From a story on NPR's "Morning Edition" today:

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, pictured here at Tea Party rally on Oct. 22, was instrumental in drafting the state's immigration law. He also sits on a American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) task force, a group that helped shape the law.

The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

New video from Phoenix's Dennis Gilman on our incoherent Gov. Jan Brewer.

The Phoenix New Times named Gilman best videographer in 2009, and for good reason. Check out his other videos on his YouTube channel Humanleague002.

A presentation of the shape-shifting, weight-shifting future of the cell phone.

Every day has a YouTube video that goes along with it, and today (so far), it's a video created by a Fox affiliate in Dallas for their local Emmy awards.

I guess this is supposed to be funny, with old media types really sticking it to social media obsessed news producers, but it's just not connecting for me. (Full disclosure: I am employed as a web producer, so maybe this hits a little too close to home.) While the rush provide content on nearly every possible platform can be a little tedious—just watch an hour of CNN to get an idea of how this can go wrong—the real problem is that terrible reporting is still terrible when its on a new hip platform of the moment like Twitter.

Still, what ends up being disappointing about this video for me is that a breaking story—like a shooter on the loose—is exactly where multiple platforms with more immediacy are an improvement over a TV station breaking into an episode of Judge Judy. In 2001, the lag between the first plane hitting the World Trade Center and when I actually heard about it was shockingly long by 2010 standards. I was running late for work, didn't turn on the TV at home, had a CD on in the car, and sat down to work on an Excel spreadsheet for a while before someone told me the office was shutting down for the day. These days, even outside of a world-dislodging story like Sept. 11, if there was a gunman downtown, something would buzz on my iPhone within moments of the story breaking, and I'd be able to react accordingly. That's why at the Weekly, we are trying to think of better ways to report the news as it's useful to you, the consumer, on whatever platform you're using. Obviously, that's hopefully not via a Facebook photo of one of our reporters and a bodybag, and there is some trial and error in finding the best way to convey information on Twitter, etc., but the desire to tell stories, provide context and also entertain doesn't really change.

If you have ideas on how we can do that better, please let us know—either in the comments, via e-mail, or even through a tweet.

Because we always need more Calexico, and hey, it's from National Geographic:

The Tucson Weekly dominated its category in the Arizona Newspaper Association’s annual Better Newspaper Contest, racking up 20 awards, including top individual and newspaper-wide honors.

Jim Nintzel was named the non-daily Journalist of the Year, for his body of work during the contest period (May 1, 2009 through April 30, 2010). His coverage of the Arizona Legislature, the Congressional District 8 primary and last year’s city elections won over the judges from the Nevada Press Association.

The Weekly earned top honors for general excellence in the category for non-daily newspapers with a circulation greater than 10,000, largely due to the four first-place honors that the publication earned in newspaper-wide categories: Departmental News/Copy Editing Excellence, Editorial Page Excellence, Best Newspaper Website, and Special Section (for the Best of Tucson® 2009).

Eleven Weekly writers, photographers and designers earned individual honors. Most impressive was movie-reviewer James DiGiovanna’s sweep of the Best Column: Feature or Criticism category: He won first place for “Conceptually Funny,” (Aug. 27, 2009), his review of Humpday; second place for “The No. 1 Fan” (Oct. 15, 2009), his review of Big Fan; and third place for “The Institutional Divide” (May 28, 2009), his review of Hunger.

Weekly scribes took the top two places in both the Best Sports Column and Best News Story categories. Tom Danehy took first place for his entry of three sports columns, while Irene Messina won second place. Tim Vanderpool nabbed top News Story honors for “Murder in the Desert” (Jan. 14, 2010), his story about the May 2009 murders of

A video of Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns made the Facebook rounds today. The openly gay city councilman spoke out against bullying, and shared his own experiences and struggles when he was in school.

We recommend you get the tissue out before you watch:

Having announced his plans to leave Arizona Illustrated, my friend Bill Buckmaster now fills us in his next step: A radio show on KJLL, 1330 AM.

The press release:

After 23 years as host of Arizona Illustrated, the nightly newsmagazine on KUAT-TV PBS 6, Bill Buckmaster is launching a new media venture. Starting January 3, 2011, Buckmaster brings his wealth of media experience and news insights to AM 1330, KJLL Tucson’s Jolt talk radio station with his new interview radio show, Buckmaster. Tucson’s AM 1330 KJLL is an independent talk radio station with a following of 35-to-65 year-old male and female working professionals and parents concerned about their community. The Jolt features 8 of the top 25 talk show hosts in America.

Buckmaster is a professional media communicator with more than four decades of experience in television, radio, wire service and magazines. Buckmaster has received five individual Emmy Award nominations and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Rocky Mountain Chapter inducted him into its prestigious Silver Circle Society in honor of his lifetime achievements in the television industry.

"I am very excited about this new opportunity to present to radio listeners a local, interview-driven talk show,” says Buckmaster. “I feel that this will be an opportunity for the community to hear from a wide range of newsmakers from many fields including politics, education, health, science, environment, international affairs and the media. Buckmaster is a radio program that will focus on the guests and will allow listeners

Arizona Public Media's Bill Buckmaster has announced that he's stepping down at the beginning of next year.

Here's an e-mail he sent this morning:

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

For the past 23 years I have had the honor and privilege to present "Arizona Illustrated" to the residents of Southern Arizona. I am proud of this University of Arizona-based public service which has given a voice and forum to thousands of our citizens.

Now, it is time to open another chapter in my communications career and life of public service that has spanned more than four decades.

My separation from Arizona Public Media is January 1, 2011.

Although I will no longer be working at the University of Arizona, in my heart I will always be a Wildcat!

I wish continued success to all my friends and colleagues at the University of Arizona and Arizona Public Media.

With all good wishes,

Bill Buckmaster

Charles Sennott, editor of Global Post; Gary Knight, founder of VII Photo Agency; and Jacqueline Sharkey, director of the UA School of Journalism, joined Mort Rosenblum, author of Little Bunch of Madmen: Elements of Global Reporting for a free-fire symposium refereed by Nancy Sharkey, a former editor with The New York Times, on Saturday, Sept. 25, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Downtown Tucson.

In this video, Rosenblum gives his final thoughts on the hour-long discussion on the state of journalism today and the need for good reporting.

Produced by John deDios and Christopher Veck