Part 1 of the Commercial Appeal’s True Crime series has been published at last. A lot of work went into the project and the result is many different components. You can head directly to the project page, or if there’s too much to wrap your head around you can use this handy road map instead. [...]

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The Commercial Appeal launches the first of its five-piece series on crime in Memphis on Sunday. There’ll be about one new installment every few weeks through the end of the year. Editor Chris Peck wrote a promo for the website. He explains a little bit about what we did, how we did it and, importantly, [...]

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The Commercial Appeal just won an APME First Amendment Citation for its searchable database of handgun carry permit holders who live in Tennessee and stories about the felons with guns and other folks with violent histories who nonetheless obtained permits. A colleague (who left the newspaper a few months ago) posted the original data on [...]

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Just a quickie: Some tornadoes touched down in and around greater Memphis today, knocking electric service out for a lot of folks. Damage reports are still coming in. I’m relatively new to the area, so this is probably old news for some folks, but it warrants a mention. Props to Memphis Light, Gas and Water [...]

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A little bit fun, a little bit data, 100 % great web app. Check out this neat presentation of public corruption cases state-by-state. It’s worth noting that Tennessee ranks ninth, with 35 convictions of public officials from 1996 through 2007, or 2.9 for every 500,000 people. Arkansas ranks 19th, with 10 convictions; Mississippi has had [...]

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