Been awhile since I’ve posted; about the same time I stopped posting, school let out for the summer. Since then I must have been preoccupied by work at News Journal… but also with personal stuff.

My reporting gig is only 20 hours a week. It’s a good thing I don’t have many expenses. I’ve been learning quite a bit, though. Like how to take care of a bedridden grandfather. It’s not easy.

How about some samples of my work?

May 23, 2009 — Allegedly, a boy’s mother stood by and watched as the babysitter burnt all her son’s fingers as a “punishment” for smoking. The babysitter later told this to a woman she had never met, and, voila, landed herself in jail. I interviewed the whistleblower.

Currently I have been investigating pollution in Clinton County. The EPA is a veritable treasure trove, and as of yet they’ve never given me any problems getting information. The question is finding the information I want. EPA is so divided, broken up into a million different parts and jobs and filing systems and online systems.

It seems impossible to navigate at times, but I think I just made a contact who can help me slog through the muck. She used to be an environmental journalist, but now she works for Ohio EPA, helping environmental journalists find the information they need. Cool job, huh?

Expect a detailed report on pollution in and around Wilmington in the next several weeks, as I’ll be out of the office 5 days for a conference and my investigative stuff has to be wedged into my normal coverage itinerary.

Speaking of the conference, I hope to blog it (and tweet it) along the way. It starts next Thursday, June 11, and it’s the big annual conference for the premier investigative reporting society in the U.S., Investigative Reporters and Editors. Basically hundreds of awesome reporters getting together and hearing speeches by some of the best. I hear Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, is speaking.