Sara Michael: MEDIA MAY 8 2009 Stephen Janis The Voice of
Baltimore
After his newspaper shut down, investigative reporter
Stephen Janis started his own news website.
Conversations with Stephen Janis are often interrupted by
his cellphone. The former investigative reporter at the Baltimore Examiner
newspaper never stops taking calls and meeting sources, and not even the
newspaper's folding in February slowed him down. Having covered stories in
Baltimore City like the
murders of prostitutes and the
arrest of a seven-year-old for sitting on a dirt bike, Janis can't stop
now.
Perhaps he's become completely mired in the ills of the city;
perhaps he is fully unemployable in any other field. But once laid off from the
newspaper, he took his leads, his sources, and his obsession with unearthing
the real story, and launched his own online news organization, Investigative Voice. After just
two months, the website has broken stories that were picked up by the local
television media.
Janis, a former contributing writer for the city's
alternative weekly and a former record producer, was part of the original crew
that launched the Baltimore Examiner, a free tabloid daily, in April 2006. The
Examiner's short stories (most of them around 500 words) and sensational
headlines (think "Bludgeoned!" and "Suburban Shocker")
competed with the legacy Baltimore Sun newspaper, itself now a
struggling rag. Janis covered stories others wouldn't touch, and made
officials in the city government pay attention, picking up fans and enemies
along the way. His stories on a
city parking agent writing fake tickets led to an inspector general
investigation, and his
series on the mysterious death of activist and prominent businessman Robert Lee
Clay prompted the FBI to reopen the case.
Even before the
Baltimore Examiner folded on Feb. 15, Janis was planning Investigative
Voice, and the site went live nine days after the last paper was printed. While
the other laid-off reporters, including me, dusted off our résumés, my former
colleague Janis was still meeting with sources. In the following interview,
which has been edited for clarity, Janis talks about how he wrestles with
having to play the competing roles of a businessman concerned with driving hits
to the site and an investigative reporter obsessed with keeping tabs on crime
and City Hall… http://www.gelfmagazine.com/archives/the_voice_of_baltimore.php
20090508 MEDIA Stephen Janis The Voice of Baltimore
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