So Scott Peterson has apparently met with attorney Mark Geragos, a big-shot lawyer who has represented people like Winona Ryder and other high-profile people. It's not all that surprising, though it will be interesting to see where the money comes from.
My interest in this latest twist is the fact that my cousin has covered at least two cases (Ryder and Whitewater figure Susan McDougal) in which Geragos was the defense attorney. If this case stays as big as it is now, I wonder if she'll wind up covering it.
Didn't that title catch your eye? Yes, it's true: I was attacked by a dog — a police dog — and I have the pictures to prove it. Mind you, I wasn't hurt and I readily consented to it, but that's beside the point.
Detectives were out searching for a few people with big warrants today, and as they got closer to a home where one suspect was believed to be staying, they saw someone else take off running. They chased him, he continued to run and they finally caught him. He had no warrants and hadn't been in trouble with the law. A detective asked him why he ran.
The title says it all, and this is one of those things that is going here because it won't be in the paper.
A man actually committed suicide today by going into his garage, lying down, placing the back of his neck against an electrical saw and turning on the switch. It completely decapitated him, and his hand was still on the switch when his 20-year-old daughter found him.
This is one of those times when I say, "Oh my WORD!" People searching for Sarah Dutra on Google have their choice between 5,060 different links. And what page is at the very top of the entire list? MINE.
Here, try it for yourself. Click here and watch the wonder of Google.
I knew Dave Barry had a weblog, and I knew billions of other people did. Now it seems that Sacramento Bee columnist Daniel Weintraub has one, too -- powered by Movable Type, no less. In his explanation about his weblog, Weintraub says he's hoping his blog will be a combination between a column and a blog. I can't decide if mine is like that, or if it will be. Either way, it's interesting to see the blog phenomenon continue to expand and take me with it.
Well, I think the whole country knew it was coming. And we knew it had happened hours before police said it was so. Scott Peterson was arrested today in connection with the death of his wife and unborn child.
I'm beginning to believe that weird people will never stop coming through Lodi. The latest: Police have arrested a 25-year-old man suspected of breaking into homes, watching people while they slept and sometimes touching them. It gets better -- or worse, depending on who you are. In 1998, he pleaded no contest to breaking into a home, watching a woman while she slept, and then stealing jewelry and children's underwear. Enough said.
For the first time since March 19, when the United States began its invasion of Iraq, war did not top the nightly newscasts of local television stations. For the first time since March 19, cnn.com returned to the format in which it featured one main news story and other headlines beside it, rather than having war on top and other news below.
And for the first time since March 19, when Kim Petersen sat in a courtroom with a family waiting to see if Sarah Dutra would be convicted in the murder of their father, Petersen is again acting as a spokeswoman for a different, high-profile family.
Laci Peterson, a pregnant Modesto woman missing since Christmas Eve, is again in the headlines, and this time it's because the bodies of a woman and infant have been found. Whether they're Laci and her baby remains to be seen. This sad story is what pulled the focus from war for a solid 10 minutes on tonight's newscasts. I'm not sure what to think of it.
I should seriously write an eBay column. Just an eBay column. The idea has crossed my mind before, and there is certainly plenty of information out there. For instance, there's an upcoming eBay convention. Exciting classes include "Searching and Browsing," "eBay Customer Support," and "Beyond the Box - Shipping from Point A to B." I wonder how many people will pay the $60 registration fee, hop a plane to Orlando and attend the three-day convention. How many auctions would it take to recover the cost of airfare, hotel and registration? Yep, I'm liking this column idea.
Titled "The news we kept to ourselves," this opinion piece by CNN's chief news executive is the New York Times' most e-mailed article in the past 24 hours. It made waves on several radio talk shows yesterday, and the short summary is this: In order to protect journalists and citizens who leaked other information in Iraq while the country was under Saddam Hussein's rule, CNN didn't report about some atrocities performed by the Iraqi government. It can be seen from different angles.
On one hand, CNN covered up news. To protect some, they didn't report about the harm done to others. One can only wonder how things would be different if more atrocities had been revealed earlier.
On the other hand, CNN protected people who, in all likelihood, would have been tortured and killed. One can only wonder what kinds of inside information made it to more powerful sources because these people lived.
It's a weird dilemma for journalists and news organizations. People can pass judgement now, but nobody will ever know what could have been. I'm not CNN, but I've already found myself in smaller-scale dilemmas. The police/molestation/explosives story I mentioned the other day may have backfired on investigators to the point that I'll never really be able to report on it. If I'd begun investigating the hell out of the story earlier, I could have printed some of it, though it likely would have resulted in someone running and eluding the police, and the police being less than happy. Then there's another story that will hopefully break soon, and it's one of those ones that would make the AP national news wire. I could publish some now and say something like, "though sources in the [name of city department] declined to confirm it, they have previously said..." Again, it would be the same dilemma. People think that being a journalist is easy. It's not.
I want some Iraqi playing cards. They're being distributed to military soldiers, and each card features a wanted ex-Iraqi leader. Just think of the possibilities. A game of War, anyone? "My Chemical Ali beats your Saddam Hussein!" Or how about Crazy Eights? The ultimate game, though would be Bullshit. Yep, I need some of these cards. Do embedded journalists get them? If so, I'll be in Iraq in 24 hours.
A former police officer. A decades-old molestation allegation. Explosives evidence. Unless I'm mistaken, that sounds like a TV show plot. Or it could have my byline on it. We shall see.
In other news, things have been approved and I have airline tickets to attend a
workshop in Southern California in two weeks. It looks like a good conference, and I've been doing lots of juggling in an effort to make the most of a three-day weekend. More on that later.
"This will be a place where I can put things that don't make it into the newspaper," I told myself as this weblog idea was quickly fastening itself to my brain and refusing to let go.
There's one problem, though. Some things don't make it into print because they are off the record. Other things don't make it into print because they're not suitable for a family newspaper -- or most newspapers, for that matter. As it is, I did write about the vehicle burglary suspect who left pornos, notes and cigarette butts in cars, but what he actually DID in those vehicles didn't make it into the paper.
Then there are the things I would write about in here if they actually made sense when told out of context. Last weekend was spent with a bunch of fellow journalists and little sleep, and it was such an insane amount of fun. But if I try to write about the "I AM NOT A LIBERAL" story, or how someone tried to play an "eleven" in a card game of Bullshit, it just doesn't work well.
Suffice it to say that I'm still hearing interesting off-the-record stuff, Lodi is still full of weirdos and I am still leading a never-boring life.
I'm sure most people have now heard that a Los Angeles Times photographer was fired Tuesday for digitally manipulating a photograph taken while in Iraq. As of right now, the discussion has gotten nearly 500 comments over on Slashdot. Since it's stupidly late right now and I have to be up early, I didn't read all the comments, but one thread did jump out at me. In it, people were saying the Times was too harsh in immediately firing the photographer. I think this article does a good job of getting all the sides.
What it all comes down to is ethics. Ethics form the bottom line of journalism, and that's that. It's like the rant in my previous post: Journalists can't get lazy. We have a duty to do, and if we slack off, we're failing others. The slackers are the ones who give reporters such a bad name, and I hate it. In my opinion, the Times was more than justified in firing the photographer.
A big ruling from a federal judge was announced yesterday and, naturally, both the competing paper and I wrote about it. It's a good thing I didn't use the written statements from two attorneys but instead hunted them down and got my own quotes. It turns out those statements are ALL my competition used.
The only reference from the ruling that he used was one repeated in the attorneys' statements, and he used that article to include the big news that I mentioned yesterday. Oh, and he apparently doesn't know how to reach attorneys for the other side.
Am I laughing at him? No. I think he's been doing a LOT lately to make reporters look dumb and lazy, and I hate it when reporters do that. I don't care if he's the "Lodi Bureau Chief" for a newspaper three times the size of ours. That doesn't give him the right to make reporters look stupid.
I made the AP wire!! It doesn't have my name, and it's only a condensed version of my story, but I BROKE THE NEWS THAT'S GOING NATIONAL as I type! Here's my story on it. Then you can go to Google news and search for something like "Lodi Supreme Court," and it turns up elsewhere. Tomorrow, it will be a news brief in quite a few newspapers, and it might end up on TV tonight, too. All those stories? Those are because of MY STORY.
Did our competitor break the news? NO. Did our competitor write anything about it? NO.
I thought I should respond to a few people who posted things. Here goes.
- Maryam, who asked about the burning plant analogies: Well, you see, it's like this. Say you have plants named Bob, Bill, George and Steve. Say you decide to burn all plants whose names begin with B. Say you change your mind, though, and just want to burn Bill. Or say you want to just burn the plants that happen to be African Violets. CSS can help with all of that. I'm sure that all made perfect sense.
- teach, who wants to steal from me for her Careers class: What kind of theft? I'm curious.
- Sosiqui, who said she's inspired to work on her site: Hurry up and do it!
- Everyone else who replied: Thanks!
Oh, and to Matthew (he just updated his site; go see it), who said, "The fun of the journey lies in getting there": You're absolutely right. That's what makes this fun, because I'm continuing to get somewhere.
Peterson, celebrity style
So Scott Peterson has apparently met with attorney Mark Geragos, a big-shot lawyer who has represented people like Winona Ryder and other high-profile people. It's not all that surprising, though it will be interesting to see where the money comes from.My interest in this latest twist is the fact that my cousin has covered at least two cases (Ryder and Whitewater figure Susan McDougal) in which Geragos was the defense attorney. If this case stays as big as it is now, I wonder if she'll wind up covering it.
Posted by Layla at 9:59 PM, April 30, 2003. Comments (0)