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One of my favorite TV reporters, Trish Van Pilsum at Fox 9 in Minneapolis, recently told an interesting story of how kids drive while text messaging. You have to watch this story. Trish explains some background first:

We handed out a FOX 9 Investigators survey. Of the 161 teens responding, 160 had a cell phone, and of those phones, 157 have a text-messaging feature.

Talking while driving seemed prevalent -- 148 teens or 91 percent. Still more surprising was the 140 teens -- 86 percent! -- who said they read incoming text messages while driving. Fifty-eight say they do it every day.

It gets worse. One hundred and twenty-two say they also write text messages while driving -- and 42 of those teens say this happens daily.

Surprising numbers since 76 teens surveyed said they had at least one close call while messaging, including 11 who have had more than one brush with danger.

Can kids safely text and drive? Fox 9 took some teens out to a driving course, trained eight cameras on the course and watched.

The tests show that at times, the kids are taking their eyes off the road for a full three seconds. Close your eyes and count: "one, one thousand." "Two, one thousand." "Three, one thousand." Think about how far you would have traveled on a highway in that time. 

The Society of Environmental Journalists has a nice guide to help you cover the emerging fights over the future of wind power in the U.S. Wind power is growing -- up 27 percent in 2006. But we still get only 1 percent of our electricity from the wind, and we have a national goal of increasing that sixfold in the next decade and a half. The wind turbines are killing birds and, some would say, ruining the landscape.

The Department of Energy recently released a report on "U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost and Performance Trends: 2006."

The SEJ says:

The DoE report will likely prove useful if you're covering wind energy, particularly with its information on capacity, costs, technology and past trends. However, the report has limitations, such as the lack of coverage of small wind-power projects, and the agency doesn't attempt to predict the future of the industry.

Nor does it focus on environmental issues. For an overview of many of those topics, see the April 2007 National Academies report, "Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects." Along with extensive assessment of many angles -- and frequent mention of the lack of good information to adequately assess most issues -- the report provides a calculation that helps put the issue in perspective. If the country is to reach the ... DoE prediction of 7 percent of U.S. electricity via wind power in 15 years, about 36,000 wind turbines would need to be built. That's a sizable number of towers that would balloon even higher if the country ever reaches an announced goal of 20 percent. The report also concludes that the primary benefits of wind power, such as reduced pollutant emissions, are regional and national, but the adverse impacts, such as dead birds and aesthetic degradation, are local.

To identify your current local wind-power projects and an estimate of wind generation potential, visit the American Wind Energy Association.

Click here for Excel downloads of state rankings and the largest wind farms.

USA Today found that some cities save more cardiac patients' lives than others -- in some cases, four times more.

How? They require automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to be available when large groups gather.

The paper found:

Easy-to-use AEDs are increasingly common in places where large numbers of people gather, such as airports. They are also standard equipment at many gyms.

Some cities, such as Dallas, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Richmond, Va., require the extra layer of protection at large gatherings. But many do not require it.

"The city of Tucson expects organizers of large gatherings to arrange for necessary EMS coverage, not for the city to subsidize it," says Terry Valenzuela, medical director of the Tucson Fire Department.

The story made me think. Why wouldn't cities just pass a requirement that an event or venue have a certain number of AEDs on hand before granting a permit? It would not be unlike requiring a certain amount of security or parking places. This seems like a no brainer. Get local. This summer, when your city or town holds its next big gathering, ask about the cardiac response plan. If it has one or if it has none, it is a story worth exploring.

About a third of 20-year-old workers today will become disabled before they reach retirement, according to a recent story in The New York Times. And yet, about four in 10 Americans have no disability insurance.

The Times produced an interesting piece on how so many people overlook the importance of buying disability insurance. The story explains:

Disability insurance provides partial income replacement so that if someone becomes disabled, they need not dive into savings, sell a home or radically change how they live. Working people are more likely to become disabled than they are to die prematurely, even though twice as many people have life insurance as have disability coverage, according to industry statistics.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, illness is a major factor in home foreclosures.

About one-third of 20-year-old workers today will become disabled before they hit retirement age at 67, according to the Social Security Administration. And the primary cause of disability is chronic disease -- cardiovascular, musculoskeletal problems and cancer are leading diagnoses -- rather than work-related mishaps or nonworkplace accidents, according to a 2007 study for the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education, a nonprofit organization that informs the public about insurance needs.

The story says that if you can afford only one type of disability insurance, buy long-term coverage. Being without an income for several months would be a burden, but being without an income ever again could be devastating.

The Insurance Information Institute has a useful Q&A.

I want to be sure that you have had a chance to see two wonderful articles from my old friend Regina McCombs. Regina is a former TV photojournalist turned Web maven. She recently asked four top TV video editors to critique some photo slideshows. The result was instructive and eye-opening.

Regina also recently wrote a piece for Poynter Online on how and when to use the so-called "Ken Burns Effect" of zooming in on still pictures. These are a couple of pieces that every multimedia newsroom could use as centerpieces for a brown-bag group discussion.

Want to learn more about multimedia storytelling? Click here for a free course from Poynter's NewsU.

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.