Two to check out from the New York Times

For an interesting take on the sometimes complicated relationships between big-name bloggers and political campaigns, look at the Times story on how Hillary Clinton is trying to build a bridge to, of all places, the conservative Drudge Report http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/us/politics/22drudge.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

The Times also had a fascinating profile on the unlikely new governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal -- a 36-year-old policy wonk who is the nation's first Indian-American governor. As the reporter notes, the Republicn was elected "in a Southern state where race is inseparable from politics." http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/us/22louisiana.html?ref=politics

LOOKING FOR DENNIS KUCINICH

For a good, very entertaining example of profile writing, check out the Stranger's take on Kucinich, http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=413457 Wonderful, very concrete descriptions of our first vegan presidential candidate. And if you've got the time, go to YouTube to check out Kucinich's appearance on the Colbert Report Monday night.

Fark founder says reporters obsessed with "nutjobs"

This is not unlike what Christian Sinderman was telling us today about how the press always looks for the one opponent to something, even a wildly popular idea, to provide "balance." This is from a great column by Slate's Jack Shafer about a book by the founder of Fark.

Instead of urging journalists to raise their standards—the typical tack taken by
the press-guardian-industrial complex—Curtis puts the onus on readers, insisting
that they become better news consumers. The educated reader's top enemy is the
"filler" of non-news, he argues, which the mass media pumps out whenever there's
not enough hard news to complete a newscast or fill a newspaper. Through this
crack come the inaccurate, fear-mongering stories about germs, earthquakes, and
potential terrorist attacks; the worthless formula stories hooked on changing
seasons, hot-weather spells, shark attacks, and holiday traffic patterns—the
media events generated by PR firms that reporters translate into news stories.
Even when journalists do right they often go wrong, he writes, by pausing in the
middle of well-reported pieces to give equal time—in the name of balance—to
flat-earth "nutjobs" (his word) who take the opposing view.

RESEARCHING POLITICAL MONEY

To track down the amount of contributions received by the candidates or campaigns you are covering, you should become familiar with a few essential websites. We'll go into these with more depth when we write the money stories, but if you want to quickly learn how to use them either of us can help out.
Here they are:
1) Seattle Elections and Ethics Commission (this one is self-explanatory and very easy to use)

http://www2.ci.seattle.wa.us/ethics/elpub/el_home.asp

2) Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (contains information on all statewide races, including initiatives and referendums, and on spending by lobbyists. Information on the King County prosecutors race is listed here as well)
http://www.pdc.wa.gov/Public/Default.aspx

3)King County Elections
http://www.metrokc.gov/elections/

Pulitzer winner talks about writing with authority

In this story in PR Week of all places, an LA Times reporter does a great job talking about getting beyond "he said/she said" reporting.