"Autopsy reports are boring"

“Autopsy reports are boring.” Dr. Vernard Adams, Hillsborough County Medical Examiner, said it, not me. He said that unless it involves a celebrity death most days the press leaves him alone, and he likes it that way. And even in these cases, many times reporters just want an official expert opinion on the cause of death. However, Dr. Adams explained, “There’s a perception that when you open up a dead body, flags unfurl, trumpets blare and the answer is revealed, but most of the time that isn’t true.”

In addition to releasing records, Dr. Adams will also do press conferences or put out a press release in order to expediently inform the press about a high profile case. This saves him and the reporters precious time.

This is not to say that as a public servant Dr. Adams dislikes the press or does not want to hand over records to them. Quite the opposite, in fact, he said he loves the Sunshine laws in Florida as opposed to in New England where he used to live. Here he can just look up whatever the press wants, give it to them, and they will go away.

Now, as a gatekeeper of the dead…and their records, Dr. Adams has to make sure all the public records he releases are supposed to be public. For this reason, there are two different types of death certificates at the Medical Examiner’s office. One is open to all the public, but comes without the cause of death (unless it’s been on file for more than 50 years, then it is all public). The other, made for the next of kin, includes medical information including cause of death. Ironically enough, however, if you want to know the cause of death you can just call up the Medical Examiner yourself and get his analysis. I’m not sure how much Dr. Adams likes this policy since that means he would actually have to speak to a living reporter.

There are other records available besides death certificates and autopsy records. The office also houses toxicology reports, hospital records, dental records, police reports, and government phone conversations. Essentially, anything pertaining to a particular death case will be on file.

If a reporter were to do a case involving a dead body, Dr. Adam’s office is the place to go. They have highly organized files that have everything pertaining to a particular case in one file. All the cases are color coded by type of case, for example, traffic accidents are in black and unknown causes are orange. This office would be the place to find out how many homicides or suicides have occurred in the last 5 years in a particular area. You could find out how many traffic accidents happen at a certain intersection. All these concepts are at your fingertips with the help of the Medical Examiner’s excellent staff.

I appreciate Dr. Adams dry sense of humor when it comes to the dead and the living. Even though he may not be thrilled to see you on his office steps, he will gladly deliver whatever public record you request that falls under the Florida Sunshine Laws.

Just hurry up and leave so he can get back to his “clients”.

The Synthesis of Sources

My reporting in the last two years at the USF School of Mass Communications has centered around interviews and experts. In my last semester, I finally learned how to go to the record as a source for information. Gil taught us the power of a 119 request and “shoe leather” reporting. I’ve learned that you can make a story almost entirely from records based reporting.

In our last video, Steve Andrews, Senior Investigative Reporter and Executive producer of Investigations at WFLA Channel 8, gave us the tools to fuse records and interviews based reporting into a solid story. Stories with records and no quotes can be dry and lack emotion. Stories with all quotes and no records are less powerful and less informative. Steve showed us how getting your facts straight through records and databases makes you prepared for an effective interview that will make your story relatable to the readership.


Through Steve’s examples, we saw the life cycle of a story. It starts with a tip. This leads to public documents research, and it results in interviews to get all the perspectives on the story. Steve used his manners and tact to score a lead on the “Wii Bowling” story from a tipster who felt that FoxNews 13 treated him or her disrespectfully. Steve majored on the fact that respect will open doors for you and that being a tough reporter is not synonymous with being a jerk. The informant gave him a video showing Polk County Sheriff’s deputies playing Wii Bowling while performing a drug bust on Michael Difalco’s home. This huge story would never have broken without this critical tip.

After he got the video, Steve researched the search warrant and any other records he could get pertaining to the case. Finally, after gathering all these facts he called up the Polk County Sheriff for an interview. He was willing to talk to Steve because he was polite and informed.
After your extensive records research, the next most important part of a journalist’s job is to be a good interviewer. Steve suggested you write everything down and come in with your three most important questions that you must get in to the interview. He emphasized the importance of letting them “tell you what they want to tell you” while keeping command of the conversation and getting the answers you came to get. I appreciated this advice because I know as an inexperienced student reporter I have made plenty of mistakes because of being underprepared and timid in an interview.

The blend of records based reporting and good interviewing skills makes Steve great at what he does. His investigative journalism has uncovered several stories about our political leaders. He encouraged us to “keep powerful people accountable”. This is the basis for investigative reporting. All the stories he shared with us kept someone in power in check. He asked why Blue Cross Blue Shield denied a woman’s coverage for a life saving surgery. He asked Judge Stringer why a public servant who is supposed to uphold the law ignored it to commit bank fraud for a friend. He asked Lex Salisbury why he was using his position at the Lowry Park Zoo to pump assets into his own private animal park that he was building in a neighborhood without asking the neighbors.

By asking the tough questions, Steve Andrews has enterprised hundreds of investigative stories in his career. His niche in journalism makes sure the powerful stay in line using a synthesis of well-researched records and tough but fair interviews.

Preston Trigg, Director of Administration at the Hillsborough County Tax Collector’s office, is a government official on the journalist’s side. As a journalist until 1999, Trigg understands the struggles for a story and the imperative need for accessibility to public records. Because of his journalism background Trigg is very knowledgeable about how the Sunshine laws work, how to use them, and what to do if you are denied a record.

Trigg outlined the types of documents you can get at the Tax Collector’s office. Most of these records are available at hillstax.org. A reporter can research the worth of someone’s home, find out if a politician pays their taxes, or uncover someone’s driving record.

Thankfully, because of people like Trigg working in the Tax Collector’s Office these requests are processed more quickly and efficiently. In fact, the entire office is running more efficiently due to cross-training and updated technology. Something as simple as giving people a chair while they wait has improved customer morale immensely.

I learned a lot from Trigg about what to look for if you are going to pull records. He gave us a comprehensive list of the main things to ask when covering a story. Many of these requests involved the financial information of the top 10 highest paid employees in an agency. He reiterated our class motto “Follow the Money!”. One thing I did not consider before his lecture was looking at employee’s “educational expenses” because many times tax payer paid trips are considered “educational”.

Trigg inspired us to not take “no” for answer when it comes to making a “119 request”. He encouraged us to know the Sunshine Law and make the organizations cooperate. He emphasized that EVERYTHING in Florida that pertains to government agencies is a public record unless otherwise stated in one of the exemptions.

One of the exemptions includes private emails. Generally, any email sent by a government official on a government computer is considered public record. However, if the email’s content and receiver pertain to a private matter it is not public. After requesting the emails of Assistant City Manager Garry Brumback and Planning and Development Administrator John Asmar, the St. Pete Times actually sued the City of Clearwater for withholding certain “private” emails.
The best advice Trigg gave us as a retired journalist turned government official pertained to how to request a record. Even though the Sunshine law explicitly states you are not required to put your request in writing…Trigg says do it! For cases just like the St. Pete Times lawsuit, you want proof that you made the request, when you made the request, and how you made the request.

Trigg was able to thoroughly explain in detail what you would need to know as a reporter on your next visit to the Tax Collector’s office or their website. His knowledge of both worlds seem to be indispensable information on any public records based story.

Follow the Money

There is a constant debate surrounding the freedom to support political campaigns. Some wealthy contributors might argue that their right to free speech should allow them to support their candidate of choice with however much money they would like give. They feel their contribution is a way of letting their money speak for them.

As a predominantly libertarian thinker, I would normally say that the government should not control the way anyone wants to spend their money. But in this case, I think these wealthy contributors are wrong.

The way to support a candidate is with your vote. Everyone gets one vote. Everyone already has a voice. So why should someone who makes more money have more of a voice than the next guy? Allowing these powerful people to control elections by pumping their candidate of choice with the cash needed for an expensive campaign is unethical.

I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t support a candidate financially, but if everyone gives the designated amount, this will only force candidates to do what they should be doing: using their platform and their personality to gather more people behind their cause instead of schmoozing a select few rich guys for their hefty contributions.

Because of my take on this debate, the information that William “Windy” March gave us about following the money was exciting. If my fellow journalists and I could follow the money trail to expose the rampant existence of money laundering, more of these shady deals could be stopped.

I didn’t realize the number of sites available to help you find the connections between politicians and their contributors. March has 200 sites bookmarked of this nature on his computer and he said he has to find at least two more each week. Sites like opensecrets.org, show who gives where and who they are. March used the site to find out how many of Jiminez’s employees supported Clinton’s campaign in 1996. Later, he researched some of the names at the Supervisor of Elections Office to find out if and with which party each employee was registered to vote.

The petty rules at the Supervisor of Elections office about where you have to stand to take notes on voter registration records only strengthened my observation that government organizations are reluctantly “in the sunshine”. However, March’s determination to find this story and prove his point to his readers kept him from being put off by a little white line in his way.
The Mark Jiminez case was inspiring. Even though March did not come out and say that Jiminez laundered money given to the Clinton campaign he gave his readers all the facts they needed to draw this conclusion. Ultimately, his story had enough power to effect change and led to an indictment of Jiminez.

This session with March gave me some of the most practical tools we’ve learned about so far. About the Jiminez story, March said, "I didn't interview anybody until this story was essentially already written." This quote drove the point home that records-based reporting can help you dig to find the real answers about a story. With the know how to find these sites and follow the money I feel as if I could really keep my representatives and their supporters accountable to the current campaign contribution laws. March warned us that you won’t always find what you’re looking for, but I think the lesson here was to take the time to look.

The Clerk of Courts Holds the Keys to Every Record of Your Life

Meet Pat Frank. An innocent looking older lady who's been married for over fifty years, has three daughters and two grandchildren. What you might not suspect from this seemingly unassuming, nice woman is that she controls the records of your entire life from birth to death.

She is the Clerk of the Circuit Courts/Comptroller for Hillsborough County. This means this one elected official takes care of all the public records in the county and manages the $1.8 billion county budget. To me, this seems like a lot of power for one person. Somehow though, Pat Frank handles all of this pressure with grace.

The Clerk’s office files 42 different types of documents. These include birth and death records, marriage licenses, divorce records, mortgages, foreclosures, traffic citations, adoption papers, and evidence in court cases, to name a few. As Gil put it, the Clerk of the Circuit Courts is the “central nervous system” of the county. It reflects our society in the mirror of its records.

Frank’s job to keep all these departments running efficiently proves to be difficult. However, her colleagues seem to think she has done a marvelous job at streamlining their office. For example, the Clerk’s office can now turn around a jail inmate’s casework in a week instead of a month. This means less time in jail and less money spent by the county. In some ways, having the Clerk of Courts run your budget is helpful because they find ways to cut costs by making their own department more efficient.

During her time in office, Frank also introduced the Pro Se office to help expedite trials that don’t require a lawyer. People can bring their cases to a kiosk in the Clerk’s office and get advice on how to process their case. This saves the county money on public defenders and court fees for those who don’t have the means to hire a lawyer.

My favorite change to the way the Hillsborough County Clerk of Circuit Courts works is the transfer of many of the public records to the web. You can just check out hillsclerk.com and look up many of the records that used to be only available downtown. This also saves the office employees precious time they would be spending locating a record for you.

I will not even attempt to describe and explain all the duties of the Clerk and her loyal group of employees. So I’ll just give you the numbers to quantify the amount of work that flows through this office of now only about 800 staffers (after a large cut that eliminated 117 positions). In 2008 this organization processed:

· 1.3 million document pages
· 439,00 transactions
· 1.3 million names
· 10,000 marriage licenses
· 2,800 marriages (in their “Chapel of Love”)
· $ 19.4 million in fees

These are staggering figures for just one place. The numbers only back up the fact that this office is the “central nervous system” of a society. As a journalist, I see it as a wealth of knowledge for any information you might need on an individual from birth to death.

So for all the work you do to make it possible. Thanks Pat Frank.