Reporter @ProPublica. Co-author, Unbelievable. Ex-@MarshallProj @seattletimes. Law school dropout/honorary doctor. Perturbable.
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Mar 22 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
10 years ago today, I was working a weekend shift @seattletimes when word came in of a landslide near a small town named Oso.
It turned out to be the deadliest landslide in U.S. history.
It also became an exhibit for why local journalism matters in a time of crisis.
1/
43 people died in the slide.
Two days afterward, the county’s head of emergency management held a news conference & said the area “was considered very safe. This was a completely unforeseen slide. This came out of nowhere.”
That same day, I discovered the opposite was true.
2/
Dec 8, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Been getting a lot of requests to update this thread. So...
Since we published our first story on the juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, TN:
One state lawmaker said she was “horrified.” Another called it a “nightmare.” A third labeled it “unchecked barbarism.”
THREAD
A young mom with 4 kids—including twin boys, one with cerebral palsy, the other with autism and epilepsy—moves into a rental home near Milwaukee.
She’s been evicted twice before, so this, her new home, seems “a dream come true.”
She has no idea of the home’s history.
(THREAD) 2/ Her name is Angelica Belen.
The landlord, when she moves in, is Todd Brunner.
He’s known around Milwaukee as the “foreclosure king.” He buys homes others have lost to banks. City inspectors know him well. He’s got lots of building-code violations and outstanding fines.
May 4, 2022 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
In Justice Alito’s draft opinion reversing Roe, he writes about “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment,” up until Roe in 1973.
He cites, as historical authority, Sir Matthew Hale.
Let me tell you about Hale & his views toward women.
THREAD
2/ The Alito draft says Hale “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision.’”
Mar 20, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
To understand how KOMO—once a trusted news source in Seattle—has become what you see below, it’s worth revisiting this @KromanDavid story on how the station changed after being bought by Sinclair Broadcast Group. crosscut.com/2018/04/how-li…
The tweet I was referring to has now been deleted. ("This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author," Twitter says.) But here's a screen grab of it:
Oct 8, 2021 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
Three police officers went to an *elementary* school in Tennessee & arrested four Black girls.
One girl fell to her knees. Another threw up. Police handcuffed the youngest, an 8 yo with pigtails.
Their supposed crime? Watching some boys fight — and not stopping them. (THREAD)
2/ The police wound up arresting 11 kids in total, using a charge called “criminal responsibility.”
The arrests created outrage. State lawmakers called the case “unconscionable,” “inexcusable,” “insane.”
So how did this happen?
Oct 7, 2020 • 25 tweets • 6 min read
Arise Virtual Solutions, which helps companies like @Disney & @Airbnb shed labor costs, loathes the word supervisor. It prefers Quality Assurance Performance Facilitator.
Many businesses use jargon.
But Arise uses bewildering language as a defense against lawsuits. Here's how:
2/ What is Arise?
Arise, in its words, “delivers radical flexibility and on-demand burst capacity at scale.”
Arise, in our words (i.e., @propublica’s), signs up customer service agents who work from home. It then sells this network of agents to companies like Comcast or Intuit.
Mar 28, 2020 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Statement from the union that represents 900 nurses at this hospital:
"Nurses and other health care workers are being muzzled in an attempt by hospitals to preserve their image."
"While hospitals give media tours and make statements touting their preparation for and response to the COVID-19 crisis, those on the frontlines are being silenced."
2/
Dec 9, 2019 • 26 tweets • 11 min read
A lot of TV dramas portray police as the most skeptical people around. They’re hard-bitten, probing, difficult to win over.
But the opposite is often true. Police can be remarkably uncritical.
Case in point: Scientific Content Analysis.
1/2/ It’s called SCAN, for short. SCAN popped up in a case we were investigating with @SBTribune, a local reporting partner. A detective in a murder case used SCAN to conclude one suspect was truthful, another deceptive.
We had never heard of SCAN. We wanted to know more about it.
Sep 24, 2019 • 25 tweets • 48 min read
1/ We’re thrilled @ProPublica with the positive response to @Netflix’s #Unbelievable. The show is sparking important conversations, like this @TheAtlantic piece: bit.ly/2mpfTVz.
But we’ve also seen some sentiment online that concerns us.
I'd like to talk about that.
@propublica@netflix@TheAtlantic 2/ We've seen things like: Why didn’t the foster moms apologize? (They did.) That Marie must hate everyone who doubted her. (She doesn’t.) And that the police probably didn’t learn a thing from this. (They did.)
Sep 16, 2019 • 24 tweets • 55 min read
In @Netflix's #Unbelievable, Marie is a teen who reports being raped.
I was one of the reporters who first told Marie’s full story.
To me, Marie is not a character. She is someone who trusted me with her story, painful as it was.
Here are Marie’s and my thoughts on the show:
@netflix 2/ In the show’s 1st episode, Marie, after reporting her rape, goes to the hospital for an exam.
In the scene, we learn how many swabs are taken. Where they're taken from. And what Marie is told after—that she might start thinking of killing herself.
Each detail is accurate.
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