Al's Morning Meeting

Home > Reporting, Writing & Editing > Al's Morning Meeting

Tools: Text Size

, Print

, RSS

, Subscribe via e-mail

Al Tompkins

Story ideas that you can localize and enterprise. Posted by 7:30 a.m. Mon-Fri.

Behind the Big Decline in Foreign Adoptions

Newsweek explains that Americans are adopting far fewer children from other countries. International adoptions are down a whopping 10 percent just in the last year, down for the fourth straight year.

What's going on? It is not that Americans don't want to adopt, it is instead that several countries are making it more difficult:

Experts say the downward trend is likely to continue as countries such as Russia, Guatemala and China, which in recent years had been among the largest providers of orphans for adoption, have either dialed back their programs or ended them entirely. "It's not that American interest has diminished at all, or that there are fewer kids who need homes," says Chuck Johnson of the National Council for Adoption. "The declines are directly the result of bureaucratic or political issues."

Newsweek says there are other factors:

China says increased prosperity in the country means fewer abandoned children. Russia, Ukraine and South Korea, all facing declining birthrates, are encouraging domestic adoption and making fewer children available to foreigners.

Posted at 3:24 PM Oct 13, 2008

Tools:
Comment

, e-mail

, Permalink

, Share

POYNTER GROUPS
Find and join conversations about Reporting, Writing & Editing and Online & Multimedia.

CHECK AL's TWITTER FEED for nonstop story ideas throughout the day.

UPDATED: JOIN AL ON THE ROAD AND LIVE ONLINE

APPLY FOR BROADCAST AND ONLINE SEMINARS

SEND AL YOUR STORY IDEAS

A dozen sites
I'm diggin'

*1. Planet Money is a really good blog about money and finance.

*2. How to carve a pumpkin that shows your political leanings.

3. ESPN's "The Journey of Richard Jensen" -- the comeback of a wrestler -- is an extra good video.

4. You can lay subtitles or text bubbles on video -- any video. I will be using this to teach about storytelling.

*5. Does bankruptcy save homes from foreclosure?

6. Canon responds to the Nikon D90 with its own SLR still camera that records HD video.

7. Why do 97 percent of this railroad's workers get disability checks?

8. I now use Utterz to file audio reports. You can use your computer's mic or any phone. It's simple and would be a great reporter's tool.

9. Qik streams live video straight from a cell phone.

*10. Use Tweetbeep to keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything! You can even keep track of who's tweeting your site or blog.

11. I used Monitter to monitor what people said on Twitter about Ike. Just change the subjects to whatever you want to look out for.

12. I'm reading all about the Nikon D90, which shoots photos and HD video with the same $1K body.

Sites marked with a * have been added recently.

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 depends on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. We will correct errors and inaccuracies when we become aware of them.

Genetic Testing for Breast Cancer: Hype or Hope?

My friend, medical ethicist Art Caplan, has published a provocative piece that opens this way:

Fear of breast cancer has created a tempting market for companies to sell genetic testing directly to consumers. The disease kills 40,000 people a year in the U.S., with an estimated 212,920 new cases diagnosed in 2007, according to the Mayo Clinic. It�s no wonder women would want a reliable gauge of their risk. However, American women should be aware that genetic tests for breast cancer are more hype than real hope.

The column comes after an Icelandic company said this week that it would start selling tests for less than $2,000 that would help women understand the breast cancer risks they face based on their DNA.

Read to learn more:

Who might benefit from tests
Where tests are available

Read the Entire Post

Posted at 11:00 AM Oct 13, 2008

Tools:
Comment

, e-mail

, Permalink

, Share

Do You Know Where Your City's Money Is?

Back in the days of ancient Greece they put Athens' gold on display up in the Parthenon. In fact, they built a reflecting pool in front of the gold so the sun would hit the gold, the gold would reflect off the pool and the whole dang place would light up so people down below could see their wealth. Not a bad idea until people come to take the gold and blow the joint up.

But I digress.

I wonder where your town's money is invested. What have market conditions done to:

Pension funds (The state pension fund in Massachussetts, for example, has lost $8 billion of its value.)
Prepaid college tuition programs
Pending bond issues to build roads, hospitals and such

Read more to learn:

Why cities are having such dire issues
What they are doing to cope

Read the Entire Post

Posted at 12:05 AM Oct 13, 2008

Tools:
Comment

, e-mail

, Permalink

, Share

Poll Measures Power of Political Rumors

The Scripps Howard News Service wanted to know how widespread vicious rumors have become in the presidential race and how much bite the rumors still have.

Scripps commissioned a poll and found nearly everybody has heard some of the rumors the pollsters tested but the small percentage of potential voters who call themselves "undecided" at this point are the only ones who are likely to be swayed.

Read the entire post to learn:

The results
What questions were asked

Read the Entire Post

Posted at 2:53 PM Oct 10, 2008

Tools:
Comment

, e-mail

, Permalink

, Share

States Remove Voters from Rolls

The New York Times reported:

Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run.

The affected states include Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina.

The Times says Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana may also be violating federal election laws.

Posted at 12:13 PM Oct 10, 2008

Tools:
Comment

, e-mail

, Permalink

, Share

Al's Morning Meeting

Latest Poynter Blogs (See All Blogs)