Answer Two

Alright guys, we're two hours to deadline and the game plan has changed.

There are a lot of details pointing at this kid, Jake Mahoney as being involved in this case, but again, we haven't confirmed anything 100 percent!

We have had one reporter, the one assigned to the apartment building, intentionally trespass and in consequence, violate the law to obtain news. The only way this reporter could have gotten the can of gasoline is by trespassing and the police will know this. In accordance with our ethics code here at the newspaper, this may be cause for dismissal. This reporter is staying here in the newsroom and not going anywhere until we sort all of this out.

Our photographer is obviously convinced that this Mahoney boy is involved in the fire, and he's given us a school photo of him. But remember, we can't connect the story to this kid until we have confirmation! Let's put the photo aside for now and keep digging.

Our second reporter, the one who went to the police department, confirmed with a police officer there that they are talking to a juvenile under consideration for arson who has the initials J.M. However, he is not yet considered a suspect and the officer didn't actually confirm that it was Jake Mahoney-- he only said he was "one hell of a reporter." That's not confirmation, guys. And besides the fact, Mahoney is underage. We're treading into dangerous waters.


Lastly is our third reporter who's covering the main story of the fire. She talked to Bob Jacobson, the husband of the woman who was burned in the fire. According to this reporter, we've got a very detailed narrative of the fire during which he got very emotional. She also confirmed through the State Fire Marshall’s office that the fire is being investigated as an arson.

Right now, almost all of our reporting is either walking a very thin line between ethical and unethical or is bluntly unethical. Let's go with the main story, including the investigation as arson, and wait on the details regarding the Mahoney boy.

Answer One

Ok team. we've got a big story for tomorrow's paper that we need cover before our proof goes to print! There are some strong, reliable information here, and some not-so reliable information here. We have some sketchy details, overly opinionated tenants, and unnamed sources. I don't want to mess around with any nameless sources. So until we've confirmed a lot of these details, I don't want there to be any room for error. Let's get going!

Here's the story: we know that there was a fire that started at the back porch of the apartment building, as reported by passerby. This unnamed source also believes she saw the potential suspect- a 10- or- 11-year-old boy. Tenants say this boy is probably Jake Mahoney who lives on the first floor of the apartment.

My photographer, I want you to go down to the site of the fire, get a dramatic front-page visual of the blackened apartment building front or possibly an emotional shot of tenants mulling over the devastation.

My three reporters, I want each of you to divvy up sources. I want one reporter to go down to the site of the fire, the apartment building itself and speak more to the tenants.  How has this fire affected them? Go to the Mahoneys' apartment and speak to the boy's parents. Can they confirm where he was at the time of the incident? Can their neighbors confirm this? I want the two other reporters to go to the police department and fire department. Did either departments reach any conclusions from their investigations?

A Deeper Look at a Pulitzer Prize Winner

The names are in for this year’s Pulitzer Prize recipients, including big national newspapers like The New York Times to online publications like ProPublica.

This year’s winner of the Pulitzer in the section of Local Reporting goes to Frank Main, Mark Konkol and John J. Kim of the Chicago Sun-Times for what the Pulitzer board calls “their immersive documentation of violence in Chicago neighborhoods, probing the lives of victims, criminals and detectives as a widespread code of silence impedes solutions.”

Indeed, local reporting is becoming more and more relevant in the ever-evolving journalism industry. Readers are not buying the paper to learn about an issue several states away or countries away. Readers are buying the paper to learn about the issues that impact their communities. This could not ring more true than in this shocking featured article published in the Chicago Sun-Times, covering the journalists’ investigation into the injustice of a disastrous shooting.

The lead compellingly focuses the story; it’s almost cryptic, cosmic:

“This is the story of why they won’t stop shooting in Chicago. It’s told by the wounded, the accused and the officers who were on the street during a weekend in April 2008 when 40 people were shot, seven fatally. Two years later, the grim reality is this: Nearly all of the shooters from that weekend have escaped charges.”

There is so much confusion and unresolved conflict in this story, that it’s no wonder the Pulitzer board brought it to the attention of readers nationwide. According to the story, “not one accused shooter has been convicted of pulling the trigger during those deadly 59 hours from April 18-20 of that year.”

The journalistic investigation into these unresolved crimes reveals a weakness in the criminal justice system:

“When police “clear” a case, that doesn’t always mean a suspect got convicted — or even charged. Sometimes police seek charges against a suspect, but the state’s attorney won’t prosecute without more evidence. Other times, the shooter is dead, or the victim refuses to testify after identifying the shooter. Cops call those ‘exceptional’ clearances.”

The heart of this story is not so much in the numbers as it is in the names, faces, and moments that brings its essence into the compelling form that won it a Pulitzer. This includes Dontae Gamble, who took six bullets and watched his alleged shooter walk free, Jose Bravo and his alleged gang-shooter “Chops.” All of these specific names and depicted moments paint a striking portrait of the violent street life these people suffer from every day.