Jan 8
Police enlist young offenders as confidential informants. But the work is high risk, largely unregulated, and sometimes fatal. In the Sept. 3rd, 2012 issue of The New Yorker, I tell the stories of four young people who were killed working as informants — Rachel Hoffman, Shelly Hilliard, LeBron Gaither, and Jeremy McLean — and follow their families’ pursuit of accountability. Read the article here.
Photo by Peter Van Agtmael.
Today, The Nation is running a story they commissioned from me a while back on “Nancy Grace, Policymaker.” I’m uploading the 1914 New York Times piece I reference briefly in the story — some crazy stuff. Check it out below if you’re interested.
Today I have a blog post up on CNN.com about the Amanda Knox murder trial, and where it fits within a long-standing American news tradition of hawking tales of pretty white female perpetrators and victims.
In the last graph, I pose a question that remains up for grabs: does Knox’s acquittal in Italian appeals court portend that accountability in well-publicized trials is now, more than ever, susceptible to global intervention – not just by lawyers and mainstream journalists, but also by social media users, citizen journalists and, as the New York Times intriguingly reports today, public relations firms? Read more
Theme: Linen by The Theme Foundry
