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Category: Reporting

News, interviews and journalism topics.

Bender wins National Press Club journalism award for DC 911 reporting

At a virtual ceremony on Jan. 6, 2022, I was delighted to accept the National Press Club’s newsletter journalism award for my reporting with Jonathan Make in Communications Daily on problems with the District of Columbia 911 system.

Our reporting over the last couple of years showed how the D.C. 911 center, the Office of Unified Communications, has struggled to get timely help to people calling with emergencies. The District’s auditor opened an investigation and recently reported that the center failed to meet national standards. The issue also attracted interest from Congress.

Click the links in the paragraph above to read some of my articles, which are free in front of the Comm Daily paywall. And you can check out Jonathan and my full acceptance video below!

Thank you again to the National Press Club for this journalism award. The historic club based in Washington, D.C., is one of the most prestigious conveners of journalists in the country (if not the world), so this is truly an honor! I am also grateful to work for a publication like Comm Daily that encourages investigative and enterprise reporting. I plan to continue to cover 911 issues in Washington, DC, and around the country.

I’ve been lucky to receive many awards over the years for both my reporting and my novels. If you’re curious, you can see a full list right here on my website.

Happy New Year, by the way! Please stay tuned to this blog and subscribe to my newsletter for more news soon on my creative writing. I am hoping to have some pretty cool announcements for you all soon related to my novels.

Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

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Journalists are worried about trust… and 4 other big takeaways from ONA 17

Just got back from the Online News Association 2017 conference in Washington, DC!

From fake news possibly influencing the election to elected leaders referring to real journalism as fake news, trust in news could be at an all-time low in the United States. As someone who cares about reporting truth with fairness and balance, I’m deeply worried about the future of journalism. Based on what I heard at this year’s ONA, I’m not the only one.

Here are some of my takeaways from the conference about how to restore trust in this critical institution:

  1. Journalists should spend quality time in local communities.

    Asma Khalid (WBUR) made a strong argument against “parachuting” into towns and neighborhoods to get the story. It’s important to be present and listen, she said. Not only will sources appreciate it, but it just might change their opinion about reporters.

  2. Newsrooms should be as diverse as America.

    Journalists are supposed to ask questions on behalf of the nation, but according to Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times Magazine, an industry dominated by white men can’t represent all of the people. News companies must consider this as they make hiring decisions, she said.

  3. Be open about where you’re coming from.

    That’s from Rob Wijnberg, editor in chief of De Correspondent. Transparency about the writer behind the story makes for more honest journalism, he said. PBS Public Editor Madhulika Sikka said it’s impossible for reporters to be completely objective because they have to live their lives outside of work: “The point is to be fair.”

  4. Fact check with public data and citations.

    Government data and other trusted information makes it difficult for critics and politicians to dispute a story, said one panel. NPR combated one senator’s Twitter criticisms of a story by coolly tweeting the facts used in its reporting, said Mark Memmott. The senator backed down.

  5. Don’t cover everything.

    There’s something to be said for “strategic silence,” said CUNY’s Molly de Aguiar. Reporters should ask if they’re giving oxygen to a fraudulent claim, inadvertently reinforcing the disinformation, she said.

ONA Reception
Journalists let off some steam at the Newseum.

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Democratization Can Be Dark… And Other Lessons from WordCamp US

Among other things, I am a blogger. This thing that you’re reading right now is in fact a blog post…on a real-life blog! Mind blown, right?

To create this mind-blowing blog, I use WordPress, free and easy-to-use software that powers about a quarter of the websites online. WordPress has a great community that gets together all over the world. Last year, I attended and wrote about their first annual U.S. conference, WordCamp US, in my hometown of Philadelphia. WordCamp US was back in Philly this year, attracting about 1,800 attendees and a gang of dinosaurs to the party.

#WCUS Party Crasher Rex
#WCUS Party Crasher Rex at the wordcamp after party

WordCamp was a blast, obviously. I only got to attend the second day (Day 1 was Friday and would have interfered with my day job), but I listened to a few great talks.

Dennis Hong did a hilarious and yet scary (hil-scare-ious?) talk on the dark side of democratization. The idea is that while the internet has enabled anyone to publish, this may not always be a good thing. The sheer amount of content now produced promotes skimming over thoughtful reading, he said. Also, thoughtful, well-reasoned analysis often loses out to cat pictures and emotion-based pieces that get us all riled up — and may not even be true.

While there are no easy answers, Dennis had some advice to make the internet a more friendly place. When something online angers you, take a deep breath before you share it to your friends. Be stoic like Yoda, he said, and decide if it’s worth sharing — because all you’re doing is helping the video go viral. If someone is being ridiculous online, don’t engage in a shouting match. It’s better to be patient, empathetic and take the conversation offline. If you’re creating content, it’s okay to grab a reader’s attention with a flashy headline, but make sure the content that follows is thoughtful and accurate. You can read more about all this on Dennis’s website.

I also learned a bunch of interesting facts from Maile Ohye from Google. Did you know that 65% of India — or about 864 million people — are not yet online? That’s a lot of people still to join the internet! Not only that, but 60% of the world’s traffic is still 2G. It’s important to keep these facts in mind when building a website, Maile said. Also, here’s something to look forward to next year — she said Google will be demoting mobile website that display pop-up ads blocking your view of the content! Woo! Those sites are way annoying!

Which brings me to another fun fact from Maile — 53% of visitors abandon mobile sites that take more than three seconds to load. Sounds a little impatient, but thinking about my own behavior I probably do this as well. I guess with all that democratization of content, we just don’t have time to wait around.

For more possible dark directions for society, read my novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall.

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Video: What does the 2016 election mean for telecom?

That was some election, huh? Last week at the NARUC annual meeting in La Quinta, California, I attempted to break down what President-elect Donald Trump means for telecom and broadband issues, at least from my perspective as as a reporter for Communications Daily. Spoiler alert: there’s still a lot of uncertainty!

Special thanks to my Comm Daily colleagues, who put together an excellent election issue… from which I stole liberally for the purposes of this panel! Also, thanks to Montana PSC Commissioner Travis Kavulla for skillful moderating and to my fellow panelists Ray Gifford, Bill Ritter and Devin Hartman for the great insights about what Trump means for energy issues.

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A journey through India with Project Fi (and other recent clips)

I’ve been blogging a lot about my creative writing lately, so I thought it was time to highlight a few recent news and feature articles I’ve had published since moving to Philadelphia. I’ve been contributing to Technical.ly Philly, Generocity.org, ASTM Standardization News, among other freelance projects.


Full bars but 2G speeds in an auto-rickshaw in Bangalore.
Full bars but 2G speeds in an auto-rickshaw in Bangalore.

Here’s a neat story I wrote for Technical.ly about staying connected during a recent trip to India. I was looking for a way to use my cellphone while abroad — without breaking the bank — so I signed up for the new Google wireless service, Project Fi.

While I had to contend with India’s 2G networks, the service worked well and saved me a lot of cash. The article also includes my impressions after testing Project Fi back home in Philadelphia.


Credit: ASTM

The science of weights and measurements might sound like a dry topic at first, but I actually learned quite a lot speaking with Canada Chief Metrologist Alan Steele for this article in ASTM Standardization News.

For example, did you know that the kilogram is about to be redefined so that it will no longer be based on a small cylinder of platinum iridium metal? Did you even know it was based on a small cylinder of platinum iridium metal? These and other exciting facts inside!


WordCamp 2015 in Philly
WordCamp 2015 in Philly

Well, this is a WordPress blog, so I should probably include this one. In December, I attended the first national WordCamp US conference at the Philadelphia Convention Center. Not only did I enjoy the sessions, but I got to interview the organizers for this article in Technical.ly.

The conference was such a hit that City Council declared December 5 as WordPress Day!


Well, that was fun, but it’s just a sampling. For more, check out a selection of recent journalism clips on Evernote!

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