As a print reporter, I can usually get away with long, rambling questions that start out heading one direction, take a few detours down blind alleys of irrelevance, and end up somewhere else entirely. I can be conversational, even to a fault. I can interrupt without appearing too rude. I can even ask the proverbial stupid question with impunity — since I’m both interviewer and the writer, and your question isn’t the story anyway.

But broadcast Q & A’s  – especially “live” interviews — have a completely different dynamic. You want your questions to be short, but you also need to establish a context for the viewer. You want to let the guest have his say, but you also want to keep him off his talking points. You want to be prepared, but also allow the interview go wherever it leads.

That was my thought process last weekend, when C-SPAN asked me and Roll Call’s Steven T. Dennis to interview Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., for its signature “Newsmakers” show:

This was my first appearance on C-SPAN, a sort of rite of passage for Washington reporters. (And frankly, I wasn’t their first choice for the Van Hollen interview.) I’ve been watching C-SPAN since I was in college, and I like to think C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb has been an influence on my career.

Lamb’s interviewing style,especially on shows like “Booknotes” and “Q & A,” was straightforward and non-confrontational: “Where were you born?” “Who are your parents?” “Why did you write this book?” “Who do you admire?” Those may seem like simple questions, but sometimes those are the most revealing (e.g. Roger Mudd: “Why do you want to be president?”).

At the other extreme is the late Tim Russert, of NBC’s “Meet the Press.” His well-prepared questions and follow-ups were meticulously designed to probe every inconsistency, ferret out hypocrisy and  demonstrate a candidate’s thoughtfulness and mastery of the issues. I have all the respect in the world for Russert — and my Sunday mornings aren’t the same without him — but I tend think a good interview should be more conversation than cross-examination.

I tried, with varying degrees of success, to pin down Van Hollen on who’s lobbying the “supercommittee,” the closed-door negotiations, where he’s willing to compromise and whether President Obama is responsible for the state of the economy. Alas, I don’t think the interview made much news.

Next time, perhaps, I’ll bring just a little more of the Russert.

I recently got into a somewhat public dispute with two former colleagues over my newspaper’s coverage of a certain issue. They claimed we had failed to cover it when, as I demonstrated in a prior blog post, we had written at least 30 stories about it over the past decade.

One of those former colleagues, Citybeat media critic Ben L. Kaufman, conceded that point in his most recent column — but then blamed the newspaper’s online archive:

I faulted The Enquirer’s watch-dog efforts when it came to Cincinnati’s Empowerment Zone over the past decade, saying it was an example of the paper’s willful blindness when it comes to screwed-up public funding of black-run organizations. Mutual friends told me that former colleague Greg Korte demonstrated in his Enquirer blog that I was wrong about Empowerment Zone coverage. Stories he listed began in 1999.

OK, I’m glad I was wrong. But it wasn’t because I didn’t look. I relied on the Enquirer online archive. Korte, a skilled reporter on computer-based data, might have archive access that I don’t. I tried again today. First, few of the stories he cited came up. Most or all were recent. On repeated attempts, either I couldn’t find the server or lots of stories appeared.

He’s right about the online archives — it’s by no means a comprehensive index of newspaper stories. Many stories in the newspaper never make it online for whatever reason, and most of those that do expire after 30 days. (No one in the newsroom relies on it for research. We use an internal database or, quite often, Nexis.)

To be sure, our archives ought to be more user-friendly. We shouldn’t be morally obligated to give away all our archival content for free, but a search of our archives ought to at least bring up the headlines.

But the episode is also a prime example of what I call the “Google fallacy:”  A misconception based on the incorrect reasoning that all knowledge is freely available — just a click away — on the Internet.

In a way, it’s even more insidious than the Wikipedia fallacy — that all knowledge found on the Internet is reliable. At least Wikipedia is a start. But you don’t know what you don’t know, and if you can’t find it on Google, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Repeat after me: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Of course, I’d be lying if I pretended I’ve never fallen into this trap myself.

The first time I remember running into the Google fallacy was actually pre-Google, in 1997, when I was working for a small daily paper on Lake Erie. The editor had heard there was talk on Pelee Island of secession from Canada. I did a search of web sites and usenet groups and came up with nothing. “I don’t care if Korte can’t find anything on the world wide (expletive) universal web net!” he shouted at the city editor loud enough for me to hear. “Tell him to get off his ass and go to Pelee Island.”

He was right. It was a front page story. (Though you still can’t find it on Google.)

The St. Anthony Messenger has a story this month about one of Cincinnati’s most unique and enduring Catholic traditions: the praying of the steps at Holy Cross-Immaculata Church.

Susan Hines-Brigger gives a good account of the origins of the church and the tradition, which began 150 Good Fridays ago:

Credit for the tradition rests solely on the shoulders of Cincinnati’s first archbishop, John J. Purcell. He built the Church of the Immaculata to fulfill a promise he had made to the Virgin Mary while sailing back from Rome. The ship encountered a terrible storm at sea and the archbishop promised that, if he survived, he would build a church to honor Mary in Mt. Adams, Cincinnati’s highest hill, which overlooks the city from the east.

He did survive, and in 1859, Archbishop Purcell stayed true to his word and laid the cornerstone for the church. He purchased the land, donated the stone and personally supervised construction of the church from start to finish. Some reports say he gave $10,000 of his own money to fund the project.

But my favorite footnote to that story, which I stumbled across years ago while looking at the microfilmed archives of the Catholic Telegraph, begins 16 years prior with the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams. (To whom Mount Adams owes its name.)

In 1843, during the nascent anti-Catholic “Know Nothing” movement, Adams came to what was then Mount Ida to dedicate an astrological observatory overlooking downtown.

In what would be his last public speech, the 77-year-old former president declared, “This observatory is to be a beacon of true science that should never be obscured by the dark shadows of superstition and intolerance symbolized by the Popish Cross.”

When Archbishop Purcell laid the cornerstone for the Church of the Immaculata 16 years later, he saw to it that the cross atop the steeple was just a foot higher than the observatory.

By 1873, the observatory moved to a neighborhood farther from downtown to escape the dark shadows of smoke and haze from the city below. (It still exists today in Mount Lookout as the oldest professional observatory in the United States.) The Passionist fathers acquired it for a church and monastery, and Archbishop Purcell dedicated it as Holy Cross Church on Sunday, June 22.

His homily that day: “The Triumph of the Cross.”

Cincinnati Empowerment Zone

The cynical definition of a critic is “one who knows the way but can’t drive the car.” Generally speaking, critics of the arts are better at criticism than they are at the endeavor they’re criticizing. Otherwise, they’d be artists and not critics.

But media criticism is a unique undertaking. Critical writing about journalism is itself an act of journalism, and ought to be held to the same standards as the work it trains its eye on.

Unfortunately, too much media criticism fails to do some basic fact-checking. Like, if you’re going to criticize a news outlet for failing to cover something, check to make sure it has indeed neglected to cover it.

Take the recent criticism by two former Cincinnati Enquirer staffers — Peter Bronson and Ben L. Kaufman — of the Enquirer’s coverage of the Cincinnati Empowerment Corporation.

Bronson, who was editorial page editor and a conservative op-ed columnist for the Enquirer before being laid off last year, would have readers believe that the Enquirer didn’t write a single critical story about the Cincinnati Empowerment Corporation from 2002 through 2010.

Kaufman, who left the paper in 2002 and is now the Citybeat media critic, passes along Bronson’s criticism approvingly: “Bronson excoriates The Enquirer — for which he was a columnist and editorial page editor — for its cowardice, suggesting fear of being accused of racism often restrains any sense of duty as a public watch dog. The Empowerment Zone is not the first fiasco of its kind involving years of willful ignorance and timidity.”

The problem here is that the basic premise — that Enquirer editors imposed a news blackout on any coverage critical of the Cincinnati Empowerment Corporation — is just plain wrong. (Full disclosure: As the City Hall reporter for the Enquirer from 2001 to 2005, I was partly responsible for coverage of the Empowerment Zone.)

So here, as a public service, I present a partial accounting of stories by the Cincinnati Enquirer over the years documenting problems with the Cincinnati Empowerment Corp.:

• “Broadnax Pitched for Agency,” by Mark Curnutte, October 16, 1999: “Supporters of former Cincinnati Health Commissioner Stanley Broadnax, who served 28 months in prison for drug abuse and cocaine trafficking, want him to lead a public agency charged with rehabilitating nine of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.”
• “Wrong Choice for Empowerment Zone,” editorial, October 30, 1999: “Mr. Broadnax is a terrible choice to handle millions in public money. And the controversy over his appointment is damaging an agency that will need public support and credibility.”
• “Empowerment Zone Going Nowhere, Winburn Charges,” by Dan Klepal, December 24, 1999. “Cincinnati’s new empowerment zone board has been powerless during its first year because of infighting, a lack of direction and an organizational structure that has rendered it lame, a city council member says.”
• “Blight Fighters Mired in Indecision,” by Dan Klepal, March 16, 2000: “Cincinnati’s empowerment zone has been ineffective and could be stripped of its designation if it doesn’t follow six recommendations made by City Council on Wednesday, council members said.”
• “Dueling Plans Target Inner City,” by Derrick DePledge, August 27, 2000: ”Renee Crawford … said she is afraid some businesses and social service groups are acting in self-interest instead of for the good of the neighborhoods. ‘It’s a wonderful thing if it ever gets off the ground,’ she said. ‘But it looks like some organizations just want their piece of the pie.’
• “Leader Finally Takes Over City Empowerment Zone,” by Ken Alltucker, January 13, 2001: “It took two years and two failed candidates before the Cincinnati Empowerment Zone found a leader.”
• “Empowerment Zone, Three Years Later: Few Results,” by Ken Alltucker, May 14, 2001: “Three years and one race riot later, the nine neighborhoods — most of them predominantly African-American — are still the city’s poorest, and the plan hasn’t been put into action.”
• “MIA Empowerment Zone,” editorial, May 17, 2001. “Three years after Cincinnati Empowerment Corp. was formed to rebuild nine of our poorest neighborhoods, it has no results. Zero.”
• “Cincinnati Empowerment Zone Targeted,” by Derrick Depledge, February 5, 2002: “The Bush administration determined there was ‘no convincing evidence’ that providing grant money along with the tax breaks available through empowerment zones makes the initiatives more effective.”
• “Thumbs Down: No Empowerment,” editorial, February 9, 2002: “The Empowerment Zone board members caused needless delays when they tried to rig the bylaws to hire as director Stanley Broadnax, a former city health commissioner convicted of cocaine trafficking. … Faster action by the Empowerment Zone might even have reduced the turmoil.”
• “Federal Grant Use Questioned,” by Derrick DePledge, February 10, 2002: “The Bush administration’s decision to strip federal money for some empowerment zones from next year’s budget was based in part on questionable results in cities like Cincinnati, federal officials said.”
• “Empower Whom?” by Peter Bronson, April 26, 2002: “A January financial report shows that Cincinnati’s Empowerment Zone spent nearly a dollar on administration for every dollar on programs — and those included hip-hop, crafts, karate and boxing for ‘anger management.’”
• “Audit Says Cincinnati Wasted Much of Empowerment Grant,” by Gregory Korte, February 4, 2003: “The agency responsible for running the Cincinnati Empowerment Zone misspent thousands of federal dollars and failed to produce results in key programs, according to a just-released federal audit”
• “Sustainable Jobs,” editorial, February 5, 2003. “A federal audit of Cincinnati’s Empowerment Zone program further damages its credibility as a jobs creator for poor neighborhoods and strengthens the case for ending outright grants in favor of tax breaks.”
• “Empowerment Official Sought in Theft-ring Case,” by Howard Wilkinson, October 4, 2003. “One of the 23 people indicted as part of a theft ring that police say fenced stolen goods through corner markets is the staff accountant for the Cincinnati Empowerment Corp.”
• “P&G Backing Out on Jobs Plan,” by Cliff Peale, September 2, 2004: “Higher costs and project delays have prompted Procter & Gamble Co. to pull out of a proposed $30 million investment in Cincinnati’s empowerment zone.”
• “Agency’s Spending Under Fire,” by Gregory Korte, October 26, 2004: “City auditors said Inner City Health Care Inc., a 30-year-old agency with an original mission to provide health care to minority communities, often submitted ‘false documentation’ for expenses it had not incurred. The agency sought reimbursement of $28,967 through the Cincinnati Empowerment Corp. for a 15-passenger van it never bought.”
• “Interlaced Lives: Dale Mallory Appointed Now-Suspect to Board,” by Dan Klepal, April 18, 2006. “Dale Mallory helped appoint the man who allegedly shot Kabaka Oba outside City Hall last week to a powerful board that handles millions of redevelopment dollars for poor areas of town.”
• “Mayor’s Brother Scrutinized,” by Gregory Korte, June 14, 2006: “A federal anti-poverty program is reviewing its contract with the brother of Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory after discovering he billed the agency for working to bring a controversial social services center to the West End.”
• “Mallory’s Bills ‘Troubling’: Mayor’s Brother Asked to Repay Some Money; He Says No,” by Gregory Korte, June 19, 2006: “Dale Mallory’s bills to a federally funded anti-poverty program ‘raise some troubling questions’ about how the Cincinnati Empowerment Corp. hires and monitors its consultants, including possible conflicts of interest, lawyers for the agency said in a report.”
• “Agency Director’s Purchase Questioned,” by Gregory Korte, June 27, 2006: “The executive director of the Cincinnati Empowerment Corp. has obtained ownership of a West End building where an Empowerment board member is a tenant, raising more questions about conflicts of interest at the federally funded development agency.”
• “Inner City Non-Profit’s Funds Frozen,” by Gregory Korte, June 29, 2006: “The city of Cincinnati has frozen its funding for a nonprofit organization that helps inner-city neighborhoods after questions arose about conflicts of interest involving its board and staff.”
• “Activists Grill Empowerment Corp.” by Gregory Korte, July 11, 2006: “Neighborhood activists confronted the board of the Cincinnati Empowerment Corp. on Monday, demanding to know why the agency used federal tax money to promote a controversial church-run social services center in the West End.”
• “Empowerment Agency Faces Probe,” by Gregory Korte, July 19, 2006: “The Cincinnati Police Department and federal authorities will conduct a joint investigation into the Cincinnati Empowerment Corp. after reports of conflicts of interest at the inner-city development agency, a top police official told the West End Community Council Tuesday night.”
• “Cole, Empowerment Corp. Spar in Hearing,” by Gregory Korte, August 2, 2006: “In a sometimes contentious public hearing before Cole’s neighborhoods committee, the councilwoman challenged Empowerment Corp. officials on possible conflicts of interest, and about the administration of a $5 million loan program.”
• “Empowerment Corp. Lawsuits Target Companies That Got Loans,” August 5, 2006: ”The Cincinnati Empowerment Corp., under scrutiny from city and federal agencies for its business practices, has begun to take action against several businesses that received federally subsidized loans.”
• “City Resuming Payments to Development Agency,” by Gregory Korte, September 1, 2006: “The city of Cincinnati will resume payments to its inner-city development agency following a two-month freeze to look into allegations of conflicts of interest.”
• “Questions Raised Over Non-Profit,” by Jane Prendergast, February 2, 2010: “Cincinnati City Council members want to know more about why the city and a non-profit agency that’s supposed to help create jobs in Cincinnati’s most struggling neighborhoods did not take advantage of $130 million in federal bonds before they expired.”
• “Cincinnati Empowerment Corp. Has Little to Show for $25 Million,” by Jane Prendergast, February 21, 2010: “The Cincinnati Empowerment Corp. promised jobs and major development in Cincinnati’s poorest neighborhoods when it started 10 years ago. But now that the program is about to end, there’s almost universal agreement that it fell far short of expectations, leaving questions about who is to blame and who should have been monitoring the agency.”
• “City Could Investigate Revitalization Agency,” by Jane Prendergast, March 7, 2010: “Cincinnati City Council members this week will be asked to launch an investigation and audit of the Cincinnati Empowerment Corp., the nonprofit agency that was supposed to help revitalize nine of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.”

If this is the picture of a newspaper neglecting to write about an agency’s problems, I’d hate to be at the agency the newspaper decides to report on.

I e-mailed Messers Kaufman and Bronson (a courtesy neither one of them extended to anyone at the Enquirer) to ask them if they had read any of these stories. Mr. Kaufman said he had, and that he nonetheless stands by his criticism. (Though he clarified that his critique was institutional, and not personal.) Mr. Bronson responded, but asked that his e-mail be off-the-record. I’ve decided to honor that request.

Am I being thin-skinned? Maybe. Like a lot of reporters, I’ve taken my share of abuse from bloggers, and I’ve let it slide. But Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Bronson are former colleagues who used to be — and perhaps still are — professional journalists. Is it too much to expect them to do a basic web search before criticizing a news organization for not covering something?

Michelle Minkoff, a graduate student at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, has been doing a series of profiles of some of the smartest database reporters and newsroom developers around: People like Matt Waite, Chase Davis, David Donald, Maurice Tamman and Mary Jo Webster. She calls them “data delvers.”

How the heck she came up with my name, I’ll never know.

Anyway, she does a decent job of summarizing my crusade for greater data literacy in the newsroom:

While not everyone needs to be a specialist, Korte said, “Everybody should know Excel or a spreadsheet, and how it’s organized, how to do counting, totaling and averaging.”

“Don’t be afraid of data,” said Korte.  To him, that means being willing to use data sets, but also approaching the numbers as you woud any source.  “Think about the data that is available, talk to the people who have it, think about what information you want.”

Using programming for analysis and web scraping is a great way to take your skills further, he said.  “The value of programming is that it can speed up the more repetitive tasks that you were doing manually, and it allows you to do what others cannot.”

“Most reporters see a new database, and it’s just too tempting– they’re only doing the story because it’s low-hanging fruit, begging to be analyzed.  The issue in news is to find the right data.”

We should all be data delvers.

UPDATE: Canceled because of inclement weather.

David Umhoefer, a Pulitzer prize-winning local government reporter for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, will be speaking at Northern Kentucky University Wednesday.

Following his talk, I’ll be on a panel titled, “New Media, Old Values.” I’m hoping it’s a thought provoking discussion of how news organizations can stay true to their First Amendment mission while adapting to a rapidly changing technology landscape.

The program begins at 6 p.m. at Northern Kentucky University (University Center Room 238). Dinner is $12 for Society of Professional Journalists members and $16 for non-members

The Cleveland Press Club awarded The Cincinnati Enquirer first place honors in public service in its annual Excellence in Journalism Awards last weekend.

The award was for Foreclosure’s Fallout, a story I wrote with colleague Alexander Coolidge. The series used an examination of 30,000 foreclosures and interviews with dozens of homeowners and neighbors to explain the toll of home repossessions in Cincinnati neighborhoods, examine the role of local lenders and investigate the way sheriff’s sales are conducted.

It’s quite an honor, considering the worthy competition from other newspapers in parts of the state even harder hit by the foreclosure crisis.

Cincinnati Magazine says The Cincinnati Enquirer “seems poised to triumph in a journalistic New World Order of mommy-blogs, data collection experts, and citizen journalists.”

The story is heavily inspired by a similar story by Wired Magazine last year: “To Save Themselves, US Newspapers Put Readers to Work.”

Photograph by Baerbel Schmidt for Wired

Jay Leno: “You wouldn’t think something like this would provoke an argument…”

“… Guess they don’t want to rush to judgment on that one in Cincinnati.”

I have a theory that the closest parallel to the 2008 presidential campaign is … the 2005 Cincinnati mayor’s race. And I’m going to try it out Wednesday at a panel discussion Wednesday on “Media Coverage of The Politics of Race & Gender in the Presidential Election” at the University of Cincinnati.

Should be a lively and interesting panel. Co-panelists:

• Lincoln Ware, host, The Lincoln Ware Show, WDBZ-AM
• Kathy Y. Wilson, senior editor, Cincinnati Magazine & author of Your Negro Tour Guide: Truths in Black and White
• Tom McKee, reporter, WCPO-TV (Channel 9)
• Mike Sheehy, associate journalism professor, University of Cincinnati

Where: University of Cincinnati, Tangeman University Center, Room 4002, 600 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH
When: Wednesday, February 27, 7 p.m.

The moderator is my colleague Keith T. Reed, a business reporter for the Enquirer and economics blogger at BET.com.

Sponsors: Cincinnati Association of Black Journalists and the University of Cincinnati’s Journalism Program

Stephanie Kirchgaessner of the Financial Times focused on Cincinnati for a story on the “real-life impact” of the subprime mortgage meltdown, and cited my reporting:

An analysis by the local newspaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, last November found that Deutsche Bank National Trust “owned” 188 homes in Hamilton County, more than anyone except for the federal government, and was taking on nine or 10 newly foreclosed properties a week.

Here’s that story:  Banks taking homes, but city footing bill: Repair, demolition costs add up on foreclosed property.

My colleague Jon Craig reports:

Attorneys argued before the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday whether the names and addresses of foster care parents should be public record. …

Enquirer reporter Gregory Korte made a public records request shortly after the August 2006 death of 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel, seeking an electronic database of all foster homes in Ohio. … The Enquirer reported in March that Hamilton County court officials discovered 27 foster parents had arrest records.

More coverage in the Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, and the Canton Repository.

Ben L. Kaufman writes in his revamped media column in this week’s Citybeat: “(W)e need more stories like Greg Korte’s nuanced data-based exploration of the impacts of local eminent domain and home foreclosures.”

Thank you for visiting my new web site.

I’ve revamped GregoryKorte.com in order to feature my recent newspaper stories and other professional work. It’s still under construction. Coming soon: My resume, a bio and some special projects.

Subscribe to my RSS feed for the latest.

If you’re looking for my personal blog, it’s moving to a new domain name. Friends, relatives, casual acquaintences and former drinking buddies may contact me for the new location.

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