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Show s. HERALD DAILY B6 Sunday, June 15, 2008 SpJ training helps blowers hone professionalism Caryn Rousseau THE ASSOCIATED "It's the tips of the iceberg. Bloggers are being asked to write checks. The threats against bloggers are very real. The costs are PRESS Miami real estate agent Lucas Lechuga began blogging to share his knowledge of the local market. He didn't bargain for a $25 million defamation lawsuit when he wrote that a Miami developer had gone bankrupt decades ago. In Lake Geneva, Wis., commodities trader Gary Millitte registered the Internet domain name LakeGenevaNews.com eight years ago, but is so worried about the legal boundaries of writing online that he still hasn't started the news site. very real." Robert Cox president of the Media Bloggers Association ultra-loc- libelous? What's the difference between opinion and news? And how do you find public entering the world of blogs, online feedback forums, online videos and news Web sites provide information that newspapers and other media can't or don't. But many are now turning to professional journalists for help with dilemmas they're ts documents? About a dozen would-b- e reporters navigated the basics of journalism at a recent training offered by the Society of Professional Journalists in Chicago. The group plans simi facing: When is something and professional, dark said Amateurs have long contributed to professional news reports, including the film of John F. Kennedy's assassination and photos from the Virginia Tech massacre last year, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, Clark said. Now, many distribute their content on their own, and some have gotten into trouble, said Clint Brewer, the national president of SPJ. Geoff Dougherty, editor of the Web site ChiTownDaily-News.or- g and a presenter at the SPJ program, is trying to prevent that by offering his reporters online training. With a $340,000 Knight News Challenge, he's creating a team of 77 to report on the smallest of meetings in every city neighborhood gatherings that mainstream news organizations don't cover. "I see us in five years as the go-t- o source for Chicago lar seminars this month in Greensboro, N.C., and Los Angeles. Lechuga, who didn't attend the training, said it would-hav- e been a good idea. Having jumped into the world of online publishing with a finance degree, he said the claims which are against him still pending arose from a question of semantics, and he would have chose his words differently if he had a second chance. "It would definitely have been something that would ... be worthwhile and I'd (have) been able to prevent this," said Lechuga. Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Ha., which supports working journalists, praised the effort to of- fer training to citizen journalists. "I think that what we're moving toward is some king of positioning between amateur ITT ,! ;;. j'l. ; ';. ' il !: :;: .'I'Pl'l In fighting cancer, there's one thing we can get back on your side: the odds. Michael Tippett. "A lot of our members are goal Robert Cox, president of the aspiring journalists," Tippett Media Bloggers Association, said. "They'll get half of it said more than 100 judgments right. We'll push them to getvalued at $17 million have ting all of it right." been handed down against MJ Tarn, who has blogged bloggers over the last three about 60 percent for years defamation, 25 percent for copyright infringement and 10 percent involving privacy. "It's the tip of the iceberg," Cox said. "Bloggers are being asked to write checks, The threats against bloggers are very real. The costs are very real." Other groups offer help, a including NowPublic.com site that gathers photos, video and news tips from the public and distributes them to news organizations, including The Associated Press. NowPuolic, funded with venture capital, offers resources for contributors and helps them learn to police themselves, said ;i,M: M" ,t'.'J THE '.it, i!'l.f)l m ASSOCIATED PRESS FORT WORTH, Texas The cost of the April raid on a polygamist compound in West Texas is expected to top of $14 million, about it in lawyers' fees, according to a published analysis of state records. The Fort Worth reviewed more than 400 and pages of invoices, other state records that it ob- tained under an law request and published its findings Sunday. More invoices for overtime, travel and professional services are expected to boost the final tab, the records indicate. The biggest chunk of spending is expected to stem from court proceedings after the state seized about 460 children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, which is owned by the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A state district judge in San Angelo first gave custody of the children to the state child protective services agency, but the Texas Supreme Court later returned the children to their parents. The state expects to pay nearly $4.5 million in legal fees, including paying for lawyers who represented the state and others appointed by judges to represent the children. The state also expects to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars one-thir- d open-recor- It ,) i, . t i'l it. i J . i """""""-.- M A. : ' "" IF. i'l i ' ' f ? . i ' 'I . i $ ' j V ll HXL'" asp Knight Citizen News I Network: www.kcnn.org Michele Weldon: www.everymannews.com ChiTown Daily News: wwwxhitowndailynews.org FilipinaMoms.com: www.filipinamoms.com for expert witnesses, visiting judges and office supplies. The state attorney general's office has been billed $ 1 10,000 for DNA testing of adults and children taken from the ranch in an effort to identify the parents of each child. Another big chunk of spending, about $2.4 million, went to rent buses and facilities to house the children and some of the mothers after the early April raid, the newspaper reported. Overtime for state employees, including workers in the state's protective services agencies, was about $ 1.7 million, and travel another $ 1.2 million during the first month after the raid. The Texas Department of Public Safety spent nearly $1.3 million, including $410,000 for overtime pay and about $82,000 for travel. The said the records it examined didn't include bills submitted by private charity groups that helped the staand invoices from state emplowekjfiaV still be submit- ted. Stephanie Goodman, spokes- woman for the state's Health and Human Services Commission, said the documents released to the newspaper captured "the vast majority of the overtime and the travel." She said state officials were still faciliworking with foster-carties to cover costs not included e in daily rates. was serving for murder. Gallegos and anotherinmate MANILA One of two con- were being held at the Daggett victed killers who broke out of County jail because of prison the Daggett County jail last fall overcrowding. has pleaded guilty to escape. They slipped through an locked door, scaled a fence and Danny Martin Gallegos, 50, was sentenced to a term of up jumped off the roof to escape. to five years in prison. The senThey were on the run for tence runs consecutively to the almost a week before being fiveryears-t- o life term Gallegos caught in Wyoming. THE : ASSOCIATED PRESS (. cating cancer takes courage and willpower. ; Remarkable technologies such But it also takes treatment methods that will Ml as the Gamma Knife, DaVinci Robot and Linear Accelerator. . ! C i On the Net: I SPJ Citizen Journalism Academy: www.spj.orgcja. Man pleads guilty for escape mm i I ' ' (I i vVvv about motherhood for eight years and attended the Chicago workshop, said she worried about how far she could go in rating baby products. "I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing," said Tarn. "How far can I take criticism? What's considered libel? I need those basics." Cost of raid on polygamist camp tops $14 million 11 j. news," said Dougherty. 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