How 2 twentysomething journalists brought down a corrupt Kentucky sheriff
"60 Minutes" | Nieman Reports | YouTube
Samantha Swindler, then 27, had been managing editor of the Corbin (Ky.) Times-Tribune for about three years when she asked 20-year-old Adam Sulfridge to report on a corrupt sheriff, Lawrence Hodge, who was involved in trading guns, drugs and favors. At the time, Sulfridge was a local college sophomore "whose only experience was working on his high school newspaper." Swindler told "60 Minutes"' Byron Pitts she hired Sulfridge because, "He was smart, he knew about the community, and he cared about local government.” Sulfridge also had a personal stake in the story: his aunt had overdosed. “My first question was, I wonder if she got her drugs from somebody that the sheriff was protecting.”
"Our investigation into the sheriff started with a joke -- literally," Swindler wrote about the reporting last year. "I heard our sportswriter joke about people buying guns out of the back of the sheriff's barbershop."
Sulfridge wasn't the first reporter Swindler assigned to the story: "I had to go through three different reporters before I found one who could really work on this with me because it was really hard to find somebody who wanted to do all the research involved," she said during an interview at her alma mater, Boston University, last year. (more...)
Samantha Swindler, then 27, had been managing editor of the Corbin (Ky.) Times-Tribune for about three years when she asked 20-year-old Adam Sulfridge to report on a corrupt sheriff, Lawrence Hodge, who was involved in trading guns, drugs and favors. At the time, Sulfridge was a local college sophomore "whose only experience was working on his high school newspaper." Swindler told "60 Minutes"' Byron Pitts she hired Sulfridge because, "He was smart, he knew about the community, and he cared about local government.” Sulfridge also had a personal stake in the story: his aunt had overdosed. “My first question was, I wonder if she got her drugs from somebody that the sheriff was protecting.”
"Our investigation into the sheriff started with a joke -- literally," Swindler wrote about the reporting last year. "I heard our sportswriter joke about people buying guns out of the back of the sheriff's barbershop."
Sulfridge wasn't the first reporter Swindler assigned to the story: "I had to go through three different reporters before I found one who could really work on this with me because it was really hard to find somebody who wanted to do all the research involved," she said during an interview at her alma mater, Boston University, last year. (more...)
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