Slow day in the newsroom: Cherry pit spitting contest

Today, fellow reporters and I had a cherry pit spitting contest and I won.

So, the Pennsylvania state budget for the 2008-2009 fiscal year passed on Friday, so this week has been slow in the state Capitol newsroom. Sometimes you can find coverage, like the Pennsylvnaians who are fighting California wildfires, as I reported yesterday, but other times you can’t.

The Capitol newsroom is shared by a host of reporters from various outlets, all members of the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association. When everyone is bored, I hear, sometimes someone finds a fun distraction – though surely more wholesome than the gambling and drinking of the past.

The Patriot-News ran a wire story about a Michigan man who topped some record by spitting a cherry pit more than 56 feet.

So, why wouldn’t we have our own cherry pit spitting contest right in the newsroom?

Continue reading Slow day in the newsroom: Cherry pit spitting contest

Post-Gazette: Pennsylvania firefighters in California

This ran today for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The coverage is part of a post-graduate internship with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association (PLCA).

HARRISBURG — Forty Pennsylvania firefighters ran into triple-digit temperatures yesterday as they began their first full day combating wildfires that are scorching northern California.

Two 20-person crews, including four firefighters from Western Pennsylvania, left Sunday from Harrisburg International Airport on a U.S. Forest Service-chartered jet. They arrived Monday and joined hundreds of other firefighters in trying to control the blaze that has burned since June 20, said John Miller, chief of Pennsylvania’s forest fire protection division.

“With the amount of fire activity in California right now, it’s very important” to get help from other states, said James Stone, a California Forest Service spokesman. “Those boys from Pennsylvania are a significant portion of that.”

Read the rest on Post-Gazette.com.

Photo courtesy of ABC Australia.

Greek mythology and state government; no, it’s funny, I swear

Sometimes you have more color from a story than you can fit. Yesterday, for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, I covered a press conference held by a coalition of citizen groups calling for legislative reform on the third anniversary of the pay-raise controversy.

Interesting read, but I simply couldn’t get the following in the story:

Matt Brouillette of The Commonwealth Foundation, called state Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia, a “minion” of House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Fayette.

Under DeWeese’s control, the chairwoman of the House State Government committee stalls reform legislation, Brouillette said.

“She is Cerberus, guarding the River Styx,” he said, referring to the fierce three-headed dog that is said to patrol the banks of the boundary between the Earth and the underworld in the Greek mythology.

What power I have, to keep this from readers.

Photo courtesy of Margaret Schaut.

Post-Gazette: Three years later, citizen groups still want change in Harrisburg

This ran today for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The coverage is part of a post-graduate internship with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association (PLCA).

HARRISBURG — A slim slice of carrot cake sat on a podium in the state Capitol rotunda today, marking the third anniversary of the infamous legislative pay-raise vote of July 7, 2005.

A coalition of citizens’ groups said the small piece of cake represented the state’s new open records law — the one and only piece of reform legislation that the General Assembly has enacted in the wake of a huge public outcry over the 2 a.m. vote to increase legislative salaries by up to 34 percent, an increase that was later repealed.

“There is not very much cake for the people of Pennsylvania to eat,” said Gene Stilp of Taxpayers & Ratepayers United, who hauled an inflatable pink pig around the state in late 2005 and 2006 to protest the pay raise.

The Legislature did approve some changes to its operating procedures, such as adjourning most sessions by 11 p.m. and waiting between six and 24 hours before taking final votes on bills.

….

See the rest on Post-Gazette.com.

Photo courtesy of Three Sources.com.

July 4 Fireworks in Harrisburg

After working on July 4, I missed out on the festivities – aside from a Yuengling at the Pub, a bar that wants to be a club that sits discreetly in the alleyway behind my apartment.

Fortunately, here in Harrisburg, they do July 4 right, and I got a repeat Sunday night, fireworks over the Susquehanna River. Fireworks, plenty of basketball, sun and no work over the weekend, a holiday indeed.

Below, see part of the show that went on Friday.

Anyone have great July 4 excitement?

Photo of Harrisburg fireworks thanks to Bridget Lynn.

Historic newspaper circulation data: how many fewer newspaper readers are there?

Okay, we get it, newspaper circulation is down. Everyone is ditching print for online.

But, I get the feeling it is a bit exaggerated. I’ve already posted here that we’re simply living through what we’ll someday call the newspaper bubble, the market swinging the industry nearer to a healthy environment.

I would love to really investigate the rise and fall of newspaper circulation numbers through generations, but the numbers are kept fairly private by those who have the best access, groups like the Audit Bureau of Circulations, a nonprofit that was formed in 1914 by publishers and advertisers wanting to provide the industry regulated, reputable circulation data – and they aren’t giving it out to me.

So, we tend to mostly guess from reports in newspapers that provide some information. I did find some great numbers from the Newspaper Association of America, though the data is only up to 2003, perhaps before industry fears went public and the newspaper bubble had clearly burst. After that date, the NAA makes you pay for the information.

Rather than forking out the $50, let’s just crunch what we have.

Continue reading Historic newspaper circulation data: how many fewer newspaper readers are there?

Post-Gazette: Turnpike lease stuck in committee [with my audio]

HARRISBURG — A deal to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike “will not see the light of day,” vowed the chairman of the House Transportation Committee yesterday.

That would effectively kill Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposal to enter into a $12.8 billion, 75-year lease with a consortium comprising the Spanish multinational Abertis Infraestructuras SA and Citi Infrastructure Investors, a subsidiary of Citibank.

“There is no meaningful support among our committee members,” said committee Chairman Joseph F. Markosek, D-Monroeville. He said he has no intention of bringing it to a committee vote.

“I am putting a permanent hold on it. It will not see the light of day for as long as I am chairman.”

Hear some of Markosek’s comments above.

Read the rest on Post-Gazette.com.

Hear Rendell’s response of Markosek’s comments:

Image courtesy of Central Penn Business.

Post-Gazette: State passes budget [with my audio]

I contributed to today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report that a state budget deal was reached and signed last night.

I also cut an audio clip of Gov. Ed Rendell speaking on the budget, which the Post-Gazette put on its Web site: hooray for New Media!

Alongside Rendell is House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, and House Majority Floor Leader Bill Deweese, D-Fayette. Behind him is outgoing Budget Secretary Michael Macsh, who came with Rendell from Philadelphia.

Continue reading Post-Gazette: State passes budget [with my audio]

July 4 Celebration in Philadelphia: I'm not there

I had plans that if a state budget deal was finished in time, I would go back to Philadelphia to see their July 4 celebration outside of the Art Museum.

Being the home of the Declaration, Cradle of Liberty and birthplace of Democracy, Philadelphia has to throw the best Independence Day celebration. It’s in the Constitution, I think.

This year, right about now, John Legend is performing, I am in the State Capitol in Harrisburg, not even enjoying what the state capital has to celebrate our nation’s independence. Lame!

Continue reading July 4 Celebration in Philadelphia: I'm not there