Updates: Crime maps, revolting Congress and conspiracy theories
I thought I’d publish a post (longer than I intended, actually) catching up on issues raised in recent posts:
* Seth Ben-Ezra has been maintaining a Google map listing the locations of violent crime and murder in Peoria. Keep up the good work. It’s citizen journalism in action. Many will disagree with his numbers and his definition or murder.
* At Peoria.com, there’s some a feeling of victory, somewhat, over District 150 scaling back its early closure to just a handful of days every year. I attended Monday’s meeting, and they passed the new calender with board members Jim Stowell and Rachel Parker voting in opposition.
* I’ve been griping on Twitter about the effort to shame ABC news reporters into revealing the sources who told them that the 2001 Anthrax attacks bore signs of a link to Iraq. Of course, the feds are now saying that a civilian scientist made the Anthrax and was responsible for mailing it out to various locations, making him a murderer. The guy killed himself before he could be indicted. If the feds are right this time, then ABC’s sources were wrong or lying. Joining the chorus of those demanding a pound of flesh from ABC is Jay Rosen, author of the Pressthink blog. He says this:
It now appears that the attacks were of domestic origin and the anthrax came from within U.S. government facilities. This leads us to ask you: who were the “four well-placed and separate sources†who falsely told ABC News that tests conducted at Fort Detrick showed bentonite in the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, causing ABC News to connect the attacks to Iraq in multiple reports over a five day period in October, 2001?
Dan Gillmor of the Guardian is even more breathless in his ctiticism.
To which I say: These guys are assuming that the most recent theory of the case — which will not go to court because of the suspect’s suicide — MUST be accurate. I would never assume that something is true just because a federal prosecutor said it was. There are others who have been accused but never charged or convicted by the feds. We would be handing out a lot of power over the press to prosecutors if the media starts outing confidential sources whenever someone from the Department of Justice says something to contradict them.
* Slate’s Micky Kaus says the mainstream media is like Daily Kos in that it wants to ignore the Sen.-John-Edwards-cheated-on-his-cancer-patient-wife-and-fathered-a-baby scandal as long as possible.
* The conservative Illinois Review is following the role Illinois’s representatives are playing in the GOP’s energy policy protests on the floor. Ray LaHood (R-18th District) gets no mention at all.
* Twitter is taking over journalism, it seems. It’s becoming a tool for following breaking news and politics. And here’s some advice on how media organizations can use Twitter to their advantage.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
