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Southwest Journalist
FROM THE FRONT PAGE
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Southwest Journalist goes digital Ten college students and recent college graduates are headed to paid copy editing internships on daily newspapers and online news services after completing eight days of intensive preparation work at The University of Texas at Austin. The interns are among a select group of 84 placed in internships in copy editing, business reporting and online journalism as part of a national, competitive program funded by the News Fund, a foundation of the Dow Jones Company, and participating newspapers. The School of Journalism at UT Austin, one of five pre-internship training sites for copy editors and designers, has been part of the News Fund program for 13 years. Participants in the UT workshop were involved in newspaper copy editing, design and production assignments as well as launching swjournalist.com, a venture into online journalism. Newspaper professionals, visiting faculty and UT journalism faculty moderated sessions. The UT-News Fund interns will report for internships of 10-14 weeks. In the latter half of the pre-internship training, participants produced three issues of a model newspaper, the Southwest Journalist, as well as a companion online product. The Austin American-Statesman provided printing services for the newspaper. Participants in the UT Austin workshop, in-
cluding their universities and host newspapers, are: Samantha Borger, University of Texas at Austin-The Beaumont Enterprise; Austin Fast, Miami University of Ohio-California Watch; Ryan Fernandez, San Jose State University-The Sacramento Bee; Allie Grasgreen, University of Oregon-The Oregonian; Inyoung Kang, New York University-San Luis (Calif.) Obispo Tribune; Kiera Manion-Fischer, Kent State UniversitySan Francisco Chronicle; Liz Martinez, Lehigh University-The Dallas Morning News; Gabrielle Muñoz, University of Texas at Austin-AustinAmerican-Statesman; Hannah Ritchie, University of Missouri-The Denver Post; and Chad Uddstrom, Penn State University-California Bay Area Newspapers. Grants from the News Fund and contributions from participating newspapers cover the cost of the workshops, including instruction, housing, meals and transportation for the participants. Participating newspapers in turn pay interns a weekly wage for their work during the internship. Students returning to their universities after the internships are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship provided by the Newspaper Fund. Directing the UT workshop were S. Griffin Singer, director; George Sylvie, assistant director; and Sonia Reyes-Krempin, administrative
OIL: Spill stalls fishing industry, tourism Workers collect oil that washed ashore Fourchon Beach Port in Fourchon, La., on Tuesday. Oil has polluted about 125 miles of Louisiana coastline and has been reported near barrier islands in Alabama and Mississippi. Patrick Semansky Associated Press
—Continued from Page 1 of neighborhood and community services for Escambia County. The oil has been spreading in the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded six weeks ago, killing 11 workers and eventually sinking. The rig was being operated for BP, the largest oil and gas producer in the Gulf. Crude oil has already been reported along barrier islands in Alabama and Mississippi, and it has polluted some 125 miles of Louisiana coastline. Some 2,000 feet above the Chandeleur islands off the Louisiana coast, vast stretches of sheen meandered through the water, some reflecting pale rainbow colors — from pale, barely detectable streams to rust-rimmed blue and purple patches that looked like giant bruises. “The problem is this oil now is really like a collection of smaller spills,” Allen said during flight in a C-144. Allen, the national incident commander for the spill, said the threat of oil hitting the coast
was shifting east and skimmer vessels would be working offshore to intercept as much crude oil as possible. Earlier this week, BP officials said they were concentrating cleanup efforts in Louisiana because they did not expect oil to reach other states. The company has set up floating hotels on barges to house cleanup crews closer to the Louisiana shores. In Venice, La., hundreds of oil response workers were grounded by storms and many local fishermen hired in the so-called vessels of opportunity program were sent home early. Venice is a major staging center for the oil response, with nearly 1,500 workers and dozens of boats in this small town in the marshes. BP spokesman Mike Abendoff said he hopes to start putting some workers there early by next week. More federal fishing waters were closed — another setback for one of the region’s most important industries — and more than one-third of federal waters were off-limits for fishing.
DATA: AT&T’s Wi-Fi networks to remain untouched by change —Continued from Page 1 smart phone could cost as little as $55 per month before taxes and add-on fees, down from $70 now. Ralph de la Vega, head of AT&T’s consumer business, said smart phones would become accessible to more people. “Customers are getting a good deal, and if they can un-
derstand their usage, they can save some money,” de la Vega said in an interview. Figuring out which plan to choose may not be easy, because many people have only a hazy notion of the size of a gigabyte and how many they use now. By contrast, a minute spent talking on the phone is easy to understand, and many people have learned roughly
how many minutes they use every month. The limits will apply only to AT&T’s cellular networks. Data usage over Wi-Fi networks, including AT&T’s public Wi-Fi “hot spots,” will not count toward the limits. De la Vega noted that AT&T lets customers track their usage online. The iPhone also has a built-in usage tracking tool. And the carrier will also text subscribers to let them know they’re getting close to their limits. Jason Prance, an iPhone 3G user in Atlanta, said his first reaction to the end of unlimited usage was to be “ticked off.” “If you’re taking the ability to go unlimited away from people, you immediately get defensive,” he said. But then he checked his data consumption on his iPhone for the first time and found he had never used more than 200 megabytes in a month. That surprised him, he said, because he sends and receives a lot of e-mail and watches online video now and then. Now he figures he can save $30 per month by switching himself and his wife to the $15 plan. For the iPad, the new $25-per-month plan will replace the $30 unlimited plan. IPad owners can keep theirplan as long as they keep paying $30 per month, AT&T said.
The 2010 Dow Jones News Fund workshop participants and staff. assistant of the UT School of Journalism. Faculty included Beth Butler, assistant workshop director from Kent State University; Amy Zerba, CNN.com, Atlanta ; Richard Holden, executive director of the Newspaper Fund; and
Bradley Wilson, Coordinator of Student Media Advising, North Carolina State University. Drew Marcks, assistant managing editor of the Austin American-Statesman, coordinated the interns’ visit to that newspaper.
Proposed energy bill to alter oil tax breaks Conservatives: public safety first Emily Wagster Pettus Associated Press
PITTSBURGH — Seizing on a disastrous oil spill to advance a cause, President Barack Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to roll back billions of dollars in tax breaks for oil and pass a clean energy bill that he says would help the nation end its dependence on fossil fuels. Obama predicted he would find the political support for legislation that would dramatically alter the way Americans fuel their homes and cars, including placing a price on carbon pollution. “The votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months,” Obama told an audience at Carnegie Mellon University. He said the country’s continuing dependence on fossil fuels “will jeopardize our national security, it will smother our planet and will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk.” The president spoke as Americans remain deeply frustrated by the nation’s worst oil spill, still spewing crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico more than a month after a BP drilling rig sank. With the spill casting Big Oil in the worst possible light, calling for the elimination of oil company subsidies is one more way for Obama to show
the public he wants to hold the industry accountable. Obama said the Gulf spill “may prove to be a result of human error — or corporations taking dangerous shortcuts that compromised safety” — but that deepwater drilling is inherently risky and the U.S. cannot rely solely on fossil fuels. He also used the speech to lash out at Republicans with partisan rhetoric, saying they have mostly “sat on the sidelines and shouted from the bleachers” as he’s tried to restore the economy. The GOP, Obama said, has fought him on tax cuts for new spending on clean energy, among other things. “To be fair, a good deal of the other party’s opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about government,” Obama said. “It’s a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet its collective challenges.” However, all along the Gulf Coast, where the tea party thrives and “socialism” is a common description for any government program, conservatives who usually denounce federal activism suddenly are clamoring for it. “There’s nothing inherently contradictory in saying we believe in smaller government and demanding that the government protect public safety,” said Ben Brooks, a lawyer and Republican state senator from coastal Alabama. Take Louisiana Gov. Bobby
Jindal, a Republican elected in 2007 when Democrat Kathleen Blanco opted not to seek re-election after she was widely panned for a bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina two years earlier. A possible 2012 presidential candidate, Jindal has demanded a stronger response from the Obama administration, accusing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of dragging its feet in approving Louisiana’s plans for protective berms. “This oil threatens not only our coast and our wetlands, this oil fundamentally threatens our way of life in southeastern Louisiana,” Jindal said last week. Louisiana State University political science professor Kirby Goidel said Jindal’s call for larger federal involvement in the oil spill management contradicts the governor’s usual persona. “He’s governor largely because of Katrina,” Goidel said. “He knows that it’s important to get out on top of it and be clear if the federal government is not doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s important for people to know that.” “I think it’s a pretty predictable response: ‘We’ve got a problem that’s beyond our control. Get the federal government in here to take control,’” Goidel said. In Mississippi, Republican Gov. Haley Barbour advocates limited government, even as he lobbied for billions of federal dollars for everything from debris removal to expansion of a state port.
DRONES: CIA says targets are precise —Continued from Page 1
The CIA claims that all of its operations are lawful. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of said the use of unmanned aerial vehicles by intelligence agencies such as the CIA to carry out anonymity because of the sensitivity of inteltargeted killings in Afghanistan, Pakistan and ligence matters, said drones were an effective elsewhere is particularly fraught because of the and legal means to target members of al-Qaida and the Taliban in areas where the United secrecy surrounding such operations. “In a situation in which there is no disclosure States or its allies have no military presence. He cited Pakistan, which officially condemns of who has been killed, for what reason, and whether innocent civilians have died, the legal drone strikes but is widely believed to share inprinciple of international accountability is, by telligence with Washington. There was no evidence to definition, comprehensively prove large numbers of innocent violated,” Alston said. lives have been lost in drone Although not illegal as he point is strikes, the U.S. official said. such, CIA drone strikes are that innocent This view has been challenged also more likely to breach the people have by human rights groups. rules of war than similar opbeen killed; this has “The point is that innocent erations carried out by armed been proved over people have been killed …,” said forces, who are more familand over again. Louise Doswald-Beck, a profesiar with international law sor at the Geneva Graduate Inand can resort to non-lethal —Louise Doswaldstitute. means because they have Beck, law profes“If you don’t have enough troops on the ground, Alston sor at the Geneva personnel on the ground, the said. Graduate Institute chances of your having false “Unlike a state’s armed information is actually quite forces, its intelligence agents huge,” she said. do not generally operate A recommendation in Alston’s report is that within a framework which places appropriate emphasis upon ensuring compliance with in- governments disclose measures in place to proternational humanitarian law, rendering viola- vide public investigations of alleged law violations more likely and causing a higher risk of tions. Doing so could threatened counter-terror prosecution both for war crimes and for violations of the laws of the state in which any killing operations, said Michael Boyle of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. occurs,” he wrote. He said the drones program is effective, inIn a March speech, U.S. State Department legal adviser Harold Koh said the administra- getting terrorist operatives in places where action’s procedures for identifying lawful targets cess islimited.. Alston says more than 40 countries have were “extremely robust, and advanced technologies have helped to make our targeting even drone technology, more precise.”
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