One of the most wrenching decisions a journalist must make is whether to write a story someone else has already written.
On September 10 Carr dedicated his weekly New York Times column to the crisis at Homicide Watch, the District of Columbia-based website that chronicles each of the district’s homicides. It was an excellent report that made me wince as I read it—but only because I’d been intending to write about Homicide Watch myself. A few days earlier a friend, Nina Sandlin, had alerted me that Homicide Watch was on the brink and trying to raise a fast $40,000 on Kickstarter. If the money didn’t come in, the website—which had suspended operations in mid-August—would go under.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“Their work is in tradition of Miami Herald homicide reporter Edna Buchanan (whom most of us learned about from Calvin Trillin),” Sandlin wrote me. “They are her heirs in nimble smartness and in the belief that every life is a story. But now it is powered by data and connectivity. Where a traditional reporter might call a ‘source,’ they will search Twitter for ‘OMG Joe’ or ‘RIP’ and often beat them to the story.”
The Amicos set out in 2010 not merely to cover every homicide but to keep covering it until the case had worked its way through the courts. Laura did the reporting. Chris created the database. And when Laura decided to accept a fellowship to Harvard because she needed time and space to decompress and think about her career, Homicide Watch had no way to continue. The Amicos suspended operations and turned to Kickstarter in the hope of raising enough money to hire interns and train them to take over.
“I know it’s not a cliff-hanger now,” she commiserated, “but I actually think it is potentially a better story. The crisis was kind of a distraction from the real meat—can the model work, what will it take, how will it change journalism and civic life (or, possibly, fall short), can we do it here in Chicago (they do have their software available for licensing) and what would that look like?”
“That’s the catch-22 of grant funding,” said Laura. “You have to have resources to get grants. And if you need grants to get resources, you’re stuck.”
The number of murders in Chicago this year is already approaching 400. Would it take a newsroom to cover so many homicides? No, said Chris. Laura thinks three people could do it.
