Chicago’s Online Portal Sheds Light on Health Code Inspections

By Jill Jacoby

Chicago’s new online portal exposes poor restaurant health code reports, though the Department of Public Health insists most establishments are up to code.

Broken urinals, improperly stored food and dirty utensils stored with cleans ones are just some of the health code violations found in the bars surrounding Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

The City of Chicago’s Food Protection Division of the Department of Public Health regulates food protection throughout the city. The Food Protection Division is responsible for inspecting restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, convenience stores, hospitals, nursing homes, day care facilities, shelters, schools, and temporary food service events.

In 2010, the City of Chicago launched an online database portal containing all the health code inspections for food establishments on record beginning with January 2010 through the most current records. Food establishments can no longer hide poor inspections violations and are required to display their latest health code inspection results prominently for customers to see.

DePaul University Campus Crime Underreported in Annual Report

By Jill Jacoby

DePaul University’s annual crime reports only accounts for crimes reported to the university and misses the majority of crimes committed on and around its major campuses. 

DePaul University has nearly 25,000 students, many of who commute daily across the school’s two main campuses in Lincoln Park and the Loop. During those travels, students expect the combination of city and campus security to keep them safe.

Nohely Garay, a senior public relations and advertising major, spends the majority of her time at the Loop campus. Like most DePaul students, she commutes from the west and north neighborhoods to the Loop for classes.

“I feel pretty safe around the Loop campus, but I’m always aware of my surroundings,” said Garay. “I’ve never felt the need to call the campus police nor do I know anyone that has.”

According to the Cleary Act (1986), any university or college that participates in federal aid program must provide crime statistics to their students. Each year DePaul University publishes its annual report on campus crime. According to Robert Wachowski, DePaul’s Public Safety Director, the Public Safety Department works closely with the Chicago Police Department, however, the crimes in the annual report are only those reported directly to the PSD. The PSD encourages students who have been the victim of campus crime to report their incidents to the CPD, said Wachowski.

The Chicago Fire Academy: Developing Youth Soccer Players in a Professional Setting

(by Jill Jacoby and Jeremy Mikula)

The Chicago Fire’s Youth Academy looks to produce homegrown talent for the MLS club by fostering local talent in a professional development setting.

Like nearly 17.5 million American children, Victor Pineda grew up playing soccer in his hometown of Bolingbrook, Ill. While most kids only dream of playing elite soccer, Pineda took his professional aspirations to the Chicago Fire’syouth academy, a part of Major League Soccer’s recent attempt to recruit and train young American talent.

Victor Pineda, seen here on Sept. 14, 2011 in an international club friendly against Club Deportivo Guadalajara, is the first and only homegrown player to be signed directly from the Chicago Fire Academy. (Photo courtesy Brian Kersey/Chicago Fire)

“It behooves any country with serious aspirations on the world soccer scene to entrust the development of its young players to the pros,” wrote Leander Schaerlaeckens, a soccer analyst for ESPN, in May 2011.

Schaerlaeckens was referring to Major League Soccer’s ongoing struggle to produce homegrown talent like its European and South American counterparts. For nearly a century, clubs in England, Spain and Brazil, among others, have relied on their youth systems to scout and develop young players.

Meanwhile, American soccer has relied heavily on its club, high school and college teams to produce worthy professional and national team talent. This past decade, MLS teams started developing a youth system to improve not only its clubs’ talent pool, but also its international potential. Players like U.S. international Juan Agudelo in New York and Andy Najar in D.C. are some of the bigger names in MLS to come out of the league’s academy system.

The Chicago Fire Academy (CFA) was founded in 2007 in order to provide high-level player development designed to identify and nurture talented and aspiring high-school age soccer players like Pineda into top professional players.

CFA director Larry Sunderland, who was been with the Fire since 2001, is in charge of the youth players’ development and believes the CFA is a key component if the club wants to ensure its future success.

Urban vs. Suburban: The Great Soccer Debate

(by Jill Jacoby and Jeremy Mikula)

As director of the Chicago Fire Academy (CFA), Larry Sunderland’s main job is to scout out and find the best young soccer talent in the Chicagoland area.

One major point of debate when it comes to developing soccer players in the U.S. is where youth players are recruited from. Should teams recruit in suburban areas — where organized club soccer is dominant — or should they scope out the local urban talent?

While working as analyst for ESPN during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Jurgen Klinsmann — the current head coach of the U.S. Men’s National team — discussed recruiting young American talent and described soccer as being similar to basketball.

Journalists Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik Killed in Syria

1. Veteran American war reporter Marie Colvin, who had been working for The Sunday Times of London, and young French photographer Remi Ochlik were among 20 people killed in a government siege in Hom, Syria. Scroll through the story for background information on Colvin and Ochlik, American and international reactions to their deaths, and a global look at the situation in Syria.
2. Who were Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik?
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   Profiles: Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik

   22 February 2012 Last updated at 06:08 ET The two journalists who have been reportedly killed in Homs were both veterans of warzones acro…

   

   Bbc
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   Recalling a Last Dinner With a Journalist Killed in Syria

   BEIRUT, Lebanon – Marie Colvin recognized the significant story unfolding in the rebellious Syrian city of Homs. The problem was how to g…

   

   Nytimes
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   Remi Ochlik: I expected to see horrible things. Yes, I was afraid

   One of the biggest talents of his generation, photojournalist killed after shell hits safe house for journalists in Homs, Syria Remi Ochl…

   

   Guardian

Storify: FC Barcelona beat Valencia C.F. 5-1; Messi Scores 4 Goals

1. Valenica’s Piatti struck early in the game to put the visitors ahead, but FC Barcelona, led by Lionel Messi’s stunning four goal performance, quickly recovered to put Los Che away for good. Messi now has 27 goals in La Liga, just one behind Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo in the fight for the Pichichi trophy.
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   Report: Barcelona v Valencia – Spanish Primera División – ESPN Soccernet

   Four goals from Lionel Messi put third-placed Valencia to the sword on a night when Barcelona could have scored a dozen but for the effor…

   

   ESPN

Chaminade Nets Late Goal to Tie Vianney 3-3 in State Hockey Quarterfinals

The Chaminade Red Devils salvaged a tie with a late third period goal against underdog St. John Vianney in the quarterfinals of the Mid-States Playoffs-Challenge Cup.

MCC (Metro Catholic Conference) rivals met in the MCSHA state quarterfinal hockey tournament Friday night at Webster Groves Ice Rink near St. Louis, Mo. The all-boy Catholic rivals met three times during the regular season with Chaminade beating Vianney twice. A sold out crowd of nearly 300 packed the rink as Chaminade continued it’s march toward its first state hockey championship.

“We play each other three times a year all season long.  So you know, we’re used to each other,” said Vianney head coach Dan Stankey. “But once playoffs start, it’s a whole different series. Whole different season. You know, it’s down to one game.”

Coming off a winning regular season, the Red Devils, the fourth seed in the state tournament, came out strong in the first period and dominated Vianney in their half for the first 10 minutes of the game. Chaminade, led by senior forward Tommy Daniels, pressed Vianney hard up front with several quick shots on goals. Daniels would open up the score sheet for Chaminade just four minutes into the game with a sneaky shot off a close rebound.

Chaminade's Daniels (96) waits for the puck to drop during a face off.

The Red Devils looked like they were going to run away with the game when Andrew Dower made it 2-0 later in the first period. With just over three minutes left in the first period, Chaminade defenseman Grant Frederic committed a costly mistake for the game’s only foul. Vianney quickly capitalized on the power play  with just 1:41 left in the period with a goal from senior forward A.J. Overkamp to make it 2-1. Despite Chaminade’s early domination, the teams ended with 9 shots on goal apiece.

The Golden Griffins came out in the second period strong after their late power play goal. Senior forward Kurt Chestnas added a quick equalizer  for his seventh goal of the season and Overkamp bagged his second goal of the game  to wrap up the second period. Vianney out skated Chaminade at both ends of the ice even though the Red Devils outshot them 11 to nine in the second period.

CSN’s Clark Offers Students Advice in Online Reporting

DePaul University’s Online Sports Reporting class visited CSN Chicago for a tour of the studio and a lesson in online sports reporting.

Outside of CSN Chicago's Office (Photo by Jill Jacoby)

Hosted by CSN’s Senior Editorial Producer, Chris Clark, DePaul’s graduate students received a firsthand lesson on what it takes to make it in online reporting.

Clark is a veteran in the online community. He started his career in 1997 at AOL Green House, which was soon bought out by CBS Sportsline (now CBS Sports). From there, the Chicago native worked on the White Sox’s and the Golf Channel’s websites before moving to CSN three years ago.

Clark remembers what it was like during the development of the Internet. “It was a crash course…if you didn’t know it, you learned it quick,” he laughs.

In this 24/7 news cycle, Clark has come a long way from the days of hard HTML coding. He now oversees a team of 7 web producers, 2 video producers and 5 beat writers. This team of 15 covers all of Chicago’s professional teams, as well as the Big 10 and local high school sports. While they all rely on traditional journalism skills- great writing, multiple sources, and consistency- CSN’s sports team is using the latest technology to get fans the news they need.

Each blogger carries a flip cam on them, shoots video at live events and sends it back to the studio to be uploaded to the website. Writers also interact with fans and monitor breaking news on Twitter. As far as the old-school HTML coding goes, you can forget about that. Clark’s team uses a state-of-the-art CMS server called Platformic to support their website, allowing them to upload content instantly to the Internet.

The New York Times Stunning Interactive 2010 Winter Olympic Coverage

The New York Times coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics Games in Vancouver featured key interactive charts and graphs to help explain complex sports that capture the public’s imagination once every four years.

Screen shot of The New York Times' Interactive Map of Vancouver's Olympic Venues

FIFA Archival Coverage Highlights 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup

FIFA, the governing body of international football, hosts tournaments for various age levels each year. FIFA’s website maintains a comprehensive archival system for their most recent tournaments, including the 2011 U-17 World Cup which was held throughout Mexico.

FIFA.com's Archival Coverage of the 2011 U-17 World Cup in Mexico