Buyer Beware
'Sin' study wins award
Greensboro, N.C. News & Record staff writer Andrew Barron received a Wilber Award in April from the Religious Public Relations Council for "Sin: The Triad has a lot to say about it," the News & Record's first computer-assisted reporting project. (Published in the November, 1991 Uplink)
The package, published Oct. 13, 1991, examined the views of News & Record readers on what acts constitute sin, the relative importance of the Ten Commandments and the seven deadly sins, and other topics.
More than 1,100 readers returned the published survey, database reporter Lex Alexander used the newsroom computer and XDB to tabulate the results, cross-referencing them by major religious denominations in the Greensboro area. He also compared respondents' demographics with Census Summary Tape File 1A data for the coverage area to see how they differed from the population at large.
Although the tabulated responses were interesting, Barron's thoughtful interviews with clergy and lay people alike (including an entire Sunday school class) made the package worth reading. Way to go guys!
Making claims in Missouri
George Landau of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch combined computerized campaign contributions and computer records of the Second Injury Fund, an obscure workers compensation fund, to show that appointees and political supporters of Missouri's Attorney General (and candidate for governor) William L. Webster win up to three times as much in settlements and fees from the fund than attorneys without those connections. The total value of excess settlements was above average at $12 million over 3.5 years.
The Post-Dispatch separated lawyers who file claims against the state's Second Injury Fund into three groups, each with its own degree of success in winning money from the fund. In almost all cases, the lawyers kept 25 percent of each settlement as their fee.
Average settlements paid from the fund: **Lawyers with no political connections- $3,548 **Lawyers who gave to Webster's campaign- $5,307 **Lawyers Webster has hired to defend the fund $11,808.
As journalism enters a new information age, reporters who use computers to assist them in reporting must not only negotiate the price of a reporters' notebook with a Wal-Mart clerk, but also learn to negotiate the price of a tape drive with a computer hardware salesperson. The negotiation process, not to mention the price, is quite different.
Adam Berliant, co-owner of Electronic Public Information Consultants, a company geared towards obtaining, analyzing and reporting on electronically stored government records, will be the first to say that government bureaucrats are not the only obstacles to a database reporter.
In October of 1991 E.P.I.C. founders Berliant, Tom Braden and David Hinchman began operations in Seattle. A top priority was to buy a tape drive. The fledgling company wanted a Cipher drive, known for its high quality and reliability. However, a new Cipher drive can cost up to $14,000. E.P.I.C. could not afford a new Cipher, so they decided to buy one used for $6,000 from Contech Computer Corporation of Wilmington, N.C..
Berliant negotiated the financing, which included a $2,000 down payment. He says he was told by Contech's president Robert Conti that E.P.I.C. would be spinning tapes within a week after ordering the drive. But after a month of waiting they were still without a drive. Berliant was tired of waiting and decided to cancel the order.
A few weeks later he received just over $600, less than a third of his down payment. He was told by Conti that all of Contech's written purchase agreements include a restocking charge if an order is canceled. The charge, which covers the reconditioning of a drive when the customer sends it back to the warehouse, amounts to 20% of the purchase price.
Berliant contends that E.P.I.C. should not have to pay a restocking charge because they never received the drive and had only paid 30% of the $6,000 purchase price. He has contacted the FBI and the Better Business Bureau but has not received his money back.