Each year, the senior class at the UW-Madison Journalism School issues a magazine they call “Curb” that serves as their class project.  This year, they honored me by publishing a story about blogging featuring yours truly:

Christian Schneider led a double political life. By day, he was a diligent aide to a Republican state senator. By night, he fashioned himself as blogger Dennis York, jabbing away at both aisles in Wisconsin’s Capitol. For nearly two years he played his dual roles, never letting on at work the ideological Batman role he played at home.

“[My boss and I] were in a meeting one time with another state senator, and we were talking,” Schneider recalls. “He turned to my boss and said, ‘You know, I really agree with Dennis York on this and this and this,’ not knowing that it was me.”

In his blog, “Stand Next to This Money,” Schneider wrote with the voice of the everyday unsung hero, filling his pages with witty euphemisms and juicy politics.

“Just working up in the Capitol and dealing with drafting new laws and the insider politics … you see a lot of things that seem like they’re really misrepresented of how things really happen,” Schneider says. “Being someone who was on the inside, I thought it was a good idea to start a blog to explain a little bit of what goes on inside the Capitol.”

Despite the fact that close to nobody knew who the real Dennis York was, hundreds of people, both citizens and legislators, tuned in daily to read his opinions and innermost thoughts. The blog became well-respected and well-read throughout the blogging community until its end in February 2007.

Better not let my former boss see this article – she would most certainly argue with the characterization of my work as “diligent.”

Last night, the Curb staff held a party in honor of this year’s magazine release, and I was able to briefly attend.  They all seem like a great group of future journalists, and I wish them all the best of luck.