Drivers would hang out in
the bus garage and play pool while still collecting
a paycheck, he said.
School Bus Bloat, his series of 25 stories that ran
over a 14 month time period, investigated the Cleveland
Municipal School District's transportation department
and won a 2005 IRE medal, the highest IRE honor.
Merriman said he had no idea that the tip he received
was about to unravel a web of
|
Cleveland Fox 8's Tom Merriman
(right) |
deception throughout the district.
“It’s not your classic computer assisted reporting
story, really it was getting at the source documents that
was the critical piece,” he said.
He began his investigation by filing a Freedom of Information
Act request for the duty logs of the bus drivers. He found
the district had 206 spare drivers, almost 100 percent of
the 10 percent requirement for second stringer drivers.
CAR data refute claims
Merriman also investigated the claim that city buses were
packed with students. He requested the database of bus riders,
and through CAR, found that the district had inflated the
number of kids riding the buses by over 3,000 students in
order to collect more funding.
CAR reporting became very helpful and essential as the story
progressed, he said.
Merriman’s reporting led to the firing of two top managers
of the transportation department, 124 bus drivers, and the
resignation of the District CEO. Multiple outside reviews
of the department were done and the district was ordered to
repay $725,000.
“It had a lot of impact,” he said. “To
be involved in a story that has real impact is just satisfying
and rewarding”
Merriman said he learned CAR skills by attending IRE seminars,
Poynter Institute Workshops, and through a friend who had
tremendous CAR skills. He said while he knows his CAR skills
are not the best; it is a tremendous skill for reporters to
have.
“It’s (CAR) a tool for journalists, it does
not replace journalism,” he said. “I think for
people doing investigative reporting it’s critical;
for daily reporting it’s useful.”
New grads need multimedia skills
Merriman said reporters are also going to have to develop
multimedia skills because of the changing industry. Future
journalists must be aware of how fiercely competitive the
journalism field is and what a huge role convergence is going
to play.
“Print reporters need to learn video, broadcast need
to learn how to write for the web,” he said. “There’s
a lot of thinking to do about how this is going to unfold
and a lot of ethical questions people are going to have to
face.”
Merriman said the one thing he wants college students to
remember while doing computer assisted reporting is that it
is crucial to start with a tip.
“They (students/reporters) assume they will find a
story by examining data and sometimes it is just not there.
It can fall apart and it can waste a tremendous amount of
time.”
Return
to JMC Home Page
•
Danielle Cervantes, San Diego Union-Tribune
• Dave
Davis, Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Dan
Keating, Washington Post
• Tom
Merriman, Fox 8 Cleveland
• Doug
Oplinger, Akron Beacon Journal
• Craig
Pittman and Matthew Waite, St. Petersburg Times
• Mark
Schaver, Louisville Courier-Journal
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