I contribute my writing and freely given little favors to a number of bloggers and media producers. Here is one story of scooping and being scooped. It came from something CelebStoner was working on yesterday.

Jeffrey or How to Scoop and Get Scooped By The Washington Times

Sometimes following a story as an independent blogger puts you in touch with complete strangers who are in the news.

Wednesday Vice President Joe Biden stood beside Seattle Police Chief R. Gil Kerlikowske and nominated the lifetime cop to be the head of the ONDCP.

This post was named ‘Drug Czar’ by Biden, who announced at the same press conference that the Director of the ONDCP would no longer be a cabinet level position.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Kerlikowske must have been thinking of his son Jeffrey. He hadn’t seen him in some time, but the 39 year-old had seen many other members of law enforcement through a series of arrests.

On Wednesday, Jeff was being held in a Florida county jail for a probation violation. This much was already known.

The site webofdeception published the complete data on Jeffrey that included all of the public information related to his criminal violations or linage to Richard Gil Kerlikowse. There are numerous arrest reports, marriage certificates, and divorce filings. Inquiring minds like some still-gainfully employed newspaper reporters as well as the Editors at CelebStoner scrolled through the data.

It turns out there were some misdemeanor marijuana violations for Jeff: possession and distribution of less than 20 grams. So, in part because of prohibitionists and cannabis, plus the Traffic-like situation of life imitating art, Jeffrey is a news item.

Yet for all the info available, there was no picture, and CelebStoner is all about the mugshots.

So is smokinggun and tmz….and like anyone who wants some good clickage.

But even a few hours after the announcement, CelebStoner could still not find any photo of Jeff, and it looked like no one else was finding one either. 

So, CelebStoner was onto a good little scoop.

webofdeception’s data was certainly no bullshit. With Jeff’s latest arrest report, full name and birth date we went looking for the photograph that Florida taxpayers recently made public domain. Armed with some not-so-unique skills available to almost any journalist …and our large brass balls, we proceeded to follow the story of Jeffrey.

It indeed took a few little tricks, but the mugshot was acquired. It remains an exclusive at CelebStoner.com and, it is for sure, a cool, icy scoop for the site. Take a look:

 c/o Broward County Sheriff

Here he was. When I pondered Jeffrey’s mugshot for the first time, I thought he looked tough, hardened. But many folks tend to look pretty pissed off in their mugshots.  In the last 24 hours, I personally gained some serious and sincere empathy for Jeff.

Quite frankly: Sometimes following a story makes you feel bad.

Perhaps on Wednesday it wasn’t just CelebStoner, his adoptive father, a gaggle of reporters, or the Vice President looking at Jeffrey’s life…perhaps Jeff stood for a moment in the Broward County Jail, looked in the mirror and thought about his own situation.

Jeffrey Kerlikowske, know that many in America are thinking of you this week.  Among them are the reporters at the Washington Times, who totally, but somewhat respectfully, scooped CelebStoner with a full-length piece.  A link, of course:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/12/drug-czar-picks-stepson-charged-with-marijuana/

The resources available to the WTimes include stringers in Florida who, we assume, walked into courthouses and got Jeff’s complete case record. They did that while we were getting some dinner.

Well Jeffrey, many are waiting to hear your story. Feel free to contact CelebStoner for a fair shake.

Now, this for the fellow scoopers:

C’mon Washington Times! Your cross-country researchers must have seen the mugshot on CelebStoner! There was a link in your piece to webofdeception for the public domain info they put up. Y’all could have, maybe,  used the mugsot with a linkback to CelebStoner as a little nod to our own, totally independent, blogarific ability to tease it out into cyberspace!

How did we do it you ask? Magicians never reveal their tricks, but admittedly you can pick up some of them at a dimestore.

So, a tip of my rabbit filled top-hat to reporter Christina Bellatoni and the contributing researchers of the Washington Times.

Bloggers are keeping you on your mainstream toes as newspapers struggle to compete against the blogosphere. This competition will get even more intense as each paper that folds unleashes a seasoned team of writers onto the blogs. We hope that the writers still trying to hump their print-editions don’t play vulture to bloggers who use this new medium to showcase some old fashioned journalism every once in awhile: Like getting the mugshot.

Touché Washington Times, Touché. But the CelebStoner scoop, with a marijuana-leaf handle, is at the ready.

And Jeffrey: I really do sincerely hope all of this attention grants you something positive. Perhaps you and Dad can write a book together and scoop us all.