JunketSleuth.com to launch soon

Abby Brownback of American Journalism Review writes about JunketSleuth.com, the upcoming site being launched by the same people who brought us ShareSleuth.com and BailoutSleuth.com. It will track corporations paying for politicians’ junkets.

Brownback writes, “JunketSleuth, scheduled to go live in late June or early July, fits the bill, and the staff has already obtained and started to analyze travel records. But Carey won’t say much until the site — in a somewhat skeletal form — is up.

“BailoutSleuth counts on Pulitzer winner Russell Carollo, who won the prize for national reporting at the Dayton Daily News in 1998, to handle Freedom of Information Act requests for government documents and databases. Kevin O’Connor, who did freelance work for the site prior to joining the staff earlier this year, covers the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ryan Holeywell, the sites’ Washington, D.C., correspondent, writes daily and weekly stories on political maneuvering and does enterprise work, such as the database he recently built of enforcement action taken against banks that received TARP funds and then violated rules or standards.

“‘There’s so much potential for things that can go wrong, and I think there needs to be as many eyes keeping watch on it as possible,’ Holeywell says. ‘The more perspectives, the more eyes you can bring to this issue the better.’

“But those eyes need to be able to explain the sometimes tricky angles of financial journalism to a general audience, says Marty Steffens, the chair in business and financial journalism at the University of Missouri.

“‘You have to understand the numbers, how banks work, the difficult aspects of banking,’ she said of financial reporters. ‘You have to not only understand the complexities..but then you have to be able to explain it in a way a wider group understands.'”

Read more here.