Justin McLachlan

Ian

2009-11-11T17:37:39Z

Free, for a short time! (that's like, a whole dollar saved). Hint: hit fullscreen for a bigger, easier to read view; download your own copy, or get the Kindle version (it's still $.99).

The Union Tribune really, really wants you to know that there's a new strain of flu*

2009-11-09T18:33:25Z

I have a really good tip on how you need to deal with the H1N1 influenza pandemic. Drop off the words "H1N1," "pandemic" and shorten "influenza" to flu. Don't even think about putting the word swine in front of it. There you have it.

Wash your hands. Cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze. Get vaccinated. If you get sick, stay home, get plenty of rest and fluids and check with your doctor about taking some antivirals. Call the office. Don't go in. And don't be surprised if your doctor says "no" to the drugs -- under CDC guidelines, you probably don't need them.

Just do the same things you'd do to prepare for seasonal flu. The difference this year is that you need an extra shot.

Despite all of the above, we're still treated to a blow-by-blow account of people getting sick and dying from H1N1 from reporters like those at my local paper, the Union Tribune. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that H1N1 shouldn't be covered. It should. People need accurate information to protect themselves, but they also need that information put in context.

This year, like most years, nearly 40,000 people will die from seasonal flu. We don't get accounts of those deaths. If they're in the Union Tribune, I can't find them. A few years back, 22 people died in San Diego County alone from seasonal flu -- the most ever reported -- but I didn't find a single story mentioning that on the UT's Web site. If it's there, I'd like for someone to put it out to me.

Sure, H1N1 will add significantly to the death toll this year. The number who've died in San Diego County is already above the 22-person record for seasonal flu. Clearly, this is something that reporters need to be writing about. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done responsibly.

The fact is, the vast majority of people who get H1N1 will have very mild symptoms -- just like the seasonal flu. The fact is, there are simple things you can do to prevent H1N1 -- just like the seasonal flu. The fact is, some people will die from H1N1, particularly those in certain risk groups -- just like the seasonal flu.

Every reporter, including those at the Union Tribune, needs to keep that phrase in mind when writing. "Just like the seasonal flu." Where there's a difference between the two, that's where the story is and that's the information a responsible news organization would make sure its audience got.

Instead, we get fear-mongering articles like this one:

Swine flu hit Martha Castillo of El Cajon and Keith Stumpf of San Diego with seemingly equal ferocity.
Both were rushed to hospital emergency rooms. Both developed pneumonia, were hooked up to breathing machines and put into drug-induced comas.
Stumpf, a 31-year-old athletic trainer, survived the ordeal.
Castillo, a 29-year-old who was pregnant, did not.

I don't have a problem with the premise of the story. But I didn't see one like it last year, or the year before, or the year before that -- when seasonal flu hit two different people "with seemingly equal ferocity" and one lived and the other didn't. I guarantee that it happened, but on one reported it.

All stories like this do is scare people who don't really need to be scared.

Via Twitter, the Union Tribune tells me:

H1N1 is new. Most ppl have no or little immunity. It could cause more infections than the seasonal flu

So of course that means we need a story announcing every single death in the county related to H1N1, right? No. We need balanced, accurate information that gives people the details they need to protect themselves. Not shoddy health journalism.

We're pretty sure that I had H1N1 this summer. It could've been a strand of the seasonal variety, but the timing was just odd. Yes, it kicked my ass for a good week. But I didn't die. I didn't go on antivirals and I didn't rush to an emergency room as the Union Tribune let a person with no medical training suggest today's story.

I stayed home and got as much rest as I could. I drank a lot of juice and ate soup. I watched a lot of movies and took Sudafed. About seven days later, I was fine. For the vast, vast majority of the Union Tribune's readers, that's exactly how this will play out.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Union Tribune owes us better.

UPDATE: Super editor at the San Diego Citybeat asked if I'd seen a recent editorial "telling people to chill" over H1N1. I hadn't (and can't find it online, might be due to the redesign). Now, if the editorial board could just get the UT's reporters and editors to read their editorials, we might make some progress.

I'm innocent, but I can't say the same for the Union Tribune

2009-11-04T17:52:18Z

Today, an editor at the Union Tribune accused me of a crime. He suggested that giving a donation to voiceofsandiego.org, a non-profit news organization that I've written for, amounted to a kickback.

That's moronic for a variety of reasons, least among them that what he's describing isn't a kickback under California or federal law or IRS regulations. But why bother with facts when you have a chance to attack a competitor that obviously makes you feel threatened?

The implication of what he has said is that the only reason I'd choose to donate anything to voiceofsandiego.org is so I can get contracts to write stories. That's insulting to me and to voiceofsandiego.org, being that I've garnered a number of assignments in my near 10-year career from a variety of news organizations, from little to very big. No one's ever accused me of paying to get those assignments before and I certainly wouldn't need to. If things worked the way he thinks they do, that means a freelancer who subscribes to a publication they've worked for is also giving that org a "kickback" or that all those NPR employees who are members of their stations are in big big trouble.

It's ridiculous. It's defamatory and he should issue an apology to both of us.
To be sure, I've not donated anything to voiceofsandiego.org. People very close to me have and I was curious about their rules on who they accept donations from (some organizations, as a matter of course, don't take money from board members, employees or contractors -- others, as a matter of course, expect it. Each is different.) if, somewhere down the road, I decide I have enough money in the bank to give to a very, very worth cause. I just wanted to be sure.

So all that turns into a "kickback" in this editor's mind. No matter that nonprofits take countless amounts of money from their employees, volunteers, contractors, board members and the like everyday. He decides that's worth posting on Twitter for everyone to see. But instead of putting @justinmclachlan in his tweet, he was all sneaky and just posted a link to my Web site. Guilty conscience much?

I'd never accuse another person the way he did, without facts to back them up. But then, I'm a journalist and maybe it was just stupid of me to assume the same from another journalist. Perhaps if the U-T's editors spent less time attacking their colleagues and competitors and being generally bitchy and passive aggressive anytime voiceofsandiego.org is mentioned in their earshot they'd have more time to devote to putting out a product that people actually want to read.

NaNoWriMo word count tracker

2009-11-03T20:15:58Z

Each year, I use someone else's spreadsheet to track how I'm doing throughout the month. They've never quite been up to par for my taste, so I made my own.

You can download your own copy, here.

Keep in mind, this relies heavily on conditional formatting to tell you how you're doing, so it only works in Microsoft Excel 2007. If there's interest, I can make a copy available that'll work on older versions, too.

This sheet keeps track of your daily word count, the percentage completed, your average words per day and will tell you, if you fall behind, or get ahead, how much you can adjust your daily word counts and still reach your goal. The colors and symbols on the sheet adjust depending on how well (or how not well) you're doing. I'm shooting for 60,000 instead of NaNoWriMo's 50,000 -- so the monthly goal is customizeable, too. Just pop in what ever word count you're aiming for. The second sheet is the same, I just loaded it with some sample data so you can get an idea of what things will look like as you go through the month.

Good luck!

The Last Lawyer

2009-11-02T17:45:00Z

I first met John Temple about four years ago, when his first book, Deadhouse: Life In a Coroner's Office, landed on my desk at the Times West Virginian. It chronicled the infamous Allegheny County Coroner's Office in Pittsburgh in a style of journalism that was new to me, called narrative journalism (or sometimes, immersion journalism).

It's nonfiction that reads -- if you do it right -- like a novel. I loved Deadhouse and a few days later, sat in his office (one that was just down the hall from where mine would be three years later) at WVU talking with him about it.

When I started grad school, John served on the committee that supervised my Where Doubt Remains project. He taught me the difference between reporting and advocacy, something I'm still getting better at.

All that to say, his second book, The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates, is officially out today. Like Deadhouse, it's in a narrative form and it's about "how an idealistic legal genius and his diverse band of investigators and fellow attorneys fought to overturn a client's final sentence."

New stories, marijuana and dermatology

2009-10-12T19:27:44Z

Some new stories I didn't have time to mention previously.

In Citybeat, we have a possible solution to the state's budget problems: legalize marijuana. The attorney general says three voter initiatives pending could bring a untold amounts of tax money into the state. But will it ever happen?

"I think the long-term trend is that the states are beginning to drag the federal government kicking and screaming toward more rational policies," Mirken said. "Ultimately, I think these are the sorts of reforms that tend to bubble up from the state level."

Over at SDNN.com, a follow-up to my previous story on patients caught in the middle of a battle between some dermatology clinics and the insurance companies.

A number of patients are locked in the middle of a battle between California Dermatology and several major insurance companies, saddled with large bills for services they say they were assured would be covered by their insurance.

In the meantime, court documents filed by insurance companies have surfaced clearly outlining their claims that California Dermatology Center intentionally misled patients to obtain treatment that was not covered by their policies.

National Organization for Marriage 2008 tax return

2009-10-01T14:35:52Z

Finally, it looks like a version of this return has popped up, too. Notice how they received massively more than in 2007 -- almost $3 million. How did they spend most of that money? Well, $2.1 million went to something they call "all other expense." How's that for disclosure and transparency? Oh, and Brian Brown, the executive director, got a big raise.National Organization for Marriage 2008 tax return

(ht Chinoblanco)

Don't like what's on your tax return? Just change it!

2009-09-24T16:50:29Z

That's what the National Organization for Marriage does. And is doing, it looks like. The 2007 return, which we've known was not likely the first return NOM submitted to the IRS for this year, seems to be "processing" at the IRS again. Why would that be? Because another amendment has been submitted, again changing NOM's public financial information?

How many times do you have to change a tax return before it's actually correct? Or, is this the case of an organization manipulating the IRS and the public to hide information that seems to be unsavory -- like the fact that a significant chunk of NOM's funds were siphoned off to an organization controlled by NOM's executive director?

I don't know. These elusive little group is bucking IRS regulations and not giving the returns up to any one who requests them by mail, goes there in person. But why should they? They only risk a $20 a day fine and I'm pretty sure they can afford it. And that's if the IRS even cares enough to levy the fines, which, well, I've never actually heard of happening.

Fred Karger, head of Californian's Against Hate, and who was subpeonead in Protectmarriage.com's federal lawsuit that's tried to upend financial disclosure laws in political campaigns, said this about NOM in an email this morning:

Apparently, NOM feels it is above the law. It decided to hide its federally required tax forms for 2007 and 2008. They don't want anybody to see how they spend their millions and millions of dollars. I have filed numerous complaints with the IRS, and have called for a Congressional investigation of this two year old National Organization for Marriage.

I'm not holding my breath. But there is another possible explanation for for the sudden IRS lockdown on NOM's returns (two actually, but I'm still investigating the other) -- has the agency finally taken notice of Fred's complaints? Is the IRS actually looking into this? One can dream.

Remember this video?

2009-09-16T15:36:23Z

In 2007, Border Patrol Agent Arturo Lorenzo shot and killed Ramiro Gomez Acosta (read the story in this week's San Diego Citybeat), a man accused of illegally crossing the border and smuggling, after he apparently picked up a rock to throw. Then this video was leaked:

Now Lorenzo is suing, saying the leaked of the video invaded his privacy and violated the federal Privacy Act. From my story in this week's San Diego Citybeat:

In the months following the shooting, the video was leaked and posted online. It went viral, sparking worldwide news coverage that culminated in showings on national news programs. Today, though, the video's traces are hard to find. The YouTube page that once hosted it bears a "video no longer available" message, as do numerous other places it once existed online. A search for "Ramiro Gamez Acosta," the 20-year-old man shot and accused of illegally crossing the border, is more likely to turn up news accounts of the incident than Lorenzo's. But that hasn't stopped Lorenzo and his wife from suing the U.S. government. In court documents, they said that releasing the video of the shooting invaded Lorenzo's privacy and destroyed his reputation, exposing him and his family to death threats.

Is cashless legal?

2009-09-11T17:12:06Z

Money -- that is the stuff the government coins and prints -- is legal tender "for all debts" in the United States. So I read, with interest, a story in the Wall Street Journal about a restaurant that's decided cash is too passe and aren't taking it any more. But is it legal? Don't you have to accept "legal tender"?

Well, yes and no.

I emailed the reporter and found out that this restaurant, for the time being, is very explicit about the payment forms they accept -- cash or debit -- up front, before any food is ordered or eaten and that's probably key.

In the U.S. we have a legal concept called "offer to bargain" or "offer to treat" that allows sellers to advertise their goods or services without being forced to actually sale anything to anyone. That's why gas stations and fast food joints and other stores can refuse to accept bills over a certain size (like say, no $50 bills). It's all about when you incur the debt and likely, what you knew or agreed to before you did.

Here's the example I gave to the WSJ and they posted it on their law blog:

Say I want to buy a candy bar at a gas station, but I've only got a $100 bill. The store refuses to take it and since I've not yet incurred a debt with them (I haven't eaten the candy bar), they don't have to take my $100 and I don't owe them any money. We simply walk away.

A restaraunt is usually different though, because you order food (incur a debt) and pay later. If, in that instance, they're viewed as a creditor -- then they can't refuse to accept legal tender for that debt unless there was some kind of agreement between the two of you before you ordered your food (ie, they told you they'd only accept credit cards as appears to be the case with the restaurant in question).

The WSJ says "We're not sure if Justin's right, but we liked how he expressed his point." Justin likes how he expressed it, too, but is also not sure if he's 100 percent right. It occurs to me that different jurisdictions might take a different stance on declaring the transaction between an eat-now pay-later restaurant to be a debtor / creditor relationship and could, conceivably, view the whole thing as akin to a simultaneous transaction like it is a regular store or at a vending machine (where goods or services and payment for them are received all at once) and that no "debt" is actually created.

I don't know. I haven't looked at any case law on the subject, but I suspect the courts are going to side with businesses that have a good reason for going cashless and that the real intent of this law is to prevent foreign businesses from requiring foreign currency in the U.S. Any commerce law experts out there want to weigh in?

Two gay marriage initiatives fail to qualify for 2010 ballot in California*

2009-09-09T04:11:31Z

View imageThe first, sponsored by Yes! On Equality would've rolled back the changes made by proposition 8 last year. The second would've done the same, but also sought to replace the word "marriage" with "domestic partnership" in California law.

The secretary of state's office said neither gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

UPDATE: Yes! On Equality says it will shoot for the fall. "We are filing ballot measures for the November 2010 general election, which is our primary target," they said in an email this afternoon.

Washington Post says NOM profile fell short, but...

2009-09-08T15:46:52Z

A few questions still remain. But first, here's what the Post's Ombusdman had to say:

I agree that the story fell short, but not because Hesse was naïve or lacked journalistic diligence. In retracing her reporting, it's clear the research was extensive. And some details about her personal life seem to belie claims she has a conservative agenda (more on that later).
Rather, this is a case where three things -- a storytelling concept, a writing technique and a bad headline -- combined to ignite reader reaction as vitriolic as any I've experienced in my seven months as ombudsman.

He goes to print some of the reporter's emails to readers, telling them that she once had a relationship with a woman (#1 -- why should that have any effect on the way this reporter does her job?) but he never quite explains what a piece like this is doing being written by a style reporter for the style section of the Post -- even if she is just "28" and a "rising star" as the ombudsman says.

The reporter said she decided to let "Brown tell his story in his 'voice,'" so #2 -- why does that mean the piece can't be objective or that in doing so, she was somehow automatically precluded from "extensively quoting what others say about him."

I'm glad the ombudsman saw the severe flaws in a piece like this, though I think he was easy on both the reporter and editor involved. But #3, how is it that the style editor seems to just be learning an important fact about journalism at this stage in her career?

"'The lesson is to always, in some way, represent the other side,' she said."

According to the ombudsman, she got that in "retrospect" after the fury erupted over this piece. Really? It's taken you this long to figure that out? You didn't understand that before?

Wow.

New podcast, "Porn Slappers"

2009-09-04T20:07:18Z

Those guys handing you all those naked-lady cards on the strip in Las Vegas? Ever think about them? Well this is a podcast about what happened when I did think about them, a little too much.

Sorry, you need a Flash player installed to listen to this audio

Audio player not working? Download the story here, get the podcast via iTunes or if you like, read the text version of this story here.

NOM's Brian Brown says there's no "funneling" of money

2009-09-03T20:49:04Z

In an interview with Michelangelo Signorile, Brian Brown says the mysterious money given to Common Sense of America, listed on their official tax returns for "consulting," wasn't actually for "consulting" at all. It was for advertising on a "joint project." Hmmm.

How far do you want Twitter to follow you?

2009-09-03T17:36:16Z

I noticed this morning that when I click on links posted to Twitter that the Web interface now inserts a "link_click_count" click followed by a "?url=" to send me to the new Web page I've requested. What does that mean?

At best, Twitter is counting how many outbound clicks a link gets and at worst, where I'm going once I leave the site (and maybe, beyond that?). There's enormous potential for the kind of information -- for example, if I'm Twitter, I can now see which users are best at driving traffic to third-party sites and say, put that user in a special program whereby I help them peddle their influence to businesses looking for traffic.

Can you see any other good reason for wanting this data?

Well, I checked the site's privacy policy and of course, they've got themselves covered. Maybe.

When you visit the Site, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website ("Log Data" ). This Log Data may include information such as your IP address, browser type or the domain from which you are visiting, the web-pages you visit, the search terms you use, and any advertisements on which you click.

The wording's tricky, but "information that your browser sends" could include information in the outbound URL, especially if Twitter's quietly thrown out a method for collecting that information. It doesn't explicitly cover information sent by the browsing when "leaving" a Web site, though, just when you "visit" Twitter.

The policy doesn't explain how they correlate that with user account names but instead, seems to say the only way the link the data they've got with any type of personally identifiable information is by IP address -- which they're quick to point out often changes.