Apropos of this post, my friend and co-author Matt Grossmann writes:
bq. I thought you would be interested in a project that I started this year called the Michigan Policy Network.
bq. We have 10 undergraduates researching, reporting, and blogging about state policy issue areas. This year, it was run as an extracurricular activity. This summer, it will continue in association with our state government internship program. Next year, it will be associated with a research seminar through the Honors College and we will expand to 5 new issue areas.
bq. If you post again on this topic, it might be interesting to ask if political science has a role in state government monitoring and public education. Because I teach at a very large state university in the same area as the state capitol, pursuing a career in the state government or policy community is a reasonable track for our students. Our experience so far is that students can become quite informed about state policy if they focus on a single issue area for an extended period. They also see the possibility of online publication as a welcome alternative to turning in papers that only their professors (or TAs) read.
bq. Obviously, undergraduates are no substitute for state government newspaper beat reporters (especially with almost no editing and no budget). In Michigan, the media outlets that serve the policy community best are MIRS and Gongwer, two expensive subscription services that are state-level versions of National Journal and CQ. There are also a few radio programs, one television program, and Michigan Radio (NPR) that cover state government well. Most of these outlets already provide more substantive coverage of state government than the state’s newspapers. The Michigan State J-school also runs a news service for state newspapers that covers state politics (using undergraduate reporters).
bq. Yet we have found that our project can serve a niche. For many policy proposals that we cover, we are the only source of free online information. Because we do not have advertising revenues to worry about, we are able to cover issues that only a small segment of the population cares about. We can also focus on the political process that determines how policy issues are resolved without invoking scandals or election prospects. Students also have some advantages: they ask the same basic questions that most of our public readers ask and they are open to new ideas.
bq. We are still searching for the right model. Yet I believe that political science faculty and students have an active role to play beyond bemoaning the decline of state capitol reporting.
Are there similar programs that other readers know of?