." I'd love to settle on one name and go forward with it, but am weary of print-based fights over using the air name (most editors understand the concept, and don't bat an eye at it, some are taken back by it) and am worried about a distinct change at this (relatively early point) in my career. But, on the other hand, I don't want any attacks on my credibility, either, which is why I considered the legal name change. It's not like I'm hiding anything, at all, but there are always critics. Leave a door open and someone is going to walk through it.

Turns out, though, in West Virginia (as in most states), my common usage of the name renders it a legal name. I can make it all offficial, but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle.

The point that seemed to stick with my committee chair (as others were okay with it), was that I have been using the name professionally for several years. I also reminded her that a lot of woman at newspapers don't change their bylines when they get married and take their husbands' last names -- especially if the marriage happens in mid- to late-career.

So, for now, it's McLachlan and not McLaughlin.


]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/235/whats-in-a-name/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/235/whats-in-a-name/ Ethics air names byline committee ethics McLachlan Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:30:23 -0500 The State Police's secrets
This means that out of all the FOIA requests I've made for this project, I've received access to exactly zero -- ZERO -- documents. If I thought the various agencies in this state were capable of this type of coordination I'd start to suspect some kind of conspiracy.
]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/234/the-state-polices-secrets/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/234/the-state-polices-secrets/ FOIA Requests FOIA public records WV State Police Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:01:25 -0500 Donna Jones
The key, though, I think, will be getting her to talk freely and long enough to get good audio. That way, I'll be able to limit voice over narration from myself later when I'm putting the Flash aspects together.

]]> http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/233/donna-jones/ http://wheredoubtremains.com/notebook/233/donna-jones/ Lee Jones Donna Jones interviews Lee Jones Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:39:43 -0500