“I taped a map of Florida up near
my desk and as we did our reporting I stuck hot pink
Post-its on places where we had turned up interesting
permits,” explained Pittman. “On each Post-it
I wrote a short note about what it was. After we got
a dozen Post-its on the map, a co-worker joked that
if we could figure out the pattern, we'd know where
the killer would strike next.”
In this case, the killer of the wetlands was U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers passing out permits allowing for
the destruction of wetlands under Section 404 of the
Clean Water Act. In fact, |
 |
Pittman was prompted in 2003 to investigate the situation
after discovering that Florida issues more 404 permits than
any other state.
“Early on, I found out that all of the 404 permits included
Geographic Information System (GIS) reference points,”
Pittman said. “So I figured that we could get the corps'
permitting database and map out where Florida had lost the
most wetlands. That's how I wound up working with Matt, who
is an expert on computer-assisted reporting in general and
GIS in particular.”
File FOIA request for data
Pittman and Waite began their search by filing a Freedom
of Information Act request for the corps permitting database
in Florida.
“Nobody had ever asked for anything like that before,
and the corps balked. We tussled with them for months on end,”
Pittman said. “Only after we went to Jacksonville to
talk to them face-to-face about the corps' responsibilities
under federal law did they at last turn it over. What we got
turned out to be nearly worthless. A lot of the data fields
were never filled out, and some of the GIS points were off
in the Atlantic Ocean or up in Pennsylvania.”
Pittman and Waite were not discouraged. While waiting for
the data from the corps, the pair visited the National Wetlands
Inventory office in St. Petersburg and retained the state’s
own wetland permitting database, which was littered with its
own problems and was, essentially, another dead end. No one
was keeping track of what wetlands had been wiped out, Pittman
said. So Waite stopped waiting for others to fill in the blanks
and instead, suggested tracking the destruction of the wetlands
by using satellite imagery.
“This may be the most important lesson we learned:
Sometimes if you want an answer, you're going to have to get
it yourself,” Pittman said.
Tom Scherberger, the pair’s editor, convinced management
to spend approximately $4,000 on new software and a computer
upgrade so that Waite could properly analyze the satellite
imagery of the entire state, something no other newspaper
has ever done, Pittman said.
Had to take more college classes
Waite needed 10 months and two extra college classes to complete
the task, and his work was reviewed by other experts in the
field.
In the meantime, Pittman poured over permits, lawsuits,
academic papers, read the history of the corps and its decision
making process, talked to biologists and congressional aides,
in an attempt to add to the series. He also converted part
of the paper
reports into a spread sheet to show how many acres of wetlands
developers had requested to destroy and how many were permitted,
Pittman said.
The series, when completed, won Pittman and Waite third
place in the Philip Meyer Award competition.
“This combination of cutting-edge satellite imagery
analysis and old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting is what
gave the stories their impact, I think, and led to our third-place
finish,” Pittman said.
The pair’s prestigious award demonstrates the importance
of computer assisted reporting (CAR) skills for today’s
reporter. Both of these journalists agree that CAR skills
are a necessity to season and produce deep, meaningful articles,
like their wetland series.
“CAR skills are crucial for maintaining the press’
traditional watchdog role on government,” said Pittman.
“So much of what government agencies do now is so complex
and so data-intensive that you need to turn to CAR to figure
out what’s going on. In our stories we were able to
use the government’s own data to come up with answers
to questions the government itself had not been able to figure
out.”
Waite agrees.
“For every public record that goes online, every record
that gets computerized, CAR gets that much more important
for reporters,” Waite said. “Craig’s right
– without CAR skills anymore, you’re at a real
disadvantage when it comes to holding public officials accountable.
How are you supposed to cover a city budget when you can’t
calculate percent change in Excel?”
Life before Excel?
In fact, Waite, who said he can’t remember what life
was like without CAR, is so passionate about CAR that his
side assignment at the St. Petersburg Times is to get CAR
into the paper as much as possible. The newspaper itself provides
Excel and Access on all its machines and has a training editor
who can teach the paper’s reporters basic CAR skills.
Waite has also set up a Wiki so that reporters from various
offices of the paper can share notes on a searchable database,
said Pittman.
Waite’s passion for CAR began when he was still in
college, he said, after a professor urged him to develop these
essential skills. Though Waite’s father was in the computer
field and his professor was convinced he would be a natural
at CAR, Waite resisted.
“That was, until he (the professor) was diagnosed
with terminal cancer, and came into the college near the end
of his days to tell me that I should learn CAR,” Waite
said. “You can’t deny a dying man, so I started.
And he was right. It was all stuff I could understand and
pick up quickly. Sadly, he died before I got my first CAR
project in the student paper.”
Waite taught himself most of what CAR skills he knows, and
is now helping others, like Pittman, develop their own skills,
so that programs like Excel become as “natural as dialing
a phone,” Waite said.
Waite also believes that more than just CAR skills are important
for today’s budding journalist.
“My feeling is that if you aren’t getting multimedia
training in your coursework now, you are a fool,” Waite
said. “The direction of the industry is clear –
it’s all going online. Print is fading, online is booming,
and if you aren’t able to work in both arenas, media
companies are going to find people who can. Consequently,
media companies are searching high and low for people with
these skills now. So if you’re in school now, you should
be taking some broadcast courses, some multimedia courses,
some audio/video editing courses. A reporter who can write
a story, record a video standup, edit it and put it all online
will never, ever lack for a job. Ever.”
In other words, always keep CAR and other multimedia skills
in mind when reporting. Though the pair admits that developing
CAR skills takes a substantial amount of time and effort,
both agree that if young journalists take it slow and start
by learning the easiest CAR programs, such as Excel, the rewards
will be tremendous.
“Just a piece of advice…stick with it,”
Waite said. “CAR has taken me much farther, much faster
than I ever thought I would go. CAR will get you stories that
other reporters can’t do, and it will help you do the
kind of journalism that readers really want – substantive,
investigative, watchdog journalism. It’s hard, and sometimes
maddening, but I promise you that the end result is worth
it.”
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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