Alexa Garcia-Ditta

I’ve been helping Shirley and Eva (the two best education reporters ever) cover Hector Montenegro’s fate with the school district after the board started raising questions about his affiliations with outside organizations.

Last week I went to a board meeting with them, today I ventured to Hector’s house for a comment, and tonight I made a news video capturing the board’s acceptance of his resignation.

Read the story here.

Click on the video icon to see my news video.

How smart is your yard?

I wrote a story about Texas landscaping last week, and when Joyce and I visited these residents’ homes, it reminded me of when Rebekah and I met Dr. Kuban at Tandyhills Park in FW and he taught about all the native Texas flowers that grew there. Made me happy

story that resulted from going to a construction site in a black cotton dress and pointed patent shoes…haha

Arlington workers find old pipe

This is a test post from my blackberry. Yay I hope it works!!

FDA OK’s tomatoes, still warns against hot peppers

Rome bans snacks at busy tourist sites

Another fellow intern, Bailey Shiffler, wrote a really good story that ran 1A today about a Fort Worth group pushing the city to open an animal adoption center. The dominant art made my heart melt!!

Adoption center story

Al’s right…this goes against what doctors have always told women….

Should Women Stop Self-Breast Exams?

I’m not usually drawn to this type of story, but these two caught my eye for some reason -

From Platonic to Passionate

The Cost of Long-Distance Love

Now that week seven is in full swing, I’ll try my hardest to remember week six.
Wednesday’s meeting with online/multimedia editor Kathy Vetter and the other interns sticks out as the highlight of the week. Around pizza and Pepsi, we talked about the future of journalism, the importance of online content and the role videos are playing in getting information across. We talked for a solid two hours, and then the interns sat in on the online desk’s meeting. We covered blogs, YouTube and cell phone photos. The meeting got me in a multimedia high, so much so that I took my video camera to the dog park (which sounds like a bad idea, but it was successful) and filmed my spasdic dog playing with his long lost brother, Bailey. (Not really, they just looked the EXACT same). I can’t find my DV cable, but as soon as I do I plan on editing a short video about Charlie’s day at the dog park.
I worked consistently on my Kids and Cars safety story, and successfully found an Arlington grandfather who accidentally drove over his young grandson. The story was SCREAMING for a personal account, and that grandfather made it that much better. Listening to him describe last year’s incident was heartbreaking, but I think his story will teach others to take more care when getting into the car. Dominic said something to me the other day that made me feel good and that the story is worthwhile: Ever since I told him about the story six weeks ago, he’s become more mindful and checks behind his car in DC before leaving…if that’s not a reason to write such a story, I don’t know what is.
That’s all I remember, though I know much more happened