His presentation primarily focused on political campaign contributions, and this is why he resorted to speaking of his piece on Mark Jimenez. This piece allowed him to demonstrate various resources to the class, as well as give us a better understanding as to how they work. Although March introduced us to moneyline, which provides information on national level campaign contribution, I found opensecrets.org to be much more useful. The website's mission statement reads, "Whether you’re a voter, journalist, activist, student or interested citizen, use our free site to shine light on your government. Count cash and make change". I found this site particularly interesting for the search engine that March had us use to look up those who have contributed in our area. While in class I entered in my political figure’s name and found an extensive list on contributions, and was also surprised at how much you could really learn from just this one website.
Another aspect of March’s presentation that I was interested in was the impact of his piece on Jimenez. March started the piece on a small tip from his editor who just suggested he look into Mark Jimenez after he read a piece the New York Times ran. Once March began to look into it, he found that one door after another was opened and there was much more to the New York Times story. Once his piece was published it led to criminal actions brought against Jimenez, and March’s piece was also picked up by other newspapers who followed it up to other big names and companies. The importance of public records in his line of work reminded me of Doig’s presentation in which he explained how vital it is to investigative reporting as well.
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