The world's best firefighters to come to Mason/Fairfax co.

Fairfax County will host the 2015 World Police & Fire Games. The games will run from June 26 to July 5.

That's a pretty cool deal and some of the games will take place at George Mason.

So j-students at GMU...

Making sure we get the terms right.

Ran across an article in Foreign Policy about what it means to be an "al Qaeda affiliate." I talk about it a bit on my global journalism blog (What does “al Qaeda affiliate” mean?).

But here I want to talk about making sure our students and colleagues use the right words to describe an event or action.

I was really upset with the way the U.S. media covered the Sean Goldman kidnapping case and subsequent return of 9-year old Sean to his father and the United States.

To read about the case in the American newspapers this case was a "custody" battle. And maybe in one sense it was but it was not "Kramer v. Kramer." The custody issue was settled long ago by a New Jersey court. The child was to live with his biological father.

This was a kidnapping case.

The mother left the country with her son under false pretenses. Divorced her husband and denied him access to his son.

David Goldman fought for visitation rights while the biological mother was alive. He also filed kidnapping charges against the mother under the Hague Convention.

Upon the mother's death, David filed for and won custody of the child in New Jersey.

The whole issue was one of returning a kidnapped child to his legal parent. There was no legal issue of custody. (Other than the "possession is 90 percent of the law" mentality that the Brazilian family had.)

Using the right words to describe events clarifies those events. It takes a little more effort to make sure the writing is done right but without that effort we are shortchanging our readers/viewers/listeners.

And ourselves and our profession.

Student abroad safety information release

The State Department issued a release providing some good information about student abroad issues.

It is a good start for a story about the ins and outs of overseas travel.

Safety Information for American Students Traveling Abroad

Number of people who work at home rises. Think journalism

Once again my favorite data source, the U.S. Census Bureau, comes through with some interesting information for an article.

This time Joe Grimm at the Poynter Institute talks about "homepreneurs" in his "Ask the recruiter" column.

This column is good on a couple of levels.

1. It shows what is happening to a lot of people -- including journalists -- who have been affected by the recession, and
2. It shows that you can work out a good article using data from the U.S. Census.

Prepare for Black History Month: Background data on African-American population

One of my favorite places to get solid data on population groups, the economy, and loads of other things is the U.S. Census Bureau

The Census Bureau collects packets of information for special holidays or observances.

Click here to see the data on the African-American population in the United States.

For example, here is the data on African-Americans and education:

83%
Among blacks 25 and older, the proportion who had at least a high school diploma in 2008.
Source: Educational Attainment in the United States: 2008 http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/013618.html

20%
Percentage of blacks 25 and older who had a bachelor's degree or higher in 2008.
Source: Educational Attainment in the United States: 2008 http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/013618.html

1.4 million
Among blacks 25 and older, the number who had an advanced degree in 2008 (e.g., master's, doctorate, medical or law). In 1998, 857,000 blacks had this level of education.
Source: Educational Attainment in the United States: 2008 http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/013618.html

2.5 million
Number of black college students in fall 2008. This was roughly double the corresponding number from 15 years earlier.
Source: School Enrollment – Social and Economic Characteristics of Students: October 2008 http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/014354.html

1985 Mexico City quake led to better SAR

Throughout the Haiti rescue efforts mentions are made of search and rescue teams from Fairfax Co., Los Angeles, Florida, etc. These are volunteers who receive special training and are self-contained SAR units.

And it all started when the ad-hoc SAR efforts in Mexico City in 1985 proved dangerous.

I know the 1985 process was dangerous and ad-hoc because I was there. I worked with dog search teams from around the USA, an underground camera team from the US Bureau of Mines and a seismic sensor team from USGS.

The Mexico earthquake was the first time any of these teams worked in an urban disaster environment. And with no training for any of us in an urban disaster situation, we went out to save lives.

Along the way, because so much help was coming in and Mexican coordination of efforts was weak at best, I was able to identify an Israeli medical team and a Venezuelan construction team. In the end we had a comprehensive unit of dogs, technology experts, 8excavation workers and a medical unit.

The video below from Fairfax County makes it clear it was the Mexico disaster that showed the need for comprehensive SAR teams ready to go at a moments notice.

And I am sure the survivors in Haiti are thankful that the lessons learned in Mexico are being applied now.

II have to think that many of the people who are critical of the SAR and relief efforts in Haiti really don't understand what happens to a place that has always had poor infrastructure and communications gets hit with a major

For journalists in the DC area, the members of the Fairfax SAR team are prime candidates for profile stories.

For journalists elsewhere, look around. I will bet there is a similar outfit in your area.

Medill students, the Census and immigrant communities

Now these guys get it! These kids delivered -- for me -- the journalism equivalent of a Reese's Cup: two great tastes in one wonderful package.

I don't know how long I have argued that the immigrant communities are important elements of any community reporting.

And how long have I argued that the Census Bureau is a wonderful treasure-trove of story ideas? A long long time!

Six Stories About the Census: How Medill students and local ethnic papers came together to find a common immigrant experience

These students looked at different ethnic communities and how they view and react to the decennial census.

From the six papers:
Jessica Abels, Raphaelle Neyton, and Shasha Zou in al Moustaqbil ("The Future"): "When Arab Americans fill out their census forms in just a few months, they won't find an Arab category listed next to Asian, Black or African American, or White. 'Arab is not considered a race, so there's no racial category,' explains Louise Cainkar, a board member of the Arab American Action Network. 'They have to check the white box, and a lot of people feel that their experience is not the white experience, so that's unfair.'"

Kate Endeley and Clara Lingle in the Korea Central Daily News: "Han and Kim cite many reasons why Koreans who are not U.S. citizens opt out of participating: they are undocumented and therefore fear the legal repercussions; they struggle with English (the 2000 census forms did not come in a Korean version); they find the participation process too tedious or they are unaware of the census itself."

Zoe Jennings in Pinoy: "Many Filipinos may not understand the importance of the count because in the Philippines, there is no census equivalent and they had never been counted. In providing the government with their name and family information, Clarito says, many Filipinos fear that the government is keeping tabs on them, or at the very least, will demand they perform jury duty or another civic duty."

Jessica Allen in the India Tribune: "Kamaria said many people don't know why the census matters, and that in general it needs to be better explained. Even she expressed uncertainty about how the census would affect illegal immigrants who choose to fill out the forms and whether illegal immigrants or students are even supposed to fill it out."

Matthew Bellassai and Alex Hollander in Extra: "Although the Census is separate from the rest of the government, people tend to associate the two. 'It's all "the government" as far as anyone's concerned,' Espinoza said. '"The government wants to charge me more taxes, the government wants to get me arrested for immigration purposes." There's no distinction there,' he said. Many people in the community tend to agree."

Arianna Hermosillo and Nadine Shabeeb in the Polish Daily News: "Another barrier to filling out the census form is that people may not even recognize it when it arrives in the mail, according to Zajaczowska. 'We will have to teach them that the Census 2010 means "Spis Powszechny,"' Zajaczowska said. This literally translates to 'common list' which is what the census is called in Poland."

While the theme of this exercise did not look at what can be done with Census Bureau data, the very fact that these students looked at the Census and the ethnic communities tells me they have a lot more on the ball than many of their more jaded and less imaginative journalism cronies.