How to get a comprehensive look at officer-involved shootings nationwide, the role of student journalism in a national story, Chinese-American veterans.
Fact checking the fourth GOP Debate
Tuesday night's forum was very different from debates past. Noticeably absent were the personal attacks that were a staple of the last few. Instead, the candidates clashed on a series of economic subjects like tax plans, jobs and minimum wage.
In addition, candidates made a lot of claims about the state of the US economy. Some were true, and some might have been a bit of a stretch.
Politifact editor Angie Holan poured over statements made by the presidential hopefuls. She shared her findings with Take Two.
Press the blue play button above to hear more.
Officer Involved: trustworthy data on national shootings is elusive
Officer-involved shootings have dominated the headlines across the country.
Locally in Los Angeles County, KPCC's investigation found that one in four people shot by officers between 2010 to 2014 were unarmed. Of all the people that officers killed, black people were killed at triple the rate of whites and Latinos.
Gathering this data was not easy to come by. KPCC did it by sourcing this information from the L.A. District Attorney's office. Compiling a database on the national level is a much more difficult task.
Frank Zimring, professor of law at UC Berkeley and director of the criminal justice research program at the Earl Warren Legal Institute, recently published his own report on the number of killings both by and of police officers dating back to 1976.
"All of the official statistical tallies, including the ones we used in the article that's now out, actually were only capturing about half of the killings that took place," he says. "All of them are supposed to be comprehensive. All of them are off by half and for different reasons."
The Uniform Crime Report gathered by the FBI does not gather information from every city or state, for example, nor does it check the validity of what's contained in each report.
"They are the police departments' word for what happened. Nobody challenges them," he says.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that its report only found that a killing took place in half of incidents.
Meanwhile Vital Statistics data is compiled by county health departments and records every death in the U.S. However, departments do not assess the details of how a shooting death happened, only the cause of death.
Zimring argues that there is no uniform and robust source of national information because officer-involved shootings were traditionally seen as a local problem.
"People might simply talk about what happened when Officer Smith killed citizen Jones. We don't aggregate and we don't see this as a national problem," he says. "If the killing of civilians becomes a priority concern at the federal level of government in the United States, there could be tremendous progress in cutting the death toll."
When journalists become the news: Mizzou journalism dean, Poynter expert weigh in on campus coverage
Events at the University of Missouri this week have not only raised questions about the potential power of college athletes, but big questions about campus journalism as well.
A campus activist group known as Concerned Student 1950 set up a small tent city on campus. ESPN assigned a photographer to take pictures of the encampment. That photographer, Tim Tai, is also a senior at Mizzou. When he tried to get the shots he needed, students asked him to back away. Things quickly became heated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRlRAyulN4o
The situation brings up all sorts of thorny questions about how a campus can best cover the story when it's at the center of that story.
Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute said Tai was well-armed with knowledge of the First Amendment.
"He did a really good job of explaining in completely human terms what we were talking about here, that the Bill of Rights protects his right, the right of the press, to do its job, and protects the right of assembly for protesters," she said. "What this really gets down to is that this was public space. University of Missouri is a public school, and this is a public quad, and so everybody had a right to be there, and he did a good job of explaining that."
David Kurpius, dean of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, agreed that the First Amendment was key to this situation for both Tai and the protesters.
"We absolutely, whole-heartedly stand behind the right of journalists to be up there and covering major events in a public space," he said. "But we also recognize that the protesters had the freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and the right to redress grievances against a government entity, which the university would be as a public university, and so they had a right to be there and be protesting."
Though Tai was not covering the story for The Maneater, Mizzou's campus paper, Kurpius said Tai showed great conduct.
"Tim's done great work, he handled himself professionally out there," he said. "We're very, very proud of Tim."
Still, McBride said maintaining balance in reporting is an ever-present element in student reporting.
"All student journalists are covering, for the most part, the campus that has power over them, the authority structure that has power over them. A lot of them get their budgets directly from the president's office. Not all of them, and I believe The Maneater is an exception," she said. "However, that doesn't mean that they don't do really good, serious journalism. Many student journalists and their advisers are super passionate about the public's need to know, their obligation to hold the powerful accountable, and so there's very good student journalism that happens at campuses across the country."
Kurpius also clarified the position of Dr. Melissa Click, who is seen in the video standing up for the protesters, and has been incorrectly reported by some news outlets as being part of the journalism faculty. Kurpius said Click only had an honorary appointment with the department. He added that he does not know Click's current status with the School of Communication.
"I think the confusion is coming because people think that she's teaching journalism classes, and she's not, and hasn't, and won't," he said. "She had this little dotted line over that allowed her to work with some graduate students. So that's the limit of it."
At the end of the day, what grade would Kurpius give for the way the situation was handled?
"Very simple. It's an A plus," he said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
Tragedy at an Airbnb
is a reporter who's done stories on the rental sharing site, Airbnb, and as a consumer has also used the site.
But when his family planned a vacation around the holidays two years ago, it ended in tragedy. Zak's father died in an accident on the property.
Stone wrote about the incident for Matter magazine, and we talked to him about it.
Sports Roundup: Mizzou football, Lakers
In this week's Sports Roundup with
:
- Will the actions of Mizzou's football team have ripple effects for college athletes?
- The state of New York has deemed daily fantasy sports sites as illegal gambling and ordered them to stop taking bets. But are daily fantasy sites a matter of skill, or chance?
- El Dorado High School in Orange County did not win a single game on the field this season, yet ended up in the playoffs. How'd they do it?
- The Lakers lost again Tuesday night to fall to 1-6. Rookie point guard D'Angelo Russell only played 21 minutes and hardly at all late in the game. Should they be throwing him out there more?
To hear all this and more, click on the blue audio player above.
Impatient: What's behind rising premiums in job-based insurance plans?
Most Americans get health insurance through their jobs.
For those of you in that boat, you're probably in the the middle of your company's open enrollment period— that time when people re-enroll in their plan or change their coverage for the coming year.
Southern California Public Radio's Rebecca Plevin has been looking into changes in our company's health insurance options.
What she's learned is relevant for everyone who gets covered through work.
The Styled Side: why SoCal is celebrating China's Guo Pei
Among the biggest names in fashion like Oscar de la Renta and Marc Jacobs, here's another you should know: Guo Pei.
She is one of top China's top designers, one of the only few to break into the international fashion scene and now also the celebrated guest at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana this weekend.
Guo caught the world's attention when Rihanna wore her 55-pound canary yellow dress to the Met Ball in New York City last May.
The gown's three-meter long train may have been the butt of jokes for looking like an omelette or a pizza, but the fashion world was stunned by the look and the artisanship that went into it; it was handcrafted by one woman over the course of two years.
"The dress was THE thing to talk about at the ball," says Michelle Dalton Tyree from Fashion Trends Daily. "Guo Pei really opened the fashion world's eyes to China as a high-end fashion creator."
For being a hot designer, it may be surprising that Guo is the center of a showcase in Santa Ana instead of New York or Milan. However, Southern California's large Asian-American population and its reputation for being a tourism hotspot for Chinese visitors means it's a great place for Guo to build up her American fan base.
"We're all courting the international consumer and certainly the Chinese consumer is at the top of that list," says Debra Gunn Downing, the executive marketing director at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.
The luxury shopping center has shopping directories and a web site in Mandarin, for example. The Chinese are also the world's largest consumers of luxury goods, making up 20 percent of the entire global market.
The Bowers Museum sees its collaboration with Guo as a way to bring breathtaking exhibits highlighting Chinese culture to the U.S.
The gala and fashion show for Guo is on Saturday, November 14th, and the exhibition of her dresses – including the gown that Rihanna wore – will be on display through January.