Tips for Backgrounding Court Cases

1. Check the web for stories, but don't use anything that you don't verify independently.


2. See if your guy has a history. Conweb can help with those convicted of felonies in Montana.


3. The county's jail roster lists people being held pending the outcome of their cases.


4. Get the records. You can look up felony records at the clerk of district court's office. You can check misdemeanor records with the clerks in lower courts: Justice Court for Missoula County cases, Municipal Court for city of Missoula cases.

Next Week's Beat Assignment: Go to Court

Congrats. You've all been assigned to the courts beat for the week of Oct 11-15. Your task: Sit in on a session of Justice Court or a District Court law and motion session and dig up a story. The story will be due by midnight of the day you choose to go to court. I accept any stories after midnight Thursday.

Justice Court criminal sessions are held every day and run from about 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. You'll see people making their first appearance on all sorts of charges, most of them minor ones. The accused won't say much and the process consists of having the judge tell them about the charges and arranging for bail. If you see a case that intrigues you, go to the Justice Court clerk and ask for a copy of the charges and the affidavit. And then write it up.

District Court law and motion sessions are scheduled for different judges on different days. Check the schedule a day or so before you go and do a little records homework. By the way, I see that Judges Deschamps (yep, same family) and Harkin are holding their sessions Tuesday. The other two judges are taking the week off. Sorry. Look for a sentencing or an arraignment. Remember that they only do felonies in District Court.

What's newsworthy? Serious crimes, obviously. Minor crimes involving interesting circumstances could make news, too.

Local Resources for the Justice Beat

Law Enforcement

• The Missoula Police Department's info on crime activity.
• The Missoula County Sheriff's Department's jail roster
• University of Montana Public Safety
• Montana Highway Patrol

Prosecutors

• Missoula County Attorney's Office
• Missoula City Attorney's Office
• U.S. Attorney's Office (Montana)

Courts

• City of Missoula Municipal Court
• Missoula County Justice Court
• Missoula County District Court
• U.S. District Court in Missoula

Records

• Missoula County Clerk of District Court (felonies, larger civil suits)
• Correctional Offender Network (records of state convicts)

We're moving from local government coverage to the justice beat. You'll need to learn some new jargon so that you can translate this stuff for a reasonable reader.

Here's a link to a glossary of legal terms that should help.

This week's deadlines

You've got a beat story due no later than midnight Saturday this week.

Breaking news (stories about timely events like crimes, disasters, court actions, debates, key decisions) need to be filed by midnight of the day they happen. That's the nature of breaking news.

Less timely news features (trends, profiles and behind-the-scenes looks at people or issues on your beat) are due later in the week.

Be mindful of the competition. It pays to be first in this business.

Covering City Hall

We're off to meet the Missoula City Council tonight. The show starts at 7 p.m., so get there early and grab a seat on the aisle leading from the door to the speaker's stand. The council chambers are at 140 W. Pine St., next to Sean Kelly's.

Your stories are due by midnight tonight.

By now you should have read the council's agenda and the city's argument for the special tax districts that are up for discussion tonight. Missoulian reporter Keila Szpaller previewed tonight's action in this morning's paper. You'd be smart to give her story a read.

We'll prepare for tonight's work in class. But here's some style information you might find useful.

The Missoula City Council - That's its name, so capitalize it the first time you use it. You can refer it the council (lowercase) after that.

Titles - Formal titles like mayor and councilwoman are capitalized only when they precede a name, as in Mayor John Engen or Councilwoman Pam Walzer or Councilman Bob Jaffe. You can refer to them by their last names on subsequent references. Other unelected officials are often given a formal title, such as City Attorney Jim Nugent and Police Chief Mark Muir but most others are best described by what they do, as in Bruce Bender, the city's chief administrator, or Steve King, who runs the city's public works department.

Wards -Council members represent six wards, but you don't need to offer the ward description with their names unless that's important to know, as it might be in a tussle between areas of the city over, say, street repairs. In that case, I'd say Councilman Bob Jaffe, whose Ward 3 includes the University area, called for ...

Stories on the City Beat

Welcome to City Hall. We'll spend time there over the next few weeks learning how it works and how it affects the lives of folks in Missoula. We'll see who has the power there and how they use it.

A good way to learn that is to follow a controversy, and we've got one brewing. Here's the gist: The mayor wants to add a couple of new taxes to start pumping more money into building and maintaining streets and parks. (The city has had a devil of a time finding money for this kind of work.)

It won't cost a typical taxpayer more than a 12-pack of a national brand beer, but any new taxes right are bound to raise eyebrows. The idea's critics also point out that for at least the next year, taxpayers won't see any new road or park work. Instead, the tax will allow the city shift money around to avoid laying off employees and reducing other services. The mayor says he's cut his proposed budget enough already.

Missoulian reporter Keila Szpaller is covering the story closely for the paper and for the paper's city blog, missoularedtape.com.

Do some reading there and on the city's website because we'll be covering Monday night's public hearing on this for a midnight deadline. Yep. By the way, you can sign up here for an advance peek at Monday's City Council agenda.

A Handy Guide to Local Government

The Missoula League of Women Voters has great links to local government resources. Check out the right side of the page.

Public Affairs Beats, Fall 2010

Here are the beat assignments, based on your requests. Stay tuned for your first assignment.

Justice:
Heather Pimley
Alyse Backus
Paige Huntoon
Daniel Mediate

Economy:
John Crepeau

Higher Ed:
Ali Murray
Lynn Campbell

Natural Resources/Environment:
Hannah Ryan
Samantha Abel
Katherine Kettering

K-12 Schools:
Scott Ranf
Julia Williamson

Health:
Adrienne Ellsworth
Jon Tweeten

City:
Alyssa Small
Emily Creasia

Welcome to Public Affairs Reporting

Come on in. Take a look around. We'll use this site in many ways this semester. Check in for:

• Assignments/deadlines
• Tip sheets
• Examples
• Links to help with your reporting and writing.

Your first assignment:

Choose a public affairs beat that you will cover for the semester. Here are the choices. Pick two from the list below, rank them, and send your choices to me in an e-mail by midnight Monday, Aug. 30. Along with your first choice, include a couple of paragraphs summarizing an ongoing local story on that beat and tell me how you might update it. (What questions would you ask? Who would you talk to?)

1. The CITY BEAT - You'll monitor the institutions that govern urban life in Missoula, including City Hall. It's a big beat, which is good because you'll find lots of stories. The trick is to hunt for news that will mean something to your readers.

2. K-12 SCHOOLS - Another big beat, with lots of news. You've got tens of thousands of students and parents to serve.

3. HIGHER EDUCATION - A crucial beat in Missoula. A lot of people want and need to know what's going on at the University of Montana.

4. The JUSTICE BEAT - Crime and punishment is a staple of community news coverage. We've got lots of law enforcement agencies and courts in this town, and they're always producing news.

5. The ECONOMY - Your job is to give readers they what need to make good decisions about their financial lives. Believe me, this is a rich beat.

6. HEALTH - Everyone cares about this, so we need good, timely reporting on health threats and trends in treatment, costs and access. The health care is big business in Missoula.

7. NATURAL RESOURCES/ENVIRONMENT - Another huge beat in Montana, with enormous consequences for the well-being of your readers. From wolves to weeds, the stories are everywhere.

Study Tips for Monday's Quiz, and a Few Good Links

I'll split the quiz between justice and eduction topics. Those of you who took notes on Wednesday's short discussion on justice terms and procedures should be in good shape. Here's a link to legal terms you might encounter.

For the education questions, I'd like you to be able to tell me how Montana's higher ed and K-12 systems are governed and funded. You will also need a sense of their histories and the challenges ahead.

Actually, you'll find everything you should need on the education powerpoint in Swibold's professor's folder on the journalism sever.

By the way, here's a good story on a civil case from today's Missoulian.

One more thing, the Chronicle of Higher Education is running a good series this week on journalism education. Click on the graphic above for a link to the stories.

Higher Ed in the News

New York Times

Momentous decisions are being made that could affect the cost and quality of a college education. Here are two tales about the problems of two states: California and Montana. (Kaimin reporter Jayme Fraser's story is a great example of smart news writing on the fly.)

Here's a NY Times slide show of student protests in California.

Plea bargain in murder case has a long history

The Missoulian's Tristan Scott did a good story last month previewing the Lincoln C. Benavides plea deal in the Florence murders case. It goes down Thursday in U.S. District Court.

Covering Wildfires: Resources for Reporters

InciWeb (Incident Information System): Details from various federal and state agencies on latest fire activity and contact information for those fighting the fire.

National Interagency Fire Center (Boise): Lots of information, stats, procedures for fighting fires on public lands.

Firewise: A national program designed to inform people who live ear wildlands.

Federal agencies that fight or monitor fire: National Forest Service (search by forest, i.e., Lolo National Forest, Bitterroot National Forest, Helena National Forests; also the service's northern regional headquarters are in Missoula), Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. After a disaster, FEMA may arrive on the scene.

Montana Department of Natural Resources: Responsible for wild fires on state land (and there's more of it out there than you think.)

Society of Environmental Journalists: Here's a tipsheet on wildland fire coverage.

Know the lingo: Here's an online glossary of firefighting terms. Be careful in your translations.

Stories: Impacts on humans, wildlife, ecosystems, economy; fire management policy, prevention, disaster aftermath (emergency housing and necessities, rebuilding loans), investigations.

Ethics: Here's a guide produced by journalists on how to provide more effective coverage of tragedies and disasters.

Covering the Justice Beat: Local Resources

Law Enforcement

• The Missoula Police Department's info on crime activity.
• The Missoula County Sheriff's Department's jail roster
• University of Montana Public Safety
• Montana Highway Patrol

Prosecutors

• Missoula County Attorney's Office
• Missoula City Attorney's Office
• U.S. Attorney's Office (Montana)

Courts

• City of Missoula Municipal Court
• Missoula County Justice Court
• Missoula County District Court
• U.S. District Court in Missoula

Records

• Missoula County Clerk of District Court (felonies, larger civil suits)
• Correctional Offender Network (records of state convicts)

This Week in Public Affairs Reporting

This week's assignments:

• A story from your beat.
• In-class assignment (Wednesday)

Opportunies:

• Esquire's Chris Jones, this year's Pollner prof (that's him in the picture), delivers the annual Pollner Lecture at 7 p.m. Monday in the University Center Theater. Should be good.
• Newwest.net is offering student journalists a free pass to sessions of its annual real estate and development conference, which kicks off Monday afternoon. Lots of story possibilities for those of you with local economy, environment and government beats. Clicke here for details.
  

Last Deadline Council Story Monday Night

We're covering Monday night's City Council meeting, and there's no doubt about the big news. After two years of work and no small controversy, the council is likely to approve a new zoning ordinance. (So what? What might that mean to your readers? What's the reaction?)

You could easily put together a few background grafs before the meeting, based on information from the city's special zoning Web site, which offers answers detailing why the city pursued this and what major changes Missoula residents can expect. Do do a good job of translating this.

For good background on the legal controversy, see the Missoulian's Friday story. The paper's city reporter also posted a pdf of the judge's decision.

Of course, zoning isn't the only newsworthy matter on Monday's agenda.

We're Covering the City Council Tonight

I expect you to produce a story from tonight's Missoula City Council meeting for a midnight deadline. We'll discuss some possibilities in class, but you can prepare for that by digging through the agenda.

Your other assignment this week is to produce a short bio on your City Council candidate. Those are due to me by e-mail by classtime Wednesday. You can find a lot online, but I want you to verify everything with your candidate (who's likely to be at tonight's meeting).

You'll also want to arrange an interview with him or her for the candidate feature, which is due a week from Friday.

The Best Ledes Pop and Sizzle

Think public affairs writing has to be dull? Here's what the Wall Street Journal's Scott McCartney wrote after covering a recent meeting of aviation officials:

Listen up, airlines: You need to fix the problem of leaving people stranded on miserable, smelly airplanes with little food, water or patience—and you can. Lots of your peers say so. (Summary lede) ...

On Tuesday, a diverse group of aviation professionals gathered in Washington to debate solutions, including urging Congress to force airlines to give passengers the option of leaving a plane after three hours of runway jail. In conversations outside the staged event, these engineers, former airline executives, airport managers and pilots' union leaders offered common-sense solutions. (Support for the lede.) ...

Click for the rest of the story.

City Election Assignments and Deadlines

Photo by Tiffany Wilson

Here's the list of who is responsible for what:

Candidate Bios and Features:
Mayor John Engen (Lily)
Ward 1: Dave Strohmaier (Danielle), Ryan Morton (Kate)
Ward 2: John Hendrickson (Emerald), Roy Houseman (Hannah)
Ward 3: Bob Jaffe (Roman), John Quandt (Josh)
Ward 4: John Wilkins (Justyn)
Ward 5: Dick Haines (Layla), Mike O'Herron (Joe)
Ward 6: Marilyn Marler (Hollis), Kathy Greathouse (Kyle)

Issues:
Growth (Evan)
Traffic problems (Piper)
Recreation (Jed)
Job/business development (Jessica)

Deadlines:
Candidate bios (Wednesday, Sept. 30), candidate and issue features (Friday, Oct.9