jack on the radio: SCU journalist makes good... again!

Here's Jack! Listen to his interview on wjox.fm in Birmingham, via this podcast, as he discusses the latest installment of his USA Today series on the $$$$$$$$$$$ of collegiate sports. Listen for the number of documents he and his partners went through -- and his dismissal of a million bucks or so as "chump change."

Meanwhile, here's a taste of the latest story in the series:

Michigan State outspent the upstart [Northern Iowa] Panthers by $9.4 million to $1.5 million in men's hoops last year. Spartans coach Tom Izzo, who will be participating in his sixth Final Four this weekend, makes more than $3 million a year — more than 10 times what Northern Iowa's Ben Jacobson had been making.

Yet their athletic departments have one thing in common: Without millions in help from their universities, neither could pay its bills. Michigan State's $81 million budget last year included $3.7 million in university subsidies. Half of Northern Iowa's $17 million budget came from subsidies and student fees.

http://podcasting.fia.net/5018/4250705.mp3

more from Jack:

Flunking Advanced Placement tests: When more high school kids sign on to AP classes -- does that up the failure rate? Jack has the data, today in USA Today. Read all about it here.

Amazing what numbers can tell you. bk

jack's back ...

... with a hard-hitting investigation of collegiate spending on sports in USA Today. The story (plus sidebars) was based on a detailed analysis of four years of financial information from university athletic departments.

Here's a taste:

More than $800 million in student fees and university subsidies are propping up athletic programs at the nation's top sports colleges, including hundreds of millions in the richest conferences, a USA TODAY analysis found.

The subsidies have reached that level amid a continuing crisis in higher education funding. At some of the schools where athletics is most heavily subsidized, faculty salaries have dipped, state-funded financial aid is drying up and students are bracing for tuition and fee increases.

Taken together, the subsidies for athletics at 99 public schools in the NCAA's 120-member Football Bowl Subdivision grew about 20% in four years, from $685 million in 2005 to $826 million in 2008, after adjusting for inflation. At more than a third of those schools, the percentage of athletic department revenue coming from subsidies grew during the four-year period studied.

Congrats to Jack: Disturbing story. Great work. Often the two go hand in hand. bk

Look! Here's Jeremy...

Check it: As we speak, Jeremy's piece on "Six Ways Obama Can Take Charge on Health Care" tops newsweek.com's home page.

And here's word from another former student, posing a good question via my inbox:

Not sure if this is worth a discussion in comm 40 or not, but these reader comments are really out of control on our Web site. (And others' sites.) Take, for example, our story on the New York Times reporter being freed in Afghanistan:

One of the "most-recommended" posts, determined by readers, was:
"100 reporters aren't worth the life of one brave soldier."

Sickening. Maybe 100 reporters covering the awful conditions at Walter Reed? Of course, there were the typical "I hate NYT" tripe. I'm sure none of them has read the paper, though. Is this a sign of our citizenry becoming more militaristic/fascist, less educated, or maybe both?

Or is it just another sign that the ease of the internet has given everyone -- especially the ranters -- a soapbox? When it comes to the internet, we have no choice but to take the good with the bad. It's just more work wading through.

I am reminded of a quote by writer Alberto Manguel, who once said, "A library that has everything becomes a library that has anything."

j.linx: more than a clever name

Occasionally, things work. This photo of Melissa Segura and Jack Gillum popped up in my inbox over the weekend. The two former j-kids met, for the first time, at the IRE conference in Baltimore. Apparently, they found each other thru, ahem, jlinx.

I asked for the backstory. Jack wrote this:

If only you were here! Melissa looked me up and we met on the last night of the conference. It was great to hear what she's been doing with SI, and that they (for now, like USA Today) still value investigative reporting.

Melissa wrote this:

In this small, rather in incestuous world of journalism, I recognized Jack’s name (thanks to your blog), in the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference guide. Jack, the superstar that he is, was leading a hands-on workshop in Baltimore about how to export PDFs into Excel. Meanwhile, I tracked down my fellow Bronco and explained to him what life at SCU was like when Father Serra roamed the campus and the Mission was still under construction. I’m simultaneously frightened and relieved that someone so young is so smart.

But I was mainly thrilled that another alum was as infected with the Holy Ghost of Journalism as I am. And that, in turn, is a tribute to you!

points of connection

A few updates from some j-kids turned up in my inbox recently:

MELISSA SEGURA, '01, a reporter for Sports Illustrated, was interviewed by NPR's Robert Seagal on "All Things Considered" about the story she broke on baseball player Esmailyn "Smiley" Gonzalez, the former top prospect for the Washington Nationals, who faked his age and his name. It's all part of a story Melissa has been investigating in the Dominican Republic on money-skimming by international baseball scouts.

Listen to the NPR interview here. Read Melissa's story here. Read more about her investigation on this WaPo blog.


Also got an email from KEVIN GEMMELL, '98, one of the first students I ever taught. He is a sports writer for the San Diego Union Tribune, and forwards this link to a recent cover story.
And because I am an egregious self-promoter, I can't help including this part of his email:

"... I'm coming up on 10 years since graduating from SCU. I still get the thrill of seeing my byline, especially on cover stories, and I just wanted to take a minute to say thanks. So much of writing was influenced by you -- even 10 years later. It's been too long since I've said thank you. So, thank you."

I also heard from LIZ WEEKER, '07, who recently returned from a journalism workshop at the Knight Digital Media Center at UC Berkeley. She writes:

"There was a lot of talk about the future of newspapers and individual
journalists. A lot of us are just looking to survive. It made me wonder
about the kinds of discussions you and your students must be having right
now, so I checked out your blog. Your most recent posting about the business
model of newspapers was a major theme throughout the workshop. I thought you
might be interested in checking out this person: Lauren Rich Fine. She used
to work for Merrill Lynch as an analyst for publishing, advertising and
online industries. I tried to post an article she wrote today on your blog,
but it didn't quite work and I didn't want to accidentally double post.
Here it is."

JEREMY HERB, '08, now at Columbia Journalism School, just forwarded this link to a new digital journalism project he's working on at the New York Times. It just launched today.


And finally, JACK GILLUM, '06, turned up in my classroom yesterday. He's now a database editor at USA Today, and did a great job of showing -- as well as telling -- my students why reporters love what they do. bk

rekindling the news biz?

This, according to Mediabistro's Mobile Blog Network: USA Today will soon be available via Amazon's Kindle for download, at a monthly price of $11.99.

Other newspapers that are Kindle-ready include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

I'm not sure how to think about this. Will this help to keep newspapers in business? Hasten their demise? I guess it all depends on how many readers -- ostensibly commuters? -- would pay to read the news on a Kindle when they can read it online on a considerably larger flat screen for free.

Intriguing. bk