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Opinion An Independent Attitude Investigative reporting necessary A Texas newspaper recently was awarded one of the most prestigious awards in journalism, the 2007 Philip Meyer Journalism Award by Investigative Reporters & Editors.
IRE is, to me, the premier journalism organization, eclipsing the Society of Professional Journalism and others for its devotion to the cause of bringing information to the public it would not normally have with regular beat reporting. The award, which focuses on using statistics and social sciences techniques in reporting, is one of several IRE gives, but this year's winners all touch on serious social issues. The Dallas Morning News won for "Faking the Grade," a series that uncovered strong evidence of cheating on standardized tests by more than 50,000 students in Texas public and charter schools, according to a news release from IRE. "Reporters Joshua Benton and Holly Hacker followed up on the paper's groundbreaking 2004 investigation of cheating at the district and school level by analyzing a huge public records database of the scores and answers of hundreds of thousands of individual students taking the tests over a two-year period. The series prompted the state to announce stricter controls over test-taking conditions in Texas schools and to adopt the cheat-detection statistical methods used by the paper," the release states. The 2004 story, according to the Associated Press, analyzed scores from 7,700 Texas schools to find a disconnect between TAKS scores and other performance measures. The story caused quite a stir statewide and in Amarillo. Educators and the education establishment jumped on the defensive, with the local media playing the same tune. The local media circled the wagons to "prove" that Amarillo couldn't be home to those who cheat or who are dishonest. Despite the entire defense, the fact is that cheating goes on — here and in other districts. Look at the former Amarillo teacher David Tamez, who admitted to leaking test information to educators. If you look at the way the community and the media handled the recent mass casualty event the Saturday before Christmas, you'll see the relationship to the TAKS cheating coverage. All the evidence points to the emergency system working well, but not perfectly, and members of the community stepped up to help those hurt or waylaid by the accident. But to read and listen to the glowing media reports, one could only conclude that the worst problem facing the emergency system was the loss of electric power at Amarillo Rick Husband International Airport and on parts of the east side near the airport. We saw the same phenomenon in 2005 when evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita arrived in Amarillo. The reports on how good the emergency response was and how well these folks were treated bordered on the pollyannaish. Reporting perfection in the face of flaws, small ones at that, doesn't serve the community. Reporting areas that need improvement isn't "digging up dirt." Calling imperfect things perfect deprives people of the right to know whether the systems designed to protect them work as they should. I don't believe anyone in the local media wants to take gratuitous shots at anyone else, but some of us want to get facts out. That's what we've promised all along. We have also promised we would strive to improve The Amarillo Independent and starting in next week's issue, we take a major step forward: William H. Seewald will begin writing a column for the Indy. Mr. Seewald has been writing a column for Amarillo readers for almost 15 years and circumstances have arisen that now let him write for the progressive and substantive newspaper in this town. I am thrilled to have this bright mind and articulate wordsmith share his views with us. Look for his column on a regular basis the first Thursday of each month in this space. George Schwarz: Editor and publisher of the Amarillo Independent. george@amarilloindy.com. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: January 17, 2008
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