The Editor's Log
For want of a Google
Sometimes investigative reporting break-throughs come from slogging through documents, from sources passing along information and from naked eye observation. Sometimes it comes from being lucky.
And we all know that luck is the residue of design.
Taft Wireback's story last week is just such an example. Taft was researching a story about the hydroelectric plants on the Deep River when he came across a ruling Judge Calvin Murphy made in a lawsuit filed by the power plants against the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority. He began taking notes and, as part of that, he Googled the judge by name to make sure he was from Charlotte.
There, he found a link that stated that Sen. Kay Hagan had recommended Murphy to a seat on the federal bench just nine days before the ruling. Normally, that wouldn't be particularly pertinent -- interesting but not pertinent -- except for Hagan's husband, Chip. Chip is listed as a managing member of one of the hydroelectric plants that brought the suit, a suit in which Murphy ruled in the plants' favor.
His story suddenly got more interesting.
Would he have discovered it another way? Probably eventually. Perhaps after Murphy had been appointed.
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