Last week, during my podcast with Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigative reporter Dan Bice, he mentioned a letter he put together for a friend that listed the “11 Rules for Covering State Government.”  I thought it might be helpful for bloggers or anyone looking to do some original reporting. Here’s the list:

1. Avoid doing puffy profiles. Nobody inside respects them, and nobody outside reads them.

2. Get to know campaign consultants, political aides and the other wizards who really run the show.

3. Yes, most lobbyists are hacks, but talk to them off the record. Nobody knows better what is really happening.

4. Do lots of off-the-record lunches and dinners.

5. Let both sides know, through your stories, that you’re not partisan.

6. Behind many, many Capitol stories are slights from years ago. Know who hates whom and why.

7. Don’t worry about writing a gotcha/negative story on a source. These guys are pros; they’ll be back.

8. Keep your nose clean. They’re watching you as closely as you’re watching them. (And there are more of them.)

9. Don’t give up on a good story quickly. Some of the best government stories are follows.

10. Do lots of open records requests, especially for e-mails, cell phone records and office expenditures.

11. Find something that interests you – and you think will interest readers – and go for it. State government is bigger than you ever imagined; if you can’t find something interesting and new to write about, you’re in the wrong business. 

Upon further reflection, he then added these four:

1. Covering government is a two-way street. If you give information, you are more likely to get information in return.

2. Understand that the best people in government equal the best investigative reporters (often they once were). They too are trying to gather facts and put together a complete story. The only difference is that theirs doesn’t go to print.

3. If a flak calls and yells at you about coverage, it’s rarely personal. Their boss is yelling at them.

4. Assholes get called back. Assholes don’t get tips or exclusives.

New York Post Reporter Charles Platt went undercover as a Wal-Mart employee and has some interesting observations:

My starting wage was so low (around $7 per hour), a modest increment still didn’t leave me with enough to live on comfortably, but when I looked at the alternatives, many of them were worse. Coworkers assured me that the nearest Target paid its hourly full-timers less than Wal-Mart, while fast-food franchises were at the bottom of everyone’s list.

I found myself reaching an inescapable conclusion. Low wages are not a Wal-Mart problem. They are an industry-wide problem, afflicting all unskilled entry-level jobs, and the reason should be obvious.

In our free-enterprise system, employees are valued largely in terms of what they can do. This is why teenagers fresh out of high school often go to vocational training institutes to become auto mechanics or electricians. They understand a basic principle that seems to elude social commentators, politicians and union organizers. If you want better pay, you need to learn skills that are in demand.

The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation to pay higher wages, but if employees don’t create an equal amount of additional value, there’s no net gain. All other factors remaining equal, the store will have to charge higher prices for its merchandise, and its competitive position will suffer.

This is Economics 101, but no one wants to believe it, because it tells us that a legislative or unionized quick-fix is not going to work in the long term. If you want people to be wealthier, they have to create additional wealth.

Let me concede up front that complaining about Saturday Night Live is a self-defeating proposition.  If you’re at home to watch SNL, you’re probably a loser and have no life.  So I’ll just lay that out there.

I also realize why they feel the need to do political sketches, especially during campaign season – it gets all the bloggers to do exactly what I’m about to – link to their opening segments.  This was a gold mine when they had Sarah Palin to spoof.  But there was always a problem – these skits were never actually funny.  Doing a good impression provides about 5 seconds of entertainment – from then on, they actually have to say funny things or make clever observations.  None of which actually happened.

Unfortunately, they still feel the need to open the show with politics, and the bottom of the barrel has fallen out.  As I mentioned these skits were never funny – but the writers’ complete inability to mock Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi is incredibly lame.  I mean, really?  With all the ridiculousness around the “bailout” bill, this is the best they could do?  Is there a single line in here worthy of a laugh?

Oh, I get it!  Nancy Pelosi opens her eyes wide sometimes! Comedy Gold!

Signed,

-Concerned viewer

Even before their Super Bowl ad blitz began last week, I had occasionally been checking out Hulu.com.  Mainly, because you can watch full episodes of Silver Spoons.

But they also have a channel that should appeal to political dorks, too.  Check out this channel, which compiles a lot of the most famous political ads in one place.  You can see Lyndon Johnson’s famous “Daisy” ad, which implies we will all die via nuclear missile if Barry Goldwater  were elected. You may remember that this ad aired during an era when everyone in politics got along just fine and members of political parties were best friends.  This is in stark contrast to the horrifying ads of today, where candidates accurately point out that their opponents support expensive universal health care plans.  Have politicians today have no shame?

In any event, the ad that struck me the most was this 1978 ad from one Richard Cheney of Wyoming, who was seeking a congressional seat.  What’s amazing was that even in 1978, future Vice President Cheney spent a large chunk of his campaign trying to convince people that he was fully recovered from a heart attack he suffered.   In fact, the ad features Cheney talking to a group of people out on a lawn about his heart troubles – he goes on to list several people who have run for office after suffering a heart attack. This just seems bizarre – it indicates that his opponent, a guy named Bill Bailey, may have been pushing the “Cheney might die in office” angle as a campaign talking point.  In any event, here’s the ad:

In this podcast, I talk to investigative reporter and columnist Dan Bice from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about the secrets behind investigative reporting, whether family members are fair game, how he comes up with story ideas, why he’s the resident music expert at the Journal-Sentinel, and why Footloose may actually be based on his life.

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Jason Stein at the Wisconsin State Journal wrote an excellent series of articles for Sunday detailing the shabby state of state finances.  And by “excellent,” I mean “I am quoted:”

“People get all upset because (politicians) don’t show bipartisanship any more. But they’re certainly bipartisan in the way that they budget poorly,” said Christian Schneider, a conservative commentator with the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute who has criticized the state’s use of borrowing.

These articles come at the same time I released a WPRI study demonstrating how the current budget deficit was made primarily by the governor and state legislature, not necessarily the recession.  The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on my study thusly:

“Wisconsin’s addiction to spending is what has gotten the state’s finances out of whack – not necessarily the economic downturn,” said Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

Also, Schneider warned, without change, Wisconsin’s elected officials will spend one-time federal stimulus money – estimated at $2 billion to $3.5 billion – and then “be back to running deficits as soon as that money is spent.”

Sure, the unfettered free market has sent the economy crashing down and left thousands out of work.  On the bright side, it has brought us THE GOATEE SAVER: