LOUIE TODAY: Recycling, American journalism and boy's killing in Texas

Join Louie, Vindy.com's news radio partner, as he talks with Jennifer Jones of Youngstown Litter Control and Recycling about recycling your Christmas trees.

Then two noted authors will join the conversation:

investigative journalist Russ Baker who will talk about the loss of depth in American journalism and what is ailing the American presidency and public; and journalist Ron Franscell, who will talk about the eighth-grader shot to death in Texas Wednesday by police, who thought the boy had a gun.

Baker says in the two decades he has been doing what he believes journalists are supposed to do — provide information crucial to a well-informed citizenry in a democracy — he has noted a growing gap between what he uncovers and what he sees reported elsewhere. He attributes this lack of thorough reporting to the warping of journalism to emphasize deadlines and profit margins over investigation and accountability. The result, he says, is "an under-critical journalistic landscape reliant on the half-truths and convenient facts of corporate and governmental sources."

He'll talk about the need for restored journalistic integrity and his recent article: Obama: “Yes, I’m In A Can” in which he contends that 1 percent of Americans "really calls the shots, and keeps a president from doing what he surely knows he must."

Over the years, Ron Franscell's books have earned high praise from bestselling authors such as Ann Rule, John Lescroart, Vincent Bugliosi, C.J. Box, Howard Frank Mosher, and Warren Adler. His writing has been compared to Truman Capote, Robert Olen Butler, Norman McLean, Cormac McCarthy and Charles Frazier.

Ron grew up in Wyoming. A lifelong journalist, he worked for newspapers in Wyoming, New Mexico and California's Bay Area before hitting the road in one of American journalism's best beats, covering the evolution of the American West as a senior writer for the Denver Post. Shortly after 9/11, he was dispatched by the Post to cover the Middle East during the first few months of the Afghan war.

His books have drawn rave reviews, and his latest,

"Delivered From Evil" explores the entangled lives of mass-murderers and their victims.