Take data to the ground level

Jonathan Karl of ABC News and Thomas Frank of USA Today tracked how the federal government has spent money on small airports that see few passengers.

Jonathan’s segment looks at stimulus funding used for commercial airports that provide fewer than five flights a day. His story singles out the Ouzinkie Airport in Alaska, which he says “hit the stimulus jackpot with $15 million. That’s $100,000 for each of the town’s 150 residents -- even though there’s another airport just 30 minutes away.”

Thomas’ article focuses on the Airport Improvement Program, which offers federal funding to general aviation airports that serve only private planes. He notes in his story that the money used on the commercial airports comes from taxes on all airplane-ticket sales.

The taxes can add up to 15% to the cost of a flight — or about $29 to a $200 round-trip ticket.
Federal lawmakers have used some of the money to build and maintain the world's most expansive and expensive network of airports — 2,834 of them nationwide — with no scheduled passenger flights. Known as general-aviation airports, they operate separately from the 139 well-known commercial airports that handle almost all passenger flights.
In the first full accounting of the 28-year-old Airport Improvement Program, USA TODAY found that Congress has directed $15 billion to general-aviation airports, which typically are tucked on country roads and industrial byways.

Today’s Tip: Take data to the ground level.

By gathering details and seeing the airports in action, the reporters were able to put together stories showing how the money was misspent.

The USAToday story includes an interactive map that allows viewers to click on symbols for each individual U.S. airport and see how much air traffic and federal money it has received.

If you’d like to look at stimulus funding in your area, check out this piece from W.J. Hennigan to help you track stimulus spending. You can also review the archived live blog of the Reynolds Center’s Sept. 21 workshop in Dallas with New York Times reporter Ron Nixon on the topic. Nixon will also be teaching how to track stimulus funds at a free Reynolds Center workshop in New Orleans on Nov. 9. For more information or to register, please click here. To participate in the live blog of that workshop, go to www.BusinessJournalism.org on Nov. 9.

Finding stories in the fine print

Using documents available from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Del Jones of USA Today crafted a story about how public companies have increased spending on security for CEOs while cutting other costs.

Starbucks, which has laid off workers, closed stores and switched from whole to 2% milk to save pennies a gallon, bumped its spending to $511,079 last year on the personal and home security of CEO Howard Schultz. FedEx, which quit matching employee 401(k) contributions, spent $595,875 on the security of CEO Fred Smith. Walt Disney spent $645,368 for CEO Robert Iger; Occidental Petroleum spent $575,407 for Ray Irani; and McKesson spent $401,706 for John Hammergren.

Top execs usually get more death threats when layoffs and closures occur, the story says.

Today’s Tip: Keep your eyes out for proxy statements, also known as DEF 14A. These statements provide details about CEO compensation and benefits. You can see the latest filings at http://secwatch.com or http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml.

For instance, Sara Lee Corp. filed its proxy on Wednesday. Along with disclosing CEO Brenda Barnes’ total compensation for fiscal 2009 of $15.2 million, it also notes that the company has discontinued the use of its corporate jet.

A great watchdog of the footnotes in SEC documents is Michelle Leder, who shares what she finds on her blog at www.footnoted.org. Until earlier this year, she also did a blog for BusinessJournalism.org called Under the Magnifying Glass. She is the author of the 2003 book, Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company's True Value.