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Al's Morning Meeting

Home > Reporting, Writing & Editing > Al's Morning Meeting
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Al Tompkins
Story ideas that you can localize and enterprise. Posted by 7:30 a.m. Mon-Fri.
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A dozen sites
I'm diggin'


1. Find out how healthy your country is.

2. What's with all the Google anti-trust lawsuits?

*3. The Washington Post reports on why TV reporters have to be  Jacks of All Trades now.

4. Here are the eight companies that gave the most to help Haiti.

*5. The number of U.S. millionaires rose 16 percent last year.

6. Find out why there will be a national Eggo waffle shortage until summer.

*7. The New York Times explains how women in the work force helped save Social Security.

8. Here are some great databases that newsrooms have created to help connect people with their community.

*9. Watch this online interactive story of the death of journalist Arthur Kasherman.

*10. CBS Radio News' Peter King explains how he broadcast from Haiti in the early days after the quake.

11. The FCC investigates the health and future of local news.

12. Levelcam lets you stabilize your handheld video.

All of my Diggin' sites are saved on Poynter's del.icio.us page.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but relies on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.


Slowing Growth in Bedroom Communities
My friend Boyd Huppert, a reporter at KARE-11 in Minneapolis, found a story that he and I believe plays out around the country. Huppert tells me:

New census data released last week had me traveling to Roberts, Wis., -- the fourth fastest growing city in Wisconsin since 2000, according to the new census data. It appeared to be a story about rapid growth in a bedroom community. Not anymore. Roberts issued nearly 70 building permits in 2001. Last year the town wrote three. So far this year -- zero. The mortgage mess and high gas prices are hitting these sorts of commuter communities especially hard. So much so that the census data can be outdated by the time it's released.

Watch Huppert's related story here
.

Posted by Al Tompkins at 3:18 PM on Jul. 17, 2008
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