Contest help

Capitolbeat is busy preparing for its first-ever contest for college students and Contest Chair Linda Kleindienst needs your help.
If you know of any successful college contest out there, please let her know at lkleindienst@sun-sentinel.com. She’s looking for ideas on how to form the contest and the rules. After that’s done, she’ll be looking for working [...]

Conference sponsors

My parents always told me you can never say “thank you” enough. And in the case of two sponsors who have signed on early to help out the Capitolbeat 2008 conference in Raleigh, I’m going to apply that philosophy liberally.
The good folks at Stateline helped hatch Capitolbeat and have been a conference sponsor for many [...]

Community College Fellowship

The following comes by way of Kevin Corcoran at the Lumina Foundation:
You are invited to apply for a terrific opportunity to gain support, encouragement and resources for substantive reporting on the nation’s 12,000 community colleges. Nearly half of all U.S. undergraduates are enrolled in these two-year institutions. The fellowship, “Covering Community Colleges – A Fellowship,” [...]

It’s not just the states

From the “tell me if you’ve heard this one before” file, The Politico writes about dwindling regional coverage of Washington, D.C.:
Whether through layoffs or attrition, newspapers have increasingly cut back on keeping reporters stationed in Washington, opting instead for the less costly substitute: wire copy.
And the effect, regional reporters and editors argue, is that readers [...]

State of the States

From Tiffany Shackelford, Capitolbeat’s business advisor and consultant to the stars, comes a heads up that Stateline still has 100 or so “State of the States 2008″ left. From Tiffany’s e-mail:
Once again, it’s full of top-notch infographics, maps and of course, reports on the most significant developments in the 50 states.
Click here to order yours.

New book from a Capitolbeat member

Robert Ingle, a Capitolbeat member, has a new book out. “The Soprano State” details the fun and games in New Jersey government. From the author’s summary:
No matter what state you live in, this yarn about the mob and too-stupid-to-believe politicians and dumb ass bureaucrats is a laugh a minute. The Soprano State details the you-couldn’t-make-this-up [...]

Let’s talk about YOUR conference

We’re already planning Capitolbeat 2008, our annual conference, and you can help.
(For those who don’t know already: Nov. 13-16 in Raleigh, NC.)
As I’ve written before, we’re hoping to get some input from our members about what exactly you’d like to learn and hear about. Members of the board and the conference committee think we have [...]

Welcome Ryan Rusak

Please welcome Ryan Rusak, an editor at the Dallas Morning News, to the Capitolbeat board. Rusak oversees state government coverage there. If you were at our Philly conference last summer, you almost certainly met him.
Ryan fills one of two vacancies on the board. We’re still working to fill the other one.

Attention legislative press groups: Send us your website

Does your capitol press corps, legislative correspondents association, or whatever it is you call the scruffy group that covers your legislators and governor have a web site? If so, send it along to us via the comment link above or e-mail to mbinker@gmail.com.
We’ve started a list (it’s over in the left sidebar right now) and [...]

WMA files and audio editing

I got a question off list today from someone who had attended the Multimedia Mafia session in Philly and was thinking about buying a new audio recorder. Her problem was that most recorders out there today store files as Windows Media Audio (WMA) and the most common audio editing software among us scruffy print journalists [...]