As you can see the relative Sullivan number has gone up due to contributions yesterday by a fellow in the press (thank you very much). This highlights a reason why if you are a reporter or a news organization you should considering kicking into the Am I worth have a much as Andrew Sullivan fund.
I’m a source.
If you are a reporter of a local, national or even an international news service you know that you can’t get everywhere or be everywhere. There are times when you have to have a source on the ground.
When you link to and build relationships with a blog or a blogger you have an additional source for first hand information. From Watertown, to Washington, from Danvers to DoraVille I have been present for first hand events.
Kicking in that $50 to help preserve a potential source would seem like a cheap investment to me. If you agree I’d ask you and others in your organization to hit DaTipJar and keep that potential source available.
It’s a lot cheaper than a bureau isn’t it?
Update:Today’s events in Fitchburg are a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Wouldn’t it be easier to kick in to keep me full time and just give a call for some stringer work rather than having to send a full time person out here to sit and wait for hours?
I mentioned that I took my son to school today because he missed his bus. On my way an ambulance passed me and much to my surprise at 7:35 AM there was a EMT and an ambulance at the side door of the school. I’ve just found out why:
A teacher at Fitchburg High School died Friday morning after what police are calling an “incident” at the school.
The name of the teacher has not been released and details of the incident are still not known.
Two people have been taken into custody.
Today is graduation day at FHS, this is not how the students wanted this day to be remembered.
Update: Fitchburg Police confirm a male and female are being held. They are giving out no further info and the logs won’t be available till Monday.
My next stop was the mayor’s office, although there was no formal comment A member of the police was meeting with the Mayor and currently the mayor is still scheduled to attend the Democratc State convention in Worcester tomorrow.
Several sources have said that the teacher who died suffered a heart attack while breaking up a fight between two students. I have been unable to obtain any official confirmation from the school, City Hall or the Mayor’s office.
The Press is camped out as close to the school as they are allowed. Police are preventing them from entering.
No press allowed beyond this point
So they are camping out waiting for a statement
The boring part of reporting, the waiting game
Cameras ready to go
As the parent of a student attending I was able to get in and discover that there is no change to the schedule, no change to the graduation tonight however parents are able and have been coming into the school to dismiss their kids.
I have a personal commitment that might take some time, but I’ll keep plugging away.
Update 2: Went back to the school The police were still on the scene and there is a press conference scheduled for 1:30. If I can get my mother to get the kids I will be there. Meanwhile the press is swarming around cars where parents are coming to get their kids early:
The Swarm for the story
Here is some audio of the Swarm:
Note: The video is not the best at the driver’s side of the car because I was quickly shooed away by police since the other side was blocking the road and it doesn’t really make sense to ask about a swarm if you are swarming does it?
At the Press conference the information was confirmed: there was apparently an altercation between two students that he was involved in breaking up. The two students are going to be in court today but there is word on if the charges are going to be directly related to the death.
Press Conference 6-4-10 Fitchburg Police Department
They released the name of the teacher Douglas Vaughn Lloyd 65 was basically a College instructor who helped kids out who were having issues with the Science MCAS tests. I’ll have video of the conference up as soon as I can upload it.
Update 3: the press conference:
Note that they were unwilling to say the charges were unrelated to the death, but listen in contrast to the message sent home:
No where in the message is the circumstances that lead to the death.
One of the things that I found during my Ga Trip is that people in the south really dislike the stereotypes that the media and frankly many in the North hold of the south.
What is the most frustrating thing when you are fighting such a stereotype? Havingsomebody decide to reinforce it:
This evening in an interview with Pub Politics, state Sen. Jake Knotts (R-SC) — who is supporting a different candidate — slammed Haley by using a racial slur:
We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion.
I’ve been avoiding the whole who’s sleeping with who story story a bit because I think it’s tawdry political rumor (missing out on a google bomb here.)
“The South Carolina Republican Party strongly condemns any use of racial or religious slurs. Senator Knotts should apologize for his inappropriate comments, so that we can put this unfortunate incident behind us and focus on issues important to moving our state forward,” said Republican Party Chair Karen Floyd in a statement.
Said Haley spokesman Tim Pearson:
“Jake Knotts represents all that is wrong with South Carolina politics. He’s an embarrassment to our state and to the Republican Party. South Carolina is so much better than this, and the people of our state will make that quite clear next Tuesday.”
Before I had to run my youngest to school after missing his bus the gang talked about Cafe standard and using the Oil spill to reduce them again.
Let me point out that the way cafe standards are reduced is not by redesigning the engine they are reduced by decreasing weight and removing steel, which leads to more highway deaths.
Rather than re-invent the wheel I’ll simply refer you to herehereherehere and of course here but I’ll give you two quotes from these sources. First the WSJ.
That difference is reflected in the real world. The death rate in minis in multi-vehicle crashes is almost twice as high as that of large cars. And in single-vehicle crashes, where there’s no oversized second vehicle to blame, the difference is even greater: Passengers in minis suffered three times as many deaths as in large cars.
And the American Thinker
How many deaths have resulted? Depending on which study you choose, the total ranges from 41,600 to 124,800. To that figure we can add between 352,000 and 624,000 people suffering serious injuries, including being crippled for life. In the past thirty years, fuel standards have become one of the major causes of death and misery in the United States — and one almost completely attributable to human stupidity and shortsightedness.
Compare those numbers to the casualties that we have suffered in 10 years in Iraq & Afghanistan and think about it.
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