Agreed to Bob Wyman message!

Curious for some elaboration on why you think state coverage is more in danger than local city hall coverage? I presume it’s because you think that the smaller local newspapers will always cover City Halls. They have a slightly more monopolistic grip on that coverage. Noone else will do it. By constrast, most papers can rely on AP for Statehouse coverage. I presume that’s your thinking.

Philanthropic or community support of journalists on beats uncovered by for-profit media may be a model for the future. Len Witt at Kennesaw State has written about the idea of community-supported journalists to cover uncovered groups–either geographic or shared-interest, and I recently became a guinea pig to test the theory.

I’ve been hired for a year to report on the worldwide business of coaching (business, personal, financial, sports) by The Coaching Commons, and my salary comes from the nonprofit Harnisch Foundation.

A mantra moving forward may be this: not seeing stories you want to see covered? An important beat being ignored as local stations cut back and cable nets shutter overseas bureaus in favor of keeping the fires burning on Jon and Kate Plus Eight? Your answer: Hire a Journalist.

I’ve been hired… and I’m happy to be at work.

Mark

I intend to do the same with my local parish (county) blog.

Recently I did a Google search to learn more about my state rep. All the information was easily available. Now I just have to convince myself to care more about my state rep than about the fact that Perez Hilton got punched.

Sad isn’t it?

Any news organization currently located in a state capital should seriously consider jumping on this opportunity to become known as “the” source for statehouse news. And they should offer that coverage on as many platforms as possible. Done well, selling this coverage could subsidize the rest of their news operations.

Those news organizations located in state capitals have a built in geographic advantage they should exploit. But if they don’t… someone else will likely swoop in and do it instead.

Keith

In my state, Arizona, more than thirty blogs cover the statehouse from liberal, conservative as well as libertarian perspectives. What used to be done exclusively by the Arizona Republic is now done more efficiently and in greater depth by a myriad of sources, both print and electronic.

In print, we’ve got the Yellow Sheet Report, the Phoenix Business Journal (with extensive coverage of the statehouse), and many small regional papers that cover local legislators and issues. Some of these local papers are a spirited, good read including The Sonoran News, for example, which covers my hometown and an area encompassing three legislative districts.

Although self-serving, most of Arizona’s elected officeholders also have blog sites. My state representative emails on a weekly basis. Many twitter. My elected officials also have Facebook pages, both personal and political.

In my opinion, the best information is found on anonymous or semi-anonymous blogs in which those who seem to know what’s going on – lobbyists, paid researchers, interested citizens – divulge insider information we’d otherwise not know. These blogs often expose the nasty infighting between the parties, or within them. Sometimes coverage is salacious. Tabloidish. A good read or laugh.

Legislation debates in committees and the state house are also covered in a local C-Span-like television program – dull, but occasionally worth looking at.

In my legislative district (7) an activist, Howard Levine, lists all upcoming legislation, discusses which elected officials were most active in promoting or demoting the legislation, and then weighs the information according to how close it is to the Republican platform. It is not a well-trafficked site — yet — but is deeply informative.

This reporting works. Information gets out. In my opinion, the biggest problem isn’t lack of information or reporting, but citizen disinterest in state and local government. We certainly don’t need big philanthropy to replace big media. I want to keep it small, close to the communities, opinionated and anonymous. It has never been better, Sir. Really!

Civil society has been filling the void where big papers once ruled. Fear not.

Here in Vermont, we (the Twittering Public) are looking out for our unemployed community and taking action – Reporting with a Mission.

We established the ‘Vermont Video Resume Project’ to ensure every single unemployed Vermonter who wants a video resume gets one.

Politicians are invited to help further the cause at:

http://www.VideoResumeVT.com

Apologies if this comment is slightly off topic,

Joe Mescher

A good “State House News Bureau” is probably one of the easier segments of journalism to build a business around. The newspapers don’t think they can afford to provide decent coverage and seemingly refuse to consider augmenting their revenues by addressing the professional markets for State House coverage. Thus, there is often little competition in the State House News market in all but the largest states.

Beyond simply addressing the two markets mentioned above, a good State House bureau can easily address other market needs as well. For instance, doing “stringer” work for TV stations, holding annual conferences on State politics, publishing “year-in-state-house” annual summaries of news, building directories of “Who’s Who” in the State, etc. All of these things either monetize things that the bureau already needs to be doing or provides an additional revenue stream based on reputation built providing the news services.

bob wyman

Waldo gave Richmond Sunlight to Virginia Interfaith Center, a non-profit faith-based advocacy group.

I still wish there was a way to fund a reporter to cover the Shenandoah Valley delegation (1 senator, 5 delegates), but Richmond Sunlight has become indispensable. Every state should have a capitol sunlight.

In my opinion what is missing is a way to aggregate what is already out there first and foremost. There is a blog that has a map of Virginia and names all the representatives in the House & Senate. There is a website that shows every political candidate and how much money they’ve raised and where it came from. There is live streaming video from the floor of the General Assembly – I’ve watched it! None of these things are connected together or easy to find.

We need to inspire and motivate more people to be a part of their own local reporting. On Twitter, I follow several local news reporters, political bloggers, one of my US Senators – Mark Warner, and my VA State Senator, Chap Peterson. Chap, my local rep in the House of Delegates, David Bulova, and my Fairfax City Councilman Dan Drummond, are all in my Facebook group too. That speaks to politicians who are willing to learn a new way of communicating and are comfortable in being transparent about what they are doing.

So my suggestion is that this is an initiative that has many facets other than how to fund it. Getting the money is certainly a big thing, but strides could be made immediately in simply better utilizing what’s there; getting the public on board as both consumers and producers of their own local content; and teaching politicians that a closer relationship with their constituency all year ’round has many benefits come election time. I think it’s not only do-able but highly desirable! GREAT post!