Citizen Journalism

Study: News media bias can net mistakes at the ballot box

A recently released news article from the UIUC shows that our news media bias does have an impact at the ballot box.  Some interesting quotes are below.

     "...even though voters typically take the spin into account rather than following blindly and that the media only slant news rather than falsifying it, selective reporting can still factor into mistakes at the polls...

     "One of the authors is quoted as saying "Biased media suppresses information that is unfavorable to ‘their’ candidate, and even smart voters cannot completely recover the truth from their reports"

     "Media bias could play an even bigger role in this year’s presidential race because Obama is still a relative unknown whose positions and past will be selectively reported as they surface during the campaign"

     "The problem is to avoid making mistakes you’re asking voters to work harder, and it’s not necessarily in their self-interest to do that,” Bernhardt said. “So there’s this paradox. Becoming better informed could potentially help everybody else because we would vote better and wouldn’t make mistakes. But people don’t internalize the consequences for everybody else, they only internalize their own. So they under invest in information. Most do.”

This is an interesting attempt at collaborative citizen journalism:

Now! Hampshire is unlike any newspaper you’ve ever read. To begin with it is published entirely online. What is more it is the only newspaper that consists entirely of citizen contributed news. That means you are not only a reader of Now! Hampshire, you are one of our reporters—if you decide to take up the challenge.

Founded by Seacoast entrepreneur Patrick Hynes, Now! Hampshire operates on the premise that there is a lot more interesting news out there than the people on the “news business” would lead us all to believe. And so we ask every citizen in the Granite State to take up their pens and note pads—along with the video and audio recorders—and start a news beat of their own.

Does your company, organization or school have something important to announce? Don’t settle with blasting off a press release—write a story about it and post it on Now! Hampshire.

Does your daughter or son have a game tonight? Record it on video and write up a blurb. We are thrilled to host local sports content.

Attending a county fair? Write a story about it.

Do you know a special, inspirational someone in your community? Show them you appreciate their contribution by interviewing them and posting it here at Now! Hampshire.

And remember: We’re looking for news. No opinion—just the facts.

I've often thought such an effort might be worthwhile in a smaller city like Champaign-Urbana, where local news is done well but very sparsely by legacy media outlets.

Our old friend and former local blogger Kiyoshi Martinez has struck a nerve with a new website: AngryJournalist.com.

My blogfather, Bill Dennis of Peoria Pundits, has an interesting story about a judge tossing a blogger out of a hearing:

My two cents: Lest the judge alone come under criticism for his decision, it must be noted that the lone representative for Peoria County SA Kevin Lyons’ also opposed letting Elaine Hopkins do her job.

One wonders what Judge Purham would have done were he a judge decades ago when the first radio journalists began doing their jobs. Most early broadcast reporters were, like Elaine, veterans of the print world who were trying their hand at a new exciting way to distribute the news. Would Purham have turned away young Walter Cronkite, a United Press reporter before he became Uncle Walter?

What makes a person a journalist isn’t the particular media he or she uses to disseminate the news. It’s the fact that they are disseminating the news to a mass audience.

I'd argue that the definition of journalist doesn't depend on the audience - mass audience or not, reporting events is reporting events.  But I'll be watching this story to see how it develops, that's for sure.

As a participant in the 4th of July Parade, i marched with our local GOP county organization. I noticed that WEFT 90.1FM was the entry before us. The station manager had a bullhorn and was giving the GOP shoutouts. The moral to this story is that WEFT is East Central Illinois' community radio station and should include diverse points of view as it does and should continue to do so. Any coup attempt to make WEFT a more Left station will certainly cause WEFT to lose donations during pledge drives.

I encourage everyone on Illinipundit to join WEFT and make sure that it stays as a community radio station, and not the second IMC.

Robert Dunn

Brian Dolinar's been in touch with the ACLU, and they just sent a letter to Chief Finney regarding the incident on June 8 where BD was removed from a press conference related to the West Side Park shootings (http://www.ucimc.org/node/1361&hidden=1)  At this point, ACLU has apparently not agreed to file a lawsuit.

Brian:  Attached is the letter I just sent to Chief Finney.  As we  discussed today, the ACLU-IL has agreed to send this letter on your behalf, but has not agreed to take any other action (e.g., we have not at this juncture agreed to file a lawsuit).  Please call me if anything happens on this matter.  Thanks, -Adam

Adam Schwartz
Senior Staff Counsel
American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois
180 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 2300
Chicago, Illinois 60601
(312) 201-9740

I used to read the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center's website frequently.  I would participate in discussion via their comments, and in fact have even written a few stories that got posted to their front page over the years.  I also donated money to their capital campaign and have paid membership dues in multiple years.  But I just no longer see any point to it.  This is because the debate on ucimc.org is not open (such as the way it is here), but is instead heavily censored.

Case in point.  See the latest story on ucimc.org reporting about someone being held in the jail without seeing an attorney for unpaid debts.  The article, by Brian Dolinar, chronicles the difficulties for a current county jail inmate who has been stuck there for six months due to money owed, and is critical of the State's Attorney for her handling of these types of cases.

I found the article interesting and generally agree that putting debtors in jail isn't a great solution, as you take away their primary method of paying back the debt---working.  That said, when I first read the article, I saw one comment that hadn't yet been hidden, and it said this:

"Trolling" pretty much just means "disagreeing" at this point, right? Is there more to it than that? If so, I'd love to hear you explain it.

This was my first clue to check the 'hidden comments,' as there was nothing visible above this comment that would have led to it.  If you aren't familiar, the IMC software has the ability to hide comments (as does most blog software I presume), and the IMC uses it extensively.  So I checked the hidden comments, which you can also do here.  What did I find?  A couple of comments discussing the article and the merits of putting people in jail for unpaid debt. 

I didn't agree with the comments that were hidden, but I can't see any reason for hiding them.  They are asking real questions and reflect one point of view.  They invite debate of the issues.  That someone doesn't agree with them doesn't make them a 'troll.'  So, having read that comment, then going on to read the hidden comments, I posted my own comment:

I can't disagree with Anonymous 10:36. Click on the 'hidden comments' link below and see what you think of the comments that were already hidden. It seems to me that the IMC site just plain doesn't support the idea of discussion on controversial issues here.

I'm sure you can guess what happened next.  Yes, my comment was also hidden as a 'troll.'  As far as I'm concerned, that's it.  The end of debate.  If one can't discuss the issues on that site, then the site has no purpose other than to be a PR vehicle.  That's ok if it's what the IMC wants, but it's not what I thought they were about. 

If you look at their mission statement, you'll find the following:

We will empower people to "become the media" by providing democratic access to available technologies and information.

Once most every comment by anyone who disagrees with the posted articles are getting hidden as 'trolling,' I no longer see the site as "providing democratic access to available technologies and information." 

As a previous member of the UCIMC, a previous contributor of it's front page stories, and one who has donated many hours of time to the organization over the years, I can no longer support an organization that censors real debate.  Further, I  find it ironic that  one of my best options for sharing my point of view is the right-slanted illinpundit website.  However, on illinipundit I have the option of writing a blog post, others have the option of promoting it to the front page if they like it, and anyone can say whatever they want in the comments.  That, my friends, is 'democratic access to available technologies and information.' 

IThe IMC should turn off commenting altogether if they don't support it, and they should update their mission statement to reflect the change in attitude.

For what little it's worth, I'm planning on being at the Brookens Center this evening to live-blog the election results.  Unless I have major problems with my Treo, I should be able to get online out there.

Also for what little it's worth, I think it's completely unacceptable that the Brookens Center has wireless internet access, but doesn't allow the public access to it for County Board meetings and events like tonight.  Taxpayers are providing the revenue to pay for it, but somehow we can't be trusted to use it.

Making government more accessible is something which both Republicans and Democrats talk about during campaigns.  Allowing journalists, bloggers and citizens access to the internet in our publicly funded buildings would be a nice step to take.  The next time you run into your County Board member, please let them know how much you'd appreciate publicly accessible wireless internet in our County's main facilities (Brookens and the Courthouse).

I'll get off my soapbox now.  Thanks for listening.

If there was a Jayson Blair Award for Journalism, this would be a worthy candidate:

http://www.ucimc.org/node/1232&hidden=1

On April 9 at 11:01 AM, Brian Dolinar came up with this gem:

If everything works out OK, I'll be at Brookens tonight, live-blogging the Champaign City Council Primary election results.  (Hopefully the site cooperates and doesn't strain too badly under the traffic. I may have to take some drastic measures for the evening, but I promise I'm working on a long-term solution.)

You'll also be able to find results, sometimes faster than we get them at Brookens, on County Clerk Mark Shelden's website.

And, of course, the good people who run the County don't see fit to allow measly taxpayers to use the wireless Internet access at Brookens, even though we're the ones paying for it, so my access will be Treo-based, and thus unreliable.

UPDATE:  I won't be at Brookens tonight, as Real Life has intervened.  But I'll still try to blog the results if I can get Internet access.

UPDATE - 7:55 PM:  I'm looking here for results, but there aren't any yet.  Anybody know what happened with the Unit 4 Petition objections hearing this evening?

UPDATE - 8:25 PM:  No results online yet.

UPDATE - 8:45 PM:  With 10 of 40 precincts reporting:

1. Deborah Frank Feinen.  .  .  .  .  .  .       354   16.75
2. Patricia A. Avery.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       319   15.09
3. Thomas A. "Tom" Bruno  .  .  .  .  .  .       311   14.71
4. Giraldo Rosales  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       293   13.86
5. Karen B. Foster  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       285   13.48
6. Annette B. Williams .  .  .  .  .  .  .       190    8.99
7. Bill Glithero .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       155    7.33
8. Michael Henley.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       150    7.10
9. Freddie Gordon.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .        55    2.60

UPDATE - 9:00 PM: Looking at that initial batch of precincts (Champaign 2, CC 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 19 & 21) - I think most people would say that batch of precincts, as a whole, leans clearly Democratic.  None of those are south of Kirby, for example.  In those precincts in 2006, Tim Johnson got 2,206 votes and David Gill got 2,846 votes.  Gill won those precincts 58 to 42 percent.

UPDATE - 9:11 PM:  Another 12 precincts are in, and now:

1. Deborah Frank Feinen.  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,027   18.40
2. Thomas A. "Tom" Bruno  .  .  .  .  .  .       908   16.27
3. Karen B. Foster  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       834   14.94
4. Patricia A. Avery.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       713   12.78
5. Giraldo Rosales  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       696   12.47
6. Annette B. Williams .  .  .  .  .  .  .       469    8.40
7. Michael Henley.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       414    7.42
8. Bill Glithero .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       408    7.31
9. Freddie Gordon.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       103    1.85

The additional precincts include more Republican precincts, so that explains the big increases for Foster and Henley.  Still not reporting are Champaign 4 and CC 2, 7, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, 30, 33, 35, 36 & 38.  Off the top of my head, it looks like there are more votes still to be counted in Republican precincts than in Democratic precincts.

UPDATE - 9:50 PM:  Thirty-two of 40 precincts reporting:

1. Deborah Frank Feinen.  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,564   18.39
2. Thomas A. "Tom" Bruno  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,416   16.65
3. Karen B. Foster  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,266   14.89
4. Giraldo Rosales  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,082   12.72
5. Patricia A. Avery.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,052   12.37
6. Annette B. Williams .  .  .  .  .  .  .       703    8.27
7. Michael Henley.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       638    7.50
8. Bill Glithero .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       628    7.39
9. Freddie Gordon.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       135    1.59

Still remaining: CC 2, 3, 7, 17, 18, 26, 30 & 35.  I don't think the top three or top six will change.

FINAL UPDATE - 10:10 PM:  Unofficial final results, with all 40 precincts reporting:

1. Annette B. Williams .  .  .  .  .  .  .       815    8.15
2. Deborah Frank Feinen.  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,857   18.57
3. Thomas A. "Tom" Bruno  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,642   16.42
4. Karen B. Foster  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,510   15.10
5. Giraldo Rosales  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,252   12.52
6. Patricia A. Avery.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     1,241   12.41
7. Michael Henley.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       774    7.74
8. Bill Glithero .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       728    7.28
9. Freddie Gordon.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       157    1.57

Top six advance to the April 17 General Election, and will be listed on the ballot in the order in which they finished here.  Henley, Glithero and Gordon do not advance.

This post is now un-stickied.

A local TV news station is embracing technology and the great digital conversation occurring today.

Temecula, California’s KZSW Television could be the first local TV station to take its local news beyond the station’s 30,000 viewers and into the world wide audience of YouTube. The station’s local newspaper wrote tonight about the cable station’s new practice of posting select news segments on the video sharing site. Local news on YouTube - it was only a matter of time.

Station CEO Kevin Page says that making segments available on YouTube is easier and faster than burning DVDs of segments that viewers call to request copies of. It also allows viewers to subscribe and receive notices whenever a new segment is available. Page reportedly hopes to sell ads at the end of the segments in the future - we’ll see how that goes over.

Meanwhile, the News-Gazette is charging $2.95 for an online copy of a month-old article about a current local issue.

And WCIA, while they did me a great favor by doing a story about my involvement in this blog, couldn't send me a digital copy to share on the very website about which they were reporting.  (Luckily, someone sent me a Tivo-d copy, and I YouTube'd it.)

Which strategy seems best positioned to take advantage of changing news consumption habits?

(Hat tip: BuzzMachine)

For your side-splitting pleasure, here's the clip of the WCIA-TV story from last night about this blog. Two things: first, I was astonished they wanted to do a story about me and this blog - I was sure I was going to get bumped by the dog that can do algebra. Second, I really, really need to spend some time at the gym. Yikes. 

And I'm plenty big enough to handle the fat jokes, so bring 'em on. [rimshot] Thanks for WCIA for emailing me the clip, and for asking to do the interview in the first place. My first instinct was to decline, but I became convinced it was good publicity for the site - and I was more than a little flattered, frankly. So sue me. :-)

UPDATE: The clip didn't come from WCIA, it came from a friend of mine. I just assumed it was from WCIA, but I was wrong. Thanks, Scott - and sorry for the oversight.

Read this. When I read it, my first thought was, "Ouch."

There's a reason, every time I write about Senator Judy Myers on here, that I disclose that I'm working for her. That's also the reason that I don't often write about the 52nd District race on here, other than to point to articles on Senator Myers' website.

It's not that I don't think I have anything interesting to say about the race. I do.

It's not that I don't think the race is interesting in an of itself. It is perhaps the most fascinating political race I've ever been involved in, both from a practical and an academic sense.
It's that I work for the Myers campaign, and I work on this site for fun. I don't want you to think that I'm being paid to write any of the other stuff that I cover on here. Because if I were, I'd disclose it - that's the least that I can do.

Is that enough? Is that fair?

I had been planning to do this for a few weeks now, but Rich Miller has prompted an announcement of sorts:

I strongly encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity. Please, live blog election night, especially between 9 and 11. And try to give me a heads up about what you plan to do in advance.

There is a lot of talent out there, and we've been given an opportunity to showcase it on election night. I also think it's fantastic that a mainstream media outlet is taking interest in what's going on in the blog world. Kudos to them.

I'm planning on live-blogging Champaign County's results, especially the District 9 Democratic Primary and the GOP Governor and Lt. Governor races, but also the CSWMTD and Unit 4 referenda.  As I can glean information about the statewide results from the Internet and whatever TV access we have at Brookens, I'll opine on that as well.

I've never done anything like this before, so I'm not quite sure how it's going to work, or what problems I'm going to have.  But I'm going to give it a shot, and invite comments throughout the next week with suggestions and that evening with your opinions, too.  I'm hoping other IP.com authors (especially Scott Tapley and Jason Barickman) will do something that evening as well.

Bill Dennis feels strongly about the DI:

Were I not somewhat familiar with the creature known as a “newspaper publisher,” I would be shocked and surprised that a company that owes its existence to a 1st Amendment would force its own staffers to not exercise those rights or face unemployment. And also am not surprised that adademics are motivated by fear.

But I am struck by how utterly clueless the people who run Illini Media really are. Do they not understand that the Internet is not going to go away? Do that not understand how the Internet works? Anyone, I mean anyone, can post anonymously. Even these staffers they've threatened.

I don't understand how anyone who thinks the media works like it did 20 years ago can be allowed to teach people how to be journalists in the 21st century.

The full post is excellent.

We've had a little bit of a hullabaloo over the public's supposed right to know and their right to know when. Nationally, it was Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident, which didn't get into the press for a day. Locally, it was Mayor Schweighart's surgery for lung cancer. His operation was public earlier, but the exact reason for the surgery didn't come out until Monday.

I think the Vice President's office handled his issue poorly. Quite frankly, regardless of the seriousness of the injury, the Vice President's office should have made it public. The actions that occurred are not, on their face, without potential legal ramifications, thus making it the right of the public to know. It was further evidence of the tin ear of many in the White House when it comes to public relations.

As to Mayor Schweighart, I really don't understand the criticism. Quite frankly, if he never wanted to tell us about what ailed him it would have been fine with me. Many in the public love to poke around in the personal lives of their public officials, even when it doesn't affect public business. This seems to be one example.
I've seen council meetings where a council member is absent because they are on vacation. Does the public need to know why? or where? Do public officials need to send out press releases any time they have surgery? What if an official has a disease that doesn't affect their business? Should public officials and candidates have to disclose if they've been diagnosed as ADHD? Or should we just be forced to guess?
One thing I like about new media is that I don't have to listen to stories about Michael Jackson mansions and Madonna's exercise routines if I don't want to. But if you're still interested in trivia like that, you'll find plenty of it in the old media. And the old media will have plenty of people still willing to pay for it.

I expect IP.com will have a full load of articles this week, with the deadline for petition filing today and discussion of Primary scenarios likely to be a main focus of discussion.

I expect the week between Christmas and New Year's Day to be slow, partly because I'm going to try and work on some site upgrades and housekeeping, partly because I don't expect much political news that week.  There may be nothing more than Open Threads that week, although I may ask for some input on some new features for the site.

To start some discussion: 

• Would anyone use a more conventional message board that would require anonymous registration but allow readers to start threads on topics of their own choosing?  (I'm thinking of something completely unmoderated, akin to the old Illinois Leader message boards.
• Would anyone be interested in helping with a Wiki, hosted here or elsewhere, about Champaign County politics and maybe more general information?  If it's not hosted here, where should we host it?  Would the News-Gazette be interested in hosting something like that?
• Is there anything I can do on this site to encourage or assist other local citizens in starting up blogs or websites of their own?
• Does anyone have specific suggestions for how I can send more readers to other local blogs?

I will not have anything to post on either Monday, December 26 nor on Monday, January 2.

Have a happy Christmas and New Years, please celebrate safely, and take a moment to remember those serving us all.

I never understand articles like this one:

As candidates formally began their march to the March 21 primary Monday, experts predicted the 2006 election season will be an expensive one.

With crowded primary races for governor, lieutenant governor and state treasurer, candidates likely will easily surpass records set in recent years.

"We will definitely see some big spending," said Cindi Canary, executive director of the Campaign for Political Reform, which tracks campaign spending in Illinois.

Of course we will see some big spending.  The stakes are very high, and the issues are very important.

Is there anything else that is going to be advertised in 2006 that will be more important than choosing the next leader of our state and our voices in Congress?

Let's put these horrificly profligate levels of spending in context:

U.S. consumer advertising for Cialis, jointly marketed by Eli Lilly and biotech firm Icos, reached $165 million in the first 11 months of last year, says Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Frankly, if Cialis deserves $165 million per year in marketing, I think the 2006 Illinois election deserves at least that much. 

And the money spent in Illinois is donated, freely, but people who are voluntarily supporting the candidate of their choice.  This isn't tax dollars being wasted - this is candidates freely raising and disclosing the funds of their sources, in order to better inform the voting public about how they plan to lead our government in the future. 

Yes, there's corruption.  There are two potential solutions:  Outlaw money in politics, and blindly trust the media to deliver the truth to voters.  Or, as a responsible citizens, take the time to be informed about candidates and corruption, support those who are honorable and vote the bums out!

What bugs me is that every election year, there's a silly story like this that implies that campaigns cost too much. 

Every election year, the Illinois Campaign for Liberal Media Empowerment Political "Reform" butts in with a tsk-tsk quote about record spending.

Every election year, the MSM laps it up, excited that there's an organization like ICPR that is so dedicated to silencing the voices of every Illinois citizen that doesn't own a media company.

Let me repeat:  The process of electing our leaders is a worthy cause to which to donate, to which to support, and in which to participate.  And it's silly that the ICPR and the MSM think that somehow donors and candidates should be ashamed of engaging in that process.

Yesterday's story about the Blagojevich campaign workers who posted anonymous comments on THE Capitol Fax Blog supporting Jim Oberweis has made the MSM:

Miller, whose newsletter and Web site are popular information sources for Illinois political insiders, discovered the use of Blagojevich campaign computers on his site last week, after he moved the blog to a new service that allows him to track the "internet protocol" address of computers that post messages to the site.

All computers connected to the Internet have a numerical IP address assigned to them. For the average Internet surfer at home, the geographic location and name of the company providing the Internet connection is usually all that can be tracked by others. But for larger organizations that operate their own Internet servers, the name of the organization often appears in an IP search.

Doug Scofield, spokesman for the Blagojevich campaign, said the campaign hadn't verified that its computers were used to post on Miller's Web site.

"But if we take the technology (Miller is using) at face value, really about all we can say is that this isn't something that was organized or approved by the campaign and not the type of activity we want anybody associated with the campaign to engage in," Scofield said.

The computers apparently are in a Chicago-area Blagojevich campaign office. Scofield said the campaign hasn't identified who might be responsible.

"There are quite a few computers and a lot of people in and out of the office who are volunteers and have varying degrees of access to computers and certainly could use them for unapproved activity if they chose to do so," he said.

Heh.  I bet someone is getting their butt chewed today.

Rich Miller has his final thoughts on the brouhaha here. 

The comments at my old blog had gotten way out of hand. The move to the new blog was necessitated by people like those from the governor’s campaign headquarters, who used my blog as a forum for dishonesty and malice. I view those comments as an attack on my business - and I don’t like attacks on my business.

If this was one or two posts, with no history of the person doing the same sort of thing at my old blog, there would have been no problem. I’d have made a phone call and that would be that.

But this was several posts, every day. We’re not talking about an occasional wisecrack from a partisan, it was a repeated and malicious attempt to deceive. This went on for weeks before I figured out what was happening.

I'm starting to feel the same way about some commenters, specifically the small handful who try to post as a bad, embarassing impersonation of the viewpoint they're actually espousing.  I've deleted more comments in the last month that I have in all the rest of this blog's existance.  And I'll figure out a way to address the problem before it ruins the discussions here.  I may have to require commenters to register pseudo-anonymously, so that I'll have an email address for them, but that no one else will be able to see.  I will work to avoid "outing" commenters.  But I'm not going to let a dedicated cabal of jerks ruin this site.

If you have thoughts or suggestions, please share them.

Some obtuse commenters have been very concerned about the amount of traffic IP.com has been generating lately, even going so far as to say that our criticism of State Rep. Naomi Jakobsson and other Democrats for thier pension votes has somehow hurt our credibility and cost us readers - all because we don't swallow the standard Democrat talking points.

I do like to post periodic traffic updates, even though I'm certain they're completely uninteresting to anyone but me - but the growth of our readership over past eleven months just astonishes me.  And I know we're small potatoes compared to Capitol Fax, Archpundit and Peoria Pundit, but we're not competing with those gentlemen, but (hopefully) complementing them.

For the record, we've been slowly but steadily increasing our traffic almost every week.  Yesterday we rolled over 275,000 total visits (since we opened in January).  Last week was our best week ever, with over 4,300 unique visitors and 17,000 total vists.  I can still remember in January when I'd look at the counter and be able to tell when Matthew had visited - because he was one of about a dozen regular readers.

In addition, we've been "feeding" between 40 and 70 subscribers daily, who have been hitting the site sometimes 1,000 times in a day - much more regularly than standard visitors.  That's the little button you see on the right that says, "XX reader

So, our traffic is way, way beyond what I had ever thought it would be, and I thank you for that.  We wouldn't be growing without the buzz created by word-of-mouth and emailed posts and the active participation of our community.

Sometime after Thanksgiving, we're going to roll out a more active and comprehensive advertising sales policy and strategy.  I'd like to get this site to the point where it will pay for itself, but that's probably asking too much.  One thing is certain:  developing a very locally-focused political website isn't a path to untold riches.

Thank you for reading and commenting and emailing and subscribing.  And I'd like to invite each of you to conside starting a site of your own.  The more independent, citizen journalists we have in our state and community, the more informed our political discourse will be.  But even if you don't start off on your own - thank you very much for stopping by IP.com.  We'll keep working to get better, and always welcome your suggestions.